DevelopersThe programme
Boards, awards, presence and news for your game — on hardware that stopped getting new software thirty years ago.
THE DEVELOPER'S GUIDE — seven chapters, from an account to a game on sale.
What it costs
Registering is free. Every game is reviewed before its key works — not on whether we like it, but on whether it is a real game and its service behaves.
If you sell your game through Retro Play's store, we take 10% of each sale, with a floor of 50¢. Payment processing is charged on top at cost, because it is not ours to keep. Your game is sold through Retro Play as reseller, and your share is paid monthly by transfer. If you sell your game somewhere else, we take nothing — the boards, the awards and the presence are free either way.
What you get
- The live features. Leaderboards by mode, awards, who is playing now, friends, and the daily seed — over the protocol from the machine itself, with no PC in the middle.
- Somewhere to put your updates. Your game's page carries its description, its site and its news, and the client shows them on the machine.
- A listing in the client. Players browsing on real hardware find your game there.
- Beta groups. Show a game to your testers and nobody else until you are ready.
What happens if we close
This is the part most services leave out, so it is here in the middle rather than the end.
- Your game keeps working. Nothing here is required to play. A game that cannot reach the service plays on without it — that is a rule of the client library, not a promise on a page.
- The boards are yours. Every score, award and player row for your game is exportable, on request, at any time, and without asking why.
- We will say so first. If the service is closing you get notice, not a dead host.
What we ask
- Your game's service answers honestly. Scores it accepts are scores its rules could have produced.
- You do not post other people's scores, or your own by hand.
- Your game's words and icon are yours to publish — and stay something a player of any age could see on the front page.
- Your key is yours to keep. It is shown once, it signs everything your game says, and a leaked key is a game we have to turn off.
Agreeing
Sign in or register to agree — the terms are the same either way, and you can read them without an account.