Publish and share a game

Publishing turns your project into a version that players can play. This page explains who can see your game, how to publish a version, what the game page shows, and how to share it.

Who can play: draft, private and public#

Every game has one of three visibilities.

A game needs a published version before it can be made public. Until then, Make public isn't available, and the hub shows "Publish a version before making it public."

To other players, a draft or private game doesn't exist: its page says "This game isn't available." The exception is your testers, who can find it under Games you're testing on their home page. See Private betas and testers.

To change visibility later, use Make public or Make private on the game's card in Creations, or under Who can play in the game's Settings tab.

Publish from the Studio#

The usual way to publish is from the NEO Studio. Open the Studio while signed in, then use Build ▸ Publish to NEO Platform.

The Studio saves your project and uploads its files to the content network. Files that are already there aren't sent again, so republishing a small change is quick. The first time you publish a project, the Studio creates a game for it in your account; after that, each publish adds a new version to the same game. A game published this way is made public once its version is live.

To publish without making the game public, use Publish as private beta. See Publishing from the Studio for the full Studio workflow.

Publish from the Creator Hub#

You can also publish a version from the Creator Hub: choose Publish on a game's card in Creations, or Publish a version on the game's Versions tab. The Publish dialog has:

Choose Publish. The hub confirms with a message such as "Published version #3 and made it public."

Versions#

Each publish makes a new, numbered version that can't be changed afterwards, and it goes live straight away. Players always get the live version. The game's Versions tab shows the live version with its number, release notes, publish time and build locations. See Game settings and versions.

The game page#

Every game has a page at /games/<id>. Choose Game page on the game's page in the hub to open it. Players see:

• the key art, the title and By with your name;
• the genre, how many are playing, and Up to the game's player count;
• Play (or Play as guest for visitors who aren't signed in);
• Favorite, thumbs up and thumbs down, and the share of players who liked it. Only players who have played the game can rate it.
• three tabs: About (your description, stats such as Visits, Created, Updated, Server size, Hosting and Genre, plus your game passes), Store (everything the game sells) and Servers (the running servers, with friends in them, and Join).

If the game has no published version yet, Play is turned off and the page says "This game hasn't published a version yet."

Share your game#

• Share the page. Copy the address of your game's page (/games/<id>) and send it. Anyone can open a public game's page; a private or draft game's page only works for you and your testers.
• Invite into your server. While playing, open the in-game menu and choose Copy invite link. The link opens the game and joins the server you're in, if there's room.
• Invite friends. In the in-game Players and invites panel, choose Invite next to a friend who isn't in your server yet. The panel has Copy invite link too.

Next steps#

• Game settings and versions
• Private betas and testers
• Publishing from the Studio
• Analytics