How do they release songs/video games? Do they just push a button and it’s there?
In: Other
Hey GameDev here
Regarding the release of games, the process is different for digital or physical versions. For physical versions, basically you have to consider at least a month for the CD to be done and delivered in store. For Sony and MS is quite fast because the process is global and the CDs are basically BluRay. For Nintendo it’s a bit trickier, I released games on Nintendo Switch, DS and so on and they’re the only ones who are making this kind of SD card format. So sometimes you have to contact them even earlier if you are planning to release your game at the end of the year because there will be a bottleneck with all the other game releases in a period of 4 to 6 weeks.
But no matter if you’re game is digital-only or physical and digital, you have to be officially reviewed by Sony, MS, Nintendo, Apple or Android (less for Android). Nintendo is especially hard because they are very strict rules about typo in texts, legal info on stores etc. If you pay them a good extra, they have special testers in what they call “The Mario Club” where top quality assurance testers, give you a full review of your game and how you could enhance the quality of everything. All hardware manufacturers do not have the same guidelines regarding how they consider your game “approved” so specific people in studios deal with them. Every time your game is rejected you have to fix all the issues they fund, make a new build of the game and resubmit your game again until they say it’s ok.
Apple is also manually checking all the apps, especially in-app purchase and legal terms. If a in-game offer in your shop is not very clear, they will reject your build in seconds. For Steam it’s faster because the majority of games are reviewed by algorithms.
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