I want to sell FULL versions of my game using gumroad.com
I use it already for my tutorials, but as for a game I think it can be a good idea to put a 2-3 buck price tag on these games, and then have people put in a license key to unlock the full game type deal.
Not sure If I’ll follow through with this approach, but thought it could be a great way for people to support my game deving. I was considering using Patreon too, but we’ll see.
Right now here is the documentation I have gathered, but my question is, is there a better alternative? Or does this documentation present an easy implementation into play canvas. Let me know your thoughts.
Platform’s built in Key generator.
Site that they referred too to implement to your software.
You definitely could follow such approach, but I believe power of gumroad to have it available from the web, so you can reach as many users as possible.
So the flow would be simple like: people click on link, get to the game straight away, they can play until some point, where it says “unlock full version” which would require them to login. Login is required to store key against their user account. Easiest way to implement login is to use social network signups, like Facebook or Twitter accounts.
Then if they sign in, you show them UI to buy key from gumroad (does gumroad provides payment solution as well?). After they’ve paid, you will store in your database key against their user account. So then game can simply check: if user is logged in and key is valid, then they have access to full game.
If you are going to package it with exe, then easiest way would be to sell key so it is sent to their email address, then they can put it into the downloaded app and it will make request to check key validity and the unlock the rest of the game.
Challenge with second solution is if you don’t use some unique login account like social network, then people will simply post online some keys and everybody would be able to reuse them. But if you link it to some user profile in your database, and rule that you can have one key available only for one user, then you are pretty much protected from such problem.
I like your first option actually. Makes sense. And yes gumroad has it’s own payment outlet.
I’ll look into what this may mean. The more I keep thinking about though the more I think I’ll just keep making small games and demos and eventually try to build IP’s and such and go from there.
I’ll see what’s up, and look further. But there is a way for me to have my users sign in though? Is there a tutorial or information on that on your site? if so I’d like to see the link and decode.
I don’t think I have ever used gumroad to buy games from. Itch.io would be a better bet IMO as it has a bigger community or even F2P on browser which is what a lot of .io games are doing.
There are also portals like MiniClip and Kongregate are valid options as well.
