Chapter 4
Packaging and publishing
Package your Unreal project with the engine you already have, then send the build to Steam, the Epic Games Store, or itch.io.
5 sections · Chapter 4 of 8
The day you first ship should not be the day you learn a build script. In practice it usually is: packaging works on the programmer's machine, nobody else can reproduce it, the upload is a command nobody has run before, and something goes wrong at 11pm on a Thursday.
This chapter is about removing that. The desktop app packages your project with the Unreal install you already have, on the machine you already own, and uploads the result to a store from the same window you commit in. There is no build service to configure and no second copy of your engine to license.
We cover packaging first, then each of the three stores in turn — Steam, the Epic Games Store, and itch.io — and finish with the parts that keep a shipping habit sane: auto-publish, version numbers, and knowing what went where.
In this chapter
- 4.1Packaging a buildPick a version, a platform, and a configuration, and let Unreal's own toolchain do the work.
- 4.2Publishing to SteamPoint USourceControl at steamcmd once, fill in your app and depot, and upload from the same window you commit in.
- 4.3Publishing to the Epic Games StoreBuildPatchTool, your organization and product IDs, and the prerequisite installer that decides whether the game starts at all.
- 4.4Publishing to itch.ioButler, a target, and a channel. The shortest publishing path there is.
- 4.5Auto-publish, versions, and historySend every successful build to a store without a second click, and keep track of what went where.
Summary
Packaging runs on your machine with your engine, so it is on every plan and there is nothing to configure beyond pointing at the tools once. The build form's defaults are the ones you want: Shipping, your project's engine, the version after the last one, and the prerequisites installer staged.
Each store has one thing worth remembering. Steam: a saved password is typed into steamcmd's prompt, never onto a command line, and "uploaded" is not "live". Epic: declare your prerequisites, or the game will not start on a clean machine. itch: it goes live immediately.
Turn on auto-publish once the setup is done. A build you have to remember to upload is a build that ships late.
Everything in this chapter runs on the machine in front of you. The next chapter moves it to a machine that does nothing else.