Alright, before I begin I want to get some things straight: Yes, I am 14. Yes, I do have some programming experience and no, my question is not related to how long it takes to get good. Yes, this is more of a legal problem than a programming problem. And finally yes, I've done some research, I'll put everything I know on the bottom of the post (And will update it with the information people give me, so ignore the edits)
A bit of context
First I'll just share a bit about my story to give this question some context:
I first got into coding when I was around 7, making lego robots and such. Then the pandemic came and I couldn't take the course anymore, but I did try to get a bit into Scratch but didn't get very far. Then about 3 months into the pandemic (I was 10), my parents found a really good python teacher, who basically taught me lots and lots of python, and I learnt all the basics which would allow me to make some decent programs. (I did learn a bit of PyGame but didn't understand how the frame system worked at the time) After a while, my teacher got a job and moved to another country. I had a small break in programming, then came back, and I was basically bored in online classes so I tried to get into scratch again. I spent another 3 years in scratch, and I do owe a lot to it, since Python allowed me to understand what each function actually did and Scratch allowed me to understand the logic. I entered a couple of competitions (os wars) where I met a lot of people who also knew other programming languages, and were incorporated some techniques in their projects. I understood a lot about how the frame system worked, and after a while I just found Scratch too easy and wanted to move on. I looked for game engines, and I eventually settled on Godot due to gdscript using Python's syntax (Which I knew). That brings us up to now, where I spent around 6 months (without the procastination only 2) making a game. The game is not finished yet but I started looking for feedback on it, to start to tweak it and prepare for its initial release. I began to look at the policies for a bunch of platforms for their requirements to publish games and I realized it wasn't actually as easy as I'd initially thought. For now, my game is only on Itch.io but I'm looking to publish it on more platforms. That brings us to now, and back to the question:
How to publish games under 18?
That's my question, as simple as that, but way more complicated than it seems. From what I've researched online, there are **4** requirements that most platforms share:
- Pass quality standards: The simplest one, I'm not *too* worried on it, and this is not my question.
- This is my game: https://lightbulbgamesofficial.itch.io/laser-tanks-beta
- This is my game: https://lightbulbgamesofficial.itch.io/laser-tanks-beta
- Show some demo of the game: It's also simple, I just either export the game or share the Itch.io link. Again, simple
- Contact information: This is where the first problem arises: I don't know what to put. In laws of most countries from what I've researched you must be over 18 in order to sign contracts. Obviously, I can't sign contracts yet. I did see that it is still possible, with "written parent consent". I do have my parents' consent but I don't know if there's any other special procedure I should follow. So should I put my parent's name? Should I put my own? My own with a message? My parent's with a message?
- Contracts: And of course, actually accepting the contracts and whether it's risky or not, I don't want to get my parents into legal trouble.
The other problem with this is marketing. I know the game won't get popular or anything but at least I want to to get at least some slight attention to get feedback. In scratch it was really easy, just add your game to lots of studios, share it with some friends and that's it, you could get 500 views in one day. Meanwhile the Itch.io game only has 40 views in a week. This brings me to another problem. A common strategy is to share games on social media. And this doesn't seem as a problem at first since I'm over 13 and can use these legally but their rules for sharing content varies, and I do not want to use my personal accounts for obvious reasons. Most platforms do offer a business account, but again, I'm a kid and naturally I don't own a business or work in one, and to create these you need to enter a bunch of legal documents which I can not provide, and if I could again the consent problem. So should I just create a new personal account? They do ask me for a new phone number/email which accounts can't share. So... in this side I'm also stuck.
That's basically all the issues I've encountered so far. Here are all the conclusions I gathered:
Information so far:
- People under 18 can not sign contracts.
- People under 18 can have written consent from their parents in order to sign contracts
- Is this risky?
- Does it allow any extra operation?
- Policies of platforms on publishing under 18 vary
- Itch.io allows this.
- Steam does seem to allow this but various people say differently.
- Crazy Games doesn't have much information, but there are people who have gotten their Scratch games on there, and that actually recommend it so it maybe isn't too hard
- Some other platforms don't have much information on the topic.
- A lot of people have asked this same question on many forums but I haven't seen a clear answer.
That's it for now, thanks for your time!