No cover art? No game listing? Let’s fix these issues!
First, get your game listed on Twitch!
How are fans supposed to watch your game on Twitch if they can’t find it? It’s important to make sure your game is listed on Twitch so streamers can tag it when they play your game.
Twitch’s game database pulls right from Giantbomb.com. Giantbomb is a user-run wiki filled with games, characters, locations, platforms, and almost anything else game related you can think of.
Adding your game to Giantbomb’s wiki isn’t as scary as it sounds. All you need to submit is your game’s name, a short description, why they should add it, and an image. Before you submit make sure to read Giantbomb’s FAQ to make sure you aren’t breaking any rules. One rule that is commonly missed is that you can’t just copy/paste your game’s description from Steam. They would like you to create a custom description for their wiki.
Read the FAQ here: http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/editing-tools-820/wiki-faq-421253/
Submit your game to Giantbomb here: http://www.giantbomb.com/game/create/
Now, just wait for approval! Make sure to check back on your account to see if moderators gave you any feedback on your submission.
Second step is to make sure Twitch has your game’s box art!
Even though I’ve submitted art to Giantbomb, I’ve found that sometimes it doesn’t carry through to Twitch (if at all).
Before you submit, read the box art requirements:
1. The game must already exist in the Twitch game directory.
2. The image size needs to be 600px x 800px and must be a .jpg. The image cannot contain a developer logo, a platform logo or an ESRB rating. Please use official boxart!
After you’ve organized your game’s box art, there are two ways to submit the image:
Way #1
Thankfully, Twitch has recently added a Developer portal where you can publish your game’s art instantly, along with other tools! Unfortunately, you still have to approved for the portal, which means you need to have permission from the developer or an email address that reflects the developer/publisher’s name. Either way, you still have to wait to be approved into the system first.
You can apply by filling out this form here.
Way #2
If, for some reason, you can’t get access to the developer portal, there is another way to submit box art for your game. Unfortunately, this way takes a while as it has to go through a manual approval process by someone at Twitch. Before you get started with this, you have to wait until your game is approved on Giantbomb and added to Twitch’s Database.
For this way, you have to first submit your art to Imgur. To get started, create an account and then go to your images:
Next, click Add Images. Remember, the image has to be a .jpg and be 800px x 600px.
Now, grab the direct link to the image. You can do so by clicking on the image and grabbing the link under ‘direct link.’
Finally, we can submit the image. Go here and paste the direct image link under ‘Link to a Image on imgur.com’
Last, we need to enter in the link to your game in the Twitch Directory. You can easily get this link by searching for it on Twitch and copying the url.
After you fill in all the info on the submission page, click submit and just wait! As I mentioned, this unfortunately can take a bit of time.
That’s it! Hopefully this helped you!
About Innervate
Innervate builds a suite of tools to help game developers build, understand, and engage their fanbase in order to foster success for their games and bring joy to their players.
