How to win at Web Monetization (with Coil)

Andrzej Mazur
js13kGames
Published in
3 min readAug 23, 2019

We have a brand new category this year: Web Monetization. It’s here thanks to the partnership with Coil, and it’s easier to start with than you might think - let’s see how you can benefit from implementing it in your game.

It’s worth noting the Web Monetization open standard was proposed to W3C, and this might end up as the de facto way of earning money on the Web. I do hope everyone will participate and we all will be happy with the results.

Register on Coil

Register on the Coil.com website to claim your username (to get 6 months worth of subscription for free after you submit your entry) and to generate your own payment pointer that you will then add to your entry’s meta tag within index.html.

Read the rules and the intro blog post carefully for details.

The 100+20 rule

It’s important to remember that if you participate in the Web Monetization category by including a meta tag, everything else is about how you give the extra 20% to the subscribers in your game.

It can be a boost of points when you start a level, a powerful weapon, special ability, or a cool hat. Think of something you’d enjoy getting as a monetized player. Don’t forget to notify them about it! This way they will feel appreciated and play longer, which will then give you more earnings from the micropayments. Win-win.

Test it

We have a brand new GitHub bot (there will be a blog post about it in the next few days from the author himself) that can help validate your entry - this will speed up the acceptance of your submission a lot.

It’s not exclusive to Web Monetization, but will guarantee hassle-free process and no issues whatsoever.

Submit

Everything’s ready? Submit your game, and remember to check the relevant categories, put your Coil username, and include any extra features for subscribers in the description of the game.

After it gets accepted you should get the free half a year Coil subscription activated within a few days.

What’s next?

Share it! Post the link to your entry on Coil, in social media like Twitter and Facebok, and invite everyone to try it. Sit back and enjoy micropayments flowing into your account.

Questions? Issues? Email us, send a private message through any of the competition’s social media, or join our Slack channel. Happy monetizing!

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Andrzej Mazur
js13kGames

HTML5 Game Developer, Enclave Games indie studio founder, js13kGames competition creator and Gamedev.js Weekly newsletter publisher.