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Publishing APPS And Games Windows App Store




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1) Introduction The windows Apps store is a great way to make money and a lot of revenue. This is great for engineers and entrepreneurs looking for a new audience to market to. You can find a lot of traffic from the Microsoft store that you will not get on the google play store or Apple store. Great for anyone using Unity 3D.

The Windows App store is an excellent marketplace for your games and apps. In this article, I will walk through the steps to publish your Unity 3D App onto the Microsoft App store.

We assume you've already built an awesome game or app, so we won't be covering game development in this article. We do a walk through of publishing with these basic sections:


  1. Set-Up: Tools and Environment

  2. Define the Product in the Store

  3. Build and Upload the Windows App

  4. Place Product Information

  5. Publish your Windows App

 



2) Set Up Publishing Environment This section will provide the links and instructions to set up your publishing environment.


*Ensure Visual Studio and the latest UWP build support are selected


Create a Product in the Store


This section describes how to create the product description and reserve a space on the Microsoft App Store.

Create a Microsoft Partner account.



 

3 ) Create an Entry in the App Store


This section describes how to create the product description and reserve a space on the Microsoft App Store. You will create an account, and configure an entry for your app:

Select: Create new app









Enter Product Name


  • Select: Reserve Product Name

  • Select: Start your submission



Fill in your pricing information and availability information and save





Fill in the age ratings:



You have reserved a space for the app to be uploaded from Visual Studio.



4) Build the Visual Studio Solution with Unity In this section, you will package up your application to be uploaded to Microsoft for Sale in the App Store. Unity builds a Visual Studio solution that will be used to package and upload the software into Microsoft server environment for sale in the App store.


  • Open the application in Unity

  • Configure Unity for Universal Windows Platform Publishing File->Build Settings->Platform

  • Configure Player Settings File->Build Setings->Player Settings->Player->Publishing->Settings

  • Define the Icon

  • Define the Resolution and Presentation

  • Define the Splash Image

  • Other Settings: Important: *Ensure color space is set to Linear


  • Publishing Settings *Ensure your version's last digit is a zero



Build the Visual Studio Solution


  • Platform: Universal Windows Platform

  • Target Device: Any

  • Build Type XAML Project

  • TargetSDK Version: Latest

  • Minimum Platform Version: <the most recent>

  • Visual Studio Version: 2019 or later

  • Build and Run on: Local Machine

  • Build Configuration: Master






5) Package, Validate, Upload and Publish


In this section, Visual Studio is used to connect the software with the entry you created for the Windows App Store. Here is a review of the general steps involved:


  1. Associate the software with the application reserved in the prior section.

  2. Package the software

  3. Validate the package

  4. Upload the package for distribution

1) Associate the application with Partner Center

  • Open the Solution


Select <ProjectName>->Publish->Associate App With Store


Select the application identity as has been defined in the store from the first lesson






Set up the icons: Open Package.appmanifest

  • Select Visual Assets

  • Add Icon Images



2) Package the software


  • Right-Click Project -> Publish -> Package

  • Select Windows Universal -> Next

  • Select Build Configurations (x86, x65, ARM etc)

  • Select Create




3) Validate the Package

The system will automatically start automated validation


  • Select Launch Windows App Certification Kit



Upload the Package for Distribution


In this section, we show the final phases of uploading and publishing the app onto Windows Store


  • Upload the Package






  • Save the page

  • Submit to the Store



Be patient, this may take some time.







And more waiting, this may take some time. Yay! we're published. Share this tutorial to anyone who is interested or looking for more information on Unity tutorials or anyone in colleges with game design. Please download this app if you've spent the time reading this. It helps with your studies and provides a tool to help you focus!


 

Here a video tutorial on how to publish to the Microsoft store



Enjoy, and thank you for making cool apps! Join our discord and share your work.


 

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