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We the Indies
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For people who make games

Your game. A real disc.

Send the build. We make a copy by hand when someone orders one, and pay you on every sale. Free to start. No minimums. You keep every right.

Start a submissionSee what you earn
  • Free to start
  • No minimums
  • Made by hand
  • You keep the rights
A white disc sleeve printed with the words YOUR GAME HERE, photographed on a black backdrop
Shot in our workshop. The sleeve is waiting for your art.

What you can submit

A game becomes a real PC disc.

  • A game

    A PC disc with a menu

    • CD, DVD, or dual-layer DVD, picked by the size of your build, in a DVD case or a jewel case.
    • Installer, disc menu, and Windows updates you choose to send.
    • Include a soundtrack CD or insert cards if you want them in the box.
    From $10Case wrap and disc label

Your studio

Your game studio, your storefront

Give your releases a home with your logo, a banner, your own background and colors. Choose what to feature and share one address for your studio.

Customize your storefront

Already making them yourself?

If you are already making your discs by hand and sending them out yourself, you do not need a company, a warehouse or a catalog to open a storefront. Bring what you already make, keep making it exactly the way you make it, and it gets one address a buyer can find instead of a direct message and a spreadsheet. Same page, same fee, same fulfillment setup as anybody else.

Make more of your release

Add a soundtrack CD to a supported game edition.

How it works

Send it. We make it. You get paid.

  1. Phase one: pre-production

    Minutes, not an hour.

    What it wants

    • Who you are: the name on your profile.
    • The title, and one line about it.
    • A link that shows it is real: its page, a trailer, a store listing.

    Then: We read it and write back: yes, you can sell here, or yes, you can be Coming Soon. Nothing goes on a store page until a person has said so.

  2. Phase two: production, Coming Soon

    What the store page needs and nothing more.

    What it wants

    • Who it is for: the age band, and what a buyer should know first.
    • The art on our templates: the case sheet at 4200 x 2550 px and the disc face at 1417 x 1417 px, both at 300 dpi, as an 8-bit PNG. More than one front is welcome; a buyer can choose.
    • Screenshots as PNG at the game's own resolution, and a trailer as an MP4 (H.264).
    • The case render we make from your art, for the page.

    Then: The page goes up as Coming Soon with a Wishlist button. Every wishlister gets one email the day it goes on sale.

  3. Phase three: post, on sale

    Only when you are ready to sell.

    What it wants

    • The final game files: the build, up to 16 GB, uploaded here.
    • The final art, if it changed.
    • What the disc does when it runs: the launch buttons and the menu (Rialto's metadata).
    • The price, and the agreement with your name typed on it.

    Then: Then it goes on sale, made by hand when someone orders it, and you are paid on every copy.

A Maki's Adventure cover on the paper trimmer, mid cut
Finished Sea of Dreams cases held in two hands
Every cover is trimmed by hand, one cut at a time. This is the bench your disc is made on.

What you earn

One table. You pick the price.

The same numbers for a game, a film, or an album. The Indie Fund dollar comes out of our side, never out of yours. Card processing is paid by the buyer, on its own line in the cart, and it never comes out of your share either. A standard submission on the Rialto path has nothing up front. Paid authoring is on the pricing page.

New this September: the same materials, made by hand in the USA, new features on every disc, and we take less of every sale than we did in year one.

PriceYou earnWe takeIndie Fund*Revenue Split
$10$6$4+$160-40
$12$8$4+$167-33
$14$9$5+$164-36
$16$11$5+$169-31
$18$12$6+$167-33
$20$14$6+$170-30
$30$22$8+$173-27
$40$30$10+$175-25
$50$36$14+$272-28
$60$44$16+$373-27
$70$52$18+$474-26

* deducted from our share

At $50 we take $14, then $2 more for each additional $10. The Indie Fund takes one more dollar of ours at each of those $10 steps.

Some discs cost more to make, so their lowest price is higher: two discs with a Blu-ray start at $16, a disc with a soundtrack CD or a dual-layer DVD at $12, a single CD or a 4.7 GB DVD at $10. The wizard tells you as you build it.

Our own public-domain titles sit on a different, lower table. You will never see those prices on your work. The full page.

Art template center

Start with our specs

Print specs, bleed guides, and editable masters for every surface we print. Drop your art in, export, and submit.

Download the outside and inside case-cover masters, both loose case-insert sides, and separate game-disc and soundtrack templates below. The loose inserts use 8.5 × 11 inch sheets; photo cards are 5 × 7 inches. A jewel case prints on one Legal sheet, both sides: the outside master holds the front insert beside the tray card, the inside master their backs, the same two for a one-disc and a two-disc case. The corrected disc guides use a 118 mm print edge and 23 mm hub on a full 120 mm square, with no global hue adjustment. Every master is 300 DPI and 8-bit: export your finished PNG the same way, since a 600 DPI or 16-bit file is several times larger and prints no sharper. Export finished disc artwork as a flattened sRGB PNG with guides hidden. On the inside of a DVD case, the left is the front-cover lid and the right is the back cover and disc tray (landscape duplex, flip on the short edge).

Layered masters
Jewel-case print specifications (PDF)

Download a template, fill it in your own tools, and upload the finished art with your submission. We print anything; if you need a size you do not see, ask.

After it ships

What a disc keeps doing.

  • Updates you choose

    A game installed from a disc we built can take a patch you send from IndieHub. The patch reaches the game on the computer. The disc stays as it was made.

    Game updates

  • Cloud Saving

    A way for a player to move their save files to another computer with a Save Code they write down. No account. Play never waits on it. This is not a shipping update.

    Cloud Saving

  • Shipped from Florida

    Made first, then shipped, worldwide from the United States. Tax and shipping are added at checkout, never taken out of your split.

    Shipping

  • A key on every copy, if you want one

    Turn on the Preservation key and each disc gets its own 14-character key, printed small on the disc label. Anyone can look the copy up here. A real copy with its own key, not a skin on a file.

    Game preservation

  • If we go away

    The disc in the case still plays. It never needs an account or a server. That is the promise, in writing.

    Sunset Guarantee

Indie Fund

A dollar from everything we sell.

A dollar of ours from everything we sell, set aside from today. It never comes out of what you earn. What the money is for, the community decides. The promise is on its own page.

What is the Indie Fund?

Beyond the shop

The same disc, more places.

Marketplaces

Your disc on the big shops for ten dollars more than here. The extra pays the marketplace's cut of each sale. What you earn does not change. A one-time listing puts your game, film or album on every marketplace we are on.

How marketplaces work

Licensing

Put a song in a game, or a game in a film. Named offers, named threads, and the person offering earns the asking price.

How licensing works

Bring your game’s art beyond the screen

Offer a print or collect concept art and stories in a book.

Art prints and books
The full GRAPPIN deluxe edition laid out on a cutting mat: o-card sleeves, cases, the game and soundtrack discs, a controls card, and three art prints.

Questions we get

Who qualifies?
Indie teams of any size. If you have shipped something, we will talk.
How much does it cost me?
Nothing up front for a standard submission on the Rialto path. Paid authoring is listed on What you earn. We make each copy when someone orders it, then split the sale with you. The whole table is on this page.
Who owns it?
You do. Always. We take no equity and no rights. This is service work, not publishing.
Can I leave?
Yes. Your masters stay yours and your rights never moved. Tell us and we stop making copies.
Where do you ship?
Worldwide, from the United States. US sales tax is charged at checkout for Florida addresses; other US addresses add none. International orders may attract import tax, duty and a courier handling fee on arrival. See Shipping.
What art do I need?
Your key art on our templates: the case wrap and the disc face for a game or a film, the front insert and tray card for an album. The kit is on this page, and we print anything; ask if you need a size you do not see.
Can I push updates after a disc ships?
Yes, through IndieHub. Updates go through a light review, then reach the installed game through the updater; the disc itself stays as it was made, as the agreement says. The first updates go out after launch week. Play never needs an account.
My game uses Steam. Can it go on a disc?
Yes, if you send a build of your game that runs without Steam. A disc is DRM-free and plays without an account. Leaderboards and other Steam features stay with your Steam release.

A note from the founder

I started We the Indies because I wanted the games I loved on a shelf. Not a subscription page. Not a delisted storefront. A real disc, with real art, that nobody can take away.

If that sounds like your players, let us make your game physical.

Chandler, For the Indies

Start a submission
A stack of finished Maki's Adventure retail DVD cases on a desk
Maki's Adventure, fresh from the assembly bench.