Catalog Developer Onboarding

Any Playdate developer is welcome to submit their finished Playdate game to Catalog, our curated selection of Playdate games. Once your title has been approved for release on Catalog, you will receive a separate email from us under “Playdate Catalog (via Airtable)” to the email address provided in the Catalog Submission Form with the necessary material to onboard and release on Catalog.

Note that only one person can be associated with a Catalog game. The same person will need to sign the Catalog Agreement, receive payment, complete the tax interview, and will have access to set up the store page.

See the Publishing your game in Catalog help article for information on getting your game ready for release.

Scheduling a release date on Catalog

The onboarding email will include the scheduled release date and deadline for when we need all the material for launch. Catalog Drops are scheduled every other Tuesday at 10AM Pacific and release dates are scheduled on the earliest Catalog drop date available. If you need to schedule the release to a later date, you can reply back to the onboarding email or email us at catalog-dev@play.date.

Catalog Sales Agreement and Exhibit 1

You will receive an email from Dropbox Sign / Hello Sign with a link to view and sign the Agreement. If this is your first Catalog title, you will receive the Catalog Sales Agreement and Exhibit 1. If you have previously released a Catalog title, you will only need to sign the Exhibit 1 for the approved game.

For “Company”, you can either enter a registered businesss or your legal name if you don’t have a registered business. The Company name will need to match the name written on official documents with your bank and tax documents.
You can review the Playdate User Experience and Accessibility Check List help article that the agreement references.

Revenue paid for your Catalog title

Panic partners with Stripe to payout revenue payments to developers. Payouts are paid in US Dollars to the payment method that you provided on Stripe. You can find all the information on receiving revenue payments for your game below.

Setting up a Stripe account

Once your game has been accepted and your play.date account receives the necessary permissions, you will have access to the Developer Dashboard.

Depending on the region, there are two types of payout options:

(Option 1) Direct - transactions are directly charged to the developer.
(Option 2) Payout - Panic is set up as the seller.

Most developers will have payouts set up as Direct (Option 1) on Stripe. Payout (Option 2) is only selected when Direct (Option 1) is not support in your region.

Below are some information you’ll need to have ready to complete the Stripe onboarding.

Bank account number or debit card
Photo of a valid government-issued ID

Scheduling payouts

The schedule of your payouts will depend on the Stripe payout option that’s set up for your account. See the Setting up a Stripe account section above for information on the two payout options.

If your payout option is set to “Direct” with you (the developer) as the seller, payment is scheduled on the last day of every month.
If your payout option is set to “Payout” with Panic as the seller, you will need click the button on Developer Dashboard to release your funds. There isn’t a way to schedule your payment for these currently.

Revenue reporting

From the Developer Dashboard, “Your Games” section will have links to each game-specific page that will include a section on revenue reporting. If your payout option on Stripe is set to “Direct” you can also find reporting from the Stripe dashboard under Payments (see Setting up a Stripe account for more info on payout types).

Tax interview

All developers onboarding to sell their title on Catalog will need to go through the tax interview with our partner Tax Identity linked from the Developer Dashboard. Please make sure to enter your information correctly (especially your Tax Identification Number or Foreign TIN) and talk to a tax advisor if there are any parts that you’re unsure about. Panic won’t be able to provide any tax advice.

The Tax interview may take a couple days to review and validate. The Developer Dashboard doesn’t automatically update the tax validation status, but we will reach out to you ahead of the deadline if your tax information isn’t validated yet by our tax partner, Tax Identity.

See the Tax Help Article for more information on taxes.