Release Management

Manage releases in the Epic Games Store publishing tools

Epic Games Store Only

5 mins to read

This article covers functionality offered by the self-service Epic Games Store publishing tools. If the options described are not available to you, you may be using an alternate method of distribution. For documentation applicable to your experience, sign in to the Knowledge Base

Overview

The Epic Games Store publishing tools provide you with three sandbox environments to work in when creating and managing entities associated with your product.

You can review and manage these entities throughout the publishing process through the Release Management section of the Dev Portal. This section is available via Your Product > Epic Games Store > Release Management.

Entities

In the publishing tools, entities refer to the various components that control and populate your product contents and store presence.

Entities for your product are grouped into the following categories:

Store Settings: High-level details and other configurations shared across the entirety of your product, such as product specs, ratings, and distribution regions.
Offers: Saleable or downloadable content associated with your product, such as your base product or add-ons. Some specific product details are stored at the offer level, such as dates of availability and pricing.
Artifacts and Binaries: Builds and associated configurations that are used to fulfill user requests to download content associated with your product.
Pages: Individual pages that comprise your product’s presence on the Epic Games Store, including the Product Home page, offer pages, and an optional FAQ page.

On Release Management screen, you can review the status and manage the progress of these entities through the publishing workflow.

Sandboxes

When you create a product in the Dev Portal, a set of sandboxes is also generated. These environments enable you to configure, test, and ultimately publish your product to the Epic Games Store.

The provided sandboxes include Dev, Stage, and Live environments. The Dev and Stage sandboxes are private environments, while the Live sandbox is public. Through the Release Management screen, you can orchestrate the promotion of your product’s entities between these sandboxes.

The purpose of each sandbox is outlined below, along with an overview of how entities transition from one environment to the next.

Dev sandbox: The environment where entities for your product are created and configured.
- Entities begin in the Draft status. After you provide all required information for an entity, the status automatically updates to Ready for Stage. You can then promote these entities to the Stage sandbox through the Push to Stage button.
- The Dev sandbox is a private environment, meaning only members of your organization with the right permissions can access the entities within it. This allows you to configure and test your product securely with your team.
Stage sandbox: The environment where finalized configurations can be tested and submitted for review by the Epic Games Store team prior to entering the Live environment.
- After you have tested and are satisfied with your entity configurations, use the Submit to Review button to send your product to the Epic Games Store team for review.
  - Before the review begins, you can use the Rescind button to remove your request for review. This allows you to make any necessary updates and resubmit your product for review when ready. Review requests cannot be rescinded once the review process has begun.
  - During review, the Epic Games Store team ensures you have properly configured your product and have met all the requirements for distribution. If any issues are found, feedback is provided to you. You must then complete those updates in the Dev sandbox, push the changes to the Stage sandbox, and submit your product for additional review.
  - Once your entities have been reviewed and approved, they receive the Ready for Live status.
- Like the Dev sandbox, the Stage sandbox is a private environment. Only members of your organization with the right permissions can access entities in the Stage sandbox, allowing you to review and test your product securely with your team.

Dev and Stage sandboxes for your product separate sensitive data (offers, artifacts, etc.) from the public environment. These environments also ensure data can be promoted securely between sandboxes to support the configuration, testing, and review process for your product prior to its launch.

Live sandbox: The Live sandbox represents the public Epic Games Store environment. Entities within this sandbox are accessible by end users on the storefront and indexable on the public web.
- Entities can only be pushed to the Live sandbox after they have been reviewed and approved by the Epic Games Store team.
  - Once your entities have the Ready for Live status, you can push them to the Live environment by clicking the Push to Live button.
  - You can choose to immediately publish your selected entities, or you can specify a specific date and time for the push to Live to occur. Scheduled pushes can be canceled through the Release Management screen prior to their specified date.

Status Definitions

Each entity associated with your product is assigned a status that represents its current position within the publishing workflow. The color-coded icon and definition of each possible status is listed below.