How to Publish a Game on the App Store: Step by Step

Publishing to the App Store is a sequence of about eight steps. None are hard individually. The delays come from doing them in the wrong order, particularly leaving account setup until the game is finished.

Here is the order that works.

1. Enrol in the Apple Developer Program

Ninety nine dollars a year. Do this first, not last. Individual accounts verify quickly. Company accounts need a D-U-N-S number and can take considerably longer, sometimes weeks.

If you want your studio name on the listing rather than your personal name, you need the company account. Start it now.

2. Create the app record in App Store Connect

Reserve your app name here. Names are first come, first served across the entire store, so if the name matters to you, claim it before someone else does.

You will also set your bundle ID, which cannot be changed later. Get it right.

3. Prepare the build

Your game needs to be signed with the correct certificates and provisioning profiles. This is the step that generates the most confusion for first timers.

Build, archive, and upload through Xcode or your engine's build pipeline. Unity and Unreal both handle most of this, but you still need valid certificates in place.

4. Fill in the listing

You need:

• App name and subtitle
• Description
• Keywords, one hundred characters total, comma separated, no spaces wasted
• Screenshots for required device sizes
• An app icon
• A support URL and a privacy policy URL

Keywords matter. That hundred character field is your entire store search optimisation on iOS. Do not repeat words already in your title, and do not waste characters on spaces.

5. Complete the privacy declarations

Apple requires you to declare what data your app collects and how it is used. If you use any analytics SDK, ad network, or crash reporter, you are collecting data and must declare it accurately.

Getting this wrong is a common rejection reason, and worse, an inaccurate declaration is the kind of thing that causes trouble later.

6. Set the age rating and pricing

Answer the content questionnaire honestly. Games with gambling mechanics, even simulated ones, and games with user generated content get scrutinised harder.

7. Test with TestFlight

Push the build to TestFlight and get real people playing on real devices before you submit. TestFlight builds go through a lighter review, so this is also a preview of whether anything obvious will trip the full review.

8. Submit for review

Review typically takes between a day and a few days. Rejections are common and usually fixable. Read the rejection carefully, fix precisely what they cite, and resubmit.

The two things that cost the most time

Account verification. Start it weeks before you need it.

Rejections for missing information. Privacy declarations, broken support links, and login credentials for reviewers who cannot get past a login screen. Give the reviewer a test account if your game has any gated content.

Plan for at least one rejection. Teams that assume approval on the first try are the ones who miss their launch date.