How to get your game on YouTube Playables: process and requirements

YouTube Playables are web games that run inside YouTube, in the mobile apps and on the website. Google says they are live in over 100 countries and regions. The catalog is growing fast: 1,207 games as of November 15, 2026, and 236 of them came out in the first half of November alone.

This guide walks through what a developer has to do to appear in that catalog. Every requirement below comes from Google's public documentation, linked at the end. Requirements change, so treat the official pages as the final word.

1. Get developer access

You cannot simply upload a game. Google describes developer access as being “in an early access stage”. The entry point is the Playables interest form linked from the official Playables page: you submit your game or company and wait to be considered.

Publishing itself happens in the Developer Portal, which is invitation-only. To use it you need manager permission on a YouTube channel that has been onboarded to Playables.

The catalog shows that many studios do not go alone. Of the 1,207 games in the catalog, 374 (31%) are released by just two publishers, and on many games the developer and the publisher are different companies. You can see who publishes what on the publishers page.

2. Build a web game

Playables supports standard web platform APIs. The game has to be a web build that renders through a standard API such as WebGL or Canvas. Google lists engines that have been used before: BabylonJS, Cocos, Construct, Defold, Flutter, Godot, melonJS, Phaser, PixiJS, PlayCanvas, React, three.js and Unity.

The game must work in every browser YouTube supports, including Chrome, Edge and Firefox, and inside the YouTube app on Android and iOS.

3. Integrate the Playables SDK

The SDK connects the game to YouTube: loading state, sound, pausing, saves and ads. The integration requirements are strict, and these are the ones that matter most:

• Load order. The SDK must load before any other game code.
• Loading signals. Call firstFrameReady when a loading or splash screen is on screen. Call gameReady only when the player can actually interact, for example at the main menu. Calling it while a loading screen is still visible is not allowed.
• Sound. The game must follow YouTube's own mute setting through isAudioEnabled and onAudioEnabledChange. When YouTube is muted the game must be silent. Google recommends not adding a global mute button of your own; separate music and effects controls are fine.
• Pause and resume. After onPause everything must stop: game loop, music, network calls, rendering. It may continue only after onResume. The Page Visibility API and similar browser APIs must not be used for this.
• Saves. Progress is saved only through saveData and loaded through loadData, and the first load has to finish before the first save. A new version of the game must open saves made by older versions without errors.
• Scores. sendScore is optional. If you use it, the best score you send has to match the one in the save.

Google provides a test suite that checks the integration before you submit.

4. Fit the size and performance limits

“Must” limits block publication. “Should” limits are recommendations, and Google notes that meeting them helps a game get better visibility.

The game must not have crashes that can be reproduced consistently, and it must never crash the YouTube app or website.

5. Decide on ads

Playables has three ad formats:

• Pre-roll ads play while the game first loads. YouTube handles them, they need no code, and they cannot be turned off.
• Interstitial ads are requested by the game at natural breaks, such as the end of a level, with ytgame.ads.requestInterstitialAd().
• Rewarded ads are started by the player in exchange for something in the game, with ytgame.ads.requestRewardedAd(id).

Interstitial and rewarded ads can be switched off in the Developer Portal. Ad requests can fail, so the game needs a fallback.

On money, the documentation says only that there is a revenue-sharing pilot with “a select number of Playable creators” that will be expanded over time. It publishes no rates. This is also why the plays number on a game card tells you nothing about revenue. See what plays mean.

6. Submit the game for review

In the Developer Portal a release goes through four steps:

1. Details. Upload the game as a ZIP file and choose its entry point. Fill in the title, description, genre, publisher and developer. Add a thumbnail for each required aspect ratio, pick the language, review the ad settings.
2. Test. Open the preview link or its QR code and go through the checklist on desktop web, mobile web, YouTube for Android and YouTube for iOS.
3. Age rating. An IARC rating is required. You can import an existing one or fill in the questionnaire.
4. Review and publish. Press “Submit for review”. One channel can have up to 10 games in review at a time.

The review ends in one of three results: ready to publish, ready to publish with recommended changes, or changes needed. While a game is in review it cannot be edited unless you cancel the review.

Google reviews a submission as a whole. Besides the technical rules it looks at trust and safety, privacy and other policies, at the channel's history on YouTube and at how its earlier Playables performed.

7. Watch how the game performs

After launch the public signal is the plays counter on the game card. Total plays favour old games, so compare a new game with others of its age. On Playables Radar every game page shows its growth and the share of similar-age games it has out-played. The new releases list shows what came out next to yours.

Sources

• YouTube Playables for developers: access, supported engines, availability
• Certification requirements: how the review works
• Integration requirements: SDK rules
• Stability and performance requirements: size and memory limits
• Monetization: ad formats
• Developer Portal guide: submission steps

Checked against Google's documentation on November 15, 2026. Catalog numbers are from Playables Radar for the same date.