"Understanding the Play Fund"

You want to know how money works on sbox.game: paid DLC? Store price? Why retention features keep getting recommended.

There is no paid-games storefront on the platform. On-platform revenue is the Play Fund: a daily pool (order-of-magnitude ~$1M/yr after the Steam launch) split across games/maps by clamped individual player-hours (secret algorithm; clamping means botting/idling doesn't pay).

Payouts are discretionary per the EULA ("Creators do not have any right to compensation"): upside, not a business plan.

How it pays

• $100 minimum balance, paid monthly mid-month.
• Payment details in profile settings; revenue splittable across team members (org membership not required for a split).
• Maps are separate packages: a standalone map gets its own ident and can earn independently of the game.

Enable Play Fund (package-page gate)

The package page keeps Enable Play Fund disabled until every item below is green. Labels and helper text from the sbox.game dialog (confirmed 2026-07):

1. Released: Your package has to be publicly released before it can earn money. Hidden packages do not qualify (the publish-state enum is Hidden | Released).
2. Organization is at least a month old: org age gate is 30 days from org creation ("Your organization needs to have been around for a month before its packages can earn money.").
3. Played by enough people: 50 players must have played the package ("Enough people need to have played your package, so we know it works as expected.").
4. Has a summary: Write a short one-line summary that says what your package is.
5. Has a description: Fill out the full description on your package's page so players know what to expect.
6. Has a thumbnail: Upload your own thumbnail; the placeholder the platform generates for you doesn't count.
7. Picked a category: Choose at least one category so players can find your package.
8. Added some tags: Tag your package so it shows up in the right searches. The more varied, the better.
9. At least 2 screenshots: Show your package off with a couple of screenshots.
10. Has a video: Upload a video so players can see your package in action before they play.

Items 4–10 overlap store-page quality (pre-publish-checklist-sbox-game). Play Fund also needs Released + 30-day org age + 50 players before the button unlocks.

Content eligibility

• No copyrighted material.
• No "repackaging someone else's work with no real creativity."
• sbox.game cloud assets are implicitly licensed and fine.
• Publish Wizard shows a per-cloud-asset eligibility/license check. Heed it.

Practical product implication

Revenue tracks session hours, so retention features (loops, daily reasons to return, multiplayer stickiness, content cadence) are the monetization features. Store-page completeness still matters for discovery into those hours (pre-publish-checklist-sbox-game).

Standalone Steam export is a different economic path (Steam's cut, no Play Fund platform services): standalone-steam-export.

Exact pool size / clamp curve: treat public figures as approximate. The algorithm is secret; check current Facepunch posts when you care about exact figures.

The fund pays for attention that isn't fake-idle. Clamping and eligibility rules push creators toward original, retainable play, which is why "make people stay" and "make money on sbox.game" collapse into the same design problem.