Game provider go-live and certification handoff checklist
Adding a studio to the catalogue is rarely "flip a switch". Between the commercial signature and the first real-money spin sit certification packs, wallet contract tests, jurisdiction toggles and a rollback plan. Miss one artefact and launch day becomes a war room. This page is the handoff list I would put between the integrations engineer, the compliance owner and the commercial lead.
Phase A — Commercial and legal before any technical work
Ready when every box is ticked
Signed content agreement covering territories, brands and sub-licences.
Rev-share or fixed-fee schedule attached, with the settlement currency and invoice cadence.
Data-processing addendum if player identifiers leave your environment.
Marketing rights clarified: who can use game art, trailers and jackpot widgets.
Exit clause and wind-down period documented (what happens to progressive pots and open free-spin campaigns).
Phase B — Certification artefacts
Regulators and testing labs care about the build that will actually run, not a demo. Collect:
Lab certificates (GLI, BMM, eCOGRA or the lab named on your licence) for every game SKU you plan to enable, matching the exact build hash.
RTP declarations and volatility notes the licence requires you to publish or store.
RNG certificates where the studio hosts its own RNG, or a pointer to the aggregator/platform RNG already certified for your stack.
Jurisdiction matrix: which titles are cleared for which markets, including banned themes or mechanics.
Jackpot / progressive technical note if any title feeds a network pot.
Store artefacts in a versioned folder named by provider + effective date. When a studio ships a reskin with a new build hash, treat it as a new certification item, not an update note.
Phase C — Technical handoff
Wallet and launch contract
Authenticate launch tokens the way the studio specifies (often a short-lived signed URL or server-to-server handshake).
Map bet, win, refund and tip events onto your wallet ledger with idempotency keys.
Agree timeout and retry behaviour; duplicate win callbacks are common under network blips.
Confirm free-spin / bonus-buy hooks if you plan campaigns on day one.
Confirm the lobby metadata feed (thumbnails, tags, min/max bet) and how often it refreshes.
Environment gates
Sandbox credentials that mirror production scopes.
A staging brand that can run real integration tests without touching live players.
Feature flags per brand and per market so a title can go live in Malta staging without appearing in a restricted GEO.
A kill-switch that removes the studio from the lobby within minutes if a critical defect ships.
Phase D — Pre-production test pack
Launch every title once in staging; capture screenshots of the load path and the first spin.
Force a bet, a win, a disconnect mid-round and a refund; reconcile the wallet.
Trigger a free-spin package and confirm contribution rules against your bonus engine.
Load the lobby with the studio disabled and enabled; confirm cache invalidation.
Run a GEO check from an IP in a blocked territory and confirm the title is hidden, not merely unlaunchable.
Export a sample of game rounds for the reporting pipeline finance already uses.
Phase E — Go-live day and the first 72 hours
Enable one brand and one market first; watch error rates, average bet and support tickets for a few hours before broadening.
Keep the studio's NOC contact and your on-call engineer in the same channel.
Schedule a rollback drill: disable the studio, confirm open rounds settle, confirm the lobby no longer lists the titles.
After 72 hours, review RTP outliers and any jackpot discrepancy reports before calling the launch done.
Who signs off
Integrations signs the technical pack. Compliance signs the certification folder. Commercial signs that the territories match the contract. Nobody else presses the production flag. If a stakeholder is on leave, the launch waits — silent proxies create the defects that show up in audits months later.
Certification labour, lab re-tests and territory gating rarely appear as a line item on the first quote you receive for a game catalogue. For a clearer picture of how those extras sit next to licence fees and rev share, read provider certification work that sits outside aggregator quotes.