The start of a new year marks a good time to look back and reflect. Now that 2017 is over with let's take a moment to see what’s been going on at itch.io for the past year. In addition to highlighting some of our accomplishments, I’d also like to show off some of our creators and their projects that stood out. Enjoy!

The numbers

Creators on itch.io have been hard at work, in 2017 we saw:

• The creation of 100,864 project pages, with 68,526 that ended up being published.
• 1,646 game jams created, 45,551 people joined them, and 13,361 games were submitted
• 45,789 builds processed through butler
• 320,885 files uploaded, totalling 12.5 TB of storage.
• 202,273 comments and threads made on projects page, communities, and jams.
• 134,635 new collections created and 764,496 games & projects added to collections
• 282,144 new followers to itch.io accounts

A new homepage

In order to roll in the new year, we've rolled out a new homepage! We'll probably have more info later, but for now enjoy the update.

Updates to itch.io from 2017

In 2017 the itch.io website saw 3,942 commits with 1436 files changed, 134322 insertions(+), 26341 deletions(-). As of today, the itch.io website contains 262,711 lines of code (not including third party libraries).

We’ve released dozens of incremental features, but here are some of the highlights from the past year:

• A new theme editor – We analyzed hundreds of game pages to make our project page designer easier and more powerful
• Devlogs – Many games are works in progress, so now you can easily share your progress
• Patreon integration for your projects – Give your backers on Patreon access to your project pages on itch.io!
• A new itch.io blog & weekly editorial posts – Not only did our blog get a complete overhaul, the new digest blog saw an incredible 72 posts, including editorial pieces, developer interviews to recommended games.
• OAuth applications with our API – A platform to build tools that use our API on behalf of other users. (See Support indies! to check the value of your itch.io account)
• More tools for game jam hosts (2) – Better tools for running your jam’s community along with more fine-grained options for rating and judges
• Distribute your projects to backers from Indiegogo & more – Many people use third party services to sell copies of their games, so now it’s easy to import a list of emails to distribute access to your project on itch.io
• Upload images anywhere – Images are important so we made it so you can attach them to anywhere you can post
• Short download keys for printing – Going to an event and want to hand out codes for your game? Use short codes to make it easier
• A better mobile web experience – Did you know itch.io can be used on your phone’s browser? Well it can be, and we made many more pages work this past year

The itch.io blog

With 72 posts in the itch.io digest blog it might be a bit overwhelming to go through them all. Here are our top 5 editorial posts by views:

• Get ready for Ludum Dare: Game development tools
• Our favorite free games of 2017
• Get Ready For Ludum Dare
• What every developer can learn from short games
• In defense of visual novels

And here are the top 5 interviews:

• 3 years and 1000 creators, Steve Cook’s quest to curate the un-curateable
• One Man’s Quest to Become Every Team’s Artist
• Developing Games and Tools from the Ocean: An Interview with Hundred Rabbits
• Feature preview: the story behind, and the future ahead of the itch app
• The Raft Developers Open up About Successes and School

itch.io Selects

In 2017 we’ve had a focus on curation and promotion to help developers get more attention on their projects.

We launched itch.io Selects, a regular curated bundle of games, as a way to highlight some of our favorites combined with a nice discount. Look forward to more bundles in 2018.

We’ve been keen on site-wide promotions like the itch.io Summer sales, Halloween sales, and Winter Sales. In 2018 we hope to have bigger and more interesting events!

The games

Now lets take a look at some of the top games from 2017. I tried to pull lists that were interesting, if you have any ideas for other lists then leave a comment below.

Most popular games published in 2017

The games that were most downloaded, purchased, viewed, and played in 2017

1. My Little Blacksmith Shop
2. House Party
3. PC Building Simulator Demo
4. Doki Doki Literature Club!
5. Don’t Bite Me Bro!
6. To the Edge of the Sky
7. Autonauts
8. Anchored
9. Last Wood
10. Tracks

Most purchased paid games published in 2017

The games that received the most number of purchases

1. Rise of Industry
2. Freeways
3. FEZ
4. LOCALHOST
5. Walden, a game
6. Wilder: Ran’s Story
7. House Party
8. Ancient Warfare 3
9. Dark Train
10. Everything

Most downloaded games created for jams in 2017

1. Tracks for /agdg/ Comfy Jam
2. City Clickers for 1-Bit Clicker jam
3. Alchemy Garden for Slow Game Jam
4. That crazy game with explosions and time for Nordic Game Jam 2017
5. Yo! Noid Was Ahead of its Time for New Jam City
6. Screensaver Subterfuge for PROCJAM - The Procedural Generation Jam
7. Mindustry for GDL - Metal Monstrosity Jam
8. //TODO: today for NaNoRenO 2017
9. The Crossroads for NaNoRenO 2017
10. Kaotik Shop for Music Game Jam

Most tipped games in 2017

All payments on itch.io are pay-what-you-want above the minimum. Here are the games with supportive fans that received the highest average amount above their minimum price. (The list is filtered to games that got at least 100 purchases)

1. Dujanah
2. Everything
3. Walden, a game
4. Dominique Pamplemousse and Dominique Pamplemousse in “Combinatorial Explosion!”
5. Boa Retina
6. Kentucky Route Zero
7. VEKTOR 2089
8. The Signal From Tölva
9. Aven Colony
10. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK

Most tipped games created for jams in 2017

Just because your game is free doesn’t mean you can receive tips. Here are free games created for jams in 2017 with the most tips.

1. Love on the Peacock Express for Yuri Game Jam 2017
2. City Clickers for 1-Bit Clicker jam
3. NEON PHASE for GAMES MADE QUICK???, Anything but human-jam
4. Handväska for Jam Fists Into Nazi Faces
5. Tomai for Yaoi Game Jam 2017
6. Baba Is You for Nordic Game Jam 2017
7. fox flux for Strawberry Jam
8. Tenderfoot for Utopia Jam
9. The Crossroads for NaNoRenO 2017
10. 4Ever Transit Authority for Slow Game Jam

The jams

Top jams by number of participants in 2017

1. Game Maker’s Toolkit Jam (2,857)
2. GitHub Game Off (2,649)
3. #ResistJam (884)
4. My First Game Jam: Summer 2017 (765)
5. #LOWREZJAM 2017 (756)
6. A Game By Its Cover 2017 (718)
7. PROCJAM - The Procedural Generation Jam (691)
8. 1-Bit Clicker jam (688)
9. Indie Game Maker Contest 2017 (680)
10. Let’s Create Game Jam #1 (611)

Top jams by number of submmissions

1. Game Maker’s Toolkit Jam (759)
2. #LOWREZJAM 2017 (233)
3. Indie Game Maker Contest 2017 (231)
4. #ResistJam (213)
5. GitHub Game Off (208)
6. PROCJAM - The Procedural Generation Jam (178)
7. My First Game Jam: Summer 2017 (159)
8. 1-Bit Clicker jam (150)
9. Nordic Game Jam 2017 (144)
10. Butterscotch ShenaniJam (130)

Some More

Top used tags in 2017

Tags are developers can free-form classify their games. Here are the top tags used in 2017:

1. 2D
2. Arcade
3. Pixel Art
4. 3D
5. Singleplayer
6. Shooter
7. Casual
8. 8-bit
9. Retro
10. Space

Congratulations to everyone who made it on these lists, and thank you to everyone who has used itch.io in 2017. We look forward to what 2018 brings. Thanks for reading.