You can export your Gumroad data as a CSV by selecting the top right icon from this page: https://app.gumroad.com/customers

Select all data and select download.

The menu may disappear when you click Download: I was with them for 12 years so the menu just disappears when I click download. There indication of any success, just wait a bit. You’ll get an email from Gumroad after a bit with a link to download your data. It took mine maybe an 30 minutes to show up.

I imported it into a SQL lite database, and after some experimenting, used the below query to generate a minimal CSV that could be imported back into Itch.io. This only pulls in customers that were not refunded, did not initiate a chargeback, and opted into receiving emails from you. (https://itch.io/docs/creators/kickstarter). Side note: The only reason I knew it was an option was because it popped up in a tooltip on my dashboard - that was helpful!

The Amount field is formatted, because it seems the Kickstarter wants a currency formatted amount and Gumroad exports amounts as a decimal number (1.5 vs $1.50 or 1.50).

SELECT
    `Purchase Email` AS "Email",
    FORMAT("$%.2f", `Sale Price ($)`) AS "Amount"
FROM
    GumroadSalesRaw  -- Or whatever the name of the table you imported your Gumroad CSV into
WHERE
--  `Item Name` IS "Item Name" -- filter by item name if you have more than one product
    `Do not contact?` IS 0
    AND `Buyer Email` IS NOT NULL
    AND `Fully Refunded?` IS 0
    AND `Disputed?` IS 0;

For a quick list of what your products are from your Gumroad export, you can run a query like:

SELECT
  `Item Name`
FROM
  `Gumroad Sales Data Raw` -- name of the table you imported your Gumroad CSV into
GROUP BY
  `Item Name`

Hopefully this saves you time from having to figure out what data you want, and what fields to use.

Side note: don’t delete your Gumroad account right away! Just unpublish your products instead. Gumroad will keep any remaining unpaid funds if you delete your account.

Most of those things are uploaded on obviously hacked accounts. The problem is not something simple as a try my game on discord scam, where you get a password for a rar archive. It is the let's browse shiny new games on itch minefield. The malware will take away your itch credentials (cookie theft) and not even 2fa will protect your account. And who knows what else they do.

Since some of those hacked accounts have had payment options, some of those scams have pay what you want active, sometimes even paid only. They have fake ratings sometimes and sometimes are not reported, so you can encounter a scam that is half a year old or older.

Fortunate for many players, the scammers most often target adult games. But I have also seen regular indie games, that were released on Steam.

So if you are unsure about a game, trust your scepticism. And if you are sure it is a scam, report it. I saw games with comments about it being a scam, but apparantly the users did not bother to click the report button. The scammers are experimenting with all sorts of variations in their publications. And this sometimes includes impersonating the original creator by linking sites of the original creator.

Oh the games might be real, but at the very least they are pirated, and at the worst you get infected with malware and as a bonus your itch account is used to spread more malware.

General tipps:

If it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't. Seeing a finished game here for free that is paid on Steam? Obvious fake.

Use the itch app sandbox mode. Or create your own sandbox mode (use the internet to find out how. It involves creating a new user on windows that has a password and starting the not yet trusted app as this different user. This way at least most of your stuff should be safe-ish.)

One method of detection avoidance is to not have the malware in the downloadabe, but prompt the user to download additional stuff.  So be very suspicous, if you have to download other things. 

While some legit games do provoke a warning message from antivirus, guess what a scammer would tell you about that message. Right. Never trust an unknown person on the internet that tells you to shut off your protection. Triple check, why the message appears. On hopefully rare occasions even legit devs could have their development computer hacked and they unknowingly uploaded malware.

There are many red flags and some green flags for games. I shall not talk about them in detail, lest the scammers upgrade their schemes. But if you regularly browse new games, you will notice patterns. Be careful. They do also appear in new&popular. And in popular if you select tags with few hundred games.

But the best green flag is a game that is alive. Not old and undeleted, not having a dozen fake ratings, not being posted on an old hacked account that still has followers and even payment possible, not having several games posted in a few days, not having links to patreon and twitter, but alive in the sense of having an active community and surroundings. 

---

For any admin reading this. I collect them in a private collection. Accounts get hacked right and left. Please do something, anything to protect the users of this site. Whatever you are doing now is not working good enough.

https://itch.io/c/3438002/spammers-reported

I've noticed some confusion around taxes, fees, and earnings on Itch.io, so I wanted to share some insights. If you're new to the platform or haven't requested a payment yet, here's what you need to know:

Reference Value:  The initial value you see (before requesting a payment) is just a reference. It includes a 30% tax withholding.

First Payment Request: Once you request your first payment and your data is validated, the system calculates the actual taxes. You'll receive a complete sales report.

Deductions

• Itch Fee: Itch.io deducts 10% from your earnings by default.
• Payment Method Commissions: Additional fees may apply depending on your chosen payment method. 
• Applicable Taxes: Keep in mind any relevant taxes based on your location.

Remember, if you encounter any account-related issues, it's best to reach out to Itch.io's support team directly. They're here to assist you!

I have no idea what is a good way to do it. I created around 1000+ posts on twitter and tons of posts on reddit and some other forums.

If anyone has some tip please give it, I am trying to make some money with a quality game, but maybe the way I present it is bad I have no idea...

• HUD and interface 
• Tilesets topdown or Sideview
•  Characters (player, enemies, NPC...)
• Item Icons (food, weapons...)

Tell me your thoughts!! ❤️❤️

You can set what engines and tools you used in project by following the next steps: "Edit game -> Metadata -> Engines & tools"

If your game is open-source you also can set it in metadata by following the next steps: "Edit game -> Metadata -> Release info -> License for code". Also you can add the link to the source code: "Edit game -> Metadata -> External links"

If your are making assets under open-source license you can add license metadata too: "Edit game -> Metadata -> Release info -> License for assets"

The metadata will be visible on your game page if you will click on "More info". Also it will slightly increase your audience because your project will appear on pages of the selected license and used tools and engines.

Additional notice about licenses. Not all people know about metadata so I highly recommend you to write the name of the license somewhere in the description too

P.S If you think that it was useful for you, you can leave a comment here to support my proposal about making metadata more visible for those who are interested in it https://itch.io/t/2919128/metadata-encouragement#post-7952450

MY GAME=https://demiryapim.itch.io/extinction-zombie-nvasion-1

I want to replace the game title by an image, but I don't know how to do that. I want something similar to Shovel Adventure game

When I save changes I get the game title, and I can't save changes if that field is empty.

Any help?

Thanks!

Syntax should be displayed when searching.

Right now when searching "LFG" I only find some few posts that occasionally use that word in the post.

Syntax could be something like  "#LFG"  or "tag:LFG" or "tag=LFG" etc.

Thank you!

Here are a few steps to become a successful Itch.io game developer:

1. Always use nice covers and screenshots - If your game is paid I recommend you to add a view introducing the game or a demo or even nice screenshots, since people won't buy it until they know its worth it.

2. Where to get support? - I had a lot of questions when I started Itch.io but no one to solve them, then I found out the Itch.io support email, If you have any questions like me you can comment down or mail Itch.io directly! Mail - support@itch.io

3. How do I get views? - Many new users don't get many views to their projects and they start advertising but advertising is wrong you should add your game in more jams so more people can check it out and maybe even win some prizes! Even my games got 500 views in 5 days since I added them in jams.

Hi if you liked this post, you can also check out more posts by me and even check out my profile!

Example:

<details>

<summary>Game Walkthrough</summary>

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

</details>

Many people report a post made by the creator here in the community forum instead. That doesn't help, because those reports are usually seen by community moderators, and we don't have any power over project pages. Reporting the project page directly reaches our admins, so they can look into it. Hope this clears things up.

1. go to your dashboard

2. click widget on your game (you can also click the embed link at the bottom of a game page)

3. tweak the settings on the widget page (you will only be able to do this if it is your game page)

4. copy the html code below (don't worry if you don't understand html)

5. paste it where you want it to be (like your website, an itch.io comment

e.g. here is a popular game:

Hello, I'm Talha!

I can't see my published assets in the game assets section, even though I have filtered correctly. But there are beings that are constantly appearing at the top. Why aren't my assets showing up? And how do I make them visible and popular? Is there a secret to popularizing assets? how should i do? Any ideas and help are appreciated!

Thank you !

That being said, I am wanting to ask what people more familiar with game dev look for in such assets. While I have been making things on a 16x16 pixel scale to challenge myself and get familiar with the medium, I am wondering if 32x32 is preferred by most devs. Also, while creating tile sheets, I am not sure if creating a character to accompany the tile sheet is also a must.

I understand this question is mostly subjective, but any suggestions (As well as other advice for a new creative here) would be much appreciated!

i have 13 game on itch, in most of the games i have a lot of views but a really small number of plays and downloads, what can i do to make people actually play the game?

I'm about to publish a demo for my first game. But I'm stuck on the username I should use here on itch and other places. I see some people using their real names, especially for tabletop RPGs, but is it a good thing?

What problems could I have if I use my real name? Should I use an alias?

Thanks

Most of my others draw in maybe a couple dozen people.

I think I might make a prize (again, like last time) for the winner (or winners if it’s too close to call): Maybe winners split a $30 prize and get a free web hosting account (that went okay last time)?

But how do I get a big number of contestants to enter? Should I make it a month-long jam or a three-day weekend jam? Even with my previous experiments, I haven’t found out any info on stuff like that, except that retro games usually do better as jams.

I'd say the first part would be effort. Whenever you share your game, simply recording yourself playing quickly, with no, or, in-game music, sometimes it's fine but, it's really lazy. I know that it's difficult to create high effort videos and visuals, and most definitely time consuming but, let me offer some tips. I won't state the obvious, like posting to a range or social media accounts, but here goes:

- Instead of simply sharing a screenshot to social media, include a short but sweet message about the challenges you overcame in this update, and perhaps entice readers with some kind of mystery behind the update.
- Create puzzles that can be solved just by looking at the image, pokemon's rock push challenges are fun, and pretty easy! These can also be shown on one screen.
- When posting videos, ensure the start of the video isn't the same every single time, like an intro or the title screen, if you're using in-game music, make sure you at least mix it up once in a while. Perhaps add a manual BGM controller so you can choose which songs plays.
- Ensure videos are quick and interactive, don't leave long waiting periods on the video, especially at the beginning, You can quickly edit these out, or use debug tools to skip/speed them up. Modern day social media has reduced the common persons attention span so, you want to be sure your videos go from one thing to the other quickly, but, not too quickly.

People will see the effort that you're putting in and respect it, to a certain extent. If your content, videos, and screenshots scream "amateur indie dev", it will be much more difficult for people to become excited about your game.

I tried to go a little outside the box for this one, if anyone has ideas like these please feel free to share them in the comments below! Additionally, if anyone has sources available with more great tips for marketing games, or even marketing in general, I'd love to give them a read~ Thanks again~

I was talking about it with a friend because of a game I released here, made with RPG Maker MV. I'm selling the source files to help me fund it's development, so there's no use if people can bypass it somehow.

Thanks!

Here is a tip for sellers still using Paypal payouts (it will only works with the "Collected by itch.io" option, that I also recommend).

In my case Payoneer charges:

• $3 per transaction from itch.io to Payoneer
• 2.0% of the volume when converting from $ to €
• $0 when transferring on a local bank account

whereas Paypal would charge:

• $0 per transaction from itch.io to Paypal
• 3.1% of the volume when converting from $ to €
• $0 when transferring on a local bank account

Pro-tip: use Payoneer payouts to earn 1.1% more. The overall experience is very similar.

You can then use the surplus of money to give it to itch.io!

THANKS itch.io for a once again fantastic feature.

More info: https://itch.io/t/654159/payoneer-now-available-for-all-accounts

can someone give me a tip in this subject

Late last month, I published an extensive write-up of my experiences with the first 10 months of selling Hive Time under a pay-what-you-want model on Itch and thought it might be useful to share here for other developers to consider and learn from. In it, I touch on budget, finding a default price point, marketing, and revenue.

The whole thing is about 13k words, so I'll link to it rather than posting in full here. You can find a version with interactive charts over on Cheese Talks, and you can also find it cross posted as a dev blog with static images if you'd prefer to read it here on itch.io.

I'm certain that it will all mean different things to different people, but the main takeaways that have been interesting to me are:

• I got significantly more downloads than I was expecting
• I got fewer payments than I was expecting, but in the context of a botched launch, a pandemic, a global recession, etc., I think it has still done pretty well even if that's not been enough to cover the time I spent making it
• Adding a in-game prompt (with a "don't show me this again" option) explaining why the game is pay-what-you-want and reminding players that they can support it had a positive impact on sales
• There's a correlation between press/non-press coverage framing the game as "pay-what-you-want" rather than "free-to-play" and purchases
• itch.io front page placement did have a positive impact on downloads, but did not directly correlate with an increase in sales

Enjoy!

Thanks so much!

Want to upload your game to itch.io, but those huge gray borders are haunting you? Here is my solution!

Fabulous Guide to PICO-8 on itch.io

On the guide you can also see a comparison between a standard upload and my fabulous guide upload on itch.io.

I hope it will help you in making your PICO-8 look cooler on your itch.io page.
The steps are very easy and well explained, let me know if there is something you don’t understand or other suggestions or whatever!

Itch does not seem to have support for localization when publishing (HTML5) games, so I simply wrote a Devlog https://tactic.itch.io/tic-tac-toe/devlog/175647/ristinolla-in-finnish

Is that any good way, to use Devlog for localization I mean?

I have now made over 30 sales of paid items and had over 160 other downloads of free content that I released... just over 200 downloads in all and thousands of views on my profile and pages.

Not one of the 200+ downloaders, paid or not, has rated anything. The most anyone has done is leave a brief comment, which incidentally has been a huge victory for that specific listing - it now comprises almost half my sales.

I know the statistical logic for ratings is that usually about 10% of people rate items they download or buy, and that the number is higher if they had a very strong positive or negative reaction to the item that was bought.

Here on itch.io that 10-20% range hasn't been the case at all and I am unsure why.

Is it just that the items are so cheap that they're impulse buy fodder and that maybe they then provoke a neutral (mildly satisfied) reaction, not a bad one, and thus people feel it is not worth bothering to rate for something they got cheaply and were modestly happy with but not elated by?

Or is this a case of statistically unusual and anomalous bad luck, or a more systemic issue with itch ratings not being prominent or encouraged on the itch platform? I have rated a few, like ten, other peoples' games in a positive manner (I like a lot of things, I am not super nitpicky, so my ratings tend toward 4-5 stars) and such, and according to itch's own data apparently almost nobody on itch.io has posted that many ratings. "Of people who have rated anything, 98% have rated fewer items than you". (Why?)

I have, on eBay, gotten hundreds of positive ratings, about 70% of buyers and sellers there rate me in a transaction. It is a cultural thing and it is kind of expected, and on Etsy... maybe 45% of buyers rate. Why is it so much less likely for anyone to rate items on itch.io?

Finally: are there any ethical strategies any of you use successfully to encourage reviews/ratings/comments?

I am not inclined to do things like pull in third parties (friends, family) to rate, or incentivize ratings with a bonus like a gift card, extra content, etc, as none of that is really ethical. I do have text on the pages encouraging reviews, ratings, comments, any sort of feedback and there is a little PDF readme actually in many of my asset packs which does the same.

Kind of wonder what else I can try that will actually get the ball rolling there... without impartial feedback on the asset pack pages, people are unable to fully assess quality of the content, and as a result I have had literally thousands of people passing through my pages and not buying anything, or buying (rarely) but not actually rating.

I am at a loss here. I have spent $60+ advertising this stuff in the last year, over 300,000 fine tuned banner ad impressions and 450 clicks just on one ad network alone, I have also been pretty actively and effectively pulling traffic in through Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram... my own websites... and the sales at current levels, don't manage to recoup that effort.

Any suggestions?

Note, I do have a few ideas I am brainstorming here... like making a free pack of 3d assets and/or seamless textures with another 3d object and seamless texture added free, for every rating posted on any (paid or free) asset pack. The more ratings accumulate on any asset pack, free or paid, the larger that additional freebie collection gets. I will commit two more hours of effort to adding that for every single bit of genuine feedback - rating, review, comment - posted on any of my itch.io product pages.

In other words, if people will review my work, it will result in some new stuff I am working on, being posted as freeware, rather than tacked onto existing paid packages. This seems sort of clever, in a way, as the incentive for public response is more free public releases, not tied directly to the person who posted the rating but made available simply for everybody. 

But is that a good route to pursue? Is it, to put simply, a good idea that is acceptable? Do any of you have a better one?

Maybe in lieu of wasting more time, money advertising, I can donate a dollar to some widely respected charitable cause, for each review or star rating posted for the rest of 2020 on any page of mine, up to maybe $20/month? 

Yeah, I am serious. I am willing to try a lot of things, would be prepared to incentivize responses, but obviously not in a way that is directly tied to or paying off, on any direct individual or personal level, the specific person who is doing the rating.

Y'know?

If any of these, or any other idea, seem to be viable or acceptable, or maybe not, let me know. I am just trying to find something that works.

Because itch's review system right now is less than ideal. It doesn't get used by anybody much, and that means most games and assets on itch, do not have posted public feedback of any kind. That is bad for players/buyers who cannot assess quality of things they see on itch, and it is bad also for developers of the more high quality and high value content, who likewise cannot convincingly demonstrate the value of their work with users' responses to it.

What do you all think about this?

Matthew L. Hornbostel, https://matthornb.itch.io

When the time comes that I will give an initial release, I want to gather at least some audience that will sure to play the game and give some feedback. The problem is that not much wants to even look of the content and I do not have the slightest clue of how to improve the content or to even find where the right audience is? I even tried posting on youtube, twitter, itch.io and tigsource.

I was hoping if you could give ideas on how to improve the content or how to show my content to others.

Thanks you for your feedback.

I'm new on itch.io.

How do i make a good number of followers? and what are the good forums where i could take active part in, in order to grow my itch.io followers?

We've had a number of Youtube/ Twitch plays of our two VN games, and they've been really useful. Not so much in terms of publicity, but in seeing how different people approach the problems in our games and seeing what paths they take. We've also met some cool people from very different background - and it's good for the players to have a walkthrough if your game's sadistically difficult- so... encouraging Youtubers/ Twitchers has many benefits for players and devs.

So, I'd like to throw this open to the floor and see if anyone has any good ideas. In Gamejolt, they have a specific section of the forum for Let's-Plays, the downside of this is that people often spam a bunch of topics without reading them, and the whole thing has become a bit messy- with long dead threads at the top. Some kind of database might be an idea... but this doesn't tend to promote discussion which is pretty essential. Maybe encouraging Let's-Players to promote their channels? maybe some kind of Craigslist/ Lonely Hearts system? I dunno... XD