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I'm new to Itch.io and am still unsure of what "Refinery" is.

A topic by dobydigital created Mar 03, 2017 Views: 888 Replies: 6
Viewing posts 1 to 2
(1 edit)

Is it something that's already built into my Itch.io experience? I keep seeing references to things like "limited playtesting", "distributing keys", and things like that. However, I already see options like this in the game management screen: "Restricted — Only authorized people can view the page", and also the "Distribute" where you can manage your keys. Is Refinery some umbrella term that encompases all of these features, or is there more to it that I'm missing?

It seems as though these features didn't exist at one time and are now just built into the system (eg new users take them for granted). I see Refinery as a new user and think there's more to what I'm currently seeing in my console -- like a separate game management process.

Thanks for the information.

(+3)

I know, I found it kind of confusing too at first. Refinery indeed is an umbrella term that describes all these features. (Itch support basically told me that its the inbuild features that are available to every one.) To me it looked like its a program you can specifically opt in as creator, given that there is a special page with "current and future games using refinery". But thats not really how it works it seems, it's just the toolset everyone has access to now.

Thanks for the clarification. I feel like the Itch support is pretty lacking to be honest. It almost feels like this plae is dead, or dying. At least they allow me to deliver patches and have a platform for distributing my game.

My experience has been the opposite. In my opinion this place is growing leaps and bounds.

Yeah it determinately feels like its growing. Support has been so so for me. I didn't get another response when inquiring in more detail about refinery, but there are some chaps who have been very for coming with helping me getting my stuff to work on the Itch app.Kind of a mixed back so far, but I'm helped where I realy need it.

You're pretty lucky -- I've posted three different posts, and also commented on an ongoing GitHub issue and have yet to hear back.

(+1)

It just varies where their focus is at. Some things get more attention than others. It's only a few people managing quite a lot, so I don't blame them for being a little slow.