Post by Zebeth in 🎃 Full Game FREE Until Nov 6 — Claim It Forever! comments

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Hi. Despite what you might expect making the game free like this, the full game will only be downloadable during the sale (even for people who have claimed it for free). I can tell because if I hit download at the top of the game page after claiming, only the demo is available to download there.

Itch.io is strange with how it works when there's a free sale and there's also a demo available. It's not claim an be available to download forever like it is on Steam.

When there's a demo on the same game page as the full game (or any free files as far as I can tell), then when the game is "claimed" for free, as soon as the sale ends only the demo/free files can be downloaded. Even though it was "claimed."

The way to know what's going to be available to download after the sale ends, is to try downloading from the very top of the game page after claiming. Only what shows up when hitting "download" there is permanently "claimed" past the end of the free sale.

It's pretty dumb and confusing. And it must have made a ton of devs think they're giving something away permanently when really they're not.

MadeByQwerty52 days ago

Thanks for the info, I didn’t know itch worked like that.
I really want people who claim the game during the free period to actually keep it.

Do you know if there’s a way to avoid this?
Like a trick or setting to make the full game stay downloadable after the sale?

Thanks again for the warning!

Zebeth52 days ago(+1)

You could try contacting Itch and see if there's something you can do or some setting they can change. I don't really know if something can be done just by changing some setting or not.

On the other hand, I would think that removing the demo from the page and moving it to it's own separate demo-only page might work.

I'll be honest and say I don't know for sure because I haven't seen a dev try it. And it is kind of dumb to have to put a demo on a separate page and link to it from the full game page. But I would be curious to know if that makes the full game permanently claimable or not.

I think it would work however, and I'll explain why in two ways. Basically, it appears that what specifically blocks something being permanently claimable is having no minimum price for downloading one or more files. If there are no free files on the page, you can claim the full game permanently during a free sale, in every case I can recall.

The more complicated way of explaining is that "claiming" something on Itch seems to work in tiers. You only get permanent access to the lowest price tier on the game page, when claiming during a free sale.

For example, if there's only one price tier (no free files) claiming gives the full game permanently.

If there's two price tiers (tier 1: free demo or other free files, tier 2: paid game). Then claiming gives temporary download access to tier 2, which only lasts as long as the sale.

If there's two paid tiers (tier 1: full/normal game, tier 2: higher price point to pay for extras or dlc, etc). Then claiming should give permanent ability to download tier 1. Claiming would probably also give temporary access to tier 2 for the duration of the sale too, but that's much more rare so I don't know for sure. I strongly suspect that's how it would work though.

So in short, it's the lowest price tier, and only the lowest price tier which becomes permanently downloadable when claimed. if the lowest tier on the game page is free, there's no permanent access to anything paid because that's a separate tier, which is above the lowest tier.

I hope that made things more clear.

Itch should REALLY have this in their documentation somewhere easy for devs to find. It's unintuitive because it's not like other stores, and most devs and most itch users have no idea that it works like that.

MadeByQwerty52 days ago

Thanks so much for taking the time to explain all of this, your message was incredibly helpful. Your explanation made everything clear.

To make sure that people can permanently keep the game when they claim it, I’ve removed the demo from the page for the entire duration of the free promo. The demo will be back once the promo is over.

Just to confirm: if the full game is the only file available during the promo, that should solve the problem and make it permanently claimable, right?

Thanks again, I really appreciate your help.

IrisNebula52 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

That unfortunately didn’t work as intended. I claimed the game just now, after you made the change. I was able to download from the game page, but my claim page has no files at all with the message “Nothing is available for download yet.”

I suppose removing the demo files didn’t remove the free tier, so that’s what I got, and it’s just empty. I don’t know if that can be removed separately, I wasn’t even aware of this issue until I read this thread.

Also, I’m not a huge fan of platformers, I may try the game later, but I’m a huge fan of passionate devs that love what they make and it’s obvious this is the case here and wanted to say that it shows, even from the game description :)

MadeByQwerty52 days ago

Thanks for letting me know, and thanks for the kind words!

I’ve just changed the way I’m offering the game during the promo:
I set the base price of the full game to €2.00 and hid the demo version completely.
So right now, every file on the page should be considered part of that €2.00 tier, which should finally fix the issue with empty claims.

Let me know if this work for you.

Zebeth51 days ago(+1)

The full game does show up now for the claimed download button at the top of the game page.

I do suspect that if the demo is put back on the page after the sale ends, then the claimed download will revert to being the demo again (because of how Itch price tiers work). So that's something to keep an eye on just in case.

I'm bookmarking this page to show other devs when they don't understand how free claiming works on Itch. Should make it easier for people to understand in the future.

MadeByQwerty51 days ago

Thanks a lot for checking and confirming that the full game now shows up correctly.

And yes, good point, I’ll keep an eye on it when the sale ends.

Thanks for bookmarking the page and using it as an example. If it can help other devs understand how free claiming works, that’s awesome.

Really appreciate your help and the heads-up!

Zebeth51 days ago (3 edits) (+1)

I came across something I wasn't expecting. A free sale that has a demo yet somehow claiming gives the full version.

It's on sale for about another day https://coperun.itch.io/pixiffy

I don't know if claiming works there because there's two sets of files (Windows and Mac full versions + demos for both OSes), or what the reason is. From what I've seen on Itch I'm surprised it works.

I'm mentioning it in case you wanted to ask the dev how he set up that page so that claiming gives the full version. Maybe something he did there is the key to not having to do silly stuff like removing the demo during a free sale.

Edit: Hmm. There's a separate download button for each demo on that page, other than the download button for the full versions.

I don't remember if there was a separate download button for the demo of Some Little Adventures or not before the demo was hidden. If there wasn't a separate download button for the SLA demo, maybe that has something to do with it.

MadeByQwerty51 days ago

Thanks a lot for checking this and for keeping me updated, I really appreciate the time you're putting into investigating this !

I’ll go take a look at that page myself and see how it’s set up.

I’ll definitely reach out to the dev and ask how they did it.

Thanks again for sharing this, it helps a ton !

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ChillHeartsYou52 days ago(+1)

Also, fyi, I paid some money toward it, and it looks like I will have the same issue. In the itch app, it only gives me the options for the demo or the web version

MadeByQwerty52 days ago

Hi!
Thank you so much for your support, your donation genuinely made my day !

I’m really sorry about this issue.
To make sure you can access the full game without any problem, here’s a download key:

https://madebyqwerty.itch.io/some-little-adventures/download/L2f7D3W5qEGiBmrqHTq...

When you’ve claimed it, could you please just reply to let me know?
Thanks again! Your support truly motivates me to keep creating.

ChillHeartsYou52 days ago(+1)

Good news, seems linking that worked and now the full version shows up for me in the app. Thank you and hope you keep making games!

MadeByQwerty52 days ago

Thanks a lot ! And yes, i will ! Even if i dont post anything in few month (or even years i dont know), it's a passion for me to create little arcade worlds :D