itch.io

We are also trying to make money from our games. The thing is, you have to have something that is worth paying for before you ask for money. There are thousands of new projects every day. You need to make yours stand out and for people to want to play it. Small indie/solo devs are not going to make a living on their demo projects. You need to take part in jams, and be part of the communities to build a following, which is going to take time and effort. We switched to full time game dev almost a year ago now, and have made almost no money. The game we have in this jam is the one we hope will do well enough to finally make some money, and we've been working on it since last July. Sure, smaller games can be made faster, but for us this is where our creativity lead us and where we feel we can do a game worth playing. You could try to make simpler games. Perhaps make games for ad based sites. The point I'm trying to make is to set reasonable expectations. You are a grain of sand in the desert. You need to draw people in and build community. Don't just spam your game to every jam. Many jams are exclusive and you are only supposed to make a game for them. If you dump your game in jams that it really does not qualify for, or that it clearly is not following the rules of, then you are going to get a bad rep that could follow you for a long time.  There are a lot more make a new game during it jams, than continue your game jams. You may want to do several new game jams to experiment with ideas and get feedback from the larger communities in some of those. Picking one or two jams that happen regularly, such as monthly, and doing several of them, while being active, can be a good way to get recognition. Also keep in mind that Itch has its own algorithms for sorting, and the more active you are (karma) the more they show your game in jams.

We have put a lot of work into our games, and into trying to build a following. We found the best way to get feedback and plays in jams was to play, rate, and comment on as many games as we could. Early on our game was only rated by less than half of the ones we rated, and fewer left comments. It has not been huge, but we have slowly gotten more recognition and people from earlier jams have come back and played our submissions to later ones. We were often told in jams that we left good feedback, and that inspired us to consider if this was a skill we could use to help our games. We started this jam because we wanted to build a larger community of like-minded devs who want to continue working on a project, and get feedback, rather than just ratings. This does take time out of our dev work, but we see it as paying for itself from the valuable feedback we can get. There may only be 1 or 2 good comments sometimes, but even 1 good comment could be just the thing to make the game better in some way. It also builds more recognition. I am certainly not suggesting you try to start a jam. I am pointing out that you may need to expand the effort you are putting into promoting your game into areas you had not considered. Being more active in jams is the first step. Play, rate, and comment on games. Try to leave good feedback. It doesn't have to be a lot, but try to make it meaningful. Be sure that your comment is something that makes it clear you have played the game. I've seen people in the bigger jams who go around and leave generic comments on every game without actually playing them, just to get other people to play their games. Commenting on a specific mechanic of the game will go a long way to reassuring people you played their game and they should at least take a look at yours.

 In the end, there is no easy answer. We ourselves are still working to try to make a living from game dev. These days it is easy for anyone to make a game and publish it, but that means that you are out there in a sea of many new entries, and many are very low effort or outright scams. You need to draw people in, and also quickly show them that you are a legit game dev making something worth playing. My comments on how your game page looks are because it presents as a low effort money grab that many will dismiss. If they do play the game, and see that it is in such an early state, the paid content will just reaffirm that view. I'm sorry, but game dev is not easy money. It often takes a year or more to start making money, unless you get really lucky (or know the right people who can promote your games). Most indie devs don't ever make much money. I don't know your situation, so all I can do is give general advice based on my experiences and what others have said about theirs. You can try to build up your own brand/studio and make money selling your game. You can also try to create games that show off your skills and then use those as a portfolio to show when applying for a job at an existing studio. If you want to make money as a game dev, trying to get a job at a studio is generally the best way to start for most people. The experience you gain there can help you to reach the point where you might someday be ready to go off on your own. If you just want some spending money on the side and treat it as a hobby, then make games you think are fun. Get them to a state that is worth paying for, and then put a small price on them. If you want to go the freemium route, you need to make sure the game is fun and has enough replay value for someone to feel it is worth spending money on.