Hi itch.io community & team,
We are a small indie game studio using itch.io as our main publishing platform. We love the platform, but we are currently facing a major roadblock regarding team management and security.
The Problem
Currently, itch.io treats every account as a single user. There is no concept of an “Organization” or “Team Account.” For a studio, this creates a critical security and workflow issue:
- Password Sharing: To allow different team members (developers, artists, sound designers) to update a game page or upload a new build, we are forced to share the main studio account’s password.
- Lack of Isolation: Anyone with access to the account can see all financial data, edit other unrelated games, or potentially change account credentials.
- Rotating Teams: Our teams change frequently from one project to another. Managing access by changing the main password every time someone leaves or joins a specific project is unsustainable.
We do not want to transfer ownership of the games to individual accounts; we want the studio account to remain the sole owner of the intellectual property.
The Ideal Solution (The “GitHub” Model)
We need a modern collaboration system inspired by platforms like GitHub (Organizations/Collaborators) or Steamworks:
- Organization/Studio Accounts: A master account that legally owns the games, manages the global payouts, and acts as the public brand.
- Individual Collaborator Access: The ability to invite independent itch.io user accounts to a specific project without sharing the studio’s main credentials.
- Granular Permissions per Game: When adding a collaborator to a game, we should be able to toggle specific roles/permissions, such as:
- Viewer: Access to view dashboards and analytics only.
- Uploader: Can use Butler or the web UI to push new builds.
- Editor: Can modify the game page design, text, and metadata.
- Admin: Can manage other collaborators (but cannot access global studio billing/payouts).
Why this matters
As the indie scene grows, more collectives, game jam groups, and small studios are choosing itch.io. Implementing a clean team management system would drastically improve security, protect developer privacy, and make itch.io the ultimate professional tool for modern indie teams.
Thank you for reading and for everything you do for the indie community!