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ScarletAmethyst18 days ago

I don't understand why game developers prefer Patreon over Itch.io for game distribution especially for people who don't like Patreon and don't want to deal with multiple accounts to play different games which is already bad enough when you need Steam, Epic, EA, Ubisoft, and Battle.net to play various PC games on top of GOG, Itch.io, and the Microsoft Store which are 8 different services, I'm sure no gamer wants to be forced to make a Patreon account just to download a game.

I can understand not using Steam because of the $100 fee per game which may not be practical for all projects, but it baffles me why people don't want to distribute on Itch.io despite that site having an option to set a price. What's wrong with Itch.io? Making Patreon mandatory ironically makes people less likely to support the game than if it was distributed here.

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Xentiox Games18 days ago

Here's the short answer:

Withdrawal availability. Patreon operates in more countries than Itch.io. We know this because someone donated to us via Itch.io - and we simply can’t withdraw that money. It’s just sitting there. And that’s the most critical issue.

Other reasons:

1) The platform’s popularity. A while back, we posted a banner asking for support via BuyMeACoffee.

Not a single donation. Zero. Meanwhile, Patreon is already performing quite well.

2) We’re not just game developers. We’re also artists. We have platforms on various websites where people already know what Patreon is (because they support other artists), but know nothing about Itch.io. By using Patreon, we can attract them as well - something we wouldn’t be able to do here. So yeah, gamers not our only target audience.

3) I’m not entirely sure about this one, but I think Patreon has lower fees?

4) Itch.io isn’t stable. More than once, I’ve wanted to share my game while chatting with people, but at that moment, Itch.io was down. And it was down for a long time - about 7 hours. As far as I know, that never happens with Patreon.

5) Itch.io imposes a shadow ban on games with 18+ content. As far as I know, unless you specifically search for our games by title, you won’t be able to find them.

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