Post by Dan Sanderson in What can we, as devs, do to help Itch.io expand?

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This might be controversial but what I love about itch.io is that the big fish aren’t here. You can release a game and with a bit of luck you appear on the home page as most popular. That will never happen on Steam.

I totally disagree about the homepage. I think it looks great and doesn’t subscribe to the notion that you need to have banners for the biggest AAA games pasted across the top of the page. The reason it might look amateur is the fact that it’s just a wallpaper of thumbnails generated by amateurs.

We’ve got to be careful here about what we actually want itch.io to be. If we want it to be steam but with less revenue cut then that’s fair enough but in my opinion the charm of itch.io is that it is purely a place for indies to thrive.

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EM_Grossman5 years ago

I tend to agree. The UX here is minimal to be inviting, deliberately less polished, and accessible as a place for teams with fewer resources to be on equal footing with (somewhat) larger properties.

I think the key is to figure out how itch can thrive off of small and mid-sized indie teams, who may have some kind of budget, but who mostly need to gain traction with new and daring projects.

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CaptainD5 years ago(+1)

Very true. What I'm hoping for is something very similar to what it is already, but with a bigger market share while avoiding the toxicity that can be found on Steam at times. I know, I'm not asking for much! :-) I certainly wouldn't want it to be mini-Steam.

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firecat5 years ago(+1)

I think you referring to marketing, since steam alway gets free marketing and never gives it to smaller indies. if i win the mega million, i'll spread the news of itch.io then it will become more popular.

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notNSANE5 years ago (1 edit)

The idea is that we get "side effects" from getting those big fish here. It's a matter of PR, since itch.io needs a mid-sized cultural shift and some change in the perception of the general public. Money talks in a lot of ways and the whole idea of itch.io is letting developers publish stuff AND earn money.

There's nothing wrong about having them here, itch.io is inclusive, not exclusive (like gog.com does, which is and AWFUL practice).

And finally, I was refering to individual profile for each game, not the front page.

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