(At this point others have brought up Refinery, but my two cents are...)
Itch Refinery is a nice feature because it capitalizes on the kind of community that the site already seems to attract. It resonates with the kind of audience that made Kickstarter successful-- a mixture of people who want to discover something special before others, and those that are sincerely interested in the development process.
But, a lot of devs don't know about Refinery. I would suggest highlighting Refinery games on the itch homepage, both to foreground them to players and to remind Devs that it's a thing.
I don't think this is a complete thought, as it feels like it needs additional considerations... but my sense is that most teams running a Refinery release want some visibility/access to players, so this feels like a natural feature to amplify.