Let's face it, the web today is full of free stuff, so it doesn't matter how polished a game is, if it costs anything more than $0 people will simply look for the next thing. So I would find it really helpful if itch.io would have alternative options to monetise our hard work.
What are the chances the portal would incorporate some kind of ad-based revenue, preferably on itself, but alternatively by enabling 3rd-party ad snippets to be placed on game pages?
Thanks!
I think some tweaking of the existing game pages would hellp monetization. For example, I make more from the App Store and Steam versions of my game, so it might be helpful to have the badges displayed closer to the top of the game page (and currently there is just a Steam link but no badge). Also, if it was convenient to pay-what-you-want after playing a game, rather than only before downloading it, then maybe there would be more user contributions.
Since you mention it, one missing feature on itch.io is the ability to sell the web version of the game, like Outpan does. For example, all of my games have the exact same gameplay whether it's desktop or web, so it doesn't really make much sense to charge for the downloads while the full game is already free on the web. That's precisely why I'm only offering the desktop versions on itch.io while relying on Outpan for the web versions.
That's interesting, I didn't know about Outpan. I see they have in-app purchases, too. I try to have all my stuff on itch.io, but for my bowling game I have the web version only on gamejolt, partly because I also want to support gamejolt, and partly because on itch.io I feel the webplayer dominates the game page and it's harder to see that there are also downloads. I think GameJolt has or had an ad revenue share option, but I'm not sure the status of that, I don't check it very often and I haven't had a payout from there in ages.
