Hey. 

I have a new game nearing a testing release, and I'd like to starting building a community for it without giving it away for free, or paying fees on either MailChimp or Steam (or making a discord). I was hoping for an option to make a landing page for a 'soon to be released' game that would be players can 'sign up to hear more' on, and use itch's email feature to kinda skirt this problem. However, it doesn't look like an option for this currently exists, which is sad! I'm thinking it might be possible to use rewards (free 'game' keys) to kind of make this work, but I'd rather not have the game on a separate page, and I'm concerned about accidentally making the game free with subsequent updates to the same page, since I'd need to carefully differentiate 'key holders' and actual owners.

Is there a better solution that exists for this? Am I missing something?

Preorders, maybe? It's not quite what you're asking.

I've been thinking more on this, and I think I've figured it out. See my page, 'Garden Witch' for an example. Basically, you create a free reward, with a name like 'sign up to hear about updates', and every player that claims it is now available to be emailed, in the category named after your reward. Then, once the final game is out, you can still 'gate' the paid content by ensuring that the uploaded files have a pricing access requirement.

Still, it's a bit clumsy. itchio forces some messages like 'exclusive content', etc, that just don't apply in this case, and it's a tad misleading. Hopefully this could be fixed with css customization? Either way, it's a little complicated for an outsider to fix.

Haha! Yes, it can be easily hidden with customized CSS. I'm pretty happy, though I do still wish that you could change the wording of the button, from the rather awkward 'claim access'.

Here's what it looked like before (outlined in red

And here's what it looks like now!

If someone googles, trying to do this too, and isn't capable with css, here's the style:

.reward_summary{
display:none;
}
.rewards h2{
display:none;
}

-E @ Fractured Mind

So, I've come across yet another tradeoff here that complicates things. It seems rewards aren't shown if you don't have something available to download. I can see how that could make sense, but it unfortunately kinda ruins the look of a 'preview' page. So my solution was to upload a 'junk' nothing file, just so there's something available to download. (Don't make this anything bad, because determined individuals will still be able to download it), which unlocks the reward option, but now you have a new problem.

Now your page is gonna look very silly, because of all the information listed here.. only the 'sign up to my mailing list' box is something we want our users to see. Also, there's the quantity left showing, which is very awkward for the purposes of an email list. I took this opportunity to clean up and expand my previous CSS, so now this is the result, much closer to how I want it to look without breaking itchio page layout.

There is, unfortunately, some tradeoffs. Most notably, someone interacting with your store page another way, such as through a widget, or the itch app, don't require a visible 'download' button so can download whatever you have public that's interactable, and when someone attempted to 'sign up', itch brings them directly to a download page of whatever is still public. For simplicity, maybe a PR Kit would go nicely here. I also had to remove the 'more information' dialog, though someone more experienced could certainly bring it back. The result is a as close to stock itchio page, that hides any irrelevant information and only allows you to sign up for a mailing list if you are logged in to itch.

It's a really, really clumsy method of doing this, and I'm certain this will cause more than a few upset 'customers' wondering where the game is. But technically, this functions. I don't see being able to go much further into making a good experience without some sort of semi malicious link hijacker or something, so I think actually getting in contact with Leafo / support is the best way to continue..

Anyway, if this still seems worth it somehow, here's the code:

.reward_summary,.remaining_count,.buy_row,.more_information_toggle{
display:none;
}
.rewards h2{
display:none;
}
.inner_column h2{
display:none;
}
.uploads{
display:none;
}