Hey guys, great site but what’s up with the prices here? Tried to buy a couple of games and at checkout the prices got increased by 20% (each time). That’s incredibly disappointing having the price switched on you at the last moment, never had it happened and it raises major red flags. You might want to charge 20% higher than Steam or GOG (not sure why though) but I’d recommend being upfront about it.

Cheers.

It may be that the country you're in requires Itch.io to add VAT or GST to the price which is why its increasing for you by 20%. 

Could be because I’m in Europe but I regularly buy from GOG (an European company) and from Steam (an American company) and this does not happen, what you see is what you pay. I’ve just bought Dwarf Fortress on Steam 20% cheaper than here (same displayed price only at checkout Itch.io increased the price by 20%). And Steam price already included 20% tax!!

I occasionally buy directly from the developer site (Factorio, RimWorld, KeeperRL, CogMind), HumbleBundle and Fanatical and this does not happen either, it’s definitely something weird with Itch.io, they other double charge for tax or their prices are 20% higher.

My feedback is that despite the attractiveness of the site, offering higher prices than everybody else is a significant hurdle. One or two games, that you can’t find anywhere else, is fine but doing consistent / holidays shopping here is unfortunately out of the question.

Steam shows you the price with VAT included, normally in the currency of your country.

Therefore, what you see is what you pay for.

Although this could vary, in the USA the price is usually reported without VAT, which is added at the time of payment. Even in physical stores, the price you see on the tag is different from the price you are charged at the checkout.

itch uses this second method, it adds the value of the VAT at the time of payment.

If I as a developer (the price is set by the developer, not the store, remember that) set a price of 10, I expect both stores to add VAT on top of that value of 10.

Steam should show you 12.

itch should show 10, but charge you 12 at checkout.

The final price should be the same.

The only thing that occurs to me is that the developer is using the price system by steam region, in other words, the price of the game in Europe is not 10, but 8 for the developer, that way, the final price for the consumer will be 10.

Indeed, the game is cheaper on steam, but it is because the developer would be agreeing to charge less in that region.