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Possible to leave an Itch title available for previous buyers to re-download and receive updates, but stop NEW downloaders?

A topic by Adams Immersive created Apr 01, 2023 Views: 236 Replies: 5
Viewing posts 1 to 2

Is it possible to make  a game unlisted—not coming up in searches or category browsing—AND/OR... if someone does have the link to it, they can't download it UNLESS they already bought it?

I don't want to shut down the game for existing users—I want them to easily get to the game from their Library the same as always. I want them to be able to re-download at will, and I intend to even offer them future updates... But I'm considering stopping NEW users from getting it.

(Setting an absurdly high price to discourage new purchases is not very user friendly—so I won't do that.)

Thanks in advance!

Admin(+1)

You want to use “Restricted” visibility mode. This will only allow people who own the page to access it.

Check the guide here for more information: https://itch.io/docs/creators/access-control#visibility-modes/using-restricted

Deleted 1 year ago
Moderator

Please contact support instead of spamming unrelated topics.

(1 edit)

Thanks—that sounds promising! Nice that it blocks search engines too. But that official guide make it sound like I'd need to send every past user a download key or a password? It doesn't mention pre=existing owners being an exception. (And it doesn't say whether pre=existing owners will still see it when browsing their Library.) Maybe the docs are just unclear? Don't want to find out the hard way!

(Ideally pre=existing owners owners would even see it when they do a search—I know that's how I always go to my games—but I doubt that's possible.)

Admin(+1)

When someone pays for a game the system grants them a download key automatically, which represents their ownership of the product.

Check this guide here https://itch.io/docs/creators/download-keys

Great resource! Thanks!

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