itch.io is a videogame selling site like STEAM or GOG, but with no DRMs, no approval process and customizable site share (you can set it from 0% to 30%); moreover, itch.io allows you to sell also Physical Games (no printing/manifacturing services, better use MPC/CJP or similars for this), Books, Comics, Albums and Sountracks and Everything Else (marked as Other on projects’ setting page) and supports embedding of html5 and WebUnity videogames, so you can let people play your game in browser without downloading it.
You can also link your project to its equivalent on STEAM and to your PATREON page so, whenever someone buys or subscribes, they will immediately get an access key to your content.
Be aware, apart few exceptions, itch.io is mainly a community of indie developers with a massive rate of new projects’ submissions, thanks also to their Game Jams program, which challenges devs to create more and more: emerging from the mass may be very hard.
PROs
- PayPal accepted
- custom pricing: you set how much you want to earn (minimum $1 – 0% to 100% site share)
- Community indexing of your store and works
- low payout threshold: $5
- YouTube & Vimeo embedding option
- DropBox upload integration
- html editor for text areas
- html widget (one for each published project) for custom site integration
- PATREON integration
- Kickstarter integration
- IndieGoGo integration
- html5/WebUnity browser player
- integration with other popular digital e-commerces: STEAM, WINDOWS store, APP store, GOOGLE store
- chance to set different price tiers on each product
- chance to link files from external sites
- buyers mail list for each product
- works may be selected for onsite promotion
CONs
- tags limit: 10 per project
- slow responding support
- slow payment and payout processing: 7 to 12 days each
- file size limit: 1Gb
- files limit per project: ~240 items
- missing store category: Video
- ambiguous store category: Physical Games (site does not offer printing services)
TIPs
- to raise your projects’ ranking you must get sales (highest boost), downloads and views (lowest boost)
- the close to the top of the category you get the more chance you have to make good sales
- providing a free Demo enhances projects’ visibility and it helps growing downloads