Hi all. I’ve been on itch.io for just a few months and have already got made some gross sales and have all my three paid listed gadgets within the high 10% of ‘fashionable’ part. Here’s my recommendation, damaged down, for indie devs:

1) Make a inventive, prime quality product and value it very moderately. I significantly like going for ‘below served’ niches and pushing pricing as little as I can justify in hopes it will enhance quantity of gross sales and ideally rankings/evaluations, enhance buyer satisfaction, phrase of mouth from blissful individuals, and so on. There are a variety of indie devs right here on Itch.IO, nearly as many devs as gamers, and manner fewer gadgets within the Game Assets part than in ‘Games’ so I centered on asset packs out of the gate – which you’ll be able to see right here, with intent to launch my video games ie. Miniature Multiverse, a bit later.

2) Promote like loopy on-line. Forums you are energetic on, social media, wherever you have got a presence and following, use it to hype your undertaking, and in case you adopted step 1, there will not be a variety of complaints about your mentioning it. I’m doing that now. And in case you’re considering, ‘promoting makes me uncomfortable’ then possibly you want to look again at step 1 once more, make your product higher for patrons, till you truly know your product is nice and an actual cut price for patrons, then hopefully it is possible for you to to really feel snug promoting.

3) Visuals promote. If you have got some cool imagery, put it entrance and middle, to seize consideration, and know animation may be very efficient too if you wish to go the GIF route.

4) Yes, let individuals donate. I’ve had below 20 precise gross sales [so far], however had a number of consumers purchase my gadgets and go away a tip. That occurs extra incessantly when the merchandise is free or filth low cost AND additionally good, you will discover individuals will admire the work you probably did – tons of upon tons of of hours of it – and so they’ll tip greater than you assume they are going to.

5) Upsell with a reduction – bundles are superior, individuals will typically click on on one merchandise, see it’s a part of a bundle, and find yourself selecting the bundle as a substitute even when it prices extra. Of course, they’re additionally getting 2 or extra merchandise, not one, however it does not actually matter to you because the ‘value per merchandise’ is negligible in a digital retailer!

6) Use the merchandise itself as promoting. Including a word throughout the downloadable, like a PDF readme or one thing, works nice. Add your web site and itch profile hyperlinks there, and embody low cost codes as a result of no one is a extra promising prospect for future gross sales than individuals who have already purchased one merchandise from you and have been pleasantly shocked by it.

7) Your itch.IO product pages ought to, when helpful, remind individuals that you’ve different gadgets on Itch.IO, or stuff in growth. And higher, you possibly can put up free stuff, little free samples or demos, that then seize site visitors and direct individuals to the total paid model as an choice. Many individuals will gripe at this, saying it’s a paywall, however I feel a small paywall is healthier for the gamers and for the sport high quality, than the inherently damaged mannequin of freemium nickel and diming. But if you’d like the total sport playable and not using a cost, do this: Put advertisements on the loading screens within the free model, advertisements on your different merchandise or different peoples’ advertisements, however not the type that aggressively and annoyingly interrupt play. (This is why a loading display banner between every degree, is smart) after which supply a paid premium model with advertisements eliminated and a few extras just like the soundtrack, an artbook/making of video, and so on. That manner it feels extra price it. Incidentally, I’m making an attempt this with ‘Panoramic Worlds’ about one 12 months from now. There’s an fascinating facet to that launch additionally insofar as the sport shouldn’t be finite, it’s going to proceed being expanded and the additions will occur quicker the extra typically individuals are shopping for the premium model.

8) Make your sport obtainable to as huge an viewers as attainable, on as many platforms as attainable. I like HTML5 because of this, however it is usually limiting in some ways and that is why I’m specializing in desktop methods Mac/Windows – for some graphics intensive video games. But if you can also make your sport run in HTML5 extra energy to you!