I all the time get excited when an indie sport developer releases a put up
mortem. An in depth
writeup describing how their sport bought after launch, together with insights about
what did and didn’t work. I at present don’t have any video games on the market, however since
launching itch.io, the open indie sport market, I’ve
collected a number of information from a retailer’s perspective. Although I’m not one of many
bigger marketplaces (but), I nonetheless suppose it’s attention-grabbing to see how issues
develop and what drives purchases.

I’ve usually been very open about releasing
information about how the
website has been progressing. Sadly I haven’t been very constant so I made a decision to
spend a while studying R and write some scripts
to generate graphs for a few of my core metrics.

Overview

itch.io is an indie sport market. Any developer of a sport can add their
sport, design their sport’s web page, hyperlink a fee supplier, and begin promoting. (Or
they will add a free sport, extra particulars about that under.)

itch.io helps PayPal, Amazon Payments, and Stripe. These three fee
suppliers all assist a particular type of market API that enables itch.io to
facilitate a fee to a person’s account whereas optionally taking a
share of the transaction. itch.io at present takes no minimize of any
transaction as a (very lengthy) promotion. All cash acquired is distributed on to
the developer after the fee supplier takes their minimize.

This chart reveals how a lot has been paid to builders because the website’s launch.
The first few months had been fairly a drought. You may be asking what occurred to
bump the income between September and December of 2013. Since launching the
website I used to be actively constructing new options (like sport gross sales,
embeddable sport widgets, tiered pricing amongst others) however
they weren’t having a major affect. New content material was important. I bought my
first video games that folks had been truly considering shopping for. (Check out Paper
Sorcerer,
FJORDS, The 4th
Wall, and Another
Perspective) Likewise, this previous
month has some extra greater profile video games which resulted in one other enormous leap.

That doesn’t imply that including new options isn’t imporant. I’ve constructed a
repute as a website that consistently releases new
performance and that positively has helped in
constructing belief with the builders that use itch.io

I’m joyful to say that itch.io has helped builders earn over 100 thousand
{dollars} since launch, right here’s an cumulative chart of the income up till
August. I’m excited with the present progress and hope to stick with it as the location
expands.

Payment suppliers

As talked about above, itch.io makes use of three separate fee suppliers for all
transactions. The customers of the location should manually hyperlink every fee supplier
themselves, itch.io at present doesn’t gather any cash on behalf of the
sellers.

Only 7% of registered customers have linked a fee account. People who don’t
hyperlink fee accounts embrace people who want to distribute free video games with out
accepting donations, customers who’re shopping for video games, and people who have created an
account to undergo a sport jam.

Of the 7% of customers which have linked a fee account, 98% have linked to
PayPal, 5.5% to Amazon Payments, and 4.6% to Stripe. (These sum as much as greater than
100% as a result of a single consumer can hyperlink to a number of suppliers)

PayPal positively has the bottom barrier to entry, and probably the most important
consumer base, therefore the domination amongst sellers.

Of all registered customers solely 13% have uploaded a public sport. This suggests
that almost all of customers which have registered are extra considering enjoying
video games than distributing them. A pleasant indicator of the place future improvement time
ought to be spent as itch.io at present is primarily for sellers.

Additionally, combining the information from the earlier two graphs, about 50% of
those that have uploaded a sport have linked a fee supplier.

Lastly, of those that have each uploaded at the very least one sport and linked a fee
supplier, about 30% have had at the very least one buy. This considers any video games
that may settle for cash, together with these which are free.

Next we are able to break aside the income graph by the supplier. Naturally PayPal
dominates because of being utilized by 98% of sellers. A pleasant remark is that
Stripe has an honest proportion of gross sales regardless of solely being linked by 4.5% of
sellers.

We may also slice the income graph by the currencies used. itch.io helps
all of the currencies that the fee suppliers enable (view them
all).
USD is the dominating forex, and GBP has been exhibiting some latest progress.
When itch.io launched it solely supported USD (my native forex). This graph
means that about 20% of purchases are non-USD, so including extra
currencies was positively price it.

Payment sources

More not too long ago I gave sellers the flexibility to see the place their purchases are
coming from. I classify all buy as one in every of two prime stage varieties:
inside and exterior. Internal purchases are generaated from clicking via
from pages on itch.io, just like the browse video games web page or consumer profile
pages. External purchases are generated by clicking into an itch.io
sport web page from one other web site or from interacting with the embeddable sport
widget or the sport buy popup API.

84% of purchases are from exterior websites. Originally itch.io had no solution to
browse video games, the philosophy was that the location would offer the instruments however not
the distribution. I’ve since modified my thoughts and added loads of methods to
uncover video games on the location. I’m unsure what my goal
share for inside purchases ought to be however I’m actively attempting to extend
it with options just like the not too long ago launched sport advice
system.
To me, it’s an indicator of how nicely I’m doing in distributing video games. I get
very excited after I launch a brand new approach for individuals to find video games and it
ends in extra purchases which may have in any other case by no means occurred.

External purchases have two items of information related to them: the location that
led to itch.io, and the characteristic of itch.io that was used to finish the
buy. I graphed the distribution of the characteristic used above. 73% of consumers
land on an itch.io sport web page (instance),
adopted by 27% utilizing the embeddable widget
(instance). The popup API is utilized by only a few
customers and thus generates only a few purchases. It accomplishes the identical factor as
the widget so at present there’s no incentive to make use of it. (It was launched earlier than
the widget)

The Bundle purchases embrace purchases accomplished on the brand new sport bundles
characteristic. A
small share of customers are eligible to make use of bundles as they solely work for
single builders with a number of video games on the market. I’ll conclude from the information
that single developer bundles aren’t satisfactory and I’ll doubtless have a
multi-developer bundlesystem popping out quickly.

For exterior purchases I made a decision to categorise the referring websites into two
teams: private and promotional. Referrers labeled as private
embrace websites that the sport developer owns, like their homepage or a weblog
they’ve created. Promotional websites consists of gaming journalism websites and different
websites designed for many individuals to distribute their content material. This consists of
Twitter, Reddit, Rock Paper Shotgun, Kotaku, amongst others. 44% of exterior
purchases come from promotional websites.

Google generates essentially the most purchases. All Google site visitors is served via HTTPS so
I don’t have any extra referrer information than simply the area. Because exterior
purchases are solely counted when touchdown on a sport’s particular web page (and never a
generic browse web page) I’m concluding that it’s individuals trying to find a selected
sport by its title. Maybe they heard about it someplace or noticed it earlier than and
have lastly determined to purchase it. I wish to suppose I do a reasonably good job of search engine optimization
for all pages on itch.io, so it’s good to see that persons are discovering the video games
from Google. If you’ve got your sport uploaded to itch.io then you must
positively see it within the prime outcomes when trying to find its title. I’m curious
if lengthy tail searches find yourself matching the sport descriptions supplied by the
builders, however with out search question information I actually can’t inform.

Twitter generates the second most purchases (or at the very least the t.co brief hyperlinks) at 9%
of all exterior purchases. If you’re an indie sport developer you positively
ought to be on Twitter and speaking about your sport. (Especially since I promote
a ton of individuals’s video games on Twitter).

Reddit is in third with about 6% of exterior purchases. There are a number of
indie sport associated subreddits, so positively contemplate reddit when planning to
market your sport. I’ll have details about the place to do it under.

Rock Paper Shotgun is the primary video games
journalism website within the listing. They have generated a pleasant 5.5% of exterior
purchases. If you’re contacting sport journalists about your sport I might I
advocate RPS. They seem like some of the indie pleasant out of the
greater site visitors journalism websites.

Polygon is the second video games journalism website, shut
behind RPS. Danielle Riendeau
is one author that I’ve seen write about itch.io video games regularly not too long ago.

Both of those websites have writers with press accounts on itch.io so opting in
to the press
system
is one other viable method.

All the others are considerably lower than the highest 4. Seeing Steam there may be
attention-grabbing, the bulk are from itch.io hyperlinks posted to Greenlight pages. I
recommend utilizing the listing of web sites above as a place to begin for locating new
locations to market your video games.

Here I’ve graphed all purchases originating from Reddit distributed by
subreddit. I believe /r/Oculus is a slight
outlier right here. There had been a couple of common Oculus
video games that had been launched on itch.io.
Regardless, in the event you’ve bought an Oculus sport then you must contemplate a put up there.

/r/IndieGaming,
/r/GameOffers and
/r/gamedev are all nice generic subreddits
which have a number of indie sport exercise. My strategies are to take a look at
/r/indiegaming when releasing your sport, /r/gamedeals when your sport goes
on sale, and /r/gamedev once you need different builders to offer you suggestions
about your sport. Of course, try Reddit’s
guidelines and the foundations of the respective subreddit
when posting to make sure any put up you make contributes to the group. Also
try this attention-grabbing put up concerning the 10% guideline for self
promotion.

If your sport is paid solely then I positively advocate handing out obtain
keys
as nicely.

The different subreddits listed are additionally nice candidates for exploring when
advertising your sport. You’ll additionally discover a couple of sport particular subreddits, so
making a subreddit in your sport is one other viable possibility.

Let’s try the place inside purchases come from. The browse
pages make up 35% of all inside purchases. The browse
pages are uncurated and supplied a large number of aspects to filter video games. The
browse pages present the extra lively and common video games first. The reputation
algorithm is rolling, so if a sport will get placed on prime it received’t keep there without end
except it continues to get a number of consideration.

Profile pages are a stunning second, with about 30% share. itch.io’s profile
pages solely include primary customization, and aren’t actually promoted
anyplace. From what I can inform, these purchases are originating from individuals
linking to their profiles from exterior websites, like in tweets and Twitter bios.
This is definitly a very good indicator to me that I ought to spend a while updating
the profile web page customization choices.

The homepage is in third with about 20%. The homepage is a manually curated
assortment of video games that I put collectively. I attempt to decide content material that folks need
to see. There is just one homepage however many browse and profile pages. I believe
I’ve finished an honest job of choosing video games to this point, however there are a lot of issues I
need to attempt. One thought I’m enthusiastic about attempting is giving the homepage to a consumer
for a day to advertise a group of video games they suppose is cool.

The Download bar is an attention-grabbing one. I not too long ago added a grid of
really useful video games on the finish of the obtain move for free video games. It’s good
to see individuals changing to a purchase order after choosing up a sport without spending a dime. The
Bundes bar is for any bundles purchased from visiting the bundles browse
web page.

Payment varieties

itch.io has a handful of how to promote a sport along with simply offering a
single worth for some information. For downloadable video games you’ll be able to set costs on
particular person information and may run a
sale. If you’ve got a number of video games you’ll be able to
promote them collectively in a bundle. You can purchase a sport
as a
reward.
If your sport is free you’ll be able to nonetheless promote it, with a pay-what-you-want minimal
worth of 0. It’s kinda like donating besides that the particular person shopping for will get a
obtain key that offers entry to updates in the event that they sport goes paid later.
Additionally, for embedded internet video games, you’ll be able to add a “Support this game” button
which capabilities as a donation. Lastly, it’s doable to mix the 2 right into a single web page with internet and downloadable variations.

The majority of purchases are for downloadable information. Very few individuals use the
“Support this game” button for embedded internet video games. Additionally, presents are
not often used. I’m a little bit upset within the adoption of gifting, I would attempt
to push them extra to see if I can get some extra utilization out of them.

11% of all purchases are happen whereas a sport is on sale. I’ve
a sense that placing a sport on sale will increase the conversion fee simply
due to the perceived worth. I believe it could be good to experiment with
getting extra video games to be on sale at a given time.

I additionally graphed the distribution of the % off for all on sale purchases. The
majority of these purchases are when the sport is 50% off. Something attention-grabbing
about this graph although is the second highest quantity, 100%. 100% means the sport
is free and may be downloaded with out buying. To be thought-about on this
graph, although, a purchase order have to be accomplished. That means persons are nonetheless paying
although the sport is quickly free.

Payment quantities

Because all purchases on itch.io are pay-what-you-want above the minimal the
purchaser has to determine how a lot they need to pay.

I graphed a field plot of the additional cash given to paid video games when extra cash is
given. Here’s a fast information on methods to learn a field
plot.
The median of additional cash given is $2, that’s fairly good because the median
worth of all video games is $2 (a 100% improve). In one occasion an individual gave $100
additional when shopping for a sport, together with a couple of others who gave in that vary.

When a sport has a minimal worth of 0 it may be downloaded without spending a dime however the
downloader is given the choice to pay. The above is a field plot for the funds
given to free video games. It seems that when a sport is free persons are much more
beneficiant. The median fee is $3 and there was somebody who has paid
$200 for a free sport!

Game varieties

itch.io helps a variety of sport varieties, from downloadable to Unity, Flash,
Java and HTML.

We can see right here that almost all of video games, 53%, are downloadable, and relaxation are
embedded internet video games. This graph doesn’t account for internet video games which have
downloads obtainable, it simply considers the first sort of the sport. Unity and
Flash are the preferred internet varieties. Flash has been declining in utilization the previous
few years and it positively reveals. Lastly, hardly anybody makes use of Java on itch.io.

When importing a sport, the creator is given an possibility to decide on a style that
most closely fits their sport. Here is the distribution of genres. Action is most
common, adopted by different. I might say I in all probability want extra style decisions if
different is the second most chosen possibility.

Downloadable video games are may be assigned the platform(s) that they run on. Here
is the distribution of platform decisions. Windows video games are most frequent,
adopted by OSX after which Linux. No surprises right here. Windows dominates by a big
margin.

Expenses

I at present don’t cost something for itch.io, so I maintain shut watch on my
prices so I can plan for an acceptable time to start out gathering cash.
itch.io’s infrastructure is pretty primary: two VPSs, Cloudflare, and Google
Cloud Storage. Cloudflare is 20 {dollars} a month, every VPS is round 15 {dollars}
a month. ($60 a month whole) (Additionally two domains, and a few one time prices
for issues like shirts and a emblem)

The majority of price comes from storage and bandwidth on Google Cloud Storage.
Effectively, the extra individuals obtain issues the more cash I pay.

I graphed the month-to-month downloads. This doesn’t embrace internet video games, so there’s
truly fairly a bit extra bandwidth going to Flash, Unity, and HTML video games not
on this graph. Downloads have gone up about 100% from July to August.

Here are my month-to-month storage bills. I anticipated the rising price and constructed a
caching layer in entrance of free video games working on one for my VPSs utilizing Varnish
and their new streaming assist. I launched it about half approach into August, so
the financial savings subsequent month ought to be even higher. It has about 90% hit fee which
is superior! Considering the large improve in downloads but lower in month-to-month
price I’d say it was a very good funding of time.

Thanks

Thanks for testing itch.io and this put up, I’m glad you made it to the
backside. There are much more issues I need to graph with the information I’ve
collected so I hope to do extra posts like this. At the very least I’ll have
up to date variations of those graphs as time goes on. If you preferred this, otherwise you
need to assist itch.io, then purchase some video games: (or in case you have a number of $$ and
actually need to assist itch.io then you must get in
contact :))

Thanks

P.S. Follow me on Twitter, I put up a number of information and expertise: @moonscript