Scratching That Itch (dot io)

[CrowStorm]

So you guys know what an early adopter is, right? I am the opposite of that. Itch apparently came out in 2013? What? So theoretically I could have been using this platform to try and monetize my game making for FOUR YEARS if I'd started back in 2015, the last time I was active in RM before returning last year?

But of course, DINOSAUR that I am, I am only really *getting* NOW that I (my games) simply HAVE to be on Itch and Steam. Streaming and Discord also seem like non-optional options. Absolutely HAVE to. With the single exception of a generous & lucrative contract from the folx at Silver Lynn games which I am gonna try really hard to actually earn/be worthy of, RPGmaker dot net generates 0 income. As a means of generating non-zero income from my game development career (although it's hard to imagine ever not making games for free, simply because there is so much music I want to use in games that I'll never be able to legally license), Itch seems like more or less the only way to go.

And right now the pressure to turn my game design skills into dollars of money is the highest it has ever been. Like, "it's either figure this **** out in the next couple months or get a real full time job and stop doing game dev forever" hard. I admire the people that can work 40 hours a week at work and >0 hours a week on RPG Maker, but I know I don't have it in me, personally. Depression, mostly. Highly limited spoons. You know the drill.

Now please tell me everything you know about marketing/advertising/selling/promoting/simply HOSTING games on Itch and especially everything you wish you had known going into it. Pretty pretty please. Same for Steam. I will be grateful and eventually, my bank account might be too. And besides the advancement of CrowStorm McStormCrow's career, also it would be good to have a general knowledge pool about this stuff. (Incidentally, if we already had a thread like that, sorry I missed it. But considering that what I know about itch is so literally and absolutely nothing beyond the fact it's a thing that exists what has games on it, it might be good for me to start at the beginning so to speak.)

 

[Oddball]

ask @Indinera

They have a hosting site were they sell rpg maker games and have a decent following

 

[Indinera]

Itch apparently came out in 2013?

My site came out in 2008.
If you have a classic RM game ("epic fantasy RPG style"), chances are you'll be much better off on it than itch.io, which tends to be pretty bad at monetizing RM games (or anything at all, truth be told...)
If you make a different type of games, then I'd focus on Steam which is still infinitely bigger than itch.
Speaking of that - itch is definitely not the "only way to go", but the way to go as last resort, instead. I'd even rank the likes of Gamersgate and Greenmangaming higher in importance.

As for general $$$ advice, there's been a topic about it in recent memory:
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...le-to-make-any-money-using-rpgmaker-mv.114045

 

[CuddleFox]

I prefer GameJolt to Itch.io personally. You can also monetize your games but there is a larger community and the interface is better.

 

[Dezue]

For us, itch always works out quite okay, but I wouldn't bet on it alone, to be honest.

I wish you good luck, also I'd try to give myself much more time if I were you - going from making free games to selling paid games in just a couple of months might be too big a mountain to climb.

Stay funky,
Dez

 

[Conflictx3]

Before I came back to the world of game making I spent the last few years as a music artist manager for my indie label, taking a break from that as I recently had a daughter and getting a handle on the whole father thing, which leaves a surprisingly strong motivation to work on my own RPG as I'm home alot and have so much creativity to let out, but I digress

In consumer terms I'll break it down like so:


Steam is your spotify/apple music, highly used, highly respected by consumer. However, the moment they let ANYBODY use their services to put up their creation it has become a cess pool where you cannot be seen because of the millions just like you releasing projects constantly, all of questionable quality, and the more you blend in with the crowd the less likely you'll earn any money and the more you'll develop a distaste for the service as a whole, atleast as a content creator.

Itchi.io is your soundcloud PRO/bandcamp in this little scenario. Yeah a good number of people know about it and $$ can be made on this service but as much as the mission statement tells you how much content creators have earned with this service, I bet you can't find 5 people in your life who go here looking for something to actually purchase as a CONSUMER.

What I'm mainly getting at, you can go with the industry standard or the super-simple user friendly black sheep in any medium but your creation isn't going to sell any better or worst if you release on 1 or the other or both, it boils down to your advertising skills.

I bet you if you spent $5000 to get your game on a bill board for 3-5 days at comicon as an itch.io exclusive you'll see more earnings/views for your game than if you spent $50 bucks on Google ads and released your game on all 10 monetization platforms while screaming to every forum to buu till you were blue in the face. If you see a ROI is completely based on your product and marketing ability at that point.