Oh, I see, I understand now.
Let me ask one more thing: if I change my game to a paid game and set the price to less than or equal to $10, for example, $8, will those who have previously purchased individual files for $10 be considered to have purchased the game and be able to download any files I upload in the future?
If your game is pay what you want and you have those misleadingly named individually priced files or not, has no bearing on this. Your project is in the purchased library of anyone giving you more than 0 or having it claimed in a special sale with claiming enabled. If you change the project minimum to 1 or 100 does not matter. Any normal projects files will be downloadable.
The "individual file pricing" mechanic causes a lot of misunderstandings. It is meant for bonus items. But that would be dlc. And dlc is something I expect to buy on top after I have bought the game and was happy.
Anyone paying for your project is at a payment level. Any files below that level are downloadable. And the problem arises, when you have more than 1 level of bonus content. Like 0, 5 and 10. Someone bought level 5 and wants level 10. It is not possible to raise the level! Buying the game again will give you 2 keys with level 5.
It gets more complicated with sales and even more complicated with bundles. I am not sure how those are handled. Oh, and bundles can have a bundle discount on top. I assumed that discounts would be factored in to the individually prices files somehow. But I am far from sure, it could also be a an unmutable check of factual payment, instead of sale-adjusted payment.
Oh, and the name alone gets people confused, hence your customer that asked about paying again. English is not my native language. While I boast to be fluent, even I would actually assume that something named individually priced files would indicate that those files are not attached to the project and would be sold individually, like the name says. Maybe what the feature does was changed, but the name stayed. Or there is some context I miss.
What I understand, but I can't officially confirm.
If someone donated money for your game while it's free, it doesn't matter how much it is, as long as it's above the minimum you selected, they are considered to have "bought" your game.
For example, if your minimum is 3, and someone donated 5, that person can't access individual files that cost 10, but Itch considers that person to have bought your game.
If you change from free to paid tomorrow, and remove the individual price per file, it doesn't matter what price you put on your game, that person is now considered to be the "owner" of the game and will be able to download the game.
If you create a second page, you can manually send keys to people who have only paid 10 or more.
Well, let the Itch faq confirm it for you ;-)
https://itch.io/docs/creators/pricing
If someone pays for a project, they are granted ownership to it. If they skip payment, they do not get ownership, and can only download the files. This is important to be aware of if you decide to convert your project to Paid at a later time.
Usually all this works fine, it is just something to remember when changinge prices. Upping the price of an individually priced file is a bad thing. Having lots of 2 $ donors and a 10 $ item, one might not want to give that item to the 2 $ donors, but maybe it is a work in progress and this is precisly what is intended to make it future proof and have one paid version and one free version of the game.
If someone has a problem with this, that person should view it this way: the early supporters got the game while it was on a sale. And in a way that is exactly what happened, if the page were converted that way. (To my understanding of the faq).
