I think itch should allow for donations. If you guys didn't have the open revenue sharing model I think it would be weird but as you do I think it would be okay. Especially if it's something simple like getting a badge on the forums and a role in the Discord server. Maybe there could even be a cool little tag on games that says the dev supports itch.io. Regardless though even if it doesn't bring in a lot of extra income it's better then nothing.
For cost saving measures I'd look into web torrent. You might be able to make downloads torrent based which would save a lot of bandwidth costs. You could also offer a subscription if someone doesn't want to use a torrent for a few dollars. Another cost saving measure would be to use hashes to prevent duplicated files being stored.
Random revenue ideas:
- itch.io based merch
- let people pay to use their own domain name you could do a whole thing with that where you effectively host indie dev's game sites and charge for it
- let devs advertise their game on the website
- let users buy rewards for games or unlock custom emojis for the comment/forum section on game pages (obviously you'll only get what the dev is sharing though)
- while this wouldn't bring in revenue immediately I think letting users split the revenue from sales (similar to a bundle but on a single page) could attract a lot people as it makes working with teams a lot easier
- I saw there was work for some api that allowed for in app purchases if that was finished it could help with revenue
- letting users donate directly to devs could help (something Patreon-esk I suppose)
- you could attract more people by promoting games that can only be found on the platform
- this one is crazy but the community could create something similar to Steam OS, that could attract more attention . You could then sell flash drives with it installed or raspberry pi's
Anyways I know that's a lot of random ideas but I hope you guys figure something out because I love itch.io and I don't think I would be even attempting game dev without it.
Also is there anyway I can help?