I'm in the same line as thinking, I really do hate that you are not getting what you deserve for your time and effort, but it does sound like you're going to squeeze your supporters. If only you could work some form of DRM into it.
Viewing post in Goodbye Eternity's future comments
DRM by and large is a cancerous technology. There's other forms of protection that work as well with less penalties for the consumer. The primary and oldest one being cd keys, or some other version of encrypted verification. Having people dedicated to hunting down locations where the piracy occurs and trying to stop it there is also effective.
For reference the penalties on drm are...
increased game size
increased resource use during operation
Potential conflicts with game code
Requires an internet connection or it literally does not work
And depending on which you go for, some are literal Spyware, the only distinction being how invasive is it?
Realistically, DRM is only cancerous to those who attempt to bypass it.
"Literal Spyware" It's literally checking to see if you paid for the game.
"Increased game size" Megabytes at most.
"Potential conflicts with game code" I agree with this, point well made.
"Internet connection" Had to be downloaded somehow, maybe activate on first use.
CD keys, would require a database that kept track of which keys have been used and how often, as we know, CD keys were just downloaded with the software, it's the least secure and is not a deterrent.
As @FadedOfTBTP mentioned, account integration would be ideal, perhaps if the itch.io app was to integrate this functionality.
account integration is not drm, the most common drm used tend to include stuff like keyloggers, root access or constantly sending your data to a server (hence the internet connection) also I was being general not specific to this circumstance or to any single DRM, just the common ones.
It's cancerous to almost every game that includes it, not "those that try to bypass" because the common bypass methods are either to spoof it so it is sending the data nowhere, collecting false data or just straight remove it. And most drm gets cracked within the first week. much difficulty "only for those who try to bypass it" when the only one that actually end up dealing with it are those that paid for it.
As to your comment on cd keys either that or an algorithmic verification system which can be cracked easy too. Didn't say it was "good" I said it's about as useful as the rest and far less invasive. Right now we don't have a solution to idiots doing bad things, the best we can hope for is balancing "make it harder to do bad things" and "don't punish people doing right things"