Is there reasons to even have this mechanism (still) available?
Devlogs are designed to create a public space to share updates about your game. The email feature is for a creator to directly contact the people who have purchased their work. Generally we advise creators use the tool for intentional communication and avoid unsolicited advertising or spammy behavior.
Even so, that mechanism is basically subscribing people to a mailing list without consent and no ability or even information beforehand. The information that is given is the setting about notifications of bought items, but this setting does not apply to these emails.
There should at least be a button on the individual purchase page to unsubscribe and information about this mail subscription on the purchase page and in the purchase confirmation mail. Since you do can unsubscribe from those lists, they are obviously not deemed important anyways.
On the purchase page is only the follow button. But no trace of a hint, that you are also subscribed to such a mailing list.
I would like to point out this portion of the faq.
https://itch.io/docs/creators/faq#can-share-the-information-itchio-collects-abou...
Do not automatically sign up people for mailing lists. If you'd like your buyers to sign up for your list then you must get explicit consent from them.
Yet itch does sign people up automatic, with no consent, no information.
While you do try to clarify...
The email address that itch.io provides, along with the email tool, are made available if you need to contact buyers with news related specifically to their transaction.
... I wonder what % of the mails OP received were of that nature. The way the complain was made, I dare say, near zero.
Maybe this is translation issue, but "need" implies urgent matters and not trying to share news. That should read "want" instead, if it were meant for the use case mentioned elsewhere in the faq, about informing about updates and suggesting to me, that this feature is obsolete mechanism of early itch days.
You should seriously overthink how this feature is implemented and communicated to buyers. Currently it comes out of the blue. OP did not even realize why those mails come.
Also, how would you re-subscribe to an unsubscribed mailing list?
... I wonder what % of the mails OP received were of that nature. The way the complain was made, I dare say, near zero.
The emails I was getting seemed to typically involve the creator of one of the games in the bundle sending out notifications that they had a new game / product available (something that was not in the bundle). I can’t speak to how often specific developers used this feature because I would always unsubscribe right away.
So basically using the mailing list instead of the follow mechanism, that would inform you about those projects if you indeed made the choice to follow them.
There is conflicting information in the faq about those lists.
In one section it is implied as such a promotion tool and devs are told they can only send one per day. In the other section it is said, the mail has to be specific to the transaction. It can't be both true!
If you have a page for sale, you can send an email to all your buyers via itch.io. Do so via the Interact tab, in the email section. You can include the buyer’s purchase URL at the bottom of any email you send to make sure they can easily access any files you may have updated.
Every email has an easy access unsubscribe link, avoid spamming your fans or you might lose access to them.
I see a contradition with that other statement in the other part of the faq.
The email address that itch.io provides, along with the email tool, are made available if you need to contact buyers with news related specifically to their transaction.
Great points! I didn’t even think that the “Follow” feature on the website already provides that method of seeing new content from a developer. It does seem that in general most developers that I have encountered using this feature are not using it as intended. Though I’m still not sure it’s necessary at all because you can subscribe to Feed updates from a specific game on the website already.
