I'm pretty sure somebody already asked that but what is the difference between Itch's and GameJolt's goals?
These are the things I observed using both platforms.
1) As a developer working on a soon to be announced game I think itch.io has more potential for not just the developer but customers. In steam, game jolt you have to go outside of the site where you found the game to purchase merchandise and support the developer in other ways, while on other sites such as steam you have to look for it and might end up not really supporting the developer.
2) Also you have better access to the developer and can truly be heard. I believe that itch.io is a hit away from being number 2, it's just that many developers falsely believe that they will build a fanbase here and abandon itch.io and they will follow them on steam. Itch.io is a one stop shop, it just needs a hit be it a game, novel, comic book, merchandise, it just needs a loyal developer. Steam has become so big and oversaturated that they no longer try and are falling without even noticing.
And it's to late to change the course, with all of the money steam makes they should be publishing more steam original games, films you name it instead they are just hosting reskined or lazy made games. Itch.io will make it soon mark my words to the top.
Hmm, you neglected to mention what I personally think is the most important difference... GameJolt is 100% about games, Itchio lets you sell stuff like game assets, digital books, and even physical goods. So itchio basically is a marketplace for everything, so all kinds of indies can use it, not just indie game developers. AFAIK it's pretty much the first place that does this in the west, which is really cool~
(and yeah, I'm a bit biased here since I do game assets more than I do games nowadays... sorry about that :P)
Also, having used both: Itchio is much easier to use - it feels like every workflow and menu in GameJolt has a few extraneous steps added for no apparent reason, and you basically need to have a guide open in another tab to get ANYTHING done because a lot of stuff is so obtuse. Itchio not only has easier steps for everything, most of them are optional.
I have to agree that workflow with itch.io is more seamless but I didn't see using GameJolt as that much complicated. You're right, I forgot to mention that itch.io is more catered to a host of different items aside from games whereas GameJolt is purely for games. I'll add that on my list above, thanks!
Actually, it's very objective, but I have the feeling like itch.io's games have much more quality. Whenever I chose a random game, it may be not something I like but it was never a complete waste of time. It's a thing I can't say about GameJolt.
In case anyone knows a little about Linux, for me GameJolt is like Ubuntu and Itch.io is like Debian.