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itch.io Community » itch.io » Ideas & Feedback

Selling web games

A topic by TackerTacker created Jul 16, 2022 Views: 1,659 Replies: 13
Viewing posts 1 to 9
TackerTacker2 years ago(+14)

We need a way to sell web games. Right now afaik we can only sell files, why is that?

Please add the possibility to unlock a game that is playable directly in the browser for money.

The optimal solution would be that you can upload 2 versions of a web game, one that is shown to people who paid, and one that is shown to people who didn’t pay and/or aren’t logged in to itch. That way we can have a demo that is playable on the page right away and if people like it they can pay to unlock the full version.

The voluntary support button is a nice thought, but it does not work. In all my years on here I got like 3 donations ever, 2 of which were from my dad :P which is sweet of him <3, but obviously not something I can start growing off of.

I think web games are great, with their immediacy and being so platform-agnostic, but I don’t like the typical monetization models common on other .io sites, where everything is full of ads, and gameplay is compromised to have something annoying or grindy in the game to push people towards reward ad video breaks, and things like that.

I just want to make accessible web games and have the possibility to sell them directly. Please :pray_emoji:

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newt2 years ago(+3)

I like this option. I want my games to be unen🥒ed by ads.

I like the idea of offering people who bought the game here keys.

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LuisAlarconGames2 years ago (1 edit) (+2)

You could do something like, the first 5 levels are free or something, and then you could have a link in your game that redirects to a site where they can buy something like a key, and with that key they can unlock the rest of the levels... just an idea, hey that's how it works in the mobile market isn't it?

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TackerTacker2 years ago(+2)

This has several problems imo. For a starter I have no idea how to do that. It’s not my expertise, I’m sure I could figure it out, but these are things I would like a platform holder to take care off, since they can provide a better, more secure version than me.

There is also the problem that if I would do that, itch wouldn’t get a cut from it, which sounds like a positive but if everyone does that we’ll soon no longer have itch.io and that would be sad :(

Not a real problem, but the last thing is that my suggestion is simply more convenient and easy to understand for devs.

Your example would be very easy to do with it, just upload a version of your game with only 5 levels as the demo, and upload the full version of the game with every level as the paid version. No need to setup a website with payment services myself, make a key generation thingy, etc.

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Focusless195 days ago (2 edits)

You could just sell "key.txt" or "password.txt" on the same itch page as  the browser game and in game have a text input that unlocks the game on putting in matching string. And store unlock toggle in save file.

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TackerTacker194 days ago

The goal should be to

  1. Make it possible for devs to sell web games and keeping their games accessibility and platform agnostic.
  2. Make it easy and none intrusive for paying players so that they get the best experience and can play the game on every platform that has a browser without paying extra for each platform.
  3. Making it (optimally) impossible or as annoying as possible for websites to steal the devs browser game to put it up for free. Goal number 2) should take priority over 3)

With your suggestion the developer might as well put the game up for free, you’ll find that key on google day one. The proposal I made would be none intrusive to players who own the game, they just need an itch account. It’s still not really safe from people who want to steal the game, but itch can make it annoying enough to keep this to an acceptable minimum.

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Trent Sterling2 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

This is a lucrative idea :)
We need it yes. Why do downloadable games get all the fun?

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Salman Shurie (Salman_Shh)2 years ago(+2)

would be pretty cool to have this option

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DiVeR2 years ago(+2)

Yes Please! This has so much potential

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lewattoo2 years ago (3 edits) (+3)

I personally don't agree with paying money for a game that you can only play online in the browser unless there's a very good reason to make you do it. If it's, say, an MMO or something like Kind Words that depends on user generated content to do what it does, I think it makes sense. But usually, the expectation that I have as a player when I buy a game from here is that I get a copy to format shift as I please and store for as long as I like. So if there's a way to do this that disrupts this as little as possible for me personally, I think I could get behind it.

In short, I tend to think of and prefer Itch as a "DRM-free" store, and allowing developers to sell browser games without a download link might get rid of that quality for me.

I think a good compromise that would make the DRM-free camp happy could be bringing the desktop client's browser game download functionality over to the web client for paid games.

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TackerTacker2 years ago

Introducing some kind of DRM is not my intention or why I want this, I wouldn’t consider itch.io as a release platform at all otherwise. It is actually the opposite, I think that web games are beneficial for both, players, and developers. Here is a copy/paste from a discussion on Discord that explains my reasoning behind this suggestion a bit better.

Hey thanks for the info, I actually didn’t know about Neutralino.js yet, but I do know how to use wrappers to create downloadable versions of my web games, that is not my problem. The problem is that I don’t want to do that because it gets rid of the many advantages of web based games.

Let me give you an example. I made a small web based fan game, I made sure that the game can be controlled via touch and mouse. Everyone was able to play the game directly in the browser, no matter the device or OS, no matter if mobile or desktop. You could probably even play it on some consoles if they have a browser with support for certain features. (*speculation, I did not test this)

Now it’s a small game and I’m not planning to sell it, but I do want to sell my upcoming web game and right now I can’t do that on itch the way I want to.

The only thing I can do right now is, provide a web based demo version that people can play in the browser right away and create a downloadable full version that people can pay for.

The problem is that now I provide an inferior version of the game to the people who paid for it. How do I explain a customer that they can play the demo version on all their devices but not the version they paid money for? AFAIK there is no way for me to include a version they can install on their iPhone for example, Android might be possible but is also far from optimal, all I can do is provide an .apk file which they have to sideload.

So it is a worse product for the customer, and it is more work for me as a developer since I have to now deploy, test, and update all the platform specific downloadable files, not to mention that the customer now has to download, install and update the game manually, in the worst case on multiple devices.

And that is why I want to sell web games directly instead of downloadable files.

And I really don’t understand why this isn’t a thing already. All it needs is that users get shown a different embedded web game dependent on if they bought the game already or not.

I personally would be completely fine if, in addition, I also have to provide a downloadable file to “unlock” the ability to provide a paid full browser version. This would makes the whole thing a lot more confusing in the backend for developers though, and it would probably feel heavy handed and intrusive to take away some autonomy from a developer on how they can sell their game.

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Sikiteni218 days ago(+1)

Isn't there other sites that can do this? This is what I'm looking for

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Focusless195 days ago (1 edit)

Hack solution: You can sell downloadable files on the itch page of your browser game.  Sell  "Unlock Full Game.txt".  it contains instructions how to open a secret text input in game to put in their "personal" key. if(inputform.value == key) unlockGame().

store a game unlocked thingy in their save file.

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TackerTacker194 days ago

https://itch.io/post/10106231

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