Anyone know why several popular indie games arent sold here? Such as Hollow Knight,etc
I think it comes down to several factors, especially for larger indie developers in that:
- The potential revenue of more popular storefronts may far exceed what they might get from itch.io
- Maintaining a game across multiple storefronts can be a lot of work as far as keeping up to date with builds, customer support, etc. that might ultimately not be worth the extra effort depending on the sales gained from such a place
Naturally in a perfect world, granting everyone all of the options they could want across a variety of storefronts would be preferred, but indie developers have constrained resources as it is so need to focus on what they feel is best for them, which in a lot of cases would mean not having a version on itch.io. There's also of course the matter of DRM, where some developers may feel safer having their game on Steam where it can't easily be distributed or shared around compared to more DRM-free alternatives.
https://itch.io/games/newest shows a variety of games, but that's not a good page for consumers. The front page is handpicked, so it attracts the general consumer.
I really wish that the front page would show more of a balance between game genres. It seems like a horror game site on one of the main pages, https://itch.io/games
It would be really nice if there could be more of a variety of games shown there. Maybe limit the number of horror games that can be shown at once and cycle between them when the page is refreshed. It's currently completely filled with horror and very little of any other category.
https://itch.io/games/top-sellers shows a variety, but Night of the Consumers is near the top. lol At least consumers will be in for an interesting ride when they get past the front page.