About the exclusive idea from CaptainD - perhaps some developers want to do timed exclusives.

Small ideas:
- make your game on Steam more expensive (because of the 30% of the sale going to steam)
- offer services on itch.io you do not offer anywhere else (updates first on itch.io? Support only on itch.io forums)
- know anyone working in a triple-A-studio? Let them try itch.io to bring in more customers (popularity).

A thought: steam, for example, is big. A downside of being big/very popular, is that it also brings negative things, like scammers, fake reviews and whatever you can think of you do not want in a community. (it takes time/money to combat this)

I don’t know what the numbers are, but itch.io is a million miles better than gamejolt in my opinion. It feels like such a nicer place. It’s cleaner and easier to navigate and more scope for customisation.

I’ve had great success on itch.io, not so much financially but then again there’s very little money to be made these days in indie games unless you pull FNAF out your bum! That said $700 over my lifetime here is not to be sniffed at. 

I’d like to see a bit of love given to the assets side of the site; I’m not sure how and it’s always going to have lower numbers but it tends to feel a little neglected, that might just be me though. 

I’d like there to be itch-vouchers so I could give $10 to a friend that could redeemed on any games they want to play or donate to. That would encourage at least knowledge of the platform. 

Do you think itch.io could set up a kickstarter type thing specifically for indie games? I know it’s a big ask but Kickstarter is saturated and indie devs just get lost; simelarly with patreon. It feels like if you didn’t join 5 years ago you missed the boat. I’d happily try my hardest to release stuff if there was a $1 subscription per sub. Again, this might not work given the numbers compared to patreon but I’m just thinking out loud. 

If the owners/founders of itch.io could tell us what would really help them out or what they are in need of I’d gladly do my best. It’s the best games platform online! 

• Offer itch keys for free when you buy the game/app on steam. Should be a no brainer, really. Don't ask or make it opt-in, just send the user the key.
• Keep mentioning the possible 0% fees, DRM-free games, the fact that's open source, and that every service it's free when it comes up on a discussion anywhere (basically guerrilla marketing). Obviously also mention that Valve charges 30% and it's only a subscription, you never own the games.
• Early Access? Say no to Steam, say yes to itch Refinery.

I think exclusivity is a terrible idea because it's not pro-consumer and Steam is pure pro-consumer. Best I can come up with, is that you can and you should release the game first on itch, then on other platforms after X time. But it's still a bad idea.

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But the reality of it all is that itch will never surpass Steam (or any similar platform) if they don't offer the "synergy", security (for big players) and economy of Steam, because there are almost zero big players here. For Ubisoft to release a game here, they will need a system to implement their stupid DRM because that's what they do - just one example.

Then, there's steam cards and achievements, the former being a HUGE pull for countries with lesser economies. 

This could be overcome or circumvented if itch would to release their own economy system, for example, an itchcoin that could be farmed while playing/idling games on itch. It would be great if you could use such coins to purchase games here.... but then again if there aren't many big releases that will attract the mid-core crowd that itch needs.

And another thing that itch really needs to improve it's the landing page. As of 2018, it looks kind of amateurish, even with all the tools at our reach. The images on the right, allowing comments on the game's page... those are some things that really detract (from a producer/executive point of view) the big fish from being here.

(At this point others have brought up Refinery, but my two cents are...)

Itch Refinery is a nice feature because it capitalizes on the kind of community that the site already seems to attract. It resonates with the kind of audience that made Kickstarter successful-- a mixture of people who want to discover something special before others, and those that are sincerely interested in the development process. 
But, a lot of devs don't know about Refinery. I would suggest highlighting Refinery games on the itch homepage, both to foreground them to players and to remind Devs that it's a thing. 

I don't think this is a complete thought, as it feels like it needs additional considerations... but my sense is that most teams running a Refinery release want some visibility/access to players, so this feels like a natural feature to amplify. 

Think outside the box: bring in users from outside the itch/game dev community. Can something be done with Facebook? For example, an "app" or whatever they're called similar to what MindJolt (or other portals) does on Facebook. Take a number of HTML games that are already on itch (with developer permission of course), put them on a Facebook "itch" app, maybe add some ad-revenue to it, and have the games link back to the broader itch site in an attempt to grow the itch audience.

This seems a bit different than the other suggestions here, but I think we need to think about bringing in new users to itch, and not necessarily through exclusivity or telling people how much better the itch version is for the dev than the Steam version.

I think more sales and bundles will be a big thing. That's what brings people to Steam, and also makes them go off of it.

More frequent large sales and cheaper and more frequent bundles might help people make the jump.

Also cloud saves and other Steam-like features for the client will go a long way too.

Reading the other comments really gets the creative juices flowing. My idea definitely builds on the 'thinking outside of the box' ideas.

Maybe a loyalty scheme of some sort would help retention on the platform. I'm thinking similar to the Xbox achievements type set up when you can earn badges as a developer and a customer which allow everyone to earn rewards, be it monetary or something else. For example, rate 5 games, earn the Mates Rates badge and earn $X to spend in the store. Then these accounts can use these badges to display next to their names on the forum/discord/etc as like a badge of honor.

I'm sure the idea would need refining but I'm thinking something like this would be more beneficial for indie devs who all want to support each other.

Hi, I'm new but I guess I might as well share my thoughts on it as well, since there are obviously reasons why I registered here today.

1. I don't think you need to make games itch.io exclusive, BUT what motivated me to give itch.io a look was when a dev told me that he gets the most money if I buy the game from itch.io. I feel devs should always point it out (e.g. on their websites) that this is their preferred platform. Or even point it out at all, because I've seen several websites that ONLY linked to Steam even if the game was also available on other stores.

2. For me Steam is usually not an option because I only play DRM-free. A dev mentioning "you can also get the game DRM-free here: ..." would definitely also be a reason to check out that platform for me and other DRM haters. Many other stores only sell Steam keys after all!

3. Generally, games on itch.io are REALLY hard to find. This also needs work from the itch.io staff, but what devs can always do is spreading their games more. If you never read about them, you don't know you want to play them! It doesn't even need to be paid ads. Just talking about your games in various forums already works (e.g. if I see a new game mentioned on one of the subreddits I frequently check, I usually tend to always check it out).

4. Make it easier to find your games for people who actually already visit itch.io to give it a try! Make proper use of tags for example that allow a more granular search. Right now when I visit itch.io, I feel like I'm seeing only games I'm not interested in and even trying to filter/search somehow still yields a lot of titles that don't really fit into what I'm looking for (while other titles I'm actually interested in are no longer visible because they aren't marked with any tags at all). Not finding the right games for you, really demotivates you from using this website.

(5.) Other than that I think there's needs to be done more by the staff:

a) A more visible rating system (there seems to be some sort of rating, but it seems like an arbitrary number as it doesn't seem to link to anything - how do you even rate and why are some of the most popular games outside itch.io so far down the list on here? also where are the reviews? also why do I only see a rating when I sort by it? I want to always see the rating)

b) Quick access to the "good stuff" (needs to be visible directly to new visitors, because the first games people see need to look good and the first games people try need to be good or they assume games here are not of the quality they seek; I'm not talking about AAA titles but titles that after you played them would be considered a hidden gem by a large audience - right now no matter how I sort, I feel that the top entries are very niche games that are super popular among only a very specific audience)

c) The ability to search for keywords and then still be able to sort/filter would really help...

d) Maybe give some insight on what the sorting even means - what makes a game popular? does top seller go by money earned, number of products bought, number of products downloaded (I find it rather strange because if it would be downloads, I'd assume all 50% of the free games coming first before any of the paid ones, but it seems to be quite mixed)?

e) I may be wrong on that but I feel that "in dev" games are completely mixed with finished products on here and there's no filter for only finished games. It would be cool to have some more hand-picked list akin to "these are latest fully finished games that we consider of extraordinary quality", similar to the feature games list that's already there (I guess the best way to go right now would be to set the tags you like then filter for featured games only and then sort by best rated - but that includes a lot of setting up and the featured filter is actually really well hidden)

f) Inverted tag search would also be nice ("all games except games that have tag X").

g) Allow games to marked as "Like" even if you haven't purchased them on itch.io, so it is considered for you personal recommendations list.

Well, I guess those are my thoughts on it.

Edit: I guess I have another suggestion but can't judge itch.io on that yet:

6) Stay in contact with your players! I know this from GoG - a lot where devs would release their games on there, but then not talk with their players at all and completely ignore their game's forums (and instead only reply and post on Steam). This is very discouraging and makes you want to use the website less.

I would like to see achievements to be added.  In addition, a seamless way to do the OAuth login from a game installed to the Itch.io app launcher (something that does not require the usual Oath permissions grant step) to make it easy to key users to their Itch.io account and to implement said achievements.

[mod edit] removed spam link

I know this post is old, but I somehow stumbled upon it and wanted to say a few things.

I'm a consumer, so I don't have a good idea of what it's like to be a developer, but what prompted myself to look into Itch.io more often was all the talk about developer revenue and my general distaste towards Epic (don't worry, I won't turn this into an EGS rant). I think discussing the advantages of Itch.io can leverage a lot of people, especially in the current video games climate.

Beyond that, just simply making great games and promoting them (as well as Itch.io) is all you really need to do. People are drawn to great games and they will generally go to any lengths to get them. I for one have been made aware of several great, interesting and weird titles just by mindlessly browsing the internet and watching content creators such as Vinesauce.

Lastly, I think Itch.io would benefit from having some more ambitious and larger games existing on the platform. While I do love all the little experiments and game jams on here, a typical "consumer" generally wishes to find more "complete" experiences they can invest some time into. I have already started to see some more titles like this appear on the platform during 2019 and I think that's great!

Anyway, I hope this info at least helps someone else out there who stumbles on this post like I did.

Edit: Another thing that may help is encouraging consumers to follow you on Twitter. I noticed that after following one indie developer, Twitter started to reccommend tons of other indies and the games they are working on due to proximity.

We can get it trending on twitter, maybe? If we all post about our games on itch with the a cool hashtag every Friday at like 12:00 sharp, we might be able to make something happen. What do you guys think?