I'm a bit confused as it says that hundreds of people own keys to my game (when choosing who to reach out to via email) but very few people have downloaded or even seen the game. Are these Steam keys that is referring to? Or are they people who simply claimed the game on itch.io during the sale? Do I need to worry that I have just given out hundreds of copies of the upcoming paid version of my game on Steam?
Uhm. You even promised so on your itch page.
If I purchase the game here on itch.io, will get a Steam key so I don't have to do it again? Yes, everyone who purchases the game on itch.io will be given access to a Steam key and will have full access to a paid, updated version of Milo forever.
If you really made a sale with 100% discount, what did you think would happen?
You might want to read this too https://itch.io/docs/creators/download-keys
Well, it might give your game a little kickstart, once it releases.
I thought for some reason that it would allow access to the game on itch during the 100% off sale but not include the Steam key. In any case, I didn't event generate that many keys for steam, does this mean that I need to generate more? I feel like this could be more clear on the site but maybe I'm just a dummy
I disagree with redonihunter. Your message says if you "purchase" the game. If you get it for free, you didn't purchase it. So you have a loophole to not allocate Steam keys to people who got it on the 100% off sale. You can export all your purchases as a .csv file and isolate those who paid money for the game.
The game has no minimum price. It is pay what you want. If this was so at the time of the sale, what was the point of the sale?
People could have gotten it for free anyways, sale or no sale. The only thing a sale for a free item does, if you give "100%" discount, is to give people purchaser status. Once you have purchased status, you keep that, even if the price goes up.
Did you by any chance mess up your minimum price?
Also, check your terms of service with Steam. You can't give away Steam keys for 1$, if you sell the game on Steam for 10$, or whatever price.
You currently have pay what you want. This means, that any price paid, any at all, will give buyers permanent purchase status, including a Steam key, as per your advertisment promise in the game description.
I would tidy up and future proof the pricing situation and calculate your sales as promotional "expenses". I guess that 90% or more of those people would not have bought your game anyways. But now they might contribute to give you some release time reviews and ratings. As you might have planned all along with your sale.
You should thoroughly study https://itch.io/docs/creators/download-keys . Somewhere there or in another info it states that if there is a limited amount of Steam keys, players trying to claim one will get a message to try later.
I do not know any data about this, but usually people do not come here explicitly to buy Steam keys. There are other dedicated shops that sell Steam keys. Of course, they might activate the game on Steam regardless, but not all people here have a Steam account to begin with. But yeah, at the latest for your release you should stock up on some keys. Also, as I said, anyone that did contribute a dollar is also egible for such a key. And of course the people buying the game after release. But if you do not need to wait two weeks to get new keys, you can wait till you get a message from itch, that your game lacks keys. At least I assume you will get informed that you offer keys, but run out.
When you create a sale you have this option:
Additional settings
If you tick the block, some people will harvest keys. They will keep the keys to use later, give them away on their own websites, or sell them on eBay - usually as part of a group. of games So you'll have ongoing downloads from time to time (without additional sales) which are using the keys that were harvested.
If you don't tick that box, then people can only get your game while it's on sale, and if they lose the download, they can't claim it again.
Hmm. I do not know how the game in question was priced before or during the sale. Now it is pay what you want. And no tier to get additional files.
There are several 100% sales of games with pwyw but they have a minimum tier to get additional content.
Unless the intended sell price on Steam is 1 $, op needs to set a minimum amount anyways. People could claim the game right now and later a Steam key for the minimum payable amount on itch.
