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Some Feature requests for the website.

A topic by GodwayGames created Mar 13, 2024 Views: 456 Replies: 13
Viewing posts 1 to 5

Hello so I just wanted to request some features for itch.io that would benefit everyone involved.

*1.) the ability to choose how much of our funding goes into itch.io marketing our games.

 as someone relatively knew I wouldn't have an issue putting my share to itch at something like 40-50% if that meant 30% of that went directly into marketing my game. which would be great for newer devs who are trying to get their works noticed.

*2.) keymailer.co style collaborations. basically a mini program that lets us give free copies of our games to streamers and youtubers in return for them running our content in mass bulks. For instance you'd give out 200 copies of your game for free to 200 different Youtubers and streamers and they'd play them to promote them.

*3.) an easy way to set games under 1$ into games collection bundles so that buyers can receive many games at a low value while developers can sell them for under 1$

Moderator(+1)
  1. itch.io doesn't market games. Searches and browsing are there to help players find games, not as advertising
  2. there used to be an affiliate system for reviewers to get free copies, but it was discontinued because people just abused it
  3. creators can already set the price of a bundle very low, so that each game in it is effectively sold for less than $1
(+1)

Hi itch could you guys ad a feature like game pass but not make it subscription based where players can play our games online & charge on how much time the players spends playing the game make the games free & convert data into currently calculated over the the the player spends on the game

(1 edit)

a genuinely good idea. but I don't think it'll be very popular or that your suggestion will be well recieved. I personally probably wouldn't do game passes tbh. 

You cannot implement such features for games that can be run without the itch client. I am not aware of any game here, that requires that app, nor of any api to even integrate games with the itch app.

4.) instantly uploading our software to https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload (virus total) to be scanned via Itch internals (opt-in style) with a checkmark at the bottom to help Itch Creators seem less... shady. srsly getting people to even consider itch is relatively difficult due to the lapse in faith in the site itself. this is likely due to increased volume of developers over time while anyone can upload just about anything. of course this can also be counter productive if the service detects something as a virus when it isn't which is why it should be opt in rather than opt out. 

Moderator

Files uploaded to itch.io are already run through a malware scanner.

they are? then why do people keep getting malware and there are even warnings being issued?

Because those scanners are not up to the task. Malware is not like olden days viruses. There is no technical difference between an auto-updater and a malware downloader.

Not even the virustotal thingy is up to the ask. I have seen malware here, that was not flagged there.  Some of the scanners used cannot even properly process an archive.

There are several fundamental flaws in the system. At the bottom line is, that itch is not a safe place. It is only relativly safe and that it is a legit site might actually make things worse, since people are not on their guard as much.

Playing games in a sandbox helps a bit. The itch app coincidentally provides such a feature ;-)

Moderator

You mean warnings on itch.io game pages, generated by the server? I wonder where those could come from.

https://itch.io/t/1659440/psa-beware-the-try-my-game-scam

On itch.io, it is safe to view the page, but do not download any untrusted software

The psa is two years old and with the growth of itch it is even more important and current.

Being hosted on itch is not in any way a green flag to consider software as trusted. I seen scams here that were years old. The page quarantine only works for direct links. I see indexed and thus not quarantined scams here every week, published on hacked accounts.

Itch is not a safe place to download games. Strictly speaking, that warning about untrusted software should be displayed for every download

(+1)

i'm still sticking with my request, we need to do *something* to make itch safer 

(+1)

A way to filter out tags so they don't show up in searches. currently finding something that's not a visual novel is like a needle in a haystack.

yeah I gotta say, the searchbar on itch could use a little tweaking for accessibility but at least it's all there fast and useable so I can't complain