Has anyone ever purchased from this site? Does anyone use this as a dev?
They have an impressive feature list for devs.
I am using it regularly.
I love that tons of talented developers get there, and that it allows you to follow easily their new works through the site - even the ones who only publish freewares.
As a customer, I also like the flexibility of pricing the site allows them.
The client, I mostly launch now and then to check for updates of my installed games. It’s a nice convenience, doesn’t come with social bloat, and works as expected, unlike other offerings…
I’ve bought a couple of games from itch, and their client is nice and simple (which I also like). There is only one thing about them that gives me pause, and it’s that they feel this was necessary to include in the client.
So playing your game through their client is optional?
It’s optional for both games I’ve got (Rise of Industry and VA-11). I have installers for each downloaded and stashed on my archive drive, and my unverified assumption was that the entire platform worked like that.
Absolutely, it works like the Desura client, if you ever used that, in that it provides a way to download archives available directly on the site, and expand and launch them to track your gaming time if that is your thing. But you can just create shortcuts to the games held within the folders. Edit: or simply download the archives from the site, as Otagan described.
No DRM of any sort, if that is the question. But as @Otagan implied, the other side of the coin is that Itch.io doesn’t check archives, so there is potential for malicious intent from shady people exploiting the platform.
I’m trying it out with my newest game, which recently went up, same price as Steam with a no-DRM installer. I have my doubts about its use really beyond a storage house for freeware and experimental stuff, IMHO. Most devs I know that are on there report mostly uninspired (or even nonexistent) sales numbers.
I wish they advertised it more or ramped up the net visibility for the site, as I do like their ideals.
I use it all the time, love it. Devs are easy to follow and deal with, it’s easy to buy games, and it’s easy to download them.
Yup use it all the time. I like it a lot.
There was some initial concern that its client (essentially a web wrapper) was insecure in some manner and when notified, the developer was dismissive of the need to secure it. I notice it has a setting for sandboxing but I haven’t bought anything from it since installing the client.
It seems like it sprang up to fill the indie void left when Desura shuttered.
Oh I never use the client at all, they’re games are super easy to download individually.
Same here. I didnt even know they had one.
They have like one line of text talking about it when you download a game, so clearly they’re not pushing it like, say, GOG with Galaxy.
I’m trying to get this setup but got to get all the password nonsense worked out. (I let Safari pick a random password.)
I’d only use this service on a Mac, imo. Mac OS has a built in sandboxing feature that can prevent malware from running. The itch.io loader has some question (from what I’ve read) about preventing malware delivery on Windows and Linux… but I haven’t pursued this in detail.