Hello all. I have been on itch.io for just a few months and have already got made some gross sales and have all my three paid listed gadgets within the prime 10% of ‘widespread’ part. Here is my recommendation, damaged down, for indie devs:
1) Make a artistic, top quality product and value it very fairly. I notably like going for ‘underneath served’ niches and pushing pricing as little as I can justify in hopes this can increase quantity of gross sales and ideally rankings/opinions, enhance buyer satisfaction, phrase of mouth from pleased individuals, and many others. There are quite a lot of indie devs right here on Itch.IO, nearly as many devs as gamers, and method fewer gadgets within the Sport Belongings part than in ‘Video games’ so I targeted on asset packs out of the gate – which you’ll be able to see right here, with intent to launch my video games ie. Miniature Multiverse, a bit later.
2) Promote like loopy on-line. Boards you are lively on, social media, wherever you will have a presence and following, use it to hype your mission, and if you happen to adopted step 1, there will not be quite a lot of complaints about your mentioning it. I am doing that now. And if you happen to’re considering, ‘promoting makes me uncomfortable’ then perhaps you’ll want to look again at step 1 once more, make your product higher for patrons, till you really know your product is nice and an actual discount for patrons, then hopefully it is possible for you to to really feel comfy promoting.
3) Visuals promote. When you have some cool imagery, put it entrance and middle, to seize consideration, and know animation could be very efficient too if you wish to go the GIF route.
4) Sure, let individuals donate. I’ve had underneath 20 precise gross sales [so far], however had a number of patrons purchase my gadgets and depart a tip. That occurs extra ceaselessly when the merchandise is free or dust low-cost AND additionally good, you may discover individuals will admire the work you probably did – a whole lot upon a whole lot of hours of it – and so they’ll tip greater than you assume they are going to.
5) Upsell with a reduction – bundles are superior, individuals will typically click on on one merchandise, see it’s a part of a bundle, and find yourself selecting the bundle as an alternative even when it prices extra. In fact, they’re additionally getting 2 or extra merchandise, not one, but it surely would not actually matter to you because the ‘price per merchandise’ is negligible in a digital retailer!
6) Use the merchandise itself as promoting. Together with a notice throughout the downloadable, like a PDF readme or one thing, works nice. Add your web site and itch profile hyperlinks there, and embody low cost codes as a result of no one is a extra promising prospect for future gross sales than individuals who have already purchased one merchandise from you and had been pleasantly shocked by it.
7) Your itch.IO product pages ought to, when helpful, remind individuals that you’ve got different gadgets on Itch.IO, or stuff in growth. And higher, you’ll be able to submit free stuff, little free samples or demos, that then seize visitors and direct individuals to the total paid model as an choice. Many individuals will gripe at this, saying it’s a paywall, however I believe a small paywall is best for the gamers and for the sport high quality, than the inherently damaged mannequin of freemium nickel and diming. However in order for you the total recreation playable and not using a fee, do that: Put adverts on the loading screens within the free model, adverts on your different merchandise or different peoples’ adverts, however not the kind that aggressively and annoyingly interrupt play. (This is the reason a loading display banner between every stage, is sensible) after which supply a paid premium model with adverts eliminated and a few extras just like the soundtrack, an artbook/making of video, and many others. That method it feels extra value it. By the way, I am attempting this with ‘Panoramic Worlds’ about one yr from now. There’s an fascinating facet to that launch additionally insofar as the sport will not be finite, it can proceed being expanded and the additions will occur sooner the extra typically individuals are shopping for the premium model.
8) Make your recreation out there to as large an viewers as doable, on as many platforms as doable. I really like HTML5 because of this, however additionally it is limiting in some ways and that is why I am specializing in desktop techniques Mac/Home windows – for some graphics intensive video games. But when you may make your recreation run in HTML5 extra energy to you!