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Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

itch.io

61–70 of 80 posts

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are things that might be compelling to the content creators, but I'm not seeing much that's compelling to consumers. (And I'm not convinced that there isn't already another similar service that also addresses those concerns.) As the others pointed out, most of us don't want yet another game distribution service -- we already have a few.

From a consumer point of view it isn't a game distribution service (at least I don't think so.) I make a game and I tell some friends about it or post about it on my blog and link to a page where they can find out more info and "buy" it (or grab it free if they prefer.) From the consumer point of view it might as well be a page on my own website, they don't care. When I bought FTL I went to the FTL web page and paid…

Agreed, to me it seems that something like this has the potential to become the "Bandcamp for games."

Steam, even with Greenlight, is intended to host a curated selection of games. That is part of (or at least it traditionally was) Steam's value to consumers, but it has the side-effect of introducing bias against small, rapidly-developed, prototypical or otherwise less-polished games.

Here's a niche: Some people make neat game prototypes for competitions like Ludum Dare with a surprising amount of potential. Not everyone can afford to quit their job to turn their prototype into a well-polished product that can succeed on a popular app store or be crowdfunded (nor is every idea mainstream or even good enough to warrant that), but they are probably capable of at least cleaning up their prototype a bit and adding a decent set of levels or other content.

If someone makes a generic but fun game for Ludum Dare (say, a pixelated-platformer with a gimmick), I'd probably be willing to toss them a few bucks, mostly out of good will, for a more-polished but still quickly and cheaply developed successor. Whether they use that money towards developing an iteration that can succeed on a popular crowdfunding site (which are being quickly taken over by marketing experts) or as pocket change is fine with me.

This use case could be even more well supported by a Bandcamp-like donation system (which is what "pay what you like, or nothing at all if you are aware that you are allowed to enter $0" effectively is).

I'll end my reply by wondering aloud if a new generation of freeware games would ever be viable -- high-quality niche games released for free (and possibly open-sourced), and supported by a no-strings-attached donation scheme.

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#62
post #10
post #7

What is your use case for why this has a reason to exist, in a market that all ready feels over-saturated (Steam/Desura/GOG, etc)

Not sure about Desura/GOG, but Steam has a vetting process. If you're not a game developer with a following, or if your first game doesn't meet their standards, you can't get onto their marketplace. You're also required to use their SDK and integrate some functionality into your game. Looks like with itch.io you can just upload your binaries. Also DRM. Some (small percentage of?) players would love to play games with…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#63
post #10
post #7

What is your use case for why this has a reason to exist, in a market that all ready feels over-saturated (Steam/Desura/GOG, etc)

Not sure about Desura/GOG, but Steam has a vetting process. If you're not a game developer with a following, or if your first game doesn't meet their standards, you can't get onto their marketplace. You're also required to use their SDK and integrate some functionality into your game. Looks like with itch.io you can just upload your binaries. Also DRM. Some (small percentage of?) players would love to play games with…

You don't have to use the SDK and you don't have to use DRM

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#64
post #9

The technology stack of the site is pretty interesting. I wrote a little about it here: http://leafo.net/posts/introducing_itchio.html#technology Essentially the web app runs directly inside of nginx (but a special build of nginx from the project OpenResty[0]). The entire site is coded in MoonScript[1], which is my language that compiles to Lua. I developed a web framework called Lapis while making this site, it does…

Congratulations on launching leafo, this is a great endeavor. And thanks for moonscript, I have some plans for it myself. The striking similarity to CoffeeScript allows for easy translation, which enables some nifty things if you think about it (in the same way Clojure leverages the Java ecosystem, I would say.)

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#65

Why no directory? I uploaded a game to this when it was advertised on gamedev.net Only subsequently did I realised this site does no marketing, or even a directory on the front page. So you take 10% just to filehost and not even put up a link? 10% for 1 type of payment processing is not all that competitive without some game discovery. I could just put my game on my own random webpage for much the same effect. ( http…

How does the underscore in the hostname work? I thought that they weren't allowed[1]. Just a non-compliant DNS server + a protocol that is flexible enough to allow it? Is it not disallowed in CNAMEs?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostname#Restrictions_on_valid_...

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#66
post #40
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. itch.io uses PayPal. Assuming you trust them, there is nothing to worry about. 2. itch.io provides the same mechanism. You are paying for the game, not the single download. 3. As long as you can re-download the game, then there is no reason to save the installer. Serials/keys are up to the discretion of the game developer and I don't see why giving the game developers control is a bad thing. I think most indie gam…

The developer doesn't need to do anything to enable steam updates. Steam just does a binary diff vs the master copy. For 2 & 3, that's great, but to be honest there is a huge burden of proof - frankly, I don't really expect any random startup that doesn't even have a .com domain to be around in 5 years.

dotcom is so 90s yo.

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#67
post #65

Why no directory? I uploaded a game to this when it was advertised on gamedev.net Only subsequently did I realised this site does no marketing, or even a directory on the front page. So you take 10% just to filehost and not even put up a link? 10% for 1 type of payment processing is not all that competitive without some game discovery. I could just put my game on my own random webpage for much the same effect. ( http…

How does the underscore in the hostname work? I thought that they weren't allowed[1]. Just a non-compliant DNS server + a protocol that is flexible enough to allow it? Is it not disallowed in CNAMEs? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostname#Restrictions_on_valid_...

I am guessing that *.itch.io points to some IP and that subdomains are resolved on the app level. Many services do that (my god forgotten app does, Tumblr does, I am sure others must, too)

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#68
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam has Greenlight now, so you don't have to be "vetted" by Valve anymore. There are many other services already though that provide similar functionality, such as indie game stand, desura, etc. that have none of the restrictions you've mentioned as being a reason to not use Steam. So again, what makes this service compelling?

I attended a talk given by Gabe Newell at my university back in January, and in it he mentioned that he wasn't satisfied with it and they might phase it out. So Greenlight may not always be there.

Did you listen to his other talk where he mentioned that he felt like anyone should be able just publish a game on Steam using their APIs without approval?

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#69

Why no directory? I uploaded a game to this when it was advertised on gamedev.net Only subsequently did I realised this site does no marketing, or even a directory on the front page. So you take 10% just to filehost and not even put up a link? 10% for 1 type of payment processing is not all that competitive without some game discovery. I could just put my game on my own random webpage for much the same effect. ( http…

A directory is coming soon. I'm looking to get a collection of games before I build a showcase for them. The point of the service is to make it very simple to build a page/storefront for a game along with providing niceties like file hosting, image hosting, and analytics.

Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games

#70
post #67
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the underscore in the hostname work? I thought that they weren't allowed[1]. Just a non-compliant DNS server + a protocol that is flexible enough to allow it? Is it not disallowed in CNAMEs? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostname#Restrictions_on_valid_...

I am guessing that *.itch.io points to some IP and that subdomains are resolved on the app level. Many services do that (my god forgotten app does, Tumblr does, I am sure others must, too)

It's a CNAME for itch.io, but the application doesn't resolve DNS. DNS does. If the DNS spec says that underscore isn't valid, then presumably we would never even get to the application level because the hostname wouldn't resolve to itch.io.
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