Is there an ability to upload a demo of the game?
Will there be some kind of discovery system for buyers?
Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
21–30 of 80 posts
Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
#22Why confine this to games?
I think the layout and format of the site is great, but I dont see anything about it that necessitates that particular vertical. Why can't I use this to sell my OSX app?
Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
#23I like it, and went to create a page for one of my games (free, but I'd like a nice landing page), however you only support downloadable games. I guess it makes sense to begin with, however if you add support for browser games, let me know!
Browser games is definitely close to the top of my to-do list
Pretty easy to support nearly everything if you just use an iframe and ask for a fixed width/height. Kongregate rebate does this for HTML5 and Unity games to great effect.
Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
#24Why confine this to games? I think the layout and format of the site is great, but I dont see anything about it that necessitates that particular vertical. Why can't I use this to sell my OSX app?
I think it makes sense to target one niche because you can optimize for those specific users' needs without trying to please everyone.
Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
#25What 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)
All of those sites have a huge barrier to entry. If you were an indie game dev and you wanted to start selling your game immediately it is not possible with those sites. There is an entire market of tiny game developers who never would dream of selling their game on something like steam. This gives them the opportunity to host their game, and set a minimum price of say 0. Now they have the potential to make money off…
Smaller sites have a huge barrier to entry for consumers though. For a large percentage of gamers, myself included, if it's not on Steam, it might as well not exist. I'm far more hesitant to download/purchase from other services.
The nice thing about steam is that:
1: They're established, I don't have to worry about my CC security
2: I can re-download forever* on any computer. It is impossible to overstate how big of a deal this is.
3: Nothing to remember. No serials/keys to keep track of. No installers to back-up. IT JUST WORKS.
4: Auto-updates
Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
#26Just for fun, I tried to pay $0.00 for X-Moon. I got a fun message that said: "Name your own price to get download access to X-Moon. There is no minimum price, pay what you want. Due to processing fees the minimum amount is 50 cents." I realize it can still be downloaded for free, but it's not really "no minimum, pay what you want".
As an alternative I would recommend showing a "+0.50$" bit when the amount entered is $0 or the difference if it is below $0.50. A tool tip could explain the "fee" - it'd be much friendlier than a pop up message.
Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
#27I'd change the default displayed price, even on a free game, to be something other than $0.00 (and for those people who type 0.00, it should directly take you to the link).
Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
#28How did you do the recording for the demo of the product? You got my upvote just for that.
I used this cool project: https://github.com/rprichard/x11-canvas-screencast It definitely deserves some stars. It's based off of https://github.com/sublimehq/anim_encoder
"Off of"? Are you retarded or just american?
Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of those sites have a huge barrier to entry. If you were an indie game dev and you wanted to start selling your game immediately it is not possible with those sites. There is an entire market of tiny game developers who never would dream of selling their game on something like steam. This gives them the opportunity to host their game, and set a minimum price of say 0. Now they have the potential to make money off…
Smaller sites have a huge barrier to entry for consumers though. For a large percentage of gamers, myself included, if it's not on Steam, it might as well not exist. I'm far more hesitant to download/purchase from other services. The nice thing about steam is that: 1: They're established, I don't have to worry about my CC security 2: I can re-download forever* on any computer. It is impossible to overstate how big of…
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 games are against DRM anyway.
4. In order to support auto-updates, the game developer has to invest in the Steam APIs. There is nothing stopping games on itch.io to using out-of-band updates.
Re: Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of those sites have a huge barrier to entry. If you were an indie game dev and you wanted to start selling your game immediately it is not possible with those sites. There is an entire market of tiny game developers who never would dream of selling their game on something like steam. This gives them the opportunity to host their game, and set a minimum price of say 0. Now they have the potential to make money off…
Smaller sites have a huge barrier to entry for consumers though. For a large percentage of gamers, myself included, if it's not on Steam, it might as well not exist. I'm far more hesitant to download/purchase from other services. The nice thing about steam is that: 1: They're established, I don't have to worry about my CC security 2: I can re-download forever* on any computer. It is impossible to overstate how big of…
I think you're right, there is a barrier for most consumers who love Steam. But for another percentage of gamers, like me, there's zero barrier to entry.
1: I like not having to launch Steam to play my games.
2: I know there are good games that exist that aren't on Steam and am more than willing to go through a CC form or PayPal.
3: I'm slowly getting irrated with games with DRM, online-only, DLC.
I think itch.io is a win for these niches of indie game developers and consumers who buy indie games.