itch.io

It doesn't require to be verified creator of games. Just register, publish your project, and... Done.

Amazing site! But they BANNED all NFT games (and there will be many in the future) and said NFTs are a scam. Currently, most NFTs are money grab scams, but that doesn't make NFT tech a scam. NFT is literally just an arbitrary piece of data that can be owned/traded. In a way CSGO skins are NFTs (just centralized). NFTs are absolutely the future, we just need to get over the greed phase. Imagine if you could sell/trade your VALORANT skins once you get bored of the game of whatever, that's just one instance where NFTs could be useful. Banning any games that use NFT tech is just ignorant. I would absolutely love to be able to re-sell or trade items/skins I buy in a videogame, and actually own them unlike just paying for them and never be able to sell them and get my money back in any way.

Better than Steam in the fact that they don't discriminate against you if you create your account just to play free games.

I'm sorry for the lenght of this review, but there's so much to talk about that I don't even know where to start.

I really wanted to like itch.io. Really, really wanted. But I can't. itch.io is huge, shocking mess. There's no way around it.

The site is very confusing. The store doesn't seem to give refunds, the games are not guaranteed to work, even if paid. They give your e-mail to the game's creator if you buy/add the game from a bundle to your library, a big no-no if you value your privacy. I couldn't find a way to disable that.

They also have a client. I actually prefer clients over downloading over a store's page,much more convenient. In their page, itch.io say that the best way to actually play their games.

This is actually not true at all, though.You can't easily find your games, and some won't properly launch at all if not opened in a browser.

Examples: If launched from the client, Jumpman Forever will ALWAYS try to install itself before letting me play. With a good ol' installer, no less, asking for administrative privileges. Pizza Boy (The FPS, not the platformer, nor the adventure) simply doesn't work. Both of these games were bought individually, and not as part as one of their bundles.

Speaking of bundles; Oh boy the bundles. There's a huge chance that, if you know itch.io, it's for their bundles. There are excellent games in them, stuff like Celeste is worth the price alone, and they are all for good causes. But wow, what happened here? The first bundle included free games in a paid bundle, you can't add all your games at once without a external script, your e-mail is still sent for all these authors, not all of those are games (there are assets, for example).

Why would add thousands of games to your library? Besides the fact that you bought them? Well, until the third bundle (I believe), if you lost the URL of your purchase, you'd need to call support to have access to all your games.

I do not recommend itch.io for anything other than a host for your fangame or hobby project. I specially do not recommend spending money on itch.io. There's a chance the game won't even work, and the site won't help you with that.

Itch.io has games that aren't the typical fare of software developers making anything they think will turn the biggest profit with all kinds of add-on content and shiny graphic effects. It's self-evident that a large number of the projects there are born from someone's passion for self-expression, or the execution of some vision they've always had for something to create. I'd rather play those any day, it forces you to think about something other than your own narcissistic pursuit of distraction and connects you to real people. It's possible to meet amazing new people there just in the comments section of games you enjoy, and every developer I've interacted with there has been genuine and candid about their motivations and direction for their games. Truly excellent community and resource for hidden gems in the gaming world.