Sorry! My fault.
Just saw the 100% More tag. It appears to be some kind of android game with ads. :p

Hi, I'm the programmer of that android game (Temporal).

The reason we set the price to 100% more was an experiment. During the December sales, we set the paid version of the game to 100% less (the paid version has no ads), and it didn't bring more traffic to the game page, so we try the inverse. It kind of worked, but the game is still a financial failure :)

I never assumed the 'reverse sale' concept to be an April Fool's by itch.io, but a (quirky, if you like) way for devs to sout out "here we are and we need some financial aid, so if you really like our game and want to support us, here's how".

I don't expect it to work for most of those who try it, though (as thebmxeur here can bear witness).

Hahaha, don't worry. I do this all the time myself. :P


I see. Well, none of this games is available for Linux, so no wonder I never stumbled upon them. And, come to think of it, even if they had a Linux version I probably wouldn't find them if filtering by OS, since they only provide a PDF file which is not labeled as being a Windows, macOS, or Linux file.

On further inspection I see that most of these games are published by Plug In Digital, but I'm not sure if the lack of a DRM-free build is their fault or not. About half of their catalog on itch.io does have them.

Haven't been on itch.io for a while, but if this is true, then they need to be very careful, as this is what brought about the downfall of Desura. The Desura faithful ended up abandoning the site in droves because many larger publishers thought it would be cool to just sell Steam keys, while many indie developers basically abandoned the DRM-free builds and forced users to adopt the Steam versions if they wanted updates. Some of them even left the Desura builds as unusable beta or even alpha/pre-alpha builds.

I remember Shinyloot ended up suffering and going down for the same reason. Gamersgate will probably be next. As soon as stores start allowing Steam-only games, their sole relevance becomes as an outlet for deeply-discounted Steam keys.

There's a lesson to be learned from this - if you want to market your DRM-freedom as a selling point, then you need to enforce it. And sometimes that will bring you into conflict with your suppliers. There's a difference between compromising on certain aspects (regional pricing, for instance) and caving in.

Quite true. Was surpised to hear that itch.io had gone the same route knowing that so many before have fallen at this hurdle. No other store can be steam and survive, GOG should take a good long look at statement as well.
Thanks for the info anyways, seems itch.io has gone on the same list as Humble, be very careful when/if buying anything from there.

I assume this is a dig at GOG's recent Galaxy push.

To be honest, I've stayed well clear of all of the Galaxy "debate" forums (which have basically consisted of a circlejerk where GOG-bashing is upvoted and any rational opinion is downvoted to hell), even though they seem to pop up ever hour, because they basically seem to be full of petulant childish whining by people apparently too lazy to click twice and who have twisted DRM-free from a practical advantage into a religious ideology. I seriously can't be fucking doing with it.

However, this is the ideal opportunity for me to say this: there's a difference between "being Steam" and "improving on Steam's model". There are three reasons that Steam is so successful:

1) Many gamers are bone-idle fuckers who want everything (updates, installs) handed to them on a plate (and those are usually the first to complain when the rug is pulled out from under their feet).

2) Many developers are bone-idle fuckers who want everything (multiplayer & social infrastructure) handed to them on a plate (and those are usually the first to complain when the rug is pulled out from under their feet).

3) Unified social features are a must in most modern games. Multiplayer features in many games depend on them. Achievements encourage gamers to explore game modes and features that they would have otherwise touched, and developers use to them to gauge what modes people play. There's a reason Call of Duty still has a single-player campaign, there's a reason many games nowadays no longer tack useless multiplayer onto them.

It should have been apparent that, pre-Galaxy, developers responded to this lack of infrastructure by simply axing multiplayer (Brütal Legend, Anomaly 2).

There's nowt wrong with wanting to take the basis of Steam's success and take advantage of that to get right everything that Steam does wrong. UPlay and Origin did this wrong - they simply copied Steam, which is why Ubisoft has a relevancy problem on PC and EA especially so (seriously, when was the last time EA had a game that was relevant on the PC?)

Steam gets a lot wrong. It's been responsible for the influx of shovelware, it's been responsible for the race-to-the-bottom pricing that has ruined the quality of many PC games. Its support is crap (yes, so's GOG's), its client is crap. But its greatest sin is enforcing the presence of its service where it is neither needed nor desired. I play single-player games or local multiplayer. I don't need a friends list, or multiplayer features, or leaderboards. Achievements are a nice but expendable trinket. And yet, Steam enforces its presence by forcing me to connect to its service. If I want to show a friend a game at their house, I need to make sure Steam is first installed.

Right now, GOG Galaxy hits a sweet spot in that it offers almost everything that Steam does, but doesn't impose itself on the experience. Galaxy only makes itself felt where the features make sense. It provides a unified profile for multiplayer and leaderboards for those who want it. Gwent, for instance, makes little sense as a game without such a unified profile. I haven't played it, have no wish to play it. But I can still download the installers for the games that I do play and manually update them.

[url=http://Galaxy gets right what Steam gets wrong.]Galaxy gets right what Steam gets wrong.[/url] That's the crux.

Even itch.io has a client now. Desura had one. That's the basis of healthy competition. But you're not competing effectively if your business model exclusively relies on undercutting the platform's prices for which you're selling keys.