Show HN: I made a site for hosting/selling indie games | Hacker News Reader

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

itch.io

155 pointsleafo75 comments

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 doesn't have documentation yet but you can find the source here: https://github.com/leafo/lapis

I you want to see another sample Lapis webapp you can check out my MoonRocks project. The source is here: https://github.com/leafo/moonrocks-site

[0]: http://openresty.org/

[1]: http://moonscript.org

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.)

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://t_larkworthy.itch.io/runesketch) OK my game is a free to play so I have no idea how you are supposed to charge me. You can gladly have 10% of subsequent revenue for any conversion originating at itch.io but there is not gonna be any unless you actually market the games on your site

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.

I guess it depends on how the DNS server deals with the wildcard domain. I can tell you that djbdns doesn't care about the part covered by the wildcard, it will happily resolve _!test.domain (although it is an invalid name according to the RFC).

Read a little further, and it looks like A and MX records are required to be compliant, but other records are not, which apparently includes CNAMEs.

I encountered the same problem on a site I run where I provide custom subdomains. The RFCs technically prohibit underscores but they appeared to work fine in the major browsers, with the exception of cookies in older versions of IE (ie: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/794243/internet-explorer-...). I ended up munging underscores to dashes to make everyone happy.

the username being the subdomain was a surprise to me too. I would rather the gamename be the subdomain.

I had to deal with this a while ago and I found out (sorry, but I don't have a reference handy) that underscores are prohibited in the second level domain (example.com), but are ok in any further levels (šķaudiens.example.com). Basically subdomain names can be anything that your DNS server allows them to be, just as email addresses can be whatever your SMTP server will handle.

In my reading, it looks like 'hostnames' are required to be compliant. The best I can get for the definition of 'hostnames' is A records, and MX records. So CNAMEs are fair game.

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.

Maybe for desktop ppl that's hard. That's not a problem for me though. I need eyeballs. Any thoughts on free to play?

Nice looking site!

I'm a professional programmer just getting started with indie game development (it's so much fun!). The biggest thing I want out of a game hosting site apart from actual sales is insight into the potential players/customers. I want to know which categories are popular, whether free demos are increasing paid sales, which platforms are selling, where are viewers coming from. I want to see what people are saying about my game, what they are rating it and why. It's not hard for me to put up a quick page with a paypal link to a file download, but you can add lots of value with good analytics and things like comments and ratings.

How did you do the recording for the <canvas> demo of the product? You got my upvote just for that.

I would guess he recorded his keystrokes and then played them back with a timer? Totally a guess, I did something similar in that manner for a canvas game demo.

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?

Retarded or just American? Are you retarded or just retarded?

"Off of"? Are you retarded or just american?

(Reposted to bypass censorship.)

> Reposted to bypass censorship

There's (usually) no censorship in HN, you are just getting downvoted, most likely because folks think your comment is impolite, uncalled for, and brings nothing to the conversation.

I wish I had more karma so I could downvote him too. :(

Edited, sorry for that :)

To be precise, there is some censorship on HN. Nevertheless, so far ve is just getting downvoted.

Handy!

Consider adding some kind of video-like control on the page to restart the screencast; I opened the tab in the background, and by the time I saw it it had already gone halfway through the screencast. I eneded up refreshing the page to see it from the beginning.

I was about to ask that :)

Just 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.

If he could afford it, it would probably be best to either drop the fees altogether for prices of <= $1, so free games can honor their price, or otherwise set the minimum price to $1, so that the store at least doesn't collect more money than the dev himself.

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 without launching Steam. I love the no-DRM games on humble bundle.

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?

Greenlight is still a vetting process, just with a different mechanism. Suggesting that anyone can just get their game on Steam is flat out wrong. Really well made and polished games (see: Midnight Mansion from ActionSoft) fail to get noticed through either process all the time.

I have nothing to do with this service but I find it definitely compelling. Indie Game Stand only features one new game every four days (so even if you're accepted you likely have to wait to launch.) As for Desura, that looks like another good option, but is still quite a bit more involved.

If I made a game (a 48 Lundum Dare game like in the example page, for instance) and just wanted a way to put it out there immediately with little effort and no need to join a community or anything, itchio provides that option. That's what is compelling.

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 them $10 and got the game. I didn't need to join any communities or discover the game through a community or anything. This seems similar to that. (FTL offers redemption of the game on Steam as well, but that doesn't matter to me.)

[ As an aside, FTL is apparently on sale for $5 for the next couple days. I recommend this game to anyone and everyone who ever enjoyed an episode of Star Trek or Firefly.

FTL: http://www.ftlgame.com

Day[9] Plays FTL: http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-s-day-off-p1-ftl-faster-than-lig... (how I discovered the game)

/aside ]

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.

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?

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

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 of their side projects. I'd say that's a pretty empowering.

Desura has nearly zero barrier to entry, provided your game actually works: http://www.moddb.com/tutorials/publishing-on-desura

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

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.

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.

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.

I am far more likely to buy something on steam. However, you sometimes find motivated customers. I some how ended up watching a really long let's play of UnrealWorld at which point I really wanted to buy the game even though the registration process is a horrible the developer still got my money.

>off of

Another idiot...

I'm an indie game dev who has used Indievania for a previous release -- it's same kind of PayPal-powered setup, only they ask customers to tip them at time of purchase instead of taking a cut of every sale. Could you explain why I should consider using you instead of Indievania?

I'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).

The video is a real eye-catcher, nicely done!

I and a small team at my university are a month or two away from shipping our game. I think that we will highly consider using this site! The minimum price payment scheme is exactly what we wanted to do. Thanks a lot for posting. Bookmarked.

I 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.

I really like this. I do want to see a directory though.

Just a little detail I really like the way you show how much money will go to each party involved in the sale:

http://itch.io/about/faq#someone-buys-my-game-for-10-how-muc...

I know it's just a sum, but I like the way you formatted it :)

This is pretty cool.

It might just reduce the friction enough for me to post my unfinished 2D Counter-Strike -like game that I worked on for 5+ years, that otherwise the world would likely never see (I have a lot more important things to complete before I can afford to get back to working on it).

The video actually threw me off. My cursor was right there, very confused for a sec - imo it's not separated enough from the rest of the experience for it to be entirely helpful, felt like more of a distraction. Just my $.02, cool site outside of that one small thing!

Yeah I thought about that. I figured a small percentage of people would be using linux so not that many people would get confused.

what are tags? Are there plans for in-itch discovery? As a buyer, the front page doesn't really help me at all.

as a seller, I can see the use case. Maybe integration with online arcades? kongregate, for example.

Why 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.

There's nothing stopping you from uploading an app. From the readme:

> Can I upload/sell other stuff besides a game?

> Sure. Got a game soundtrack or art book you also want to sell/distribute? Feel free to upload it as well.

Those examples they listed are strictly things that would accompany a game...

This looks good, but one of the things that could stop us from using it, is Paypal, we can't withdraw money from Paypal where we are located.

Love the idea. But I would consider one thing. Changing your domain name. It doesn't ring and the .io will be confusing..

It's not that bad. It's short, a real word and memorable. I've never seen a product with an .io domain catch on and become mainstream though, but I guess that's not really relevant.

Is there an ability to upload a demo of the game? Will there be some kind of discovery system for buyers?

You should accept Bitcoins, this could solve the issue of Paypal and foreign countries.

Are you using redactor.js for the WYSIWYG editor ?

That's definitely Redactor.

"I’m a 24 year old male living in San Francisco."

Really? You're "a male"? Not a man? You disgust me.

Good to know, thanks.

It's easy to troll behind a fake account. Use your real account next time.

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