In my previous blog I looked at the stats for an itch.io game and what an over performing game looked like. Today I want to deep dive on a couple games that took their early itch.io success and parlayed it onto Steam with varied results.
Die in Dungeon
The experience Die in the Dungeon had is the best case scenario for any dev looking for success on Steam. The team made a quick game jam game, threw it up on itch.io. Streamers and the itch.io team found it, loved it, and pushed it to their audiences.
Here is a quote from the developer “First released in 2021 as a quick gamejam prototype, then updated over the years in our free time. In 2023 we did shift focus to Steam and the itch.io version hasn’t received any updates since.
Multiple streamers played the itch.io version in the past, even when we didn’t have a Steam page yet. Also featured by itch.io itself occasionally.”
Itch.io:
Itch version of Die in Dungeon
First upload: February 21, 2021
Playable in browser: Yes
Views: 1,409,064
Downloads: 78,279
Browser Plays: 919,621
Highest peak traffic: 11,000 views / 1100 downloads / 8000 browser plays
How did the team market it on itch.io?
“The itch.io featuring came from itch.io directly, we didn’t ask for it. We did look into asking for featuring at some point after that one, but there wasn’t a clear way to do this afaik. Some colleagues suggested contacting itchio’s creator directly via discord/twitter, but this felt a bit invasive so we ended up not doing it. To be honest, featuring on itchio is a bit of a black box (or was, at that time, 3 years ago), feels very “manual” if that makes sense. The streamers discovered the game on their own. In the early stages (2021/2022) we all had full-time jobs so the game was more of a hobby side-project. I’ll say 99% of the marketing was organic, youtubers and streamers just found the game on their own. Die in the Dungeon has always been very highly-rated on itch.io, especially under the “roguelite/roguelike” and “deckbuilding” tags, so I imagine these creators browse itchio from time to time to find material for their videos.” – The developer
That explanation by the developer is what I mean by THE MAGIC. Some games just go crazy by word of mouth all on their own. You don’t even have to market it because the audience is so in love with your game they do it for you.
Look at how the first real spikes of traffic didn’t hit until a month after their initial upload. Those were the results of Streamers and the itch featuring
Even after the initial itch.io launch, the traffic was very stable
The highlighted February 2025 data point is the full Steam launch.
The developer mentioned “the original itch.io game (now rebranded as Die in the Dungeon CLASSIC) and the current Steam game are a different enough experience for some people to prefer playing the original.”
Itch.io screenshot
Steam
Steam version of Die in the Dungeon
Launch date: February 21, 2025 (Early Access)
Number of Steam reviews: 1,694
Max CCU: 2,848
Steam screenshot
As you can see from the screenshots, years after releasing their VERY well received game jam game, the team rebuilt the game with improved graphics and systems to make a full release. Despite releasing just three months ago they have already amassed 1694 reviews.
NIMRODS
I find many developers mistakenly use Steam’s Early Access as a way to incubate their game from prototype to finished product and to get to early feedback from their community to see if it is worth developing further. BUT STEAM EA DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. DON’T DO THAT. Early Access is your launch and you need a finished game with dozens of hours of playable content, and thousands of wishlists before you do an EA launch.
But in this test case, the NIMRODS team showed that it is better to try this early prototyping and feedback on itch.io frist. So if you want to “get feedback” on your game, do an itch launch first NOT Early Access.
NIMRODS is an action-roguelike-bullet-heaven that focuses heavily on the guns. A review called it Vampire Survivors meets Metal Slug.
The NIMRODS team first used itch.io as a place to host a prototype that was “a bit further along than a gamejam.” But then the itch version evolved to be a public beta testing platform to codevelop the game with the community. The Steam page and the itch.io page were launched simultaneously in May 2023 with the Steam version launching into Early Access by 2024.
The developer told me “it was always the aim for the first vertical slice to go to itch for feedback. We were impressed by games like 20 Minutes Till dawn & their path to steam launch.
We were definitely monitoring the early itch feedback and sent out some player surveys. It was an important gut-check of the game idea and helped us size up the opportunity for NIMRODS. If the itch release had gone horribly I imagine the path we would have chosen would be different.
We did update this webgl demo on our run up to Steam Next Fest (SNF) where we had the itch demo close to parity with the steam demo. After SNF we had to pivot to essentially rewrite a huge chunk of our tech stack into a more performant architecture and web wasn’t a priority anymore so we left the webgl demo as-is. We left the webgl demo up for SEO / promo since the demo itself links to our steam page.”
The itch version was patched frequently through development until the October 2024 EA launch of the game.
Itch.io:
Itch version of Nimrods
First upload: May 13, 2023 – October 29, 2024
Playable in browser: Yes
Views: 123,000
Browser Plays: 81,800
Launch peak traffic: 300 views / 180 browser plays
Note that they kept the itch.io demo up throughout the launch of the Steam version. So during the game launch the itch.io version also got a huge wave of traffic peaking at 2,000 views / 1300 plays. (Side note, notice how the free itch version did not significantly impact their full paid Steam version at launch. Note that the itch version was deprecated after SNF.
“We then removed the demo from Steam as it was quite old at that point compared to the EA build, but left the old demo up on itch (still there today) – similar to 10 minutes till dawn vs 20 minutes till dawn.”
Itch promotion:
“We did promote the itch demo to audiences of our previous games, but aside from that I cannot remember anything unique about our itch promo.”
This is what the early launch period of their itch.io version looks like.
Itch.io screenshot:
Steam
Steam version of NIMRODS
Launch date: October 28, 2024 (Early Access)
Number of Steam reviews: 1203
Max CCU: 2,168
Steam screenshot
Mushroom Musume
Mushroom Musume is a simulation life management game that started as a quick gamejam game but has been reworked into a full paid project (also available on steam). It is still in development but has over 900 followers at the time of writing this.
Itch.io:
Itch version of Mushroom Musume
First upload: June 22, 2022
Playable in browser: Yes
Views: 458,208
Downloads: 84,726
Browser Plays: N/A
Steam
Steam version of Mushroom Musume
Launch date: TBD
Number of followers: 986
What I find so inspiring about this game’s tale is that even as an itch.io game it gets significant coverage.
“We’ve had a pretty consistent stream of streamers (no pun intended), and Mushroom Musume regularly appears near the top of many of its notable tag lists within itch (Queer related tags tend to do the best for us, though genre tags also bring ’em in). The game’s been featured on itch’s official twitter twice, and we’ve gotten coverage from Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun (though those typically link to our Steam page). It’s also been a part of several itch exclusive bundles, like the annual Queer Games Bundle.”
The game was also listed as a must play in this Kotaku article
Here is the 3 year history of Mushroom Musume. The game has never really dipped below 500 views in a day. With occasional peaks up to 1,700.
One concern I do have with Mushroom Musume is that the follower count for the Steam version is good but not fanatic compared to how well the amount of itch traffic the game is getting. Notice how the resting view rate is much higher than NIMRODS but the follower count is much lower by comparison. Mushroom Musume does have a Steam demo which I hope would drive traffic. The consistent growth of the Steam follower count is a good sign though. Playable versions of the game and streamer coverage help do this.
Based on this data, I imagine this game could launch quietly and become an organic word-of-mouth success. Again, it is hard to predict, but the good signals on itch give me hope for this game. It could also be that there are genres that alight well with itch. Mushroom Musume could align with itch better than NIMRODS.
Killer Chat!
Killer Chat! Is a visual novel horror game similar to Mushroom Musume in that the genre and aesthetics are a perfect fit for the itch.io audience and that attention is transferring a bit to Steam but not overwhelmingly so.
The game was originally developed as part of a month-long game jam called Spooktober Visual Novel Jam, with an extremely ambitious scope that paid off. The team didn’t reach out to streamers, but they played of their own accord: HelloYinny (64k views) + Mr Clockworks (30k views) on Youtube. The highest the game got on the itch.io charts was #5 on all games upon release week (Popular). It is currently #29 of top rated games.
“Itch.io shared us unprompted. It didn’t make a substantial difference; we moved up the charts through their algorithm primarily, not through external factors. (Here is the tweet in question!)
The “Itch.io favourite category” was a Spooktober VN Jam-specific category, so not an official site-wide thing, so I don’t think much can be gleaned from that sadly. “ – Developer
Itch promotion: We were reshared by their Twitter account.
Itch.io
Killer Chat!
First upload: Oct 1st 2024
Playable in browser: No
Views: 645,000
Downloads: 188,000
Browser Plays: N/A
Peak views: 10,000
Steam
Steam version of Killer Chat!
Launch date: TBD
Number of followers: 1073
Steam screenshot
Key Takeaway:
The quick development of the game jam and the feedback from the community to make it the top game of the Jam is a good sign. Itch.io tweeting about the game: good sign. Consistent high number of downloads: good sign. Look at the fidelity of the art between the itch version and the Steam version. A big upgrade.
Great story here. I hope the Steam launch goes well.
Tiny Kingdom
Tiny Kingdom is the type of game I would make. I love the cute little city that looks like it is made out of blocks. It’s so precious. Tight gameplay loop that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Unfortunately Tiny Kingdom is an example of a game that did well on itch, but underperformed by comparison on Steam. The developer did everything right, unfortunately it just didn’t take off.
Here is this story.
Itch.io
The developer first made a game jam game called Tiny Island which had established the core island city building card mechanic. So cool
The game jam game did great on itch.io
First upload: October 2023
Total Views: 20.3k
Browser Plays: 13,800
Peak views: 1,400.
With these good numbers the developer spun the game jam project into a full project called Tiny Kingdom. The developer made a demo and uploaded it to both itch.io and Steam. The demo was covered by both the press and youtubers.
It was also top rated on itch.io.
Tiny Kingdom Itch page
First upload: Jul 3, 2024
Playable in browser: No
Views: 198,000
Downloads: 8,200
Browser Plays: 141,000
Peak views: 4,000
Steam
Steam Page live: Jul 4, 2024
Release Date: Jan 30, 2025
Reviews: 107
Peak CCU: 103
On the PC side, there was also a demo version.
The demo had over 1 hour of median playtime
There were 10K+ wishlists in 6 months
Here is the wishlist chart. Notice how the itch.io homepage featuring did spike the Steam page wishlists by quite a bit (250 ish) and a bit higher than Steam Next Fest performance.
Key takeaways
So what happened with Tiny Kingdoms?
In my survey of successful transitions from itch game jam to full Steam release, the game usually goes through a major graphical upgrade. Look at the screenshots between NIMRODS and The Roottrees are Dead as an example of this.
One theory for Tiny Islands underperformance was that there was not enough difference between the Tiny Islands itch prototype (screenshot on the left) and the full game (screenshot on the right).
Also, look at this review:
Here are the developer’s thoughts for why the poor conversion at launch:
- Poor balance at launch (it was too hardcore), missing features caused mixed reviews
- Marketed as a chill, cozy game, but what we actually made was more of a strategic experience
- Emails went out late (just 4 days before release)
As you can see from the review, I don’t think the demo cannibalized sales. Instead I think the demo set up one expectation and people were hoping that all perceived limitations would be fulfilled by the full game.
I think if you find early success on itch with a prototype, you need to have a significant increase in fidelity when you launch the full game.
General takeaways from itch games that transition to Steam games
My general theory is that you can tell if a game MIGHT have THE MAGIC and get the interest of the public within the first few months of a game’s creation. There are definite signs. If nobody is interested in your prototype, adding more levels, stronger bosses, and better graphics isn’t going to turn things around. Your game is your game.
But does itch success a guarantee of steam success? No. Here are my observations:
I saw many prototypes that did well on itch.io and then do well on Steam.
I saw a couple prototypes that did well on itch.io that did about average on Steam.
I didn’t see any games that did poorly on itch, but did well on Steam.
To put it into logical terms: if you have a demo on itch.io and it does well, it is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for doing well on Steam.
Before you spend years, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and potentially quitting your job, to develop a game, make a few quick prototypes that take one or two months and put them on itch.io. See if any of them get the numbers I outlined in my itch.io benchmarks article.
Also look at the games I list above, they all seemed to have at least one spike of at least 1,000 views in a single day, or were featured by a streamer or by the itch.io twitter account. Is your prototype getting that?
Here are some more takeaways I pulled from this:
- Make your itch page look good! Decorate the page!. When I looked at the top performing itch.io games their page looks great! Full of beautiful art, colorful backgrounds. Go back and look at the pages for the games I link above. These aren’t just dumps of jam games, work was put into it.
- Itch games should see some form of pickup from some traffic source. For instance, did a streamer play the itch game? Did itch.io tweet about it? Did it get featuring? Rank as a top game? Those are all signs that something is happening.
- If a jam game on itch has good traffic numbers, when you turn it into a full paid Steam version, you must update the visuals! Add something more to get people to come back. Again look at my writeup of how The Roottrees are Dead. They added all new art and an entire second campaign.
- If you do release a fully developed version of an itch prototype, keep the itch version up but call it “classical” or something to make it clear.
- If you want to “get player feedback” do it on itch, not Steam Early Access.
Finally there is no ONE NUMBER that tells you if you will do well on Steam. Success on itch isn’t a guarantee that you will do well on Steam. You have to look at a constellation of signs that your game might have THE MAGIC.
Play some of these itch prototypes. You need to learn what a “prototype game” feels like. You need to see where you can cut corners to get it out faster and not alienate players. All of these games did well on itch. PLAY MORE GAMES: