Features
Some of the most interesting games being made right now are not on Steam, and searches for itch.io bundles are climbing sharply. If you have never used the platform, here is what it actually is and how to get the most out of it.
What itch.io is
itch.io is an open marketplace for independent games, launched in 2013. Anyone can publish, there is no approval process, and no fee to put a game up.
The consequence is a catalogue that looks nothing like Steam: game jam entries, half-finished experiments, art projects, free prototypes, tabletop RPGs, sprite packs, and finished commercial games sitting side by side with no gatekeeping between them.
That openness is the whole appeal and the whole problem. There is no curation, so the good stuff is there but you have to look for it.
Pay what you want, genuinely
Most itch.io games use a pay-what-you-want model. A developer sets a suggested price and you can pay more, pay less, or sometimes nothing at all.
The part that makes developers loyal to the platform: they set their own revenue share. A creator can decide what percentage itch.io takes, including zero. No other storefront of this size does that.
The bundles, and why people search for them
itch.io bundles are the platform most famous feature, and for good reason.
They are absurdly large
A typical charity bundle contains hundreds or thousands of games for a single low minimum payment. The Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality in 2020 collected over 1,700 items for a $5 minimum and raised more than $8 million. The Bundle for Ukraine in 2022 followed a similar model with around 1,000 items and raised over $6 million.
They are time-limited
This is why searches spike. Bundles run for a fixed window and then close permanently, so the interest is always urgent. If a bundle is live and you are curious, that is the moment to act.
They are how people discover developers
Buying a 1,000-game bundle means you will never play most of it. That is fine and expected. The value is that you will play twenty games you would never have found, and three of them will be studios you follow afterwards.
The platform track record is better than people realise
Games that started on itch.io before becoming significant:
- Vampire Survivors launched on itch.io before its Steam release and went on to define an entire genre
- Celeste began as a game jam prototype made in PICO-8
- Baba Is You started as a game jam entry
- Superhot originated in the 7DFPS jam
The pattern is consistent: a small idea gets built quickly, finds an audience on itch, and grows into something commercial. Watching itch is watching the pipeline two years early.
How to actually find good games there
Browse by jam, not by genre
Game jam collections are the best-curated thing on the site by accident. Everything in a jam was made to the same brief in the same window, which makes comparison easy and quality obvious.
Sort by Most Popular within a tag
The default browse view is chaotic. Picking a specific tag and sorting by popularity surfaces the genuinely liked work rather than the newest upload.
Use the itch.io app
It handles installs and updates properly, which matters when you own hundreds of bundle games with no launcher.
Check the devlogs
Many itch developers post detailed development updates. For anyone making games, these are often more instructive than a polished postmortem.
If you are a developer
itch.io is the lowest-friction way to put something in front of players. No approval, no fee, no minimum quality bar, and you keep control of your revenue split.
It is also where you test whether an idea has legs before committing to a Steam page — and as our breakdown of a solo dev getting 10,000 wishlists with no ad spend showed, knowing your concept works before you build the store page matters more than almost anything else.
See also our directory of Steam and indie tools.
Frequently asked questions
What is an itch.io bundle?
A time-limited collection of games sold together for a single low minimum payment, often containing hundreds or thousands of items. Charity bundles such as the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality raised over $8 million from more than 1,700 items at a $5 minimum.
Are itch.io games free?
Many are. Most use a pay-what-you-want model where the developer sets a suggested price and you can pay more, less, or sometimes nothing. Others are conventionally priced.
Is itch.io safe?
Yes, it is an established storefront operating since 2013. Because there is no approval process, quality varies enormously, so read the page and comments before downloading unfamiliar executables, exactly as you would anywhere else.
What famous games started on itch.io?
Vampire Survivors launched on itch.io before its Steam release. Celeste, Baba Is You and Superhot all began as game jam prototypes, and jams are hosted on itch.io.
How do developers make money on itch.io?
Developers set their own revenue share, including choosing to give itch.io nothing. That flexibility, combined with no publishing fee or approval process, is why many independent creators publish there first.
