I wonder how important search actually is for most creators on itch. Surely most people are being directed to games from links outside of the platform rather than discoverability within the platform, right?

(oh we edited this, in the middle of updating as more news comes in)

If you're looking for particularly niche adult content the search is quite useful actually

Yeah interesting. I’ve only ever thought of itch as somewhere to host games, not somewhere I expect to discover new ones. But I have not used it to find that particular content

Internal discovery traffic is often a greater % than expected by those of us who do a lot of reading about games, discussing games, etc. I don't have solid numbers for itch but on Kickstarter, even during a big external promo campaign internal is still 50%, and on Steam as high as 90%

Of course I think this is moreso on platforms that are aggressively using data to optimize recommendation algorithms, running rotating sales etc -- then all those things make or break traffic. "Front page effect" and category new/trending effects have been noted as a giant factor on itch too

Yeah that definitely doesn’t surprise me for platforms like Steam! Thought it might be different for itch based on their 1M+ titles and my n=1 experience of the platform but sounds like that’s not the case

Yeah this is true of basically all online platforms at this point (speaking from the video and podcast side here)

I’ve been saying for years that the one thing the credit system lacks is activism

It's so much worse than you think. I'm a sex worker--people don't realize that elderly Mastercard and Visa CEOs determine what kind of legal, safe, consensual porn you can watch. There's no logical basis for their restrictions--it's just stuff they personally don't like, which is creepy. >>

As an example: For a long time the word "Black" wasn't allowed on Xtube because of credit card company CEOs. Search for Black--0 results because you couldn't put it in video titles or descriptions. Currently, here's the list of things that credit card company CEOs don't want you to see in porn:

- Urine, anywhere, in any context - Bondage; if all four limbs are bound (in any context) it's not allowed - Any amount of menstrual blood in any context--so no filmed sex for women who are menstruating - Fantasy toys such as minotaur or dragon dicks--these aren't permitted by credit card CEOs

The fantasy toy thing is fucking hysterical because it means that these billionaires think that minotaurs are real and some kind of threat to people or their sensibilities. - "Excessive" vaginal/anal gaping. THEY WILL LITERALLY MEASURE THE GAPE and say yes/no. I have years of evidence of this.

- Incest fantasy in any context (despite it being the most popular porn category in the world) - Anything involving drugs in any context (I've had educational poppers PSAs taken down The TL;DR is that old rich CEOs determine what vids you can buy; the vids being safe/legal/consensual is not enough

So, the shady illuminati evangelicals know what Itch is.

It's wild to me that in 2025 in much of the world we're still beholden to the forbearance of private corporations to uhh spend our own money, full stop?