Itch.io

Leaf Corcoran launched itch.io in 2013 as a direct response to the exploitative economics of the App Store and Steam. The core pitch was radical: creators set their own revenue share — you could give itch.io 0% if you wanted. The platform grew quickly in the indie game development community because of this creator-first philosophy and because it allowed experimental, weird, and NSFW games that other platforms rejected. Game jams (48-hour game creation competitions) became a major itch.io feature, hosting thousands of events per year. Game bundles — collections sold at deep discounts with proceeds often going to charity — went viral, with the Bundle for Racial Justice selling $8M worth of games in a week. By the late 2010s itch.io hosted over 700,000 games and was generating millions per year in transaction fees. It remains entirely bootstrapped, with Leaf and a small team running the platform independently. One of the most beloved communities in gaming, built by one person who refused to be extractive.