Use Your itch.io Devlogs, People!

I will now proceed to advocate enthusiastically about why YOU should leverage the @itch.io DEVLOGS Tab both as a developer AND as a gamer! It is brilliant in its rewarding of sustained effort, the platform cares about this sustained effort in their elusive algorithm, and you focus on quality over quantity investing in your existing fanbase.

Continuous Effort and Investment

What are Devlogs?

It works like this: itch.io allows one to make "blog posts" within their game. These posts cover everything from explaining your game design process to patch notes. itch will feature those posts in their "Devlogs" tab only a click away from the front page, sorted by popularity and recentness.

Devlogs are how you get noticed amidst the garbage. itch is a niche platform compared to Steam0, but is also free to upload. Usually randos simply upload trash and move on in life; whether as a student/hobbyist or those looking to make a quick buck. But it is also a place for those looking to make a decent game for others to simply have fun. And despite its size the platform pulls more than its weight in making that happen.

If one uploads trash and moves on, then trash it will stay. But every game starts out as trash, no? Here, for each update you post, you can tell others about it and they can see you working on your passion a little bit at a time. They might not care about your first one. But the next, and the next? "Hey, haven't I seen this one before? Might as well check it out." Each exposure makes them a little more receptive.

Major Updates!

When you label a devlog as a "Major Update", itch can even consider your project a "new" game for algorithm purposes if they deem your changelog to be substantial enough to constitute as such (this is a manually approved process else it would 1000% be gamed). Explicitly rewarding sustained effort.

UPDATE May 23: According to a recent comment by @leafo.itch.io , "major updates" are not manually approved, but:

A game can only be considered "fresh" via major update if it has been at least 30 days since the last time its "freshness" was reset.

A game found to be abusing the tag can be manually blocklisted by moderators in having the "major update" tag reset freshness.

And if you have an existing fanbase, no matter how small, they'll appreciate it. They already believe in your game; and showing them you do too keeps them Beholden . Demos will get "new" members of your audience interested, but devlogs create sustained interest among the existing audience instead of them simply moving to the next shiny object. Both are essential.

Who will notice? I will Notice. You should notice.

But itch is such a minuscule platform, why should I even care?

I care. As a scout, I've "weighted" Steam with less importance over time owing to the sheer fixation the riff-raff has on "winning" its algorithm. Devlogs are such a refreshing way of filtering out garbage and giving a second chance to those that didn't give up. Many of the games in my It Speaks to Me collection have been found long after release, sometimes still in obscurity; such as:

Color Coordination — A short yet solid puzzle and sweet story found a year after release

Rusted Moss by @emlise.bsky.social — Found in demo phase in 2022 (2 months after demo release) owing to a single bug fix log. Pineapple Works didn't end up taking them, but it ended up being quite successful with an avid speedrunning community.

And you, as a gamer, should probably care too. You can find hidden gems that get buried simply for being "too old". You can make someone's day by showing they're still relevant.

Steam just doesn't do this

Steam does not have a comparable feature to this. And I don't believe it even can. While Steam does allow one to post devlogs, they do not promote them in the manner itch does. Only people that already own/follow the game see it on their feed and there is no dedicated section of the store for them. itch fills a niche that Steam cannot. Steam focuses on catering to the "mainstream": new games, AAA audiences, contemporary community. If they did try to implement something like this, it would compromise on some things they do want to prioritize. The "structure" of a social platform affects what kinds of content does well on it, and you can never have it all.

So these niches will always have their place even as Steam remains a "monopoly". Use both!

Qualitative Study

Of course, developers don't want to put out detailed devlogs without evidence of increased visibility. To that end, I did a qualitative study of select games0 with varying levels of devlog frequency. I plotted itch downloads and Steam wishlists as a function of time, and marked on which dates the devlogs happened. Unfortunately,Steam does not provide number of downloads as a function of time. I don't know why. That data would have helped.

Checkmage!

This one published devlogs every week from 21 Jul 2025 onward, uploading patch notes and discussing its game design. None were labelled "major", but the consistency did have a nonzero impact on itch and Steam.

The number of itch views remains nonzero throughout development. There is always a couple of downloads for the majority of devlogs published. Aside from the two massive jumps in wishlists on Steam, the number of lifetime wishlists slowly but steadily increases.

Psycutlery

This one published 5 devlogs, and unfortunately Steam did not provide useful data for it because it was free0. They also did not publish any devlogs while in demo phase. These were:

05 Jan 2024 (Major; itch release)

09 Feb 2024

19 Jun 2025

06 Jul 2025 (Steam page published)

08 Aug 2025 (Steam launch)

The second devlog prevented downloads+views from falling to zero a few weeks after it was posted, sustaining post-release interest at least 3 weeks longer than it would have otherwise. The last 3 logs do not seem to have an effect on itch stats.

ColorCoordination

Also free, so no useful data from Steam.

26 Dec 2024 (Release)

28 Dec 2024

06 Jan 2025

Somehow this one has steadily increasing downloads regardless of any post-release devlogs. Aside from the spike in Apr 25, the game had a steady increase of roughly 1.39 downloads per day on itch.

Conclusion

Even though the impact of devlogs is negligible, I personally believe it's still worth doing. I am telling this world that this is an untapped well for finding hidden gems, this feature is brilliant, and MORE gamers should use this to discover titles they otherwise would have missed! The unglamorous sustained effort is a little less so now, and we as gamers MUST coalesce around it.

Credits:

Thanks to the following devs for sharing their stats

Checkmage! by @oleogustus.itch.io

Psycutlery by @skyejune.bsky.social

Color Coordination by El Demso

All of them have Relma's Seal of Approval, so give them a play!