I want to buy visual novels, and I want to buy them on itch. This is hard when a sale happens and vns are on sale for double the amount of steam - think 60% on steam and 30% on itch. I end up gravitating toward vns that have roughly the same discount between websites, but that tends to mean always buying the vns of the same dev or two.
Why do devs do this? If they choose to discount a game by some amount on steam, why are they unwilling to do the same on itch?
The percentage discount they're showing or telling you about on the final price?
Remember that Steam has regional pricing, while Itch doesn't, and that might be why.
Each developer is free to set their own discounts, but it seems strange to me that they would set one price on Itch and a different one on Steam. That's why I'm more inclined to think you're confusing the regional price with the discount set by the developer.
I don't want to link to specific examples, but it isn't regional pricing. Prices are roughly the same across steam and itch for me. Steam is slightly more expensive but includes taxes within the final price which cancels out.
It's also pretty common for devs to discount their games on steam (sometimes pretty steeply) but not discount them on itch at all.
I wouldn't know in that case.
As far as I know, there's no reason. Itch charges a lower percentage than Steam. If you wanted to pass that difference on to the end user, then the prices on Itch should be lower than on Steam.
The best thing would be to ask those developers directly, and if they reply and you share it here, I'd appreciate it, as I'm intrigued (it's the first time I've heard of setting different discount rates).
