How do you sell or monetize your games?

I use itch.io...is great...so yes, start with itch.io but if you want more money from your game steam is necessity(meantime) because all gamers purchase games there. .....personally, I don't like steam :) ....you can release game as free but you can monetize additional maps(levels),more ships,better weapons,first game chapter is free,etc. ......also look at some gamedev forums for others experiences.

There are several ways to monetize games. I personally have no experience with any of them, so please take my advice with a grain of salt :wink:

Here's a few potential ways to earn revenue from free games (that I can think of): Paid DLC/Expansions (Additional areas, characters, story, game modes, etc) IAPS (In app purchases. Similar to DLC/Expansions, but are generally just consumable items and/or cosmetic items) Ads (Overlay adds, banner adds, video adds, etc) Release a demo of the game, and charge for the full game Ask for donations (with Itch.io you can set a suggested donation amount) A service like Patreon. Have patrons gain access to your games earlier then everyone else, or some other incentive (some examples: ability to watch you stream development, vote on features, QA sessions, access to the game assets, tutorials) * Find a sponsor (I have no idea how feasible this one is)

@rjoshua said: I was thinking about using itch.io to upload games instead of steam because you don't pay. But, if my game is free, How do I monetize it? Or use aptoide to upload android games and advertise them.

But I am totally inexperienced in the subject, and although I don't go to do anything big for now, I would like to know, what strategies you think, or have tried.

For which solution did you opt?