you are wrong there are ways but the problem is greed plain and simple. one dev for example had second season free on multiple places but you could not play season 2 without season 1 which is all well and good until you find season 1 locked behind paywall. now what makes it even more curious is for season one they give the same excuses as to was given here, but the season 2 is listed on the site that it is claimed season 2 is blocked from ( see what im getting at herw?). in the other case how can season 2 be ok on itch but season 1 not? similar things happening all over itch. i think if a dev wants to use patreon and subscribestar fine limit the games to those platforms and dont even mention them on sites like itch at all that way the dev can rely on patreon and subscribestar for peopel wanting to play and or try their games. no need to use itch if people are just going to be forced to go to patreon or subscribestar anyway.
as soon as i see i have to go to patreon or subscribestar i just go to another devs game and it has led me to finding a lot of great games on itch that i can download and play without being forced into subscribing to patreon or subscribestar and for the record i use to sub for a few devs on patreon but i often found myself paying for nothing as devs were not releasng content regularly, one dev didnt deliver anything for a year and when he did next say anything it was to say he had abanndoned the game we were paying the sub for. so no i will NOT sub to patreon or subscribestar anymore after losing so much money supporting devs.