I noticed my latest game's rating has plummeted in the last few hours. When I looked at the ratings, I found out that all of the negative ratings were from accounts with nonsense names, all of which were created mere minutes before their rating. They had no posts, no activity whatsoever. I've reported them, but they keep coming. It's really depressing to see my game's rating plunge so much with how much time I spent working on it.
Here are some screenshots to show you what I mean:
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bokukayo160
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This just happened to me with the exact same accounts last week. Submit reports for each of them as "Fraudulent accounts or bot activity" with the reason being they're bots made with the intention of lowering your game's overall rating. They should get removed in a few days or so.
Knowing it wasn't just me makes me feel better. I've done that now.
I also saw one account leave a bunch of nasty comments on a bunch of games pages on the popular tab. I'm assuming it's probably another one of their accounts. I assume they're mad at Itch or something.
Hi! How big are the numbers?
The best way for me was to approach it with disabling the ratings for the projects effected, as reporting fraudulent ratings didn't get them removed.
I suggest doing this too, and not to worry about this much. From my experience the ratings don't matter much and in many cases form a bias before the user even tries the thing themselves :)
If the number of fraudulent ratings is under 100, I highly doubt it's bots. In that case it's someone you most likely know, who has narcissistic personality traits. The person aims to upset you. Don't let them win by getting you upset.
If you think you know who is most likely behind this and especially if you have memories of the person targeting toxic behavior towards you before, I suggest removing the person from your life, as narcissists are very destructive and manipulative. They can be super charming and really good actors when it comes to playing unethical mind games with others for self excitement.
Judging by the numbers, I think it was just one disgruntled person making like a half dozen fake accounts. They also left a bunch of slur filled comments on several games' comments sections. A real charmer, that one. I think they're just someone who feels scorned against Itch for some reason and is taking it out on random people. But thank you for the support, Pizza Doggy! Aside from whoever that was, I'm really impressed at how supportive and just cool the Itch community is so far. It's really nice to see
Take care!