Today I released my first paid game (I had a free game already before), and I was shocked to see that it's not listed. I found the documentation here explaining that this is likely because it's my first paid game, and it has to go through manual review (sadly, I had already sent a support@ request before finding these docs).

My game page has been ready since 6 days ago (with binaries uploaded), so it could have been reviewed much earlier. I'd like to request a feature that would allow developers to trigger a manual review of their games before they go public. This way, we could be sure that the game has been fully reviewed and will be listed as soon as it's made public.

I believe this feature would be similar to how the review process works on Steam, and it would be very helpful for first-time sellers. The reason for this is that there's always a big marketing push on release day that's difficult to maintain over time without being spammy. If the game is listed, there's a chance that the marketing push could bring it higher in the listings, which would compound its visibility. However, if the game isn't listed right away and takes a few days to become listed, the marketing peak is long gone, and all we get from itch.io is long-tail visibility.

Thank you for considering my feature request. I appreciate any feedback you may have.

I just realized there is something worse than not being listed in the first few days: not being searchable. This defeats most of PR 's efforts, because press outlets often don't link to the game's page, and people have to search for the game's name in the store. We've already seen this effect at launch on Steam (a very large number of people found the game through Steam's search bar). So while not being listed negates the visibility multiplier that Itch would provide through store listings, not being searchable has a very direct effect on the efforts of PR.

Just wanted to mention it to support the feature request.

So basically you want to have  a mechanism to be greenlit, before you post stuff, so you can be sure your stuff is actually  accessible the way you want it to be accessible. Sounds reasonable. But should also be a one time process, and not an issue once you are a trusted dev. 

The current "workaround" for new devs   is to just publish it 2 weeks early, to give ample time for review . Since it its not searchable anyways, there should not be much issues.

But then there are the scammers.   They will copy a game, including name and description and put it on a hacked account or a new one. Some even include downloadables, undoubtetly  malware. So there is a reason to not make stuff searchable from the start, as  you can literally copy the name of say "very-popular-game"  and try to benefit from the name via search.

The putting it on a hacked account is especially bad.   I do hope 2FA is mandatory for a greenlit account that can post paid stuff. I saw a hacked account with a published game only yesterday. It was a free game though. Account looked legit enough, for someone trying to figure out, if it were a scam.  (Edit:   I meant that   the account had a previously published game a year old    and the new scammy game)

Thanks very much for the answer!

I understand that this is a one-time issue, and there is a good chance my account won't have this problem again in the future. But this is going to keep hurting first-time sellers, so I thought I should propose this change anyway, to help others coming after me.

Measures to protect against abuse are very important, and I appreciate that itch.io has them. I think my proposal is compatible with those measures while giving honest developers better tools to control their release.

That workaround you mentioned wouldn't work for us, or anyone who is careful about PR. You typically ask the press to have embargos on the game coverage to make sure the game becomes public at approximately the same time as the articles. If you publish the game two weeks in advance, there is a good chance that the game will become listed well before the press has published their articles, upsetting them and destroying your relationship with the journalists who trusted you.

An alternative would be to publish the game in advance, but explicitly not make it searchable, and wait for the review to flip the searchable bit. But will you be notified when the review is complete? Otherwise, you don't know when you can start marketing push and flip the searchable bit. And will it even be reviewed if we don't mark it as searchable?

The best way to avoid race conditions is to give the developer some control over the review process. At the very least, information about when it's complete, but ideally also a way to manually trigger the review before the game is released.

I am not sure, if I see the issue with publishing the game "prematurely".   Is there some exclusivity involved?   Your game is "published" on steam since July 22.

Publishing non release game is the usual here.   Just publish a wip  demo version or   early access as steam calles it. Payment is not tied to the status release.

But you do have a point. You should have been warned more   explicit, that your game is not "fully" published until manual review.

And, uhm, you actually requested the game to be manually reviewed by making it paid as a previously non payment dev, if I understand the process correctly.  If you want to control the actual date the game goes real public, is there not the option to publish it hidden (only reachable via direct link) and change the status later, after review?   As I wrote, I see the issue as    that you were not aware of the issue while making it paid and not that there are no  methods of achieving what you would have wanted to do. But I do not publish, so  my knowlege is limited.

It's much more complicated, you don't really have control of when your game will be reviewed.

Sometimes it seems to be quite fast and other times it can take weeks, surely it will depend on how many people are uploading games and the activity of the scammers. So the button you propose would not be of much use in practice.

The good thing is that Itch does not block the page or the download of your game, instead of a button, it is better that you create your own web page that serves as propaganda and that it links to your page within Itch.

By the way, people will search for your game, but most of them will do it in a search engine like google, very few people will search for Itch first and then, within Itch, they will search for your game.

With Steam it is different, because it is mandatory to use the steam application and many of the searches happen from there.

This is exactly the feature request, to have some control over the review process. This is a feature request to the development team at itch.io. They know exactly when a review is needed and when it's complete, so they're in the perfect position to add some level of control for developers, even if it's just a notification of completion, so we know when it's safe to flip the "add to listings" flag, to sync it with marketing.

Good point with the google. Who markets with, hey I have a game on itch, go there and use  their search button. I would imagine you would market the direct link, especially in an online article. It is not even a deep link, it is just  a combo of username and game page. But on the other hand, direct links is exactly how scammers "market" stuff (by spamming). Tbh, the game in question is not a game whose  name I would be able to put into a search engine without copy/paste...

I think a  disclaimer at the relevant portion of the  uploading site would solve this. Because, even if there were a button,   you only come into this situaion if you unknowingly   think   that uploading first time paying game will be listed as soon as you upload it and can thus control the timing. The button would have to explain the situation - making the button obsolete.

Oh, btw, the game is listed now.

At the very least, it’d be nice to have some more clarity around the review process. When I added paid files to one of my games for the first time, it vanished from much of the site for a month before abruptly reappearing again (with a very obvious impact on views coming from the site). I’m guessing the game was under review during that time, but I had no way to tell what was going on!