Oh, it does matter. It can give a boost. People select the day of the week for this. But so does everyone else and their dog. So it matters a lot less than people think. And then comes the bad rng that decides to not index a game in time for such a release and people are sour.

Itch is a self publishing site. The only promotion people should rely upon is the promotion ouside of Itch. (I paraphrased the stance of Itch here, but pragmatically, that's what it boils down to.)

The topic is a question, to which the answer is not officially stated, but most likely: No, there is no visibilty boost by changing release status.

What makes sense or not for a list called "recent" and that is internally called "newest" is a matter of opinion, of which ours do not count. What is the time stamp that would make a game "newer" than another? Your "newest" might qualify for a time stamp as early as 2005.

It is even debateable what is meant with recent. Recently updated? Recently published? Recently changed release status? The last one is the source of this topic. A valid question of course, since it is not clear what is meant with recent, as Itch is a self publishing site. Games here have no release date the same way games on Steam have it, where they clear reviews or whatnot.

What it is, is a list ordered by publishing date or last approved major update. So it is a recently updated/published list. Or short, recent. Most recent actually.