Sorry to bug you, but I’m at my wit’s end. My game isn’t receiving any page view boosts from major devlogs, despite uploading new chapters, adding voice acting, etc. What this means is that it’s dying a slow death as no new player sees them. :(

Here is my game page:
https://skyblueaster.itch.io/heartswornabyss-nightmares

I’m wondering if you could approve my recent major devlog updates, or remove the “shadowban” that’s preventing my updates showing as major updates. As far as I know, I have never abused the update system, all my updates have been major ones so far like adding full chapters or voice acting. I messaged http://itch.io support several times, but haven’t received any response despite waiting for days and weeks. I get a ticket number, but no response, ever.

Just kind of losing hope and falling into depression now…

I heard devlogs are a manual approval, but it’s been weeks and my updates have been fairly big; there are games that have updated and received devlog approval in mere hours. It’s pretty much ruined the launch of my game; I’ve been working so hard on releasing chapters but am not receiving any algo/view boosts despite keeping my game updated.

Your game is 88 days old. You have four devlogs. Estimated number of "approved" devlogs: 0-1.

After some digging, the number seems to be 0. Now, is there anything unusual about this number? Nope.

I checked on the game behind you in a tag combination. It has the same ranking in recent as you. And an aproved major devlog will put you on top of recent again. It has 4 devlogs since then. And about 10 devlogs before.

Go check yourself, how many of the recent games are new games and how many are there because of a devlog. There are more devlogs than games, yet the majority of games there is new. Conclusion: an approved major devlog is a rarity.

Also, you have 80 followers on Itch. That is a lot for a new dev, especially for your subgenre. And after looking at your patreon, what are you even complaining about?! Seriously. You are very successful. Did you ever have a look at numbers of other developers? Do it. Please do it.