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updated my game but its not showing in recent game list

A topic by Blade7 created 11 days ago Views: 154 Replies: 6
Viewing posts 1 to 4

so i am a noob when it comes to itch.io and i have not had great experience overall since i joined here

for few months my game was shadow banned or idk what it was but it had 5-100 views than suddenly my game got listed and i got some views
i was told i should post my game lastest versions here to get more views and thats what i did .... but its not showing up on recent game

anyway sorry for my rant and my question is i released major patch/updated my game .... updated links but my game is not showing on recent updated game list

Moderator moved this topic to Questions & Support
Moderator

Indeed, as explained in countless topics, updating a game doesn't put it back at the top of New Releases. For that you need to post a devlog tagged as Major Update, and if itch.io staff approves it then you'll get a boost. Hope this helps.

(1 edit)

yep already tagged it as major update ... it was mentioned in my OP post

Moderator (1 edit)

It wasn't at all clear, and like I said, updates aren't always approved. Also, there's no such thing as shadow-banning on itch.io; when your game isn't indexed, it's not indexed. No-one can find it. That's not hidden a trick.

i understand when games are not indexed but swomething silly was going on when i tried to release my game almost 1 year ago
1. i got email that my account was deleted/suspended ( no reason given )
2. i contacted support and after long time when i forgot about itch they suddenly emailed me and restored my account
3.again during those months my game was not indexed and recived almost no views but it did receive negative ratings lol
4.i was not given reason until now why my account was deleted or why it was restored
5. its been 6 months i have been asking for 2gb space to upload my game and after 10 emails back and forth i am still not given space to properly upload my game on the website

I absolutely love the traffic, design, and layout of itch.io—it’s such a fantastic platform for creators and players alike. However, I have to admit, there are definitely some silly or unhelpful behaviors from certain poeples that can make things a bit frustrating at times

anyway i am sorry if i have offended any mods however what i have said above is true and i can provide emails of what have happened to me

Moderator(+1)

You don't have to prove anything to me. Please follow up with support. If you need more timely answers, the rules of this category tell you what to do.

(+1)

Hmm. I kinda remember seeing your game, so it must have been indexed at the time.

There are four states a game can be in: indexed, not yet indexed, temporarily quarantined, intentionally not indexed (and banned as a trivial extra non state).

Some people complain about being "shadow banned" for not having a high enough ranking in popular browse or not appearing on search. There is no such thing, and I do not see a reason to not believe this statement. If they do not want your game, they can just delist it, no need for shadow things. And if it violates tos, they would remove the game and probably the developer along with it. If the developer or the game do things Itch does not like, the account might lose privileges, like being eglible for indexed. I have seen this happen to devs abusing the publish function to try to get views.

Unless there are problems, as have unfortunately happened with your account, support does not seem to contact devs a lot, regarding these things. Especially you do not see the state your game is in, which is cause for a lot of frustration to the devs that wait for indexing or have games in quarantine without them knowing. And as you have experienced, it can sometimes take a long time for problems to clear up.

As for tipps from a user for your game:

You might want to read here https://itch.io/t/2885012/tips-for-reducing-the-size-of-your-build . 9GB is kinda big considering state of the art tech and your content. You are at version 0.2. Do you plan the game to be 45GB big on completion?! The negative ratings are no surprise. There are some scenes in your game that some people hate with a passion. So instead of doing what all other users do, and not rate at all and move along, they rate negative.

The description of your game is rather short.

You could evaluate the tags of your game. Open world does not fit. Neither does turn based combat very much. Just look at similar games and games that use those tags. Is your game having the featurest that people looking for turn based combat games look for? Avoiding negative ratings, in my opinion, is the art of attracting people that like your content and deterring people that won't. Because people feeling betrayed by having their expectations spoiled are emotional and might express that by giving 1/5. Can't avoid all haters of course. But at least for some content, the experienced user should suspect why some bad ratings were made.

And regarding the major update devlog, just look at the recent page. Are most of those games major update devlog games or new games? Getting on recent again is possible, but seems to be a rare thing.