I'm very surprised.... ?? .. How is it that the game that I and my friends worked on and worked on and completed in 9 days did not collect a number of comments or views very much ....? . And the game that I worked on alone with a simpler than simple idea and in 3 hours it got more comments and views ...?
It would be hard to tell without knowing which games you are talking about. It can come down to a variety of things, but if views are the main focus, Capsule Art is usually the main method of attracting clicks. But people also look at secondary images/videos and read the beginning description text.
These are tool that the viewer uses to decide if they click on the game or not.
Yes, capsule art is basicly thumbnail/initial image. It’s all the same just called different things by different platforms. (Honestly no clue why)
First impressions are very important, having good art on the first impression tells people you put effort to make the game look good. After that, it’s all about showing off your gameplay.
Small numbers.
That means, results are unpredictable. I do not know where the turning point is, but anything that goes on below 100 followers is probably below that turning point. And stuff that is going on above 1000 followers might be in the territory of statistics.
Also, viral fame. Like you might see a youtube channel with 1000 subscribers that has one video with a million views. It happens. With lower numbers even more.
And to be snarky, just because several people worked for days (gasp) on a project, that does not mean it is interesting. Even if it were a good project, it still needs to find it's audience. Without promotion that is even more random.
Yeah, that's a good perspective and an important confounding factor to be aware of, redonihunter.
It is easy to think that something "isn't working" or is "unpredictable" when in reality the sample size may be too small or too filled with noisy data. Of course, even knowing that is the case and being alert for it, it can still be hard sometimes to not take it to heart to some extent since that is human nature. I have experienced those kinds of feelings myself before, especially given the nature of the modern internet, which all too often feels arbitrary.
I've not posted a project on Itch yet myself (though I plan to soon), but to the original poster I'd say to not put much weight in such experiences when there's not much data, as redonihunter said, but like the other respondents mentioned I would also say that the most likely factor for why there was a large disparity (if I had to guess anyway, without enough data) is because of the artwork of a displayed image being more viscerally interesting.
For example, when I clicked on your (the original poster's) account and checked out your creations I immediately clicked on the snow-themed game because it was the most visually and/or thematically compelling in the thumbnail images. The game is indeed quite simple though, and that makes me wonder if it could be the really quickly produced one (~3 hr) you were talking about. So, that's at least one more data point for you, if that helps.
In any case, I am wishing you all the best in your creative efforts on here and indeed the same to all of us.
Have a good day/night!
Small sample size is what I meant with unpredictable and small numbers. There is just not enough data to say anything. And the data that is there is highly noisy and prone to random fluctuations.
And what makes it extra hard, you cannot even measure quality of a game in an objective neutral way. So you can also not have any measurement of certain ratios and other significant numbers, like quality/time spent to create that quality, success based on quality and so on.
It would be similarily futile like judging the quality of a book by it's count of pages.
And with games (and books) you also would have to have the same target audience to even begin contemplating a comparison. In practical terms, the games would have to share most of their tags and the tags should be accurate. Most games inside the same jam do not even share that much. They might share exposure to a kernel of people that rate them. That should at least give a bit of information about the appeal and fun the games achieved. But this is art and taste and not the 713rd installment of a sports game series.
