Post by Outsider Artisan in My game was not bumped after an update, and I know why, but I can't easily communicate with the mods about it.

Viewing post in My game was not bumped after an update, and I know why, but I can't easily communicate with the mods about it.

I mean, I’ve been releasing updates at a similar rate since 2020, so given the fact that the outliers don’t have file changes, it’s probably that. I mean it could be anything, I guess, but as far as I know, releasing an update once a month or so and getting a bump is not unusual. Also, you don’t fly to the tippity top of the recent category when you get a bump. I don’t know exactly how it works, but there’s a new and popular tab that you jump up on, and that bump also gives you a bump on popular as a knock-on effect.

Also, the most recent time this happened was about a month ago and certainly other games have gotten bumped since then, so no, they didn’t just stop doing that altogether because they’re busy.

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redonihunter59 days ago

Also, you don’t fly to the tippity top of the recent category when you get a bump.

But that's literally what is happening when you get a bump. The time stamp for sorting in recent gets an update. And that is why this is coveted by many developers and why developers are very concerned about not being indexed right after publishing. This 5 minute exposure is all the marketing they have. Occasionally some people abuse this system, and I have seen one of those getting permanently delisted because of that.

Recent is sorted by date of publishing or last approved major devlog. I do not know if they use the time stamp of the update or the time stamp of the approval time or whatever.

You have 10k followers. Your followers will get everything in their feed, there is no need for approval. So your games are bound to show up higher in any popular sorting anyway. One game is on page 2 of this popular sorting https://itch.io/games/tag-female-protagonist . That is 10000 games and includes the non adult games.

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Outsider Artisan59 days ago

Yes your game gets a bump to its “newness” and visibility. I don’t think I’ve ever had a game actually go to page one on recent of any tag though. I’ve never seen that dramatic of a bump, since I thought that’s what you said.

Also like, are you accusing me of abusing the system? Are you a mod or staff member? You don’t have any badges or anything, but you’re throwing around warnings about delisting in kind of a disturbing way. If anything, the fact that my remote updates were not approved by moderators reinforces why I need to make sure I’m clearly understood. From the perspective of the mods, I used the major update devlog when files weren’t changed, so they may be under the impression I used it falsely, so if anything I can’t afford not to clarify this if delisting is being thrown around as a consequence for failing to use the tag or other systems correctly.

Also though, like, why are you so opposed to me reporting this? I don’t get it. Maybe I’m stupid but can you spell it out. If a game is on page 1 or page 300, if it’s got a major update, why shouldn’t it be bumped the same as any other game?

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redonihunter59 days ago

are you accusing me of abusing the system?

You seemed to think there is no bump. I directly replied to that notion and argued that this bump occurs and explained why being on top of recent is coveted. So much that some developers find other ways of getting on recent. Doing it by devlogs is the approved way. Any warnings are for people reading here with similar issues as a caution and I linked to a thread explaining why doing it in non approved ways is annoying for users.

You posted in public community, not a tech support message board answered by staff. People coming in and giving their 2 cents is kinda the expected outcome. If you do not want to discuss in public, send a message to support and only that. I just came in to voice my observations. Namely that your notion of bumps is not the same as what I observed and that your account probably will not notice the effect of those bumps all too much, since you get traffic by your followers anyway after an update.

The only mods here are community message board mods. They do nothing on devlogs, indexing or approval. The only thing that the mod can do, is try to bring attention to an actual ticket you made for real Itch staff. And those devlog approvals come from Itch staff. I do not even believe they look at every devlog. Especially not currently, as they are kinda busy with other things concerning adult games.

They still do some approvals. I found some in the adult tag. But the 20 games more recent than those have a newer publishing date. I do not want to post links to adult games here. But if you want to see the bump "in action", in the top 3 of recent of the tag detective is an adult game. That has a devlog and it is sorted around 1 day ago as a time stamp, judging by neigboring games, despite being published in 2024.

Also though, like, why are you so opposed to me reporting this? I don’t get it.

Maybe because I am not? If you think there is systematic issues, tell Itch, not to public community. There is the support mail adress and there is a feedback button. Public community can only give you their experiences and opinions.

I do not know the criteria for devlog approval and I would bet money that Itch will not tell, because it would lead to people optimising their devlogs to get an approval. In my opinion the whole bump mechanic needs a major overhaul. They should put up two recent listings. One by publishing date and one by updating date (with a cooldown to prevent update spamming). Making it dependent on a devlog unfairly disadvantages people that update without making an announcement post. It also might bring up issues like your's, where you suspect you got not even into the basket they might approve, because you have not updated files.

If a game is on page 1 or page 300, if it’s got a major update, why shouldn’t it be bumped the same as any other game?

I do not understand this sentence. English is not my native language and one can not hear the tone of a voice. That's likely a cause for many misunderstandings, as I tend to be rather literal and dry at times. To my knowledge (reading threads) bumps need staff approval and that's all there is to it. Depending on staff means, it is subject to understaffing problems, holidays, crisis managment, overload and subjective rulings by persons. And of course, it means that not all devlogs are approved to cause a bump. And it also means, that like all the other internal workings of Itch, Itch will not talk about specifics.

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Outsider Artisan59 days ago

I only brought up the recent thing because you were using that sorting method to suggest devlogs rarely get approved which is wrong. Since 2020 I’ve only ever not received a bump on these remote updates managed by the server, the dozens of other major update devlogs I’ve done over the last 5 years have all gotten bumps. The effect of bumps is dramatic often quadrupling incoming traffic at a minimum. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Also, you were telling me I was on “cooldown” or something, now you’re saying actually I just didn’t notice the bumps. Like you’re just re-characterizing the whole thing now. Look, I’m not trying to be rude, so I’ll just pretend none of this ever happened. My fault for posting publicly, I didn’t think I’d just get wild speculation. I also don’t think there’s anything systemically wrong with Itch, my original post acknoweledges that the weird way I handle some updates is the cause of the issue.

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redonihunter58 days ago

There is a thread like this asking about this approval thing every other week. From people that do not get a bump for months.

I gave my observations as a user. From reading those threads and from regularly looking at recent. And I argued specific points, like your notion of no timestamp bump happening.

Gratulations that most of your devlogs are approved. This is not happening to many developers.

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