Post by Kaltren in Uh, why did the downloads for GT suddenly jump by 6x? comments

Uh, why did the downloads for GT suddenly jump by 6x? » Comments

Viewing post in Uh, why did the downloads for GT suddenly jump by 6x? comments

Do you have stats for which accounts are downloading, and which files?

The worst-case thought I have is someone purchased it once on a burner itch.io account, and is passing the account around itself for redistribution. There are other, less hijack-prone ways to pirate, so it seems pretty unlikely to me, but if you have access to the data you can probably test against some hypotheses like,

Is one person suddenly sharing their account with others?
- (Data that would support this hypothesis: Same account downloading lots of times from different IPs)
Is one person just downloading a bunch of times for some weird reason, e.g. attempting to modify the files without creating a backup?
- (Data that would support this hypothesis: Same account downloading lots of times from the same IP)
Is there some new, popular itch.io client we haven't heard of, that's managing people's downloads?
- (Data that would support this hypothesis: Many accounts downloading once each, also finding the existence of such a client)

But if you don't have the data, the above is moot. Sorry if I'm leading you down an incorrect rabbit hole!

bitshiftgames26 days ago(+1)

Unfortunately Itch doesn't share download info linked to specific accounts past a window of about a month. And no one in THAT window looks unusual. I agree, I don't think it's piracy, because if people really want to go that route, there are far easier ways than sharing an itch account. I'm not aware of third party itch clients period, apart from the one Itch makes. Could one of those malware assholes be downloading the game to inject shit into it and then spam it with those link comments? Sure, but again, no reason they need to download it so many times. Regardless, it seems like things have returned to normal for now.

Kaltren26 days ago

Yeah, just checked on the itch client status and, while there are third-party clients mentioned in the readme of their source code, neither they nor the main client had updates that remotely coincided with the uptick in downloads. Even if they did, they're Android and iOS clients, so it'd still be baffling.

Given that things returned to normal, my own (weak / unverifiable) hypotheses are either "A person trying to download the updates had connection issues" or "Someone with a lot of reach reminded their friends, who had already bought CS:GT, about the updates a while back."

Thanks for bearing with me, I just like mysteries like this, hahah.