Post by Smurjo in Restricted and unlisted?

Viewing post in Restricted and unlisted?

Hi MZQuest,

the same happened to one of my games (https://smurjo.itch.io/detective-martin-gunnarson). When I search for my name, my other five games are shown, but this one isn't. Also when I search for my tags, for example "detective", my game isn't listed. I have no idea what I might have done wrong.

Copyright: I did all programming, 2D and 3D assets myself (apart from as mentioned in the credits with some help and advice by my 12 year old nephew, who visited me in his vacations for 2 weeks during the year of the development). I am using public domain and creative commons music, properly listing all pieces in the credits. I don't use AI nor was it available at the time I made the game.

Violence: As mentioned in the description by the nature of a detective game deaths and murders are mentioned in text. But there are no excessive descriptions of violence nor images of corpses, explosions etc.. The description of the murders is one sentence and factual, as necessary mentioning the cause of death or the weapon i.e. "died showing signs of severe poisoning", "died of brain hemorrhage after she had been hit with a blunt object", "body found on the foot of a cliff wrapped in a duvet cover", "one tomb slab wore a different coat of arms".

Having said this, I'd really like to know why this has happened - especially since I was planning to release an update with a greater world and additional cases this year. Did you get any notification why this was happening and how to fix it? I didn't get any notification at all and found out by chance.

Kind regards

Smurjo

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MZQuest5 days ago(+1)

Hi Smurjo,

That sounds pretty frustrating. I've seen far worse than that on here. It doesn't seem like your game triggered anything. I didn't even realise it at first and figured my games must just be too new to show up, but then they never did. And then the commenting restriction.

I haven't been told anything. I've not dealt with such a lack of customer service since I went looking for Netflix support years ago. I've sent multiple e-mails, have multiple support ticket numbers. At this point, I've started looking into itch alternatives and held back on supporting the bundles I wanted to support.

I've only personally had similar issues elsewhere when automated systems flagged me as suspicious for "unusual activity" which is me being autistic and disabled. Inconsistent usage schedule, etc. I am trying to assume the best here.

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Smurjo5 days ago(+2)

What is "unusual activity" and "inconsistent usage schedule" supposed to mean? That would apply to me too, given that I have a job and family and game development as a hobby can't always be top priority...

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redonihunter5 days ago(+1)

inconsistent usage schedule

That would mean that the system in question might be suspicous that you might have shared your account. Like being online for 20 hours a day. Itch does not have things like that. Streaming services might.

But Itch does have some triggers, that will, in combination, make the system suspicious. Obviously, connecting from different computers might trigger this. Using a vpn. Travelling. Or, of course, sharing your account. Which makes little sense for Itch, but I have seen a developer team do that.

I got hit by "supcious activty", when I tried to access Itch while it was down. But only partially down.

There is even an obscure thing that might happen for some people: there is bot networks on hacked devices. There are even cheap devcies sold pre-hacked. Not kidding. If those networks were used to facilitate attacks, ip adresses might end up in a temporary block list. While I have doubt that is is happening for Itch, those bot networks are real and there are devices sold that are already hacked. It just is an example that there might be reasons for things, that one would not think of.

Anyway, https://itch.io/t/4120453/unofficial-search-and-indexing-faq

Any update can trigger a temporary delisting. And if you have to wait for staff to have a look, that can take over a month. I see one update less than a month and an accound only 1 1/2 months old. Not much out of the ordinary yet. Itch is slow. Sad, but that's how it is.

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MZQuest4 days ago

I absolutely use a VPN myself. That's basic internet hygiene in the US. Especially for survivors.
Maybe that is the reason for my restrictions. I don't have them anywhere else despite using a VPN everywhere.

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MZQuest4 days ago(+1)

Not suggesting abandoning itch entirely, but maybe using newgrounds and others as alternatives is a good idea. They don't seem to have these issues. I really love all the jams on here, but if no one can see the game then what's the point? Can't become a better developer without feedback.

I found a list of alternative game hosting sites that I have bookmarked, including newgrounds.

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