Loads of people have their first audiences among friends and family, and like technicat said, that is including and not limited to itch.io, as a matter of fact that is not even limited to software creation, but I guess with anything you do. And yes, a lot of people have their friends and family to upvote their content, and I guess that goes on all platforms. I agree that indeed paying for positive reviews is cheating, and that is becoming more and more of an issue on reviewing platforms in general, especially since these fake reviews quite often overshadow honest reviews. One of the reasons why I want to be very picky on my review blogs on tumblr when I ever attract the attention of big parties with my reviews (I know dream on, dream away, but you never know. When it comes to people skyrocketing into fame, crazier things have happened), as I always want my reviews to be credible. But enough about me... In the end when it comes to game ratings and upvotes and view and that sort of thing, on most sites with many visitors you need quite a lot to get into the picture. If 'family' is over 10K of people coming to itch all upvoting your stuff (even if they are all blood relatives) I guess it can get cheating, but I cannot imagine your family and friends are in that much numbers... or is it? Perhaps I'm jumping into conclusions... 😁