I have a had a few projects now where I have made a “major update or launch” post for a launch or update and then I don’t (nor anyone in my community) see my game appear in any of the new categories at all.
I have checked back over days and even weeks to see if my projects appears and I never saw them. I understand that they could have been approved, I could have been in those slots, then missed them as they fell back below the bar but this is also part of the problem. There is no confirmation.
The issue IMO
Currently, there is no way for me to know if my major update or launch post was accepted or rejected for a boost. The concept of “pending curator approval” is very nebulous nor is there an estimate on time for approval. This style of post is very important for devs as it gives us a chance for increased visibility, so it’s important to know if it was accepted.
The reason I’d like to see more transparency on this is that I would love to have a project where I share dev updates here on itch over the course of development. But, at this point in time, I’ve only felt that it is damaging to a project. If I spent a year making my game, making dev updates, and then I launch only to have my major update or launch post not make a difference; my brand new project gets no added momentum.
I have no idea how long the process takes, where I can actually expect to see my project appear, if the post was approved. So here is what I feel could be added.
Proposed Improvements
-In the description of the major update or launch option, provide a time estimate for approval. ex: “usually takes 5 to 7 days”
-provide an alert for the developer account if/when the post is approved for a boost. ex: “your major update was approved for a boost” (The added benefit to this is if the process of trying to boost your visibility with updates gets abused, an alert explaining that it was rejected and re-iterating the rules could help prevent future abuse.)
-Provide an estimate on how long indexing may take for your boosted project to appear. ex: “boosted project will be visible in 1 to 2 days”
Sorry this was lengthy. I feel these are (hopefully) small improvements that could give devs helpful info. If I can time out my posts to a launch, syncing with events on other platforms, etc. That’d be very helpful to know.