So, I have a project that is still in the early development stage and I'm using Itch.io to help me fund it.
Today I had a download, but it didn't came from those who have purchased it. Is it a bug or it may be something else?
but it didn’t came from those who have purchased it.
How do you know this? Do you personally know every person that purchased it? Did you maybe download some files yourself? Could it be that one of the buyers decided to re-download the project, or whatever reason?
Paid projects have to be approved by an admin to be indexed, so maybe an admin downloaded it. Not sure if that would show up in the analytics.
What are you using for traffic/download analytics? Google analytics is extremely untrustworthy when it comes to reporting certain sorts of stuff, and I'm not saying this because I have a chip against that evil megacorporation (although I do), I say this because it's the truth. GA is a turd when it comes to reporting on downloads and there have even been cases where just having software DLC on a site can lead to Google Search Console re-classifying your site as a malware distributor/bad website/warez portal.
Here on Itch.io that won't be an issue (I mean the part about getting blacklisted by Google Search) but if you're using GA to report on downloads or product key usage, you may want to rethink your strategy. If you're using the Itch.io interface itself then I can't help you; the only experience I have of such a similar issue is when I intentionally download my own projects again and again in order to share a project deliverable among multiple machines. That bumps my download numbers in a way that might confuse me, later on. Also, testing downloads does number bumping too, in my experience.
My bad, it came from someone who downloaded through a itch key.
I had a bad experience in the past on another store where people were activating my games for free through a glitch, so I really scared off when I saw a number of downloads higher than the ones marked in the panel where I can see people who have purchased it. The maths weren't right.
Anyway, it would be good if we had an easier panel to check the track of everything IMO. I had to go on the Distribute tab and look if someone I gave a key had downloaded it. I had forgotten about this detail.
My sincere apologies again,