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itch.io Community » itch.io » Questions & Support

Major Update (dev blog) how long does it take for curator approval.

A topic by Mr.Creep Games created Sep 14, 2022 Views: 907 Replies: 11
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Mr.Creep Games2 years ago (3 edits)

Hi I updated my game to version 0.2 and created a Major Update dev blog this weekend (didn't expected the game to be boosted right away) but its the middle of the week and I am concerned if the mod team have missed it considering how many games are updated daily. I went trough itch.io docs but I don't see any time period being mentioned.

And it is in fact a major update that adds another 400 renders, 3 animations and 3900 words to the project. I checked the most recent page, selecting two tags that my games have, and there are not that many new games in the last few days so there is no way i will not noticed if it went to the top.

I don't mind if the game put to the top of most recent even a week from now, I just want to be sure that it will happen. I tried sending email a few times to support@itch.io but every single time i received automatic response from the mail provider Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender. This is also question for the dev community, what is your experience guys how long does it usually take for major updates dev blogs to affect the most recent position of the project.

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leafoPinned ReplyAdmin2 years ago (5 edits)

Projects do not go to the top of most recent for posting a devlog. Generally, most recent is going to have games that have been recently published. (There was a time we experimented with how existing projects may appear in there via “curator approval”, but at the moment we have shifted focus away from that since it creates a bad incentive for developers, encouraging them to chase the wrong thing to grow their audience. We may continue to experiment with how things are sorted on that page, but there is no guarantee that by posting a devlog you will be put on top of this page.)

Due to the large amount of content that goes through “Most Recent” on a daily basis, we do not recommend building your game’s marketing strategy around it. Instead we recommend building an audience through all of your channels, and using updates to bring those people back. Devlogs can have a positive impact on your project’s ranking through secondary metrics that may be increased due to publishing a devlog.

You can use a devlog to get new eyes on your project through people who discover content through the devlogs pages. Additionally it may trigger notifications for existing followers which can help get more eyes on your page.

Hope that helps

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Mr.Creep Games2 years ago (1 edit)

First thank you for taking time to write a response!

"Projects do not go to the top of most recent for posting a devlog. Generally, most recent is going to have games that have been recently published."

Ok but that does not seam to always be the case there are games that are released months ago then they get updates, the developer creates major dev blog  and then after some time the game is placed to the top of recent (game section) . Here is example of a game that is released in May 01 2022 and updated a week ago and is placed on top. And that's not the only game that goes to the top of most recent after an update.  So obviously the placement on top is happening but there is some criteria involved? And in my case the content from V0.1 to V0.2 doubles so it is an actual major update. The site is big with many games/updates being released every day we know its not easy for you guys to deal with all of that, all we want is some clarity.


"Instead we recommend building an audience through all of your channels, and using updates to bring those people back."

Yes building audience is important and I am doing that in many sites like deviantart/twitter/pixiv etc. But the reality is that nothing beats the views/sales that come when the game is on top of most recent and consistently stays high in "new and popular" for a good chunk of time.

What I am trying to say is that especially for VN devs who release new updates every 2-4 months those bumps in most recent are how we reach new people every time we update beside those who followed us after the initial release or those who know about our games from social media sites. I see that many devs are making new project with every update (now I realize why) but I decided not to do that because of what was written in the dev blog creation page.

To me this reads "we will check your page/update and if its truly a major update and not a small change we will boost up its position in most recent". 

Reply
leafoAdmin2 years ago (1 edit)

The “Most Recent” tab on the games browse page has a substantially smaller impact than you think. You can review your analytics to your project to looks for “/newest” in the URL to see if you are getting any traffic from those pages. Based on our analysis of our analytics globally, those pages do not generate substantial traffic to specific pages because too many projects are published regularly. So, just so every reader is clear: Do not depend on the “Most Recent” page as a place for your game to get discovered, as it will be seen by very few people there. Instead, focus on building your audience.

Ok but that does not seam to always be the case there are games that…

There are other factors that may contribute to how pages show up on Most Recent, and how they are considered for our internal popularity ranking. Unfortunately we do not share the specifics of how these work, since we want to discourage people trying to “game” the system. This is part of the reason why any sort of “bump” that may take place is never directly in your control, and we want to discourage developers from counting on things like that. Long term it’s better to work on expanding your audience using the all the tools available to you. We do not want developers to have the misconception that some human reviewer is responsible for the success of their project, that is just not the nature of how the system works.

I see that many devs are making new project with every update

This is not something we recommend. If we believe they are creating multiple pages to get a boost in popularity then their account may be penalized. Do not try to cheat the system.

I to note a few things specific to your page:

  1. If we were doing curation on your blog post, we would not consider it something for promotion. Your blog post is mostly empty with just links to a Patreon page. Saying it’s version 0.1 to 0.2 is meaningless to anyone who is looking at the page who has no pre-existing knowledge. The goal of our devlog curation was to encourage the creation of high quality posts, but yours would not fulfill our requirements for that
  2. Your page currently uses external links for files. Although it may not impact things now, we strongly encourage you to host your game on itchio. That we we can guarantee you actually have provided a functional game, and scan it for viruses. In the future we may consider then in our ranking algorithm, but we will put out a notice about it.

Hope that helps

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Mr.Creep Games2 years ago (2 edits)

Thank you for the explanations. And yes that reply answered my questions. I do think that a game having a new major version out is worthy of being bumped up in the ranking but it is what it is.

The only thing I will point out is that my dev blog beside link for patreon have a screenshot showing what new content is added to the game in terms of images/animations/words, those are the main things players want to see in terms of dev blog/changelog about game updates (for a VN). But in the same time yes it could be better if I have added text with more details about the update, beside the information already on project page, and that's something to improve for the future.

And on "butler" the main reason at least for me to avoid it is the 1gb limit which the game will eventually reach (then I have to manually request more space) and obviously its convenient to just drops the links I already have uploaded for the patreon page. But switching to butler is something to think about in the long term, its just not a high priority right now.

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TheAesthetik2 years ago(+1)

In my case my devlogs with General Update are not boosting as always. I had been releasing some updates in the last two months but the numbers didn’t boost. Before this two months, my views were multiplying x10

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Mr.Creep Games2 years ago(+1)

mhh then there are two options, either the mods hands are full (too many updates from too many devs/not enough staff) long que which leads to missed updates or some mods are taking decisions depending on their personal view on some projects, considering both of our projects are NSFW type :D its possible, but I hope that's not the case. Itch.io is a nice place with plenty of good features and I had 0 problems until now, so I do hope things move smoothly in the future.

Will wait a couple of weeks and will keep an eye on the most recent but if its not bump up the only option for me and probably for you will be creating a new project and releasing every update separately. I know some devs are doing that but I wanted to avoid it cause I know itch.io users are closer to steam users they want to buy the projects/pay one time. But if the update system does not work properly and predictably which for any business is important then selling separately will be the only option moving forward.

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Mr.Creep Games2 years ago (2 edits)

Update: the newest attempt should have worked cause I did not receive "Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender"

Edit: it has been a few hours but I did not receive automated response with a ticker number, so probably this email was lost.

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TheAesthetik2 years ago

You noticed a change on the impressions?

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Mr.Creep Games2 years ago(+1)

I don't check the impressions a lot, but you can see that there is no increase in views especially compared to the initial release, beside the small increase for a few days because the people who follow the project/own the game saw it in their feed or checked their email. Pretty much the best way to get large spike is the top of most recent and and from there to new and popular. That way the views/sales are high for weeks.

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Mr.Creep Games2 years ago(+1)

So that are some good news at least for now, it seems that their Que is indeed super long, all the games that went to the top of most recent after I updated mine are first releases not an updates, but the last one is an update, and the dev blog was created a week ago, so yea the Que is 1 week long. 

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TheAesthetik2 years ago

It seems you're right, my devlog was 3 days ago so it must still be processing.

Thanks for the infomation mate

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