I've been browsing the forums and browsing the new and popular section. My goal is to get a better understanding of how an audience grows here on itch.io.

Problem is... I'm not seeing what exactly are the requirements for creating a popular game. Some of the games on the front page of new and popular have little to no comments at all. Some of them don't even have likes as far as I can see.

Are these games being picked solely by admins or the community? Is it based on the followers you have?

Thanks!

No, it's a more complicated algorithm that's hard to guess on purpose so people can't cheat, and also to let games go up and down over time and let more of them be seen. Featured games are manually picked, that's another story.

Generally speaking, any of the metrics we display that you can gain organically¹: views, downloads, players, etc. can contribute to how the popularity algorithm will rank your game. Just publishing your game typically isn’t enough to initial gain traction for ranking well, you may need to seek out your initial audience on your own by using things like social media or the various locations on itch.io where we let you self advertise your game.

Hope that helps

¹ Organically meaning that real people come across your page and actually engage with it. Attempting to use services or tool to try boost your numbers with artificial activity will actually have the opposite effect and may lead to your game being unlisted or penalized