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It’s been over a month, but my game still hasn’t been indexed

A topic by mr-igame created 35 days ago Views: 158 Replies: 6
Viewing posts 1 to 3

Hello, I released my second game over a month ago, but it still hasn’t been indexed.

Game link: https://mr-igame.itch.io/grand-duke-valeran

With my first game, I experienced a similar issue and even posted about it here.

I’ve read the pinned thread and told myself that maybe my game isn’t good enough, and I need to work harder...

However, today, while browsing the list of newly indexed games, I noticed many games from new developers, with few views, were indexed right after release. This makes me wonder — is my game really worse than theirs? Why hasn’t it been indexed yet?

If possible, I would appreciate some help. Thank you very much!

Moderator(+1)

...My pinned topic explains why not all games wait as long, why there are long delays sometimes, and what to do if that happens. Your game meets the requirements for indexing, so that's not the issue.

Thank you! Is there any way you could help speed up the review process for my game? Or should I try another approach, like sending an email to request support?

Moderator(+1)

I'll speed things up for you.

(+1)
If possible, I would appreciate some help

Help cannot be given here. This is community. You can obtain opinion about this. And some information.

An update can get you on the waiting queue again, even after being indexed. It stands to reason that it also can extend waiting time.

And this is quite logical, once the reasons for not immediatly indexing are considered. Why are not all things indexed immediatly? I know two. First, it might not be eliglible for indexing according to quality guidelines or other reasons. Second, it might be a scam/malware.

So how does the automatic system know that your account was not hacked and the update/new project is not infected with malware? It can't know, it guesses. And for a high confidence guess, games get quarantined and on the waiting queue. For a low confidence guess, it gets merely on the waiting queue. What is considered for those guesses is secret. And if I were to implement such a thing, I would include randomness. If this really works like this, who knows, but it looks like it.

Threads about individual games get closed often, since there is this duality of this community board. On the one hand, those threads are forbidden as this is a support issue. On the other hand you can make a individual support thread anyways with added information as stated in the rules section.

There is a need to discuss these matters in general, but the sticky thread about this was closed, because people just added their own games for consideration. I made a thread about this duality, but no one added to the discussion.

Oh, and I have seen literally hundreds of hacked accounts that uploaded malware this year. As an educated guess, there are at least two successful hacks each day, probably a lot more. Because what I see are only the successfully indexed malwares that those accounts upload later. Many of them have updated their game, so yeah, an update of a game can and should get a game scrutinized anew including possibility of temporary deindexing. 

And to add difficulty to this, a lot of the game engines test positive on anti virus scanners. This is insane. The best place to hide malware is in an indie game that would test positive anyways. Exe packed godot is proably the worst. But renpy regularly tests positve and a lot of the other engines as well. Maybe all of them.

The issue is that my game has never been indexed at all. If it had been indexed and then, one day, it got deindexed, I would still consider myself lucky. But in this case, it has never been indexed, and I have no idea why.

and I have no idea why

Ahh. You think there is a specific reason for this. Usually there is none. It just takes that long sometimes.  While 40 days is long, it does happen. The waiting queue is not first in first out.

The frustrating part for the developers in waiting is just, that there is no communication, no status update, no nothing. If you do not search for your own game, you would not even know if or when your game is indexed. I understand the reasons for this, but I also see that the bad agents do not seem to care either way and continue spamming, and the legit devs get frustrated over this.

Since there is such a thread just about every other day, maybe a more helpful faq might be useful. Like stating that people should not wait a few days and pester support, but allow for several weeks.