Skip to main content

On Sale: GamesAssetsToolsTabletopComics
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Bots are mass rating my game. Rating bombing?

A topic by Zeal created 2 days ago Views: 267 Replies: 27
Viewing posts 1 to 7
(+19)

Hi, my game is suddenly receiving multiple 1-star ratings from accounts created minutes ago.

https://zealxy.itch.io/till-checkout-do-us-part

This looks like rating bombing. Can staff review and remove fraudulent ratings?


I already reported those ratings, but I don't know the process cause it's my first time going through it 

(1 edit)

Hi. I've seen your game, when our pages were near in top of "new and popular". It's literally rating bombing. Someone didn't like your success, apparently. Can you check your URL refferers? It may be some strange URLs like redirects or social media. Or, by the way, direct link to your page

I checked the URLs everything seems normal it's google and bing. Just wanted to know if they get removed or not by the staff. Cause it's obviously new accounts that reported it man.

Tell me your experience aswell and what you did.

(+1)

To be honest, I haven't encountered this. Despite the fact that we were almost in the top rankings, my rating doesn't change - it neither increases nor decreases. In fact, the CTC is 1% per 5k impressions. I would recommend taking a closer look to a "Graph by day". It can give you more information: 

Moderator

Staff is supposed to remove those fake ratings. That's why the report button exists. But many people have complained about fake ratings not being removed anymore since last year at least. Unfortunately it's been my experience as well. Even so, I think you should continue to report them. It's the right thing to do.

That's really unfortunate, I have emailed itch io but I don't know if they will reply or not. I really hope they do take action!

Can you give some suggestions on what I should do for now?

Moderator

There's nothing you can do, sorry, except disable ratings for your game.

My ranking dropped from 2nd to 9th cause of this, will disabling the rating fix everything? I don't know what to do hopefully itch io staff will take actions!

Moderator

I don't know, sorry.

Now it is getting 5 star rating bomb!! I reported them too, I don't want to disable my ratings. I just don't want my page to get into trouble because of something I did not do! I just want to make games.

I have mailed the staff too about this situation

Bruh, someone really hates you. Interesting, by what reason really is?

(+1)

I have no clue, my game blew up on YouTube and itch. It was on number 2 in popular charts, they made it drop to 9th. Now itch will think I am behind it somehow?? All my traffic was organic and for proof you can check my game out on youtube.

(2 edits)

You're lucky. I'd like to pay attention to my work too. But it's difficult so far

UPD. Thank ya brada. It helps me much

(2 edits)

Looks like someone trying reach top of charts by dirty methods. I think admins have logs of actions (idk how structurised it on itch.io databases, but it must contain information about actions), where they can check IPs of users. It's one of the working methods to protect the platform. By the way, cloudflare protection must triggering on first page that user open to protect projects, but it protect only by manual search, not direct links

Man this is so disheartening  now they are playing around with 5 stars. I genuinely don't know what to do, can itch staff really help me

(1 edit) (+1)

Relax man. I think admins of platform already noticed about this problem. I know you're panicking, but it's all right - everything will be fine

I really believe they will fix it for me, I am reporting all the fake reviews cause I don't want them. And I appreciate you talking to me and helping me out bro! Thank you! I hope so too that they will help me

(+1)

Glad to help. I think, developers must help each other

(+1)

Well, your game is at least unquarantined now.

As far as I remember reading, staff removes fake ratings in bulk. For that they need to agree it is a fake rating.

I do not know how Itch views some people deciding to up or downvote the same thing. That might happen by some youtube comments or people talking about it in discord.

If some of those accounts are genuine, you might want to reconsider posting user names. Ratings are not really public on Itch.

I checked the registration timing for all accounts.

And thanks for letting me know that part! I wasn't aware.

(1 edit)

It removed few ratings, but now my game has gone from all popular charts and isn't appearing in any tags. This is so bad, is it automated? Can itch staff fix my issue?

What issue?

Scroll down further. Your game even appears in the suggestion box, when you type. Also in tags. If you use the horror tags, there are many games in there that are also popular.

And bad publicity is still publicity. If they deleted fake ratings your game's apparant popularity might have been newly calculated and was adjusted. If they newly calculate such things, it might also take a while till the averages are correct again. I have no clue how they do it. But I do know that they do not simply count views and that the ranking is not straightforward. There even is a bonus for new games that skews ranking.

The game is still on page 1 here https://itch.io/games/last-7-days

It's gone from popular charts. It was ranked 3rd. Are you an admin if so please look into it.

(1 edit)

Admins have a red tag saying admin. Moderators have a blue tag saying moderator.

I am a user.

And I am telling you, your game is still visible, still searchable and still appears in tags. And it is still "in the popular charts". Whatever that means. Because ALL games that are indexed, absolutely all of them are in the popular chart. That's what indexed means. https://itch.io/games is a list of all indexed games.

It is not at place 3 anymore. Btw, it was at place 4 when I looked. That list is volatile and it is weekend. Many people play. And the more viral the fame, the volatile I would guess.

This here https://itch.io/games/last-7-days has 4000 games. Your's is currently in the top 36 of those 4000.

Type c h e in the search box. The suggestions there only account for like the most popular 1% of games.

SOLVED. All the spam ratings has been removed. Thank you so much itch staff and people who upvoted the post!

My game spam bombed months ago and it got delisted from populer games page. itch hasnt changed at all within these months :)

Delisted has a meaning. It means removed from a list. The "popular games page" is a list of all indexed games.

Your game is on that list. It is indexed.

If your game was downvoted by illicit means (fake accounts), evidence of those fakes might be more apparant now. Maybe report them again.

In my opinion, Itch needs to a) believe that the ratings are fake and b) have time to remove them. And b can result in them losing track of the issue because of all the other bad things happening.