Hello

I always see many games being introduced and advertised/promoted on the first page of itch-io when I open the website. Some of them have even caught my eyes for more than a couple of times. But I’ve never seen my own game being advertised on the first page or anywhere else on itch-io. I’m willing to ask how the algorithm works and if itch-io posts games randomly on the first page or any other discipline is being applied.

Thank you in advance.

As far as I know, featured games are manually selected by administrators.

From what I’ve heard, some people from the Itch team hand-pick those games. There are plenty of new games being uploaded on Itch daily, so it’s pretty difficult to get featured. My suggestion would be to focus on doing your own marketing, and treat being featured on Itch as something that might never happen.

Right! That said, there are several other sections on the front page. One is personalized to each visitor. Another uses a complex formula, precisely so that people don't try to game it. If you're on Twitter, you can ping the official @itchio account. A high-quality release announcement and project page can help with getting a project featured. But mostly, focus on making a game people want to play, because that's what succeeds in the end. And there's no recipe for that.