Talk to people. Then do it some more. That work doesn’t end. Make friends; offer feedback on their games; use social media; post about your progress. This is an ongoing process. Of course your game will sink without a trace on itch.io, among one million and a half other games. It’s up to you to stay at the front and be seen.
Taking a break perhaps?
I made games because i want to. As a hobby, I have ideas i want to see materialized. If somebody else likes them, cool. But I try to keep a mindset of 'making the stuff *I* want to see.' I helps to maintain the motivation and enjoy the game-creation process since it can become a heavy burden sometimes.
In my case the loop is more than. Having a game idea -> making -> publish -> rest -> repeat.
Don't burn yourself, have a little vacation if you need to.
Yeah, the motivation you may have for your games is perfectly valid. I was just telling what i do.
It's okay if you have a story, lore, fictional universe, etc that you wanna develop and evolve and make it bigger as you say.
I was just telling that i do after ending a project is rest a bit. A week, two or a month (depending how i feel). Brain is like a muscle, you don't want to make it 'weak' or 'sore' (like mine XD) but if you keep doing effort it may broke.
The feeling of wanting things bigger, famous, polished, etc is a trap sometimes. Rest is also part of the developing process. It's a time where the brain recovers and you can use to... idk, watch a movie, read a comic, make a trip,etc. Things that may give you ideas for your main project and making it grow.
oh about that, i tried forcing myself to rest and etc and i was defeated. since i dont use that much brainpower over thinking, i just- do. oh also ideas, i just get a spark of idea at a random time and then cant rest. i understand where your coming from tho, so uhh thanks for the advice. im young and full of energy now yes but as i will get old ill need rest and if this becomes a habit ill be slicing years off my life
Nobody has taken on your actual claim, and I think it is half wrong in a way worth knowing — because the wrong half is the useful half 🎮
“itch games disappear the second they stop getting updates.” What genuinely decays is your position on time-ordered surfaces: the Newest shelf for each of your tags, and the feed. Those are sorted by date, so yes, you slide off them and nothing brings you back.
What does not decay is search and the tag pages. Those are keyed to what your page says, not to when you last touched it. A game nobody has updated in a year still turns up for someone typing the right words.
I went and measured mine instead of guessing. Small numbers — 53 attributed visits over 30 days, so take it for what it is — but the split surprised me:
So roughly half arrived through itch’s own search and browse, on days I did nothing whatsoever. And the part that feels like work — posting, promoting, showing up — was the smaller share of it.
Which points at an answer to “what is there to do after”. The highest-return afternoon I have spent on this project was not a trailer and not a post. It was rewriting my tags. itch gives you ten slots; most people fill four, usually with words that describe the setting rather than words a stranger would actually type into a search box. I cut three of mine that described the theme and added three that matched real queries — and that is a permanent change. It keeps working while you sleep, which is precisely the property you are asking for.
A trailer is one-shot. A promo post is one-shot. The page metadata is the only thing you own that compounds.
One question back, because it changes the advice completely: are people finding your page and leaving, or not finding it at all? Your dashboard’s views against its plays or downloads separates those two, and as problems they have nothing in common — one is a page problem, the other is a discovery problem, and the fixes point in opposite directions.
Well first of all, thank you, yea i thought so too, but most views come out from when i update, about your question, the click ratio is about well healthy 1.00+ yk, it bounces and stuff but thats the average, but as soon as i don't make a post or an update or anything, it goes silent, every view comes from either new and popular, the post or maybe even reddit. Like look at this. (Past 30 days)
16 game views came out of my profile, prob from topics or posts where they clicked me and then my game.
12 from reddit, and 6 and descending from tags, and browse and from what i noticed, they all increase after an update.
About 57 came out of itchs own site, not from a trailer so...yeah im in a bit of a pickle, but maybe- thats how we go, maybe our game goes on to expand slowly and slowly and it becomes noticable.
Those numbers actually answer it 🎮 A click ratio around 1 means people who find the page do play, so your problem is being found, not being left. And 6 from tags against 57 from itch overall says the compounding half isn’t pulling yet: updates bump you on the date-sorted shelves, then you slide off again.
Which tags are on the page right now? If they describe the setting rather than what a stranger would type, that’s the cheapest fix you have.
I think one way to escape this paradox is by creating your own community and posting updates—even simple ones—monthly. I've not tried this solution yet, but that's what I saw one developer team does for their visual novel. They just post a monthly devlog while they're building their new game. You can also try finding streamers that'd play your game and post a review video about it on social media. I hope you can escape this paradox 😵💫
Next phase is:
Be sad because nobody plays it, then start on the next game.
But seriously i think after a few initial plays very good games get popular by themselves (the cream rises to the top). I've never landed a hit, and I think it's because they are lacking in a certain area. You gotta be humble and recognize what could be better and learn from it.
woodsmoke said it casually but it's actually the real answer. The next game is the marketing for this one. Your profile becomes a portfolio and people who find game two go back and play game one. Seen it happen more than once. The paradox SpinnX is describing kind of dissolves once you stop treating each project as the thing that needs to blow up and start treating your whole output as the thing that compounds over time.
