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Low number of downloads

A topic by david_80_80_80 created 41 days ago Views: 266 Replies: 7
Viewing posts 1 to 8

Hi! I made a game, you can check it out on my profile, but I noticed that it gets very few views and downloads. I'd love for you to try the game. I'm not going to update the game. I'm moving on to another project

That happens often. My first game got 1 download which is by me. My highest brower play is 139. Brower games are played much more.

That's normal. You have to consider that your game share the shelf with thousands of games that are uploaded almost daily. It's recommended that you share links to your games in other platforms, forums, YT, etc. You know, self-promotion, but even that. Like I said, is normal if you don't have hundreds or even dozens of downloads. So don't get yourself down. :-)

Two things decide this, and neither is the game.


One, the shelf. Thousands of uploads a week, so the itch front page is a lottery. More polish won't fix that. A doorway with existing traffic will: a jam, a genre Discord, a short clip where people already go to watch games.


Two, you said you're not updating. That's the harder one. On Steam especially, the store surfaces whatever moved most recently. No patch, no devlog, no post means no trigger to pull anyone back, and the player curve just drains. One small update resets that clock.


I read this exact pattern for a living, on live numbers, so if you want a second set of eyes on your page, my profile's the door.

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yes game plays are touch to get imo with all those games around

One lever nobody has mentioned yet: tags are shelves 🎮 Every tag has a Popular listing (a lottery for a new game) and a Newest listing, and Newest is where niche browsers actually look. I cut three broad tags on my own game, added the ones that describe it exactly, and it landed at #1 in a newest-tagged listing within days. Open the tag pages your game sits on and look at page 1 of Newest; if you are not on it, that is the fix.

They are a lot of games these days, and players have many options. So download numbers raise slowly.

You should definitely update your game if you want to get more views. In my opinion, even minor updates show that you're working hard to get yourself exposed. If you want to focus on a new project, I suggest you consider doing at least one update per month. ☺️