The front page placement lasted for over a month, which is unusually long. What were the key factors that helped sustain that momentum rather than just achieving an initial spike?
Luden.io: Getting into New & Popular was our first real spike of visibility, and it came from doing a lot of things right on our side, like positioning, tags, visuals, and early engagement. Sustaining that visibility, however, mostly came from being featured on the front page, which is much less predictable.
This is where itch differs from Steam. On Steam, featuring tends to be short and burst-driven, but it is also much more transparent. There is plenty of documentation, many developers share their experience, and in most cases, there is a clear process to follow, or you can simply reach out to support for clarification.
On itch, it is smaller in scale, but spread out over a longer period, giving more consistent visibility over days and sometimes weeks. At the same time, because it is a much smaller platform, the process feels far less transparent.
Later, we found out that featuring is manual, but how decisions are made is still somewhat of a black box. It could be metrics, timing, or even something as subjective as whether the game looks interesting to the admin.
So the takeaway is that you can prepare the ground, make sure your page is strong, your positioning is clear, and you are giving yourself the best possible chance. But the long tail mostly comes from platform-side decisions you do not fully control.