If you want to know
the thing
If someone posts a comment on "Game X" with a link to a youtube video, "Game X" gets more plays for about a week.
the mechanism
Itch's algorithm for popularity must have a big ole' term for Has A Youtube Comment, basically it shoots you up in the "popular" chart for a while when someone posts a video. Makes sense right? If you wanted to gauge popularity, you might check to see if people are posting lets plays of it.
the horror
Since the mechanism relates to the position on the "popular" chart, the effect is strongest for genres that people search for all the time. Horror games, especially.
the problem
The algorithm doesn't care who posts the video, or what it is about. You can post videos on your own games and it treats it exactly like a let's player posting a video. You can imagine how, knowing this, you might be tempted to post a video in your own game's comments to get the rush of a peaking analytics chart. I have, and I feel bad about it.
the solution
Well OK I don't have an actual solution. I know that the worst case scenario is everybody starts posting videos on all their games and the popularity algorithm becomes a big soup of meaningless garbage. This would probably result in the algorithm getting tweaked? It's also weird because if you don't know about this, the algorithm actually works pretty well. It's only a problem once people know the secret.
I think the best case scenario is we all agree not to post videos on our own games, but we use video comments as a "super like" or a "super rating" where if you really love a game on itch, you make a video about it and post a comment with it.
the research
This was all figured out by @Kaden, who wrote a great article about it - you should give him a follow and read the full article https://kadenramstack.neocities.org/Blog_Posts/ItchioAlgo.html if you're interested in a more detailed analysis!
