How new games get seen

Every game gets the same start, whoever made it.

The test period

When your game is released for the first time, it is placed on the New and being tested shelf on the home page. It stays there until it has been shown to 300 visitors (each visitor counts once a day, and only when the shelf was really on their screen), or for 14 days, whichever comes first. No game is scored in its first three days. A game released privately first starts its test when it becomes public. Games that have been shown least come first, so every new game gets its turn.

The score

When the test ends, the game gets a score out of 100, made of three equal parts:

• Play time: how long people play on average. Eight minutes or more gets full marks. One visitor counts for at most an hour a day.
• Returning players: how many plays come from someone who had already played on an earlier day.
• Rating: reviews and likes.

The number of plays by itself does not raise the score. A game that many people open and leave at once scores low.

Rising

A score of 55 or more, with at least 20 plays, puts the game on the Rising shelf for 14 days. You get a message with the result either way, and Statistics shows the numbers behind it.

A game that is not promoted stays in the store, in search and in the charts exactly as before. The Featured shelf is separate: it is picked by hand by the team.

What helps

• A game that starts quickly and explains itself in the first minute.
• A complete store page: a clear cover, a short honest tagline, screenshots.
• Sharing the game's address yourself. The test measures what players do, wherever they come from.