How Online Game Platforms Decide What Shows in Your Feed

Open the home screen of most online game platforms and you see a feed: featured games, friends' activity, news, events, recommended clips and offers. It looks like a simple list, but it is the result of complex decisions about what to show, to whom and in what order. Understanding how those decisions are made helps players take back some control over what they see.

I have worked on social media strategy and now write about feeds and curation. Game platforms use many of the same techniques as social networks. Here is how they decide what shows in your feed.

Signals the platform collects

Platforms rank items using signals about you and about the content. Common signals include the games you play and how long, games your friends play, items you clicked or ignored before, your region and language, and the time of day. Content signals include how new an item is, how many people engaged with it and whether it is promoted.

These signals feed ranking models that predict how likely you are to click, play or buy. Items with higher predicted engagement move up the feed.

Editorial and promoted slots

Not everything is algorithmic. Many platforms reserve slots for editorial picks chosen by staff, such as featured indie games or seasonal events. Others include paid promotions, where publishers pay for visibility. Good platforms label promoted content clearly. Less transparent ones blur the line between recommendation and advertising.

Knowing which slots are editorial, algorithmic or paid helps you judge what you are seeing.

Friends and social activity

Social signals are powerful. Seeing that a friend just played a game or earned an achievement makes you more likely to try it. Platforms weigh friends' activity heavily, which is why feeds often show what people you know are doing. Privacy settings control whether your own activity appears in others' feeds.

Freshness and events

Online games run time-limited events, seasons and sales. Platforms boost items connected to current events so players do not miss them. That keeps feeds feeling fresh but can also create a sense of urgency that encourages spending. The way news spreads before events is covered in how online game news reaches players before the patch notes.

What you can control

Most platforms offer more control than players use. Common options include hiding games or categories you are not interested in, muting specific publishers, turning off activity sharing, adjusting content preferences and choosing a chronological activity view. On several platforms I tested, the clearest controls let players switch off recommended items entirely and see only followed games and friends, such as the settings panel on an online game platform like ankertoto, where feed preferences were grouped in one place rather than scattered across menus.

Is personalisation always bad?

It is popular to criticise algorithmic feeds as manipulative. Some criticism is deserved, especially when feeds push purchases or hide controls. But I think rejecting personalisation entirely ignores its benefits.

With thousands of games and constant updates, an unpersonalised feed would be overwhelming and mostly irrelevant. Personalisation helps players discover games they enjoy and news about titles they actually play. The problem is not personalisation itself but lack of transparency and control. A good feed explains why items appear and lets players adjust or opt out.

Taking back control

1. Review content preferences and hide categories you never play.
2. Check privacy settings for what your activity shares.
3. Look for labels that mark promoted items.
4. Follow games and creators deliberately so the feed has better signals.
5. Use an RSS reader for official news if the platform feed buries it.

The broader techniques for shaping algorithmic feeds are explained in taming a social feed without deleting the app, and they apply to game platforms just as much as social networks.

Regulation is starting to shape these feeds. Some regions now require large platforms to explain how recommendations work and to offer a non-personalised option. Game platforms that fall under these rules are adding clearer explanations, such as a small label explaining why an item appears, and settings to turn personalisation down. Even where rules do not apply, platforms are adopting similar features because players increasingly expect them.

Players can also influence feeds through their own behaviour. Following games deliberately, rating items you dislike and hiding categories you never play all feed better signals into the system. A few minutes of active tuning often improves a feed more than months of passive scrolling, because the algorithm finally has clear information about what you want.

If a platform offers no meaningful control at all, that itself is useful information. It may be worth relying on official news feeds instead and treating the platform's home screen as a shop window rather than a news source.

A feed you understand

Game platform feeds are shaped by signals, editorial choices and promotions. Knowing how they work turns them from a mysterious stream into a tool you can adjust. More in our Games section.