On May 31, the Top Rated page was changed to show only a limited number of games to combat botting. Ever since then mid-sized games have been quietly removed and games with very low ratings (<60%) but large playerbases have started to pop up on the page.
To figure out which games were being removed, on July 6, I took a picture of the Top Rated page, then at the end of each day, I looked at which games had been removed. To clarify, “removed” in this case means games that are on the page one second, and disappear the next.
The picture above shows the Top Rated page on July 6, with the games that have been removed being crossed out with a red “X”.
Here’s the full list of games that have been removed since July 6:
- World of Magic - 2.4k players
- Tower Heroes - 4.3k players
- Tower Defense Simulator - 8.9k players
- Emergency Response Liberty County - 3.8k players
- Ronald - 4k players
- Ro-Force - 1.8k players
- Bomb Simulator - 4.4k players
Based on the list, games with 1,000 to 5,000 players are the most likely to be removed, with the sole exception of Tower Defense Simulator. Because the largest games such as Bloxburg are unaffected, I believe this bug has largely gone unnoticed.
Edit: Added Bomb Simulator to the list
Edit 2: Well I figured out what was happening, according to this page all Sorts got a critieria to maintain a certain number of players or be delisted. I’m guessing Top Rated now has a hidden criteria to maintain at least 5,000 concurrent players or be removed.