ive noticed some weird things happening last few days, 2 games i had tracked got the last updated date changed without an update (games that have been completed/abandoned for years), so they showed up at the top of my list. i noticed that the mod had changed the "thread updated" value, but not the "release date" value. i assume that usually the "thread updated" value is changed when the thread is updated with a new game update, not for smaller edits to OP, but apparently some mods change the date anyway. i have changed the cache api to prefer using "release date" instead of "thread updated" from the OP. all games will slowly be parsed with this change over the next week as the cache expires, let me know if this produces unexpected results. it was using "thread updated" because that sounded like it means game updates, while "release date" sounded like when the game originally released, and i dont see a specific guideline about this in f95zone game posting rules/template, but from what i can see usually "release date" refers to when a certain update that is posted to f95zone was originally published by the author, not when the game as a whole was originally released. so i think that this behavior is acceptable, and will prevent "fake updates" from showing up when mods edit the thread updated date without an update.
as for the issue you mentioned here, where the mods dont update these dates at all, idk if anything can be done about that.
EDIT: although, i just realized that it could also happen that a game is updated but the update is not published to f95zone until months later, and this change would mean the udpated date shows as long ago even though you get the notification now... idk what the best solution is then. ill keep this change for now and see what people think