It’s not gonna solve the problem overnight, but it’s a start: Itch kicked off the week by announcing that it’s combatting an eye-watering uptick in AI-generated trash by deleting “a couple terabytes” of the stuff and enforcing AI disclosure rules in more places.
“Just because you can upload 10 terabytes of poorly optimized AI-generated models doesn't mean you should upload 10 terabytes of poorly optimized AI-generated models,” reads a post from the platform’s Bluesky account.
Further, to give users more control over how much AI-generated content they encounter when they’re searching for literally anything else, Itch has updated its AI disclosure requirement to include tabletop, comics, and soundtracks and has also added AI disclosure filtering to places where it was “critically lacking,” including the search page.
While many have called for Itch to ban AI-generated content outright, that does not appear to be in the cards, at least for now. The site’s Bluesky account linked to AI spam rules that have been around for two years, which it used as a justification for deleting multiple terabytes of slop. Against these rules are:
- Games or projects that are predominantly created by algorithms or AI with minimal human intervention.
- Content that is randomly generated with no or minimal curated design.
- Multiple iterations of essentially the same content that are generated by AI or algorithms.
But the page specifically notes that, as far as those running Itch are concerned, “in some cases automatically generated or AI-generated content can be useful or interesting” and that AI has a place on the platform as long as “it adds substantial value to the user experience” and is properly disclosed.
But of course, people can still just opt to not disclose that their games incorporate generative AI, leaving Itch’s staff—tiny compared to, say, Steam’s—with little recourse other than to repeatedly play whack-a-mole.
