The rise of generative AI has caused quite a few problems in the indie game scene, from developers having their games cloned after sharing progress online to digital storefronts like Steam getting flooded with clearly AI-generated titles. Itch.io, which hosts not only independent games but also comics, game assets, and other creative projects, is arguably even more vulnerable to this kind of low-effort content.

This week, the platform announced that it had "just deleted a couple terabytes of AI slop," clarifying that the crackdown specifically targeted AI-generated spam. "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."

Alongside the purge, Itch.io also introduced a new "No AI" filter that allows users to exclude games with generative AI disclosures from search results. This doesn't mean itch.io is outright banning all games that use generative AI: it specifically targets bulk uploads of AI creations. The site's official quality guidelines for creators also make this distinction clear:

The platform seems to be taking a much stronger stance against AI than Valve, for example, which recently commented on the growing wave of AI-generated games on Steam, suggesting developers may be partly responsible for the trend by making games too easy to replicate. Among major digital storefronts, the Epic Games Store seems particularly open to generative AI, it recently released a new launcher, openly acknowledging that it was "vibe coded".

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