itch.io says it has deleted “a couple terabytes” of AI-generated uploads, after the number of new game pages on the store doubled in two months. It’s also making more creators disclose AI use and letting players filter AI-disclosed work out of search. It’s their platform, so they can do as they want, but I think it might have been better if they had gone down the Steam route of having it as a declaration.
Key takeaways
- itch.io posted that it “Just deleted a couple terabytes of ai slop” early on November 3.
- New game pages per day have doubled in two months, but itch.io says downloads and purchases haven’t.
- Tabletop games, books, comics and soundtracks now need an AI disclosure before a page can be created or edited.
- Players can now filter out AI-disclosed projects in more places, including search results.
What did itch.io delete?
The store’s official account posted “Just deleted a couple terabytes of ai slop” on Bluesky at 3:23am GMT on November 3, and on X a few minutes later. On X it passed a million views within hours.
Ten minutes later it explained who it was aiming at: “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.” In a reply, it described the problem as “Making large number of pages and using butler to upload”. Butler is itch.io’s own tool for uploading builds from the command line.
itch.io also posted what it called its official statement: “we are very generous with what we offer without limitation but people are now abusing it to the max and it makes us sad.”
Why is itch.io cracking down now?
Volume. On November 1, itch.io posted that “The number of game pages being created per-day has doubled in the past 2 months”. In the next post it added that “The number of downloads and purchases has not doubled”.
It isn’t blaming only a handful of spammers, either. When someone pointed to a bulk uploader on November 2, itch.io replied that bulk uploaders are against its guidelines and get deindexed, but that its own analysis found “the increase in the graph is driven by first time uploaders, not bulk uploaders like this.”
What counts as AI slop on itch.io?
That’s the part I’d want answered. People are going to start using AI to code, and what defines AI slop and AI assisted, right?
itch.io’s quality guidelines give its own answer. They tell creators to avoid “excessive amounts of automatically generated or AI-generated content”, and treat it as spam that can be removed from browse and search. The examples 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”
itch.io says that clause has been in its guidelines for over two years. The same guidelines ask creators to “accurately tag” generative AI use in the AI Disclosure section of their page.
What changes for creators on itch.io?
More of the store now needs that disclosure. itch.io posted that “The tabletop (aka physical games), books, comics and soundtracks categories on itchio now require completing an AI disclosure in order to edit or create your page.” The game assets section has required one for the past two years.
That’s closer to the Steam route than it might look. Valve added AI disclosure to Steam’s submission survey in January 2024, split into content made before release and content generated while you play, as PC Gamer reported. In January 2026 Valve stopped asking about behind-the-scenes “efficiency tools”. Respawn by Outlook India reported that coding assistants are now exempt, so a game that used AI to help write its code doesn’t need a label for that. It’s a difference that matters, because AI labels can hurt sales on Steam.
How do you hide AI games on itch.io?
Use the new filter. itch.io says it is “adding Generative AI disclosure filtering to few more places on the site where it was critically lacking, including our search results page”. GamingOnLinux tried it on Linux games: the list went from 153,734 results to 43,057 with AI-disclosed projects hidden.
As a player, would I turn that filter on? No. I would keep it there. I don’t know why people are so against it, if I’m honest.
Should itch.io charge to upload?
Unlike Steam, itch.io doesn’t charge anything to put a page up, as GamingOnLinux points out. We have a game on itch.io from years ago, Andrew Ant, a test build of one level of a Unity platformer that’s still free to play in the browser.
They could start charging, but I think they’re still going to get flooded, and I think people would still pay to get it through. I’d pay to get my AI games on itch.io. But I don’t know what they class as slop, if I’m honest.
If you’re choosing where to buy indie games, the stores take very different approaches, which we went through in our guide on where to buy indie PC games.
Should the AI tools stop it instead?
I don’t think they should stop it in the tools. Anthropic has just told Claude Code to stop recreating other people’s specific games, and I think Claude’s rule is good. But again, what does itch.io deem AI slop? That’s where it’s going to be.
Cloning has been the bigger worry for developers so far, as with the vibe coding threat on Steam. itch.io’s clean-up is about volume instead, and how it draws the line will decide who gets caught in it.
