Itch has clamped down on the deluge of low effort generative AI games flooding its store, confirming the removal of a couple of terabytes of “AI slop.”
In a statement on social media, the indie game storefront said it had begun the process of removing thousands of AI games and other marketplace items, including asset packs for game developers, due to spam. “Just deleted a couple terabytes of AI slop,” Itch said.
“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,” Itch continued.
Itch has also added generative AI disclosure filtering to its website, including on its search results page “in order to better control what you see.” Via the ‘No AI’ filter, users can strip out games with AI disclosures.
When asked if this was a blanket ban on generative AI, Itch said it’s only against the site’s terms and conditions when it comes to spam. “Avoid uploading excessive amounts of automatically generated or AI-generated content,” the site’s official terms and conditions states. AI generated content is fine if it’s “clearly stated in your project description and that it adds substantial value to the user experience.” Multiple iterations of the same thing spat out with slight variations are against the rules, and AI content has to have some sense of curation to pass the store’s guidelines.
Itch has taken a stronger stance on AI than, for example, Valve. While Steam has an AI discosure policy for store pages, Valve does not limit AI-focused developer access to its platform, nor block “AI slop” from from it despite complaints from fans and developers about the deluge of low effort games that flooded the recent Steam Next Fest. Valve also put the onus on developers to ensure their game stands out amid the detritus. In particular, there’s been a big issue on Steam of developers having their games instantly cloned with AI as soon as they share any development progress.
“Rather than relying on a single mechanic that someone can easily copy, you need to keep growing your game by adding features, personality, and creativity that stem from your own perspective,” Valve’s Tom Giardino said.
Epic Games, on the other hand, is all-in on AI. Its boss, Tim Sweeney, has heavily criticized Valve for its AI disclosure policy, calling it a “political act.”
