Itch.io adds a "No AI" filter and deletes terabytes of AI spam

Indie storefront Itch.io has added a “No AI” filter that hides projects carrying a generative AI disclosure. The company announced the change on Bluesky and X, alongside a post saying it had “just deleted a couple terabytes of AI slop.”

Engadget reported that applying the filter to games cut the number of visible projects from more than 1.77 million to fewer than 425,000. Itch.io said it was adding the filter to several places on the site where it was “critically lacking,” including the search results page, where it appears as a “Genre/Tag” option.

The disclosure requirement has also grown. Game assets have required an AI disclosure for the past two years, according to PC Gamer. Creators of tabletop (physical games), books, comics and soundtracks must now complete a disclosure to create or edit a page.

Itch.io’s guidelines prohibit “uploading excessive amounts of automatically generated or AI-generated content” and treat it as spam. The guidelines say pages may be removed from browse and search. They cover projects made mostly by algorithms or AI with minimal human involvement, randomly generated content with little curated design, and many near-identical AI-generated iterations. Itch.io said it has had this clause for over two years. In the deletion post, it wrote: “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.”

Eurogamer noted that games made with generative AI must carry the disclosure to be on the platform, though creators cannot describe how much the technology was used.

Why it matters

PC Gamer reports that the number of new game pages created daily on Itch.io has doubled over the past two months, while downloads and purchases have not. Itch.io itself said as much on Bluesky. It gave no reason for the jump when asked, replying “take a guess” with crying and robot emojis.

The move follows Valve’s admission, per PC Gamer, that Steam has a problem with AI slop and game cloning. Engadget notes that Steam also has generative AI disclosure rules but offers no store filter to exclude such games. Eurogamer adds that Steam Next Fest saw a record number of demo submissions last month, and that some developers pulled demos for fear of being copied.

The filter depends on creators disclosing their AI use. Engadget points out that Itch.io does not say whether there are penalties for failing to tag content when it is needed. Itch.io also hosts game jams, which take very different stances on AI, from banning it to making it the theme.

What we don’t know yet

GamesRadar+ says it is unclear exactly what was deleted, though a follow-up post suggests it fell under the spam rules. Itch.io has not said how many pages were removed or how it identifies undisclosed AI content.