itch.io says it has deleted "a couple terabytes" of AI spam and added a filter that lets visitors hide AI-disclosed projects from search results. The indie storefront announced the changes in posts on its X account on November 3, 2026, two days after saying new game pages were being created at twice the rate of two months earlier.
A chart attached to the November 1 post, which tracks daily "game.create" events, shows the count rising from roughly 3,000 a day in early August to around 6,000 a day by late October. itch.io didn't say how much of the rise came from AI uploads.
In a follow-up post, itch.io wrote that being able to upload "10 terabytes of poorly optimized ai generated models" doesn't mean you should, and pointed to the AI spam clause it says has been in its quality guidelines for over two years. Under that clause, mass-produced pages count as spam, including projects largely generated by AI or algorithms with little human involvement, and itch.io may pull them from browse and search. itch.io hasn't said exactly what it deleted, a gap GamesRadar+ also noted in its November 3 report.
Tabletop (physical) games, books, comics and soundtracks now need a generative AI disclosure before a creator can create or edit a page, joining game assets, where it has been required for two years. itch.io also added AI disclosure filtering to more parts of the site, including search results, where a "No AI" tag can now be selected.
Why it matters: itch.io is a common first home for jam games and asset packs made with AI tools. Under itch.io's guidelines, asset, book, comic, soundtrack and tabletop pages that skip the disclosure risk delisting, and bulk AI uploads risk removal from browse and search. Steam faces similar pressure: nearly half of its October releases disclosed AI use, in a community count AIGamer reported on November 3.
Caveat: the No AI tag depends on creators' own answers. In itch.io's forum thread on AI disclosure tagging, opened in November 2024, leafo of itch.io wrote that the tag only goes on pages whose creators explicitly marked them as free of generative AI, so pages that skip the question don't get it. Games aren't on the list of page types where itch.io says it strictly enforces disclosure.
itch.io hasn't said whether more removals are planned or whether disclosure will become mandatory for games.
