The team at itch.io has carried out a large-scale cleanup of the store, removing low-quality content created using artificial intelligence technologies. They announced on social media the deletion of "a couple of terabytes" of such projects.
Exactly which projects were removed from the platform's catalog—whether games or assets—was not specified by itch.io.
The store emphasized that the rules of itch.io do not prohibit developers from using AI, though there are certain restrictions. Specifically, moderators may categorize as "AI slop" games whose creators have relied almost entirely on neural networks with minimal manual input. Additionally, developers are not allowed to repeatedly publish variations of the same content.
“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,” wrote the itch.io team on X.
At the same time, itch.io expanded the filtering options in the store's search results. Now, users have access to the No AI filter, allowing them to find games and other content that, according to the developers' claims, were created without the use of generative AI.
These changes occurred amid a sharp increase in the number of game pages on itch.io. Previously, the store reported that its catalog is now seeing approximately 6,000 new games each day—twice as many as two months ago.