Itch.io, a small independent game distribution store that allows any and all game creators to sell their games, reports that the number of store pages for games has doubled per-day in the past two months. Ina post on Bluesky, a site representative implied this unprecedented rise is due to to generative AI’s effects on game development, but points out that the increase in the number of pages has not resulted in a commensurate rise in sales or revenue.
The Bluesky post post reads “The number of game pages being created per-day has doubled in the past 2 months,” accompanied by an image of a chart that shows a raise from 3,000 pages created on a given day around August to nearly 8,000 pages in October. While the Itch.io post does not directly say that this is because of generative AI, multiple replies to the post from other users ask if that is the case, and the Itch.io account responds with eithertired emojisor robots.
A further replyalso clarifies that “the number of downloads and purchases has *not* doubled,” indicating that the higher number of game pages doesn’t seem to be benefitting the store or developers in any significant way.
Browsing Itch.io’s page ofnewest games, which shows games in the latest order they have been added, one can observe numerous thumbnails made using generative AI. Filtering using the “No AI” button removes entire pages from the store listings, going from 1,772,099 results down to 432,180 results. The AI disclosure tag is applied when a creator adds a game page, asking if the game contains any generative AI in the assets, but does not require the question to be answered for a page to be created.
In the Itch.io content creator quality guidelines,the section on generative AIincludes a plea for truthful disclosure. “We ask that you accurately tag your project if it contains materials produced by generative AI by utilizing the AI Disclosure section on your project’s edit page.” The overall guidelines page does say that failure to adhere to the guidelines could result in a page being removed, but it is unclear what the processes are for a game being removed for containing generative AI without reporting it.
Itch.io isn’t the only video game storefront to see a rise in dashed-off AI games. In response to the flood of AI copies on its own store,Valve has asked developers on Steam to make their games “less likely to be copied”and to encourage developers to stand out by using Steam’s community features to their fullest extent.
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