The indie game platform itch.io revealed today that its domain has been taken down based on a “bogus phishing report” created by AI software. The platform owners said their responses had been ignored by the domain registrar.
“I kid you not, @itchio has been taken down by @OriginalFunko because they use some trash “AI-Powered” Brand Protection Software called @BrandShieldltd that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, @iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain,” wrote itch.io on X.
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The thread alleged that the platform took a proactive step for the sake of transparency and took down the disputed page as soon as they were notified. However, the registrar’s automated system kicked in and disabled the entire domain.
“Also, for transparency, we *did* take the disputed page down as soon as we got the notice because it’s not worth fighting stuff like that. Regardless, our registrar’s automated system likely kicked to disable the domain since no one read our confirmation of removal.”
When asked when the domain will get back up, itch.io said, “We’ll have to wait for @iwantmyname to get back to us, we’ve sent additional emails asking that WTF is going on.”
In the comment, several gamers expressed their dissatisfaction with the action taken by Funko. Software Engineer Edgar Jr San Martin said “@OriginalFunko just destroyed a whole ecosystem?! Unreal.”
Another user with the handle @DrewBea82 wrote, “I’m comfortable never buying another Funko product till they fix that mistake.”
At the moment, itch.io servers are still active until the issue is resolved but the site and its games are down. The longer the issue lingers, the more problems creators who rely on the platform to get their games across to gamers will likely face.
The cached version of Itch.io may still be available to some domain name servers. However, it will eventually expire depending on how long they set their time to live (TTL)—which is usually one day. At the time of writing, we could still access the site.
While developers will no longer have access to tools that will allow them to sell and distribute their products on the platform, the DRM-free nature of the downloads allows those who already purchased and installed a game to continue playing without any problems.
What are your thoughts on the taking down of itch.io? GameBaba Universe would love to hear from you.
