Itch.io Blames Funko And Trash AI Phishing Report For Going Offline

Itch.io, a popular platform used by independent game developers to distribute their games, was temporarily taken offline. It was apparently a victim of an overzealous phishing report made by Brand Shield on behalf of Funko. Unfortunately, it seems the registrar being used by the company failed to prevent this situation from occurring by not taking Itch.io’s response to the accusation into account.

The company took to social media to inform developers and customers of the outage, posting that “I kid you not, @itch.io has been taken down by Funko of "Funko Pop" because they use some trash "AI Powered" Brand Protection Software called Brand Shield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain.”


Justifiably, many were upset at the situation, because the platform plays a vital role for indie game developers and the players who want to support them. One user posted that “Itch should sue Funko, their registrar, and BrandShield for loss of business on behalf of their own interests and the interest of their users, developers, and buyers.” This same user added that “this is something that not only affects itch, but also everyone that hosts jams and releases software and games on there.”

Thankfully, Itch.io is once again available after being down for a few hours. However, it’s an alarming event, and hopefully Itch.io is able to find a new registrar that will be more helpful should this happen again in the future. At a moment when the game industry is struggling with massive layoffs and studio closures, the last thing it needs is one of its distribution methods taken down by bogus claims.