Itch.io marketplace goes offline after alleged phishing report by Funko

Itch.io, the popular indie game marketplace, has been taken offline, with the site blaming toy manufacturer Funko for the disruption.

According to a thread posted on its official X account, itch.io says the whole site has been taken down by what it calls a “bogus phishing report”, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.

It alleges that Funko was using ‘brand protection software’ which it claims used AI to flag a disputed page, and filed a “bogus” report with itch.io’s domain registrar.

It then claims that the registrar brought down the entire site instead of checking to make sure itch.io had taken down the page in question.

“I kid you not, itch.io has has been taken down by Funko because they use some trash “AI Powered” Brand Protection Software called BrandShield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain,” it claims.

“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 in to disable the domain since no one read our confirmation of removal.”

Itch.io also confirmed to a user on X that the site’s servers “are still there”. Until the issue is resolved, however, the site and its games will be completely down.

The longer the site remains down, the more of a problem this will become for the creators of the more than 1 million indie-created products – including indie games, RPGs, comics and music – that were being sold and distributed via itch.io.

Although the downtime means developers will no longer be able to sell or distribute their products, the DRM-free nature of the downloads means anyone who has already bought and installed indie games from itch.io will be able to continue using them without issue.

News.Az