Indie RPG/Gaming Site Itch.io Taken Down By Funko and AI Brand-Protection Software
Itch.io was taken down over the weekend (back up now) after an AI “brand-protection software” used by Funko generated a bogus phishing report.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things are getting downright Cyberpunk lately. Huge corporations like Starbucks are being hit with ransomware attacks. AI with a 90% error rate being used to deny healthcare claims. Add to that, a cyberpunk-flavored story in the gaming corner of the world. Corporate takedowns brought about by erroneous reports from AI.
What a time to be alive.
Itch.io announced on Bluesky earlier that its website was taken down by none other than big-headed collectible maker Funko. This happened after a bogus phishing report was generated by Brand Shield, an AI-powered “brand protection” software used by Funko and other companies.
Itch.io Taken Down By Funko, Brand Shield
If you’re not aware, Itch.io is one of the biggest platforms for indie games of all stripes, including and especially tabletop RPGs. And it’s not just smaller indie titles, like You Are Quarantined With Adam Driver and He is Insisting On Reading You His New Script either. You can find larger indie titles like Wanderhome there as well. It’s become an important part of the RPG ecosystem.
All that to say, whether you’re an indie designer, publisher, or player it’s extremely relevant to know what happened here. Itch.io announced on its Bluesky account that Funko and its AI-powered software Brand Shield had been responsible for the domain being disabled:
“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.”
Itch.io on Bluesky
In a post on Hacker News, Itch.io co-founder Leaf Corcoran offered more context, saying that the phishing report created by Brand Shield and filed by Funko centered around a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game, Funko Fusion:
“From what I can tell, some person made a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game (Funko Fusion), with links to the official site and screenshots of the game. The BrandShield software is probably instructed to eradicate all “unauthorized” use of their trademark, so they sent reports independently to our host and registrar claiming there was “fraud and phishing” going on, likely to cause escalation instead of doing the expected DMCA/cease-and-desist. Because of this, I honestly think they’re the malicious actor in all of this.”
But Corcoran took action, removing the fan page and disabling the account that had created it. Despite these actions, and despite having no other “abuse reports” Itch.io was set to “serverHold” status by iwantmyname, disabling the site:
“This evening, I got a downtime alert, and while debugging, I noticed that the domain status had been set to “serverHold” on iwantmyname’s domain panel. We have no other abuse reports from iwantmyname other than this one. I’m assuming no one on their end “closed” the ticket, so it went into an automatic system to disable the domain after some number of days.”
At press time, Itch.io was back online—though as Corcoran points out, the issue had to be “escalated” via social media to get a response. Others, who don’t have the reach, might find their sites taken down with no recourse, and no human to appeal to.
It sure seems like AI is cocking up a lot of things these days. Probably should put it in even more (and more integral) parts of our society just to be sure that it will still mess everything up.
