Developers Required to Reveal Use of GenAI in Games on Itch.io

Developers uploading their games to Itch.io now have a new requirement: they must disclose whether they are utilizing generative AI within their projects.

Leaf Corcoran, the platform’s founder, recently announced that game creators need to clearly state if their game incorporates generative AI technology. This not only involves highlighting its use but also specifying the particular areas it affects – be it graphics, music, text, dialogue, or even the underlying code.

For games identified as using generative AI, they receive a specialized tag. Further distinctions are made with additional tags based on whether artificial intelligence is used for graphics, sound, text and dialogue, or coding.

To clarify, Itch.io explained in its updated quality guidelines that “generative AI” refers to AI systems capable of producing new content like text, images, and music from extensive datasets. This encompasses tools such as large language models like ChatGPT and image generation models like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, which generate new content from their training material.

Creators are encouraged to accurately tag their projects in the “AI Disclosure” section found on the project’s edit page if any elements are generated using AI. However, if a project uses self-contained algorithms that don’t rely on external large datasets, such as traditional game AI functions like NPC pathfinding, enemy behavior, or procedural level generation, these do not fall under the generative AI umbrella and thus don’t require tagging.