9/12/24 As of 7:20am PST / 9:20am EST / 14:20pm GMT, the Itch website is accessible again. 10/12/24: BrandShield has issued a statement explaining that Itch was taken down by the website's service provider, and not because of BrandShielf itself. This is now included in the body copy.
Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil, Fallout - they've all got Funko Pop figurines. A mainstay of popular culture, the Funko franchise has this year come full circle, with the release of Funko Fusion in September giving the plastic collectibles, often based on videogames, their very own tie-in platformer. But now, allegedly, a wrinkle in the company's brand protection software means that Itch - the spiritual home of experimental and independent games, and alternative digital store to Steam and Epic - has been taken offline.
Itch plays host to some of the best indie games in the world. It's an open platform where users can share and sell their homebrew creations, and a lot of future hits start life as freeware on Itch before graduating to Steam or Epic. Originally launched back in 2013, the store today contains more than one million games. However, as of this writing, Itch is inaccessible, and the site says that it's down to Funko and its "trash" brand protection software.
"I kid you not," a post on Itch's official Bluesky account explains, "Itch 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." The website follows this post with a short reply: "I hope you're all having a nice Sunday evening."
As of Monday December 9, it is still impossible to access Itch - the site's IP address cannot be reached. Since claiming that the site has been pulled down due to Funko's brand protection software, Itch itself has published no further comment. PCGamesN has contacted representatives from Funko and will update this story with any further information.
BrandShield has since issued a statement explaining that Itch was taken down by the site's own service provider, rather than by BrandShield itself. The company says that it requested a takedown of a specific subdomain, rather than the entire Itch site.
"BrandShield serves as a trusted partner to many brands. Our AI-driven platform detects potential threats and provides analysis, and in this case, an abuse was identified from an Itch subdomain," the company says. "We identified and reported the infringement, and requested a takedown of the URL in question, not of the entire Itch domain. The temporary takedown of the website was a decision made by the service providers, not BrandShield."
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