Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Is Itch not responding to my fraud complaint?

A topic by Sagharth created 7 days ago Views: 108 Replies: 8
Viewing posts 1 to 3

I bought a resource pack supposedly for pixel art, but it's actually just repetitive, AI-generated content. I requested a refund, but they ignored me and didn't even reply. What can I do? This content is useless to me; no player likes AI-generated games. Not to mention that out of the supposed 4,000 resources, only about 500 are unique; the rest are just color variations, all AI-generated. The pack didn't mention these details, and it's a scam.

(1 edit) (+1)

Itch.io takes significantly longer than two days to respond to support requests.

All game asset packs on itch.io are required to disclose if they used generative AI. If the game asset you are complaining about does not have this declaration or claims to be AI-free, you may have a decent fraud case and I recommend also contacting your payment provider if itch.io fails to respond in a timely fashion. If the game asset does declare that its contents are AI-generated, you are unlikely to receive a refund.

edit: based on the title, it looks like you bought a bundle by HoriHoriPixel. Their content is correctly declared as AI-generated. While I personally would not buy this and do not want to see stuff like it on itch.io, there is no fraud here.

The problem is that their content may be "marked as AI-generated," but at the time of purchase, there was nothing that said, "Hello, caution, this content is AI-generated." They just sold me the package as a sale without mentioning that only about 500 items are unique; the rest are painted versions of each item, repeated ad nauseam. This is a sale with malicious or dishonest intentions at best.

(+1)

No it isn't.

You can always check what products are part of a bundle. You can check if the products are AI-gen for any of these products.

Unless the bundle actively tries to deceive you into believing that no part of it is AI-generated, this is not fraud. Fraud requires intent to deceive in any legislation I am aware of. Making information available, but making it less obvious than you personally want it to be, is not fraud. That is a failure on your part to look at what you are buying.

Containing multiple recolored versions of the same sprite is also extremely common for tilesets, including high-quality ones like those of GuttyKreum or limezu. It will be very hard to argue that this constitutes fraud.

You might be right, but it still wasn't "obvious" enough for a novice like me when it comes to buying game assets. Perhaps I was naive.
Do you have any pixel art content creators you could recommend for 2D games?
(Depending on your response, I'll just consider the purchase a loss and learn to be more discerning when selecting what to buy.)

Yeah, writing those 25 bucks off is a good idea. I know it sucks to buy something with no apparent use completely by accident, and it would be nice if itch.io had a refund policy for cases like that, but so far, itch.io will only refund you in very specific cases.

Some pixel artists whose stuff I have lying around on my NAS are limezu, v3x3d and GuttyKreum. To my knowledge, none of them use generative AI. I've also made a game using this tileset: https://vurmux.itch.io/urizen-onebit-tileset

Urizen is free and limezu's graphics are very affordable. The other two are a bit more expensive but still well worth the investment if you have an idea of what to do with them.

Aside from that, you can search itch.io with the "No AI" tag, e. g. https://itch.io/game-assets/tag-no-ai/tag-pixel-art

(+1)

Thanks for the guide and for taking the time to reply, it's appreciated, best regards!

(+1)

No worries, I like shouting out people whose assets I like.

(+1)

While there is no buyers remorse refunds or try before buy, they usually do refunds that have a reason. No "fraud" complaints needed. That you noticed too late, that this is ai made and you actually cannot use it for the intended purpose is a good enough reason, imho. They decide each case individually, but do not expect this to happen within a few days right before a weekend.