Fans of the indie video game marketplace itch.io are putting Funko on blast after the pop culture collectibles company issued a takedown request—and allegedly called the head of itch’s mom.
Itch—which hosts over one million products and allows independent digital creators to choose the percentage of their revenue sharing—indicated the drama was spurred by a “trash ‘AI Powered’ Brand Protection Software” used by Funko, the maker of Funko Pops.
“I kid you not, @itchio has been taken down by @OriginalFunko because they use some trash ‘AI Powered’ Brand Protection Software called @BrandShieldltd that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, @iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain,” itch wrote on X late Sunday.
The platform added that it 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 to disable the domain since no one read our confirmation of removal,” the company said.
Within a day, the site was back up and running—but the drama was not over.
Itch’s account alleged Funko had taken another surprising action.
“This is not a joke, Funko just called my mom,” itch wrote, including a screenshot of an auto-transcribed voicemail stating that she “got a strange call from a company about accusatory statements” on social media.
Fans of itch fume over Funko Pops reaction
The accusations roiled itch’s users and fans—many of whom concluded it was “insane behavior” by Funko.
“Time to call Funko’s mom as payback,” quipped someone else.
“Ain’t no way big businesses are TATTLETALING WITH EACH OTHER’S MOTHERS,” remarked another person.
“this is disturbing behavior for a multimillion dollar company actually,” one viral post concluded.
The Daily Dot reached out to Funko for comment about the alleged call.
The company—known for its iconic big-headed figurines—released a statement on X in response to the uproar.
“At Funko, we hold a deep respect and appreciation for indie games, indie gamers, and indie developers,” the company wrote. “We’re fans of fans, and we love the creativity and passion that define the indie gaming community.”
“Recently, one of our brand protection partners identified a page on http://itch.io imitating the Funko Fusion development website. A takedown request was issued to address this specific page. Funko did not request a takedown of the @itchio platform, and we’re happy the site was back up by this morning.”
But some fans are still upset and Funko’s statement itself was hit with a Community Note.
“The ‘takedown request’ in question was a ‘fraud and phishing’ report to the registrar, instead of the more usual DMCA [copyright] request, according to the person who runs itch,” the note counters.
“Lot of words to *not* say ‘we are sorry’ about this,” blasted one person.
“Dont call my mom please,” said someone else.
Brandshield similarly received backlash as it tried to explain its role in the saga.
“We identified and reported the infringement, and requested a takedown of the URL in question – not of the entire http://itch.io domain,” the company wrote. “The temporary takedown of the website was a decision made by the service providers, not BrandShield.”
But the hits are still continuing.
“So instead of filing a DMCA claim to http://itch.io you sent a takedown request to their registrar,” replied one game developer. “Are you incompetent or just lying about your intentions? Wild behavior.”
The developer added later: “This is the same as having all of Twitch taken down because one user is streaming a copyrighted movie.”
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