Stop us if you've heard this one before, but the PS Store is a complete mess, full of low-effort "simulator" games boasting AI-generated artwork and misleading gameplay claims. It's gotten so bad that (we'll say it) more legitimate games are getting bumped from the front page every day, and Sony has seemingly been asleep at the wheel for months (even years) now.
Not convinced? We invite you to click around on the PS Store's "Games to Wishlist" page; exceptionally bleak stuff, full of what we would have thought was actionable plagiarism (excepting Onimusha: Way of the Sword, it was never our intent for our based Capgod to catch strays).
IGN's Rebekah Valentine gets today's journalism gold star, delving into this seedy world of samey cash grabs with a massively detailed piece. Both Kotaku and Aftermath have looked at this issue from various angles, but part of the problem is that shady developers/publishers have become very good at remaining unaccountable, and Sony is allowing it to continue. These shadowy studios continue to endlessly pump out these games, and as content creator Dead Domain discovered, they are almost impossible to track down, with either non-existent, outdated, or incorrect business and contact information.
The piece covers the process of submitting a game to Sony for certification, a process which is commonly misunderstood by gaming audiences. Speaking to a number of indie and AAA publishers, Valentine was told: "A common misconception amongst The Gamers™ and even inexperienced devs is this is tantamount to a QA check. This is incorrect; it is the responsibility of the developer/publisher before submission. The platforms ensure the game's code complies with hardware specifications."
Valentine was told that while Nintendo and Xbox review all changes to store pages before they go live, PlayStation does one quick check pre-launch. Worse, the punishment for publishing false or misleading information on the PS Store? Usually, offenders are just asked to replace it with more accurate info or screenshots. Almost incidentally, none of the Big Three console storefronts (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo) has rules about using or implementing AI-generated assets; many of these "slop" titles seem incomplete or make misleading gameplay claims.
That's the "how"; here's one reason "why" it continues to happen: on Xbox, where this problem is the least pronounced, developers are vetted on an ongoing game-by-game basis, whereas PlayStation and Nintendo just do a one-time check. This is why the same offenders can continue to be released on the PS Store; they were probably on their best behaviour the first time. If it's any consolation at all, one dev said: "Nintendo is probably the easiest to scam. Once I’m in the door, I could make ‘Fart Fart Boobie Fart: The Game’, and maybe it would eventually get taken down."
There is a lot more in the IGN piece, less relevant to PlayStation, that we recommend checking out if you're interested in the issue; perhaps if we shine enough light on the situation, Sony will eventually do something about it (we are eternal optimists). What do you think about the PS Store's "eslop" problem? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 55
This is a serious issue with the store and has been for years.
Everytime there is a sale, I spend 75% of the time getting past all the “slop” before getting to games of actual value.
I really wish you could permanently hide games from the store, would happily spend a day hiding games for a better experience going forward.
Very interesting piece, I'll read the larger scale one.
iPhone/Android is even worse but yes.
I never know how it goes from oh a mobile game to dev kit, not many checks & whatever human/bot & other checks then getting through & while PlayStation I don't see a selectable element for publishers or Devs Switch did & I was like oh easy to see shovelware Devs listed with other games listed.
PlayStation customers have seen low effort games via trailers. Did NO ONE at PlayStation go oh this low effort game in this trailer wasn't enough for quality control because clearly the YouTube channel staff are just as untrained if they go oh this is ok to upload.
We customers see the trailers, we see the eshop.
So if PS YouTube channel staff have changed sure if they haven't they need to be talked to as well and make deals with studios as well of we don't approve this low quality product or be ok with it. It's up to them to make clear the rules of quality. People have dislikes the videos as well clearly on low quality products for feedback so that's another area Sony needs to has should have worked on years ago now.
Having a mobile phone and a software kit is easy to find. A dev jit is very different but mobile has its own problem of storefronts quality and even further 'what checks' as it clearly doesn't and anything goes really.
If the humans for console game checks are that incompetent, they need the right information, right time during staff shifts and more prep to get staff informed besides no easy contacts for these studios to talk to them, they need stricter checks/rules of publishing (hoping they can tell how often they see them, the repeated jumping food ones and more). A bot I can understand but if the staff aren't informed or checking enough I think they need to change things to prevent it on the human staff side to intervene in their checks.
They I assume have a algorithm then a human team putting a discount on all items. To tweak the deals or whatever scale.
Xbox I can't remember if it does like Switch have a developer/publisher selection or like PlayStation store just a name/details and that is it.
But yeah Xbox does a better job cleaning up and not progressing some and I rarely see shovelware.
I myself can't make a great game but I wouldn't be given a dev kit in the first place because code wise it'd be eh and art wise what art. XD It would be a while.
Physical shovelware may be less but still happen or particular low quality but decent games for an audience.
While digital is the worst as checks are very clearly not looked at enough to train bots or human staff to have a keen eye for this stuff.
A customer's eye may be more harsh or particular but still see enough that staff clearly aren't picking up on.
Art style is one thing, functionality or quality to check let alone pricing too oh mobile to console prices as well I think should count too console game prices are stupidly high compared to mobile game prices and I think some are unbalanced for the effort not just console gamers price/MB to GB file size mentality either.
Contact info I can barely find on some company websites not related to these so to me not any visible isn't surprising here anyway.
Whether social media, or IP address tracking (yes exreme but still) no one will do when they could if they HAVE to do something.
But yeah I doubt email, phone, fax, etc., IP tracking or social media, LinkedIn.
There should be some responsibility from Sony to have some sort of testing or checking. Not just from a safeguarding standpoint, but also from a business pov and wanting a quality experience ‘for the gamers’. It’s not like they couldn’t afford it or find staff to do it.
I thought it was bad on Xbox and that's meant to be the least worst of em 😭 lost count how many outbreak games iv seen 🙃😞
One could argue that Steam has the same problem, not denying that PS store has a problem, but if they are going to direct criticism, then dish it out to everyone.
The worst of it all is the not existing filtering and overview on the Storepage. Not only will you be flooted with all of the plagiarism but you hardly can identify them. How often i search the web for a video/screenshot of a game i found, just to find how 'bad' of an AI generated assert game it actually is....
They all have the exact same problem. Sony, Valve, Nintendo and Microsoft. Nothing new and I really don't see the situation improving.
A good place to start would be investigating how easy trophies are to get. Normally super easy trophies that take 10 minutes to get = slop
I have a sneaky suspicion it’s tied into money laundering - put out enough games it looks legit, then let the money flow in staff, advertising or development costs. But I’ve probably also been watching too many exciting shows.
I’m sure the reason so many get through is Sony not wanting to hire enough people to check them though.
I would play fart fart boobie fart: the game. Sounds pretty great.
Sure it's a problem and Sony could do better with the Q&A and certification. But is it a big problem? Nah.
1. PS store has a wishlist. So if you want to buy games that you interested or just to check if they get a discount or not then just click your wishlist / the heart icon to save you the time scrolling down the slop.
2. The store has filter like "most downloaded" and "best selling". Just check that filter because i doubt plenty of people buying Fart Fart Boobie Fart: The Game lel.
It's a weird one. People say they want curation but I don't think they do. You don't really want someone determining what can/can't release on the PS5, as you're inevitably going to miss a great game or two that way.
BUT the problem is these aren't just bad games, they're often cut-and-paste asset flips. There's really no value to them. They are, in essence, a scam.
Obviously the real solution to all this is better discoverability, but it's a problem all platform holders are having.
PS Store definitely should be a lot better at showing you the meaningful stuff, though.
That subtitle reminds me that there's actual games with the title "I'm in love with your dead grandmother" on the PS store.
Valve took the right approach and put in the effort, and it's paid off for them.
The solution isn't curation, but really good tools for discovery. Steam used to be overwhelmed by junk, but now it's good enough that indie devs say they don't even need to market games for Steam. If you're game is good, people on Steam will discover it. If the game isn't good, it quickly vanishes.
That's why every new indie trend starts on PC these days, and eventually gets ported to consoles.
The thing I don't get is even a piece of crap 'game' is going to cost some time and money to make, and they can't sell all that well. (They're rubbish and have little to no marketing). So what do the people who churn this stuff out even get?
@PuppetMaster Whenever there's a sale I only check my wishlist and buy what has the best discounts. I keep an eye on news websites when a ps showcase or whatever announces new stuff and I fill my wishlist that way.
The problem is, that requires following VG news pretty closely. More casual gamers don't do that.
@Jacko11 I agree that the shovelware games are an issue, but you don't have to scroll past them when looking at a sale? Sony specifically puts actual, popular games near the top.
It's the opposite really, where you have to scroll past all the real games to get to the shovelware.
@Fyz306903 From my observation, a lot of casual gamers only buy what's popular around their circle or social media. They also usually followed Playstation, Nintendo, Xbox etc on social media. With Sony and other companies always posted about the showcase and their store discount on social media, i think casual gamers doesn't need to check gaming sites closely to know there's a discount.
My solution is a report feature for this stuff so it can be taken down.
However, Sony and Nintendo won't do this (MS might...given their other store front policies) because it will cost money, there would likely be refunds needing issuing and a team to deal with it all.
The best solution for consumers is to buy physical games where possible. At least you have something to sell on if a game is junk and none of this stuff comes on disc anyway.
@breakneck Yeah exactly, if they over curate the platform WILL miss out on games people want eventually, so that’s not the answer.
I can only say that when PushSquare release article "There is massive PS Store deal containing 2500 games" you can bet your house 2480 of them is this slopware.
@James_42 some solid indie and smaller sized publisher games are shoved down the list with/beyond the shovelware.
Nintendo is arguably the worst, certainly when you factor how pedantic they can be in other areas. There are some geniunely creepy titles in amongst all that detritus too, and for a 'family friendly' company I find it odd that they pass the review system.
Did someone take my post I made on the forum a while back about this ????
Nintendo cannot check at all that's BS have you seen that eShop slop as well, they have all followed Steam Greenlight when that used to do it as well until Valve stepped after massive back lash
Every good game is pushed down the list for fake simulator games I wish I could block Devs and publishers on PSN
My new word of the day....
Eslop!!
@AndyKazama Everyone one of those asset flips games for 89p like Stroke the animal or food jump are only for that to pay and get easy platinums. Super market simulator manager is one that frequently pops up that's 12 trophies server 1 customer then 2 all the way to 12 for the platinum that's it your don't don't even have to play the game and it's £5 that game.
I'm sick and tired of it we need to be able to block publishers and Devs
Absolutely. When I look at the trophy leader boards, the ones at the top who are adding 200 plus trophies every day are resorting to these slop games to stay on top. They should be easily identifiable by Sony and removed from the PS Store. But that probably costs them too much money to check each game so they don't.
That is a cool article but it doesn't cover everything, this is a problem so old that it is allowed to both drive and drink on most countries and probably has kids if he got his girfriend pregnant during his teenage years.
And it also approaches the problem from the point of view these companies did all the these procedures like any other company would do. Most of these procedures for certification only apply if it is your first game published on that platform.
Companies that make these "slop", god I hate that word so much, usually buy the assets and licenses from another company that went bankrupt, which means they bypass a lot of those checks. And most platforms don't bother to investigate this kind of thing because game companies go under a lot more than people think they do.
Glad this is finally being called out because it really is annoying. The “Games to Wishlist” category is especially egregious considering 95% of it is shovelware trash.
It's s bloody plague.
@James_42 not when you set the sales from lowest to highest prices to see the deals properly.
If you go through the list sorted by ‘Most Popular’, you must spend hours looking 😂
@Jacko11 I don't look at every single gleam game in the sale? I usually look at my wishlist then scroll down for about 10/15 minutes with my mates to see if there's anything we wanna get
Fart Fart Boobie Fart: The Game...
... they got me, I would buy this.
I guess because I usually search for specific games I don’t really see the slop. And I browse for purchases mostly on the app. When I buy, it’s from the “games based on your interest” section. But yeah, with people basing it on mobile, I can definitely get the point of the issues.
@James_42 good for you and your mates.
That’s not what I do. Good day sir.
@Jacko11 I find this really bizarre, I don't have that experience at all, as I usually find all the slop is usually hidden down at the bottom and very easy to avoid. Do we have different stores?
The bigger problem for me is discoverability of titles that aren't already AAA / III / GOTY nominees. Anything smaller and less successful seems to be hidden deeper and you have to hunt for it.
The PlayStation Store's coming soon section automatically sorts by release date in descending order, so shovelware publishers just have to set their release date to 2026/2027 to get prime visibility. I guess the one good thing is these are so blatantly obvious that one can learn how to subconsciously skip them.
The worst part is that it makes it very hard to spot what a real and good indie game is.
Just the other day I saw a "Hentai Shop Sim" game that looked like an asset flip game
@Rudy_Manchego Have you seen The Substance? 😆
@Blauwe_Chimay I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought "Now, hold on a minute, scathing investigative journalism aside, let's here more about this Fart Fart Boobie Fart...."
I think the suggestion to hide games is good. Sony could enable this for individual users but they’d have to probably do a good bit of work to enable the user management of their own hiding of games.
However, an even better solution would be a users ability to go as far as hide developers. Anything community interactive requires Sony’s participation to make useful and carries risk of abuse (a la a voting system, say).
However, if Sony would tighten the onboarding of developers a bit so culprits couldn’t ultimately just easily ditch a bad reputation and start over, this could be useful.
Sony could leverage some back end data, enable users to personally hide games/developers and then aggregate these “hide” requests to allow some of the wheat to separate from the chaff. Start by investigating the worst offenders based on how often they get hidden. Sony don’t have to expose any of this to the users so they don’t run the risk of creating brigading effects because they will need to set up personnel to take action only on reviewing the data in an aggregate and then deciding if it’s warranted to delist or depress listing preferences.
All this will require Sony to at least get into the nuts and bolts of their store though and do some work so that is the question. Are they going to do something, or even anything is the question? To even just get that far requires a decent bit of work and it seems like Sony has yet to do anything.
The “why” seems brilliantly simple - because $.40 off a $2 game (in a digital environment where quality content doesn’t fight for shelf space) for a is $.40 they didn’t have.
This is probably why they can’t tie any incentives to trophy scores or the like - it’s more profitable to flood the marketplace and reap the rewards since they are one of, if not, the biggest console marketplaces around.
I don’t even browse the store anymore. I rely on PushSquare to tell me whats good! Serious, I just use my wishlist now. If they’d group everything into a single tile for a game that would help, not 4 pages of Power Wash Simulator DLC
I'm glad you mention plagarism, because I've spent the last four years working on my indie game "Poo Poo Breast Poo", a thoughtful walking simulator about one man's struggle with depression.
This writer will be hearing from my lawyers.
Unfettered greed from Sony. That's the only reason this issue exists.
It was depressing enough every time 'Lady In A Leotard With A Gun' entered my field of vision, now it's a damn slopidemic.
Honestly I'm just glad this is FINALLY coming to light and becoming known.
For the last few weeks/months I thought that maybe I was just being picky or ignorant, I'm happy to know that it is an actual problem and I'm not crazy. Now if only there was some way to fix this situation?????
I already have a solution for this I go to a shop where I can pick up the game and have a look at it before I buy it
The problem is, this is "our" fault. They keep churning these out, and the platform holders keep allowing it, because it's profitable. It's profitable because people keep buying this crap for easy trophies.
It's quite sad, I think, that people are so addicted to collecting trophies that they will quite literally buy any old crap to bump their numbers.
@Blauwe_Chimay @Rudy_Manchego Until such a delight is created. Have you considered adding the "Hilarious" Dark Farts: Bollywood Smell Edition to your wishlist? To quote the tagline "Prepare to Smell and Laugh!".
@JackMiller43
Collectors edition or I don't buy it.
A well curated store is supposed to be one of the reasons to buy a console in the first place.
where can I play Fart Fart Boobie Fart: The Game?
Developer here. The one suggestion I would give platform holders: make it compulsory for devs to release a demo of their game.
Underwhelming games won't sell if people can try them first. And if they don't sell, they will not keep popping up.
For platform holders, this would neither be arbitrary nor time-consuming.
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