Dev Irate About 'Illegal' Use of Its Property As AI Rip Off of Xbox Game Appears on PS Store

The wording of that headline gave me an aneurysm.

I actually spent more time trying to read the headline than I did reading the article.

Horribly worded headline 🤔

I played flight simulator back when I had an Xbox.

It was fun for about 15 minutes attempting to fly past my house then I soon lost interest

To be fair I played this on Series X and somehow managed to not even get of the runway and stuck in a building…decided driving games were more my thing

Saw this one on the Switch eShop last week when scrolling sales.

Embarrassing. Just embarrassing. As discussed on the latest version of the Sacred Symbols podcast: these things don't happen by accident or without oversight, and Sony doesn't have a passive role in which games do or do not show up on the store. They're responsible for vetting and showcasing content for their consumers, like the operators of any storefront. In the real world, big box stores don't just allow any ol' broken slop to appear on the shelf. Quality control - including vetting these intentionally deceptive and anti-consumer releases - continues to be a giant (growing) issue in this space.

So now I get my comment removed because I said the headline was made by AI? That was inappropriate? Maybe the moderation is run by AI so I offended it?

@Czar_Khastik I get that your whole shtick is to be sarcastic, but it's pretty insulting to joke around people being AI and using AI when this is all our full-time jobs.

@LiamCroft It was a joke, but I appreciate the explanation and I do apologize since I didn't mean to offend anyone here.

I also joke about myself when I make a mess in my daily job which happens from time to time but one thing is real life and another is the internet where people don't actually know each other.

Yeah, this AI Slop is out of hand on the PS store. Sony may claim a position that they're just enabling more creators to get their products to market, but these AI titles are predatory and damage the reputation/sales of legitimate, hard-working creators.

Sony should be ashamed.

I don't think Sony have done anything regarding the "eslop" on the store. It's all still there.

When a bunch of articles were run about a month back across various outlets, reporting that Sony had removed some eslop, PSU quickly investigated and found it was all still there. Other content had just been added which pushed the eslop further down the list.

Sony don't have any reason to remove this slop from the store. It sells, it may never sell to the extent that it cracks a top 10 list, but Sony get a cut of any revenue these cheap, eslop titles make. Sure, we may think that Sony need to pull this stuff from the store, but to Sony, there is no difference between the devs behind indie classics like What Remains of Edith Finch and the devs behind "Jump Jump Pizza Pop" - they're all developers trying to sell games on the PSN, and that equals money for Sony.

I thought this article was referencing the VR game that released just a couple weeks ago- Flight Simulator 2025 VR from 404 games. They also used official images from the real Flight Simulator. Sony should be embarrassed that they allow this impersonation to happen and trick consumers.

@Czar_Khastik I'm right there with you, dude. I think most of us would agree that some light-hearted fun is a plus.

A list of games without E-slop is easier to browse and so the probability of making a larger cut, because a user can find a title that is worth something is higher.

@naruball Even when insulting someone's skills at writing? Just food for thought...

@LiamCroft …but you’ve used AI before. Not you specifically but there’s been AI generated cover images and portions of articles on this site with clear ChatGPT output. It was a light hearted joke from @Czar_Khastik but one that isn’t as completely far from the truth as you’re letting on.

Let's give credit to Liam and company for doing their jobs as hardworking journalists and reporting on this absolutely vile attempt to scam people and steal from creators.

We should hold Sony accountable for being co-conspirators and they should feel acute shame in their greedy little hearts for keeping this up. I will argue it hurts their profit margin, so it is stupid greed.

Microsoft co-pilot?

A-I'll get me coat

Sony really needs to get a handle on this. It’s their responsibility to keep their store clean from AI generated content

I was about to do a Copilot joke but it seems someone beat me to it. Sadge.

Anyways, title aside, this will happen more and more as PS5 devkits start to appear in the wild. Sony is as strict as they can with this stuff, but once a company goes down it becomes harder to track those devkits.

Does Sony even have a team that vets games that get put on the store?

Tbh I hope Sony gets sued from multiple devs. Maybe then they will actually crack down on this ballooning problem of shovelware on their storefront.

@get2sammyb

How the certification is operated in the PSN?

i hope that fake developer takes a noze dive and crashes

@Glorioso its PAID by SILLY NOOBS - PSN

This stuff is bizarre and I still dont know how it manages to get past the relevant platform holder checks.

Yesterday I watched a video for a new VR game called assassins dig. I swear on the Playstation official YouTube site. It had the AC logo and so I thought it was a random tie in. Clearly it wasn't and the video has since been removed (but can be seen elsewhere: https://youtu.be/E0vquC6LO9w?si=L-IFOmbNqtd3vuZs)

Like how does this stuff get through?

@Glorioso
In general or just for this kind of scam? In general it is a pretty lenghty process, for this kind of scam it is quite easy:

• Lets create a company called Fictional Company A Interactive and do the whole process of getting certified, we got approved, got the devkit and even managed to release our game.
• Despite all that it didn't work out and we filed for bankrupcy.
• Cue in Scam Company B, they offer to buy our company assets, including IP and trademarks, we sell it.
• Scam Company B now gets renamed to Fictional Company A Interactive and has access to all the licenses that company had.
• Scam Company B starts pumping shovelware into stores until it gets caught and banned.
• Rinse and repeat.

@nessisonett nice reply tbf 👍

@get2sammyb I appreciate the challenge of running this site in terms of feeding the beast. However, whether it actually came from an AI or not, that certainly reads as if it was AI generated. It's good to have an editorial team that takes staff at their word, but either way, that para needed some strong editorial guidance.

Moral of the story is - as good as AI is at mimicing the real thing - it ultimately leads to an overall degradation of quality because it just floods the world with lower quality material. It lowers the bar in terms of quality expected just by sheer weight of content it's compared to. In the end, people just end up assuming that it's all AI slop. Which is exactly what's happening with the eStores... there may be a lot of games by small (inexperienced) devs just getting their toes wet in the dev-space; and they're content is just being swallowed up by the mass of AI (or heavily AI derived) games. Sony, and all eShop platform holders, do have a responsibility for the content they accept and then sell; especially if they are then using it to pad out their sales content.

@CielloArc I think I read somewhere that most of these scam companies don't even have PS5 dev-kits. Notice how in the screenshot for this Flight Simulator ripoff it only says "PS4 Pro Enhanced" and "DualShock 4 Vibration." Companies didn't used to be able to create game listings if they didn't actually have the development hardware, but I guess that was eased?

Also, the vast majority of these listings are set to come out in 2026 and later which pushes them up to the front of the "Coming Soon" list since it automatically sorts by release date newest (ie furthest out) to oldest (closest to present date). Opening the full list and sorting newest to oldest brings up tons of more real games.

@Oram77 it depends. If the language and the poster's history suggest it was mean spirited, then yeah I'd have an issue with it, too.

It seems that the Sony storefront checks need some work on what to approve, prohibit or other ways they go in and approved.

Train their automated software or their human staff better at any level so things like this don't happen. It's very noticeable.

Also thinking it over while sorting and including the parent company in the titles is annoying, for something like this even besides the design quality differences being obvious, knowing the logo or artwork or not, it kind of helps here in the logo as well to tell the distinction between them.

@nessisonett

AI-detectors don't work, and the only way to figure out if a person wrote what they said or at least know their stuff is a face-face interview off-script. To some extent, every text created nowadays have been assisted by some program be it word, chatgpt, an online dictionary /thesaurus or a browser extension even like grammarly.

You are being a wise ass throwing Khayl under the bus, and you should have written to them via email.

I have been enjoying Khayl's writings and have never thought that there was a problem with authenticity and personality, and I work professionally with text creation and editing.

That you have so many detectors ready to go would imply you use chatgpt quite regularly just to throw some shade back! So take a naked hike through the Scottish Highland.

@EfYI I’d be inclined to agree if he didn’t have previous using AI generated images for cover images on articles. It’s not personal, I have a bone to pick with the entire practice of generative AI from my time working for those absolute ghouls and I’d rather it was completely stamped out because if you give an inch then liberties will be taken. To be perfectly honest, there will only be action taken if it’s public, the aforementioned AI generated image debacle was brushed completely under the carpet, edited and removed in a fashion that made the users commenting on it at the time look insane to those who came afterwards. As long as there’s guarantees that this sort of thing will not happen again then that’s enough.

@nessisonett
Okay, we mostly agree I think, I am just worried about Khayl first and foremost. I guess your post is kept up for the sake of transparency. Anyways,

Which ghouls have you been working with, if you don't mind me asking?

Is image creation the same as text creation? Was there an intention to deceive their readership or to provide content in an ever-evolving world or were these thumbnails some sort of fun experiment? If Khayl CAN make thumbnails then how he does it isn't that relevant (opinion).

Pushsquare and Khayl are some of the most engaging game journalists in the world, and so we owe it to ourselves to not create a scene where Dumbledore, sorry Sammy, rushes to face Khayl "Did you put your name in the AI goblet of fire"? If you simply submitted your "evidence" Sammy could have calmly approached him (or dismissed the allegation entirely) just like Rowling wrote.

An opinion not supported by readily available facts: An AI-detector doesn't work and will most likely say a text was autogenerated because of confirmation bias to keep being relevant in a sea of AI-detection programs.

The last bit about making users (you?) look stupid by editing heavily isn't okay of course, but sounds genuinely funny🤣

For clarity since Nessis didn't respond, and I am worried he misinterpreted: When I say heavily editing your publications to make users look dumb is "funny" I am talking about Buzzfeed-kinda content that's clearly fabricated without any victims. In this case, I think that in most bird cultures it would be considered a dick-move.

@EfYI I think you are on the wrong track here bud... whether you like the author or not is up to you. @nessisonett questioned the use of AI; to which he was asked basically to put up or shut up - which he then did. And I don't think you need any AI "detection" tools to know that this was not writing that was either appropriate to the context, or even particularly natural for a games reviewer to use. Whether it was AI was perhaps secondary... but I think I'd be happy to put this in the probably basket that it was entirely plausible. It's certainly not warranting your reaction.

If you are happy with the writing standard, that's fine... but why are you getting so angry that someone else isn't? And especially if you don't actually know whether they used AI or not - or whether they just copied Wikipedia or not (not saying they did, but my point is, readers will generally not know where inspiration comes from). But either way, we can tell when something doesn't fit. Edit - and yes, if @nessisonett had actually named the author specifically, then I think it was not great to launch this into comments. But... he was invited to (edit - albeit through the generic contact box).

Ok - when it comes to specifics... if you're going to make claims against AI Detector, I hope you have some hard facts against that (just thinking, that could be a lible case as it stands). if you meant "AI detectors in general" don't work - then I'd suggest revising your comment, and I'm also sorry, but the entire academic / literary domain might disagree with their utility and importance. Is it perfect - no... and that's why it's always good to use different tests. And it's also why it's not generally acceptable to just ask a student if they plagarised or used AI tools... and there's a big difference using grammar checker in Word and chatGPT. Things like "Grammerly" are definitely in the grey zone - but the content here was not modification of sentence structure and word choice - but rather it was inserting specific "information" from somewhere.

Edit - if Khayl came up with that para entirely by himself, then I think he might need to consider a change of domains. It's not impossible for example that he actually writes this content in his own time...

Now, if you want to put a counter argument evidence, that's fine. But I think you're the one at this time that is dragging Khayl's name through the mud (in the same way that Sammy did by naming him). Otherwise - less aggression is always a good choice - unless of course you're actually inviting @nessisonett for a naked hike (in which case, what goes on in the Scottish Highlands stays in the Scottish Highlands).

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare

Thanks for the feedback, I meant what I said all in good faith. On to your claims.

Again, discussing the author or moderation is often removed here. Why post it in the comments, then? Use the proper channel to show respect and due diligence.

*I am not angry - why should I be?

"Probable" isn't a proof of anything, it is your opinion.

On to specifics:
*I don't believe in AI detectors being able to arrive at hard proof. I find it useless. Look at their wording (100 per cent maybe and do on.). You can't put something into a fact because the speed of changing the algorithms will outpace human researchers. My experience tells me, I can only trust a person if they can reproduce knowledge verbally. I can define what is acceptable and moderate after that, but otherwise my skills fall short.

*Internet communication is easily misunderstood, but I meant it as a joke to put a little flavor in to the text. On a hot summer day is isn't even a bad thing to do, I'd wager. Also, if you push hard, expect a push back.

Another Vaporware game that will lead to nothing

@EfYI this came up because of a comment that was removed jokingly saying the title looked like it was AI written... or at least that's what I understand the issue was. A lot of people were put off by the fact that (seemingly) such an innoccuous comment was removed. The subsequent discussion got heavy-handed (on all sides)... but I don't think your characterisation actually is accurate or fair.

Same as writing things like "probably isn't proof" - I never said it was proof. I said that I was happy to put it down to probaly because it was plausible; and then went on to say that the problem is that AI slop is (in writing as in games) it lowers everyones expectations to the point where we now just assume things are written by AI... I'm guessing you didn't read that part.

I also think you misunderstand how the AI detection works... it's based on statistical correlations between tokens/words/phrases/positioning... there is no 100% in statistics (well - strictly speaking there is). That's not something that we as people inherently are able to calculate- which is why such tools exist. It's not that difficult to show patterns of text are so "statistically" abnormal that you can be confident that it was not written by a person without 'assistance' - and I'm not talking Grammerly. However - people are often able to sense when things don't add up.... the literary equivalent of the uncanny valley. The words and sentences all are correct...but why would you put them in that order, or how does it help that article sort of response. The para definitely had an uncanniness to it...

Isn't modern life great? Humanity really is going in the right direction... sigh

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare

Let us agree to disagree.

I only have a base understanding of how language models function, and I have NO experience with detectors functioning well in professional circles. Please tell me if you have professional insight you're willing to share. I will say that you might be trying by saying it is uncanny - to me it looks like a formulation stemming from the world of academia.

You use the shorthand 'para' a lot, have you considered the example provided might just be a paraphrasing?