There’s a lot of junk on the PS Store, as many of you will be aware. A recent report delved into why there’s so much crap on Sony’s storefront, and determined that the Japanese giant is not particularly meticulous when it comes to vetting the developers publishing content on its virtual plaza.
While this isn’t brilliant to begin with, some fans on Reddit have been baffled by the manufacturer’s decision to run sponsored posts on social media, promoting said “e-slop”.
Ads on Instagram clearly show the manufacturer advertising titles like Stroke the Tortoise and The Jumping Burger: Halloween Edition – quality releases, we’re sure.
Here’s the thing: we’re guessing these ads are automatically generated based on content in the PS Store, but we’ve no idea how these particular releases have ended up being selected ahead of the likes of Monster Hunter Wilds, Split Fiction, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Surely if the aim here is to, y’know, sell games it’d be pushing more meaningful titles.
Honestly, it’s bad enough the PS Store is absolutely infected with all this rubbish – we’re not sure we want to see the Japanese giant actively promoting it, too!
[source reddit.com, via reddit.com, playstationlifestyle.net]
Comments 42
As usual, the vocal minority of people who didn't play Stroke the Tortoise and The Jumping Burger: Halloween Edition are the loudest saying these games are not good
Description in the PS Store:
The tortoise is rather large and rather hard, but that is no reason not to give it a stroke.
They love being stroked as much as anything else, whether they can actually feel it is still up for debate. Don't let that stop you though!
Get stroking!
You knew what you were doing with that picture. Get your mind out of the gutter!
These games are pretty much pay2platinum "games" for the trophy hunters, you can unlock the shiny award for mashing a button for 2 minutes or so, the "devs" give zero hecks and so does Sony it seems. SAD!
I don’t know why we’re disparaging upcoming GOTY contender “Stroke the Dik-Dik”. The public at large didn’t understand Kojima at one point either but trust me, this is moving impactful art.
Genuinely hate trawling through all the s*** to find the diamonds
Glad to know its not just me who saw this XD i thought the facebook algorithm was messing with me
The worst part is that, SOMEHOW, a lot of these games have platinum trophies, cheapening the reward and basically throwing the whole "gamerscore" idea out the window. You're quite literally paying a couple quid for a platinum. Needs to be stopped.
Sony and Nintendo desperately need a more robust storefront like Steam that allows you to filter this stuff out.
Yeah I recently had Drug Dealer Simulator recommended to me after playing Farm Simulator. I mean some of the cultivation is similar but that's about where the similarities end. If it wasn't for sites like this I'd have to trawl through a lot of garbage to find what new games are actually worth my time.
We just need the face the fact that portions of Sony are asleep behind the wheel because they don’t have direct competition anymore and are making money hand over fist. Until PlayStation sees a decline in revenue, all the issues that we complain about are going to remain persistent and probably get worse.
PlayStation, get a committee together who actually plays games and sit down and run a quality control check on your own store. Then, perhaps, actual games worth playing from smaller, actually talented developers will get the attention they deserve instead of garbage.
@Colour I’m personally waiting for the PS5 Pro Enhanced version. If I’m not strokin’ at a solid 60fps, then I’m not strokin’ at all.
What type of messed up algorithm decides on these games to advertise? Something related to genre popularity and low price? Volume of sales for the publisher selling games at 99p? It’s clearly not about quality or reputation.
I suspect those ads are automatic and only get shown to people who already bought similar games. I never get ads of this kind.
Maybe its because Sony make money from eslop sold in their store - maybe 'more' than the 30% standard charge for digital sales through Sony's storefront.
They can say that these are NOT their games, not harmful to their Hardware, OS or Ecosystem and its more 'choice' for consumers - and of course if people do buy, they'll make money too.
I get a good laugh trawling through some of these on the store, the farting souls like "dark farts" being my current fave 🤣
@Ralizah Yet go back 10 years ago and Steam was the same with Greenlight were it too had assest flips and shovelware at the top and killing indie Devs trying to make a good game. It wasn't long after the Steam users fought back that Valve did something about it.
They are on PSN paid for trophies nothing more Sony doesn't care about your gamer score the fact you can now hide games from your list as well. If you see someone with 200 plats and most are hidden chances are they may have just these crap
Why I don't browse the store any more I see a game at the top I add it to my list or buy if I can afford it. But I refuse to go beyond the 10th row as it usually shows all this crap
Ah yes, "Stroke the Dik-Dik", the long awaited sequel.
We’re all assuming these titles are trash, but where are the reviews hmm?! Looks like I might have my next 114 Platinum Trophies lined up…
Guess it's a good thing I'm not a member of Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, etc. etc. etc. Funny though, how advertising for things like Burger King and garbage Fox News can be displayed literally right on the Xbox home screen, yet crickets....
Heads should roll.
First: CHANGE the procedure for submitting games. It HAS to be vetted by QA staff or something. BLACKLIST first-time slop offenders. Have real identities attached to whatever the submission process for devs so that the offenders don't just change the company.
Second: FIRE however at Sony facilitated this absolute insult to everyone. Have someone go through a list of games available and simply delist anything that looks like *****/shovel ware. That should clean the store for at least 2000 titles.
He Stroke the Dik-Dik thumbnail interested me enough to see this article
Sony are so bad with QC on so many fronts.
Embarrassing to be them
The cant be bothored to promote their more obscure games though.
Sony ***** up making failed live service games they've now not enough games to even advertise so they're advertising shovelware 😂 what a gash gaming generation this has been
This has been a problem for a while, but things have come to a head with Stroke the Dik-Dik
I very much doubt any of these games get advertising without at least paying Sony something to “promote” the title first. In which case it’s probably pot luck who see’s them… and maybe they’re hoping it gets some traction and people who see them talk about it like we’re doing now (not a dig at this article, just what I’d do should I ever find myself making shovelware tripe 😄)
Who's buying this junk?
Oh it has a platinum trophy? Time to get stroking. Whoop whoop. Hopefully it has some great dlc (like a TNMT / stellar blade crossover). Nothing like stroking one off to the trophy list.
You think that's bad? Every time I visit the PlayStation Store in a browser it pops up a modal dialog in the corner telling me Assassin's Creed Shadows is coming out soon and that I should preorder it.
What's funny about the stroking and jumping varieties of shovelware is that they're not even that cheap. They don't get steep discounts, so they end up costing as much as actual games that do. I strongly recommend people who want to track prices or scroll through what's on sale use third-party sites to do so, since you can just hide games you don't want to see.
I must say though, Stroke The Dik Dik is a 10/10 title.
I love Dik Diks, specially how they bounce up and down. Definitely grabbing this one.
This isn't the first time either. The even stranger story is regarding all of Gilsen B Pontes games.
Imagine how handy it would be if you could filter the store to remove games from certain Devs or publishers......
It's so puzzling too that Sony is making less than a dollar per sale on a lot of these. These should've been all taken down immediately.
The problem is you're using Instagram
@Slidey_Moments lmao 🤣
Xbox and Steam stores do things well in my opinion. Quest marginally less so.
Sony and Nintendo however really need to up their game because the amount of crap on there is absolutely shocking.
I wish I could blacklist publishers so their 'games' just never show on my PS5's store. This junk got out of hand a long time ago.
Well it was a nice vacation from this after the infamous racist tiger promotions, but hey, who am I to judge? Maybe these games will prove better than Astro Bot. That tortoise looks quite satisfied.
@Dave247 that man loves Vaseline clearly, because his games are drowning beneath a sea of it. Combined with the bloom and you can’t see anything. Sony said “stunning and brave.”
@themcnoisy I feel like if someone has this platinum on their account it invalidates all their others. Like a badge of disgrace.
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