Sony Fights Back Against The Scourge Of Shovelware, Wiping Over 1,000 Games From The PlayStation Store

Shopping on the PlayStation Store might be a slightly less daunting experience today, after Sony wiped over 1,000 shovelware games released by just two different companies. As MP1st points out, it’s the second time the console owner has performed such a sweeping clean-up this year.

Every console store has been plagued by the presence of low-quality games in recent times, including the PlayStation’s. It makes the stores incredibly frustrating to use for players, where “Coming Soon” and “New Release” pages can be overwhelmed by half-baked $2.99 nonsense, with interesting indie games and even big new titles hard to find. It results in customers defaulting to sponsored sections or curated selections of the most famous titles, missing out on more interesting opportunities in the process. Which all sucks. So it’s very welcome to see Sony being so proactive about swinging the ban-broom.

The flood of releases isn’t really about tricking average players into shelling out cash on garbage (although that’s part of it), but more about seeking the attention of trophy hunters. These churned-out “games” come bulging with super-simple trophies to collect, making it very easy to get a Platinum. This is then exacerbated by releasing the games as so-called “stacks,” where there are multiple regional versions of the same game, each with their own set of trophies to collect. So those 1,000 deletions are, in fact, closer to around 100 actual games, each released multiple times and listed as regional variations.

Stacking ’em high

In January, it was reported that around 1,200 games created by a developer called ThiGames were removed, and from just that number alone we should perhaps infer some nature of the games’ quality. I don’t want to impugn The Jumping Orange without playing it, but I do have a sneaking suspicion it might have existed more for its 61 PlayStation trophies than its compelling conceit.

The latest batches wiped out—as spotted by Delisted Games—come from Nostra Games and CGI Lab. CGI Lab, also sometimes Play Lab, has the veneer of a games studio with titles like Veins of Darkness and Platform 0, but then pages of slop with titles like Game & Console Supermarket: Business Simulator.

Nostra, meanwhile, had over 700 delistings on the PlayStation Store, and while I don’t doubt they were all loved equally, Sony has clearly decided they’re not wanted. Interestingly, Cyprus-based studio Nostra Games has spoken up about this, Delisted reports. I’ve been unable to verify, but apparently on its Discord the company posted,

Unfortunately, PlayStation Store has removed our games, and we’re unable to provide an exact reason because it wasn’t shared with us either…This was just as unexpected for us as it was for you, as we had planned to continue releasing games in the coming years, and you’ve already seen some of them, but unfortunately, this is how things turned out. Thank you for your questions, but unfortunately, we are in the dark as well.

However, others have speculated that Nostra Games had recently been selling stacks as bundles, essentially selling the same crappy game seven or eight times at once, for those desperate for piles of easy trophies. That would be really rather pushing its luck, and Sony has apparently had enough.

The whole situation is absurd, with enough people willing to pay for objectively dreadful games and then play them through seven or eight times to collect imaginary trophies for their PS accounts that it’s a viable business. Obviously Sony wants no part of it, not least because of how tacky it makes the PlayStation Store appear.

For those deeply upset that they can no longer play the likes of (the legitimately good) TCG Card Shop Simulator‘s crappy knock-off Trading Card Shop Simulator from Nostra, you’ll be relieved to learn that many of these games still remain on Steam, the Xbox Store and the Nintendo eShop. We’ve reached out to Nostra and CGI Lab to ask if they want to respond.