Sony starts (shadow)banning shovelware

[Cyhwuhx]

Quote

Playstation has sent out a dev letter to all its developers noting that shovelware, games that are reskinned, non-games, and games just made to give people a platinum trophy are going to be either shadowbanned or delisted with a chance that the developers being banned from publishing any more games.

 

 

https://dexdotexe.com/playstation-bans-shovelware-and-easy-platinum-games-on-the-playstation-store/

 

I for one, will not miss the countless versions of Stroke the X games or all the "Gilsonlikes", but is there anyone out there who likes this... let's say, "variety" in games?

 

[Paulando]

[Fused gamer]

The Monkey P looks like a banger!

[p1nseeker]

I want to do a pizza quiz.

[Hitcher]

Why'd they let it happen in the first place?

[Cyhwuhx]

All digital stores had a low barrier to entry to get everyone on board with a non-physical future. I believe Microsoft started filtering them out some time ago, but Sony and Nintendo have been caught off-guard a bit. (Especially strange for the latter considering their stance in the 8-bit era.)

[thesnwmn]

5 minutes ago, Hitcher said:

Why'd they let it happen in the first place?

 

Money obviously.

 

It costs less not to bother checking the quality of content and they get a cut of everything anyone buys on the store.

 

The only counter to that is when it's having some adverse impact on them. Maybe users are complaining too much (and actually leaving or buying less because of it). Maybe the reputation from this is impacting new users adopting the platform. Maybe their shitty servers are full. Maybe they have a poor search and recommendation algorithm that isn't finding the good stuff which impacts both user experience and their own game sales (and removing these games is cheaper/better than improving that).

[Cyhwuhx]

Up until a few months ago, the latest releases category on the Store would've been sorted by release date, often swamping big hit releases in a sea of shovelware. They changed the default sorting in that category to most sold, but I'm guessing the lure of cheapo-platinums is even causing that to go awry?

 

More likely is that trophy collecting and purchases are now (in)directly connected to PlayStation Stars, making it maybe a real possibility that users could cheaply grind themselves towards the programme's "rewards".

[womblingfree]

How can Jeff Minter be forced to delete the greatest version of Gridrunner from history and yet this stuff exists?

 

There is no God.

[df0]

Finally, I felt second hand embarrassment flicking through Store pages.

[thesnwmn]

29 minutes ago, df0 said:

Finally, I felt second hand embarrassment flicking through Store pages.

 

I'd hold off getting too excited until we see how much they actually remove/hide.

[Alan Stock]

Another reason has got to be is that all shovelware is cheap, and so it's hiding more premium games in amongst it all. I've gone through PS Store sales recently and found proper good 15-20 quid indie games in the depths of pages of £3 crap.

[thesnwmn]

I also wonder if part of these cheap game's acceptance onto stores, starting years ago, stems from fear the console platform holders have/ad about how they were going to be impacted by and compete with smart phones where there are so many cheap and free games of varying quality.

 

It seems now (and for the last few years) that the existential threat I think some in the industry felt from that space has receded. That they fill a different (very big) niche and consoles don't need to compete so directly with them.

[deKay]

Wish Nintendo would do this just to get rid of the 500 variations of "AAA Clock" and anything made by "Pix Arts".

[deKay]

I mean, look:

 

 

EDIT:

 

Main Features:

AAA Physic Engine

AAA Graphic Engine

[phillv85]

I mean.....

 

[Luseth]

Sony isn't too bad because there are ways to avoid some of the shovelware, you go into the eshop though and it's horrid. I just simply do not use the eshop anymore.

 

And presumably these games must make some money? Who the heck buy's some of this junk?

[deKay]

5 minutes ago, Luseth said:

Sony isn't too bad because there are ways to avoid some of the shovelware,

 

Yeah, but because PSN is utter shite and impossible to find *anything* on there.

[Ferine]

3 hours ago, Cyhwuhx said:

More likely is that trophy collecting and purchases are now (in)directly connected to PlayStation Stars, making it maybe a real possibility that users could cheaply grind themselves towards the programme's "rewards".

I don't think that's a factor. As with any digital purchase users would gain some reward points based on money spent, but as such 'games' are designed to dish out Trophies none of them would be classed as Rare, which is the criteria required to increase your Stars level; rarity is based on percentage of player attainment, not whether they're Silver, Gold, etc.

 

I'd say these kinds of cash-grabs are the inevitable dark side of allowing self-publishing on console storefronts. Such things have been around for ages, albeit fairly unobtrusively. It feels like there's been a real deluge in the last year or so, though: the publishers pushed their luck and now the grift is done, or at least on thin ice.