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It seems like Sony Interactive Entertainment has finally made a long-overdue change to the PlayStation Store that PS5 and PS4 gamers have been requesting for years. Recently, reports surfaced indicating that Sony has been quietly removing thousands of low-quality “shovelware” games and the studios behind them. One of the developers affected has now confirmed that Sony has officially updated its publishing policies.
In the past, Sony typically only removed the most blatant shovelware developers and their titles after much public outcry, with many of those developers simply rebranding and re-entering the store under new names. Fans wondered why Sony didn’t have a system in place to automatically flag and filter out these low-effort titles before they even made it live.
Fortunately, it appears our wishes are finally being heard. According to Afil Games, a studio responsible for nearly 1,000 low-quality titles, Sony has introduced stricter game publishing rules. This shift has resulted in dozens of developers losing their publishing rights, which explains the recent wave of removals that saw thousands of games vanish from the PlayStation Store nearly every week.
While the process has been slow, progress is noticeable. There are still plenty of inexpensive, poorly made games lingering on the store, but it seems Sony is committed to clearing them out in the near future.
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