PlayStation is reportedly cracking down on shovelware games

The PlayStation has reportedly taken down multiple shovelware ‘games’ from its online store following a surge in these types of games in recent months. These games are often low-quality rip-offs for other popular titles and use AI-generated or straight-up stolen assets and try to sell them to unsuspecting gamers.

As reported by Insider Gaming, this action comes after IGN recently reported the surge in ‘slop’ games across the PlayStation Store and the Nintendo e-shop. These games are usually always on sale or very cheap to make players feel like they are getting some quality games when in reality, it's the complete opposite.

The report mentions that many ‘developers’ make multiple releases in a month. Most of them are quick asset swaps of the same game. Thankfully, it seems Sony has taken note of these activities and started taking action against these shovelware games on the PlayStation Store.

Questions raised over PlayStation quality control

PlayStation's name is generally associated with quality games, however, with so many scam games now being pushed in large numbers the same cannot be said for the digital storefronts. This further raises questions over quality control on what kind of games are allowed on the digital storefront.

Consoles aren’t the only offenders on this list as 2024 was also a big year for PC. As per SteamDB, over 18,000 games were released on Steam last year and anyone can tell a big chunk of these are the same shovelware games. Nintendo e-shop saw multiple games ripping off Black Myth Wukong.

Also Read: Copies of Black Myth Wukong are already showing up on Nintendo e-Store

Are shovelware games worth playing?

Apart from a sentimental value, shovelware games do not have any interesting concept or story that justifies playing them. These games often have no objective and are usually modified sandbox games with little to no effort put into them.

There are many ways to identify these games and can help prevent players from wasting money and time. The first giveaway is the review section for these games, as they will usually have botted recommendations. If not, the game details are always vague and don’t exactly paint a picture of what players have to do.