The PlayStation Store is facing increasingly intense criticism from players and developers due to the growing saturation of low-quality games and titles generated by artificial intelligence. Despite the community’s demands for greater quality control, Sony seems to be taking no effective measures to restrict the publication of this type of content. Steelkrill Studio, an independent studio, has been one of the latest to express its frustration, describing the store as “saturated with shovelware”.
An unusable store
According to the study, while legitimate games face constant obstacles to their publication, fraudulent titles created with AI tools pass the platform’s quality controls without difficulty. This situation has raised significant concerns about fairness in the market, as small developers are constantly outmatched by inferior quality products that manage to be approved easily. “Who approves all these games? Why is it so difficult for real and legitimate games, while shovelware gets approved instantly?” questioned one of the creators, expressing their disappointment regarding the current situation of the PS Store.
A controversial point mentioned in the study is the apparent inconsistency of Sony’s policies. Steelkrill Studio reported that they were denied the opportunity to create a dedicated page in the store for their horror game “Trenches” on PSVR 2, while other developers did receive that privilege. This creates confusion for players and affects the visibility of the project in an already competitive market.
Although the issue is not exclusive to PlayStation, it has also been observed on other platforms such as Steam and the Nintendo eShop, developers believe that Sony should implement stricter controls to ensure a fair competitive environment and guarantee a more satisfying experience for users looking for authentic games.
