Perpetual Mouthwashing PS5 PlayStation

Stop us if you've heard this one before, but the PS Store is a complete mess, full of low-effort "simulator" games boasting AI-generated artwork and misleading gameplay claims. It's gotten so bad that (we'll say it) more legitimate games are getting bumped from the front page every day, and Sony has seemingly been asleep at the wheel for months (even years) now.

Not convinced? We invite you to click around on the PS Store's "Games to Wishlist" page; exceptionally bleak stuff, full of what we would have thought was actionable plagiarism (excepting Onimusha: Way of the Sword, it was never our intent for our based Capgod to catch strays).

IGN's Rebekah Valentine gets today's journalism gold star, delving into this seedy world of samey cash grabs with a massively detailed piece. Both Kotaku and Aftermath have looked at this issue from various angles, but part of the problem is that shady developers/publishers have become very good at remaining unaccountable, and Sony is allowing it to continue. These shadowy studios continue to endlessly pump out these games, and as content creator Dead Domain discovered, they are almost impossible to track down, with either non-existent, outdated, or incorrect business and contact information.

The piece covers the process of submitting a game to Sony for certification, a process which is commonly misunderstood by gaming audiences. Speaking to a number of indie and AAA publishers, Valentine was told: "A common misconception amongst The Gamers™ and even inexperienced devs is this is tantamount to a QA check. This is incorrect; it is the responsibility of the developer/publisher before submission. The platforms ensure the game's code complies with hardware specifications."

Valentine was told that while Nintendo and Xbox review all changes to store pages before they go live, PlayStation does one quick check pre-launch. Worse, the punishment for publishing false or misleading information on the PS Store? Usually, offenders are just asked to replace it with more accurate info or screenshots. Almost incidentally, none of the Big Three console storefronts (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo) has rules about using or implementing AI-generated assets; many of these "slop" titles seem incomplete or make misleading gameplay claims.

That's the "how"; here's one reason "why" it continues to happen: on Xbox, where this problem is the least pronounced, developers are vetted on an ongoing game-by-game basis, whereas PlayStation and Nintendo just do a one-time check. This is why the same offenders can continue to be released on the PS Store; they were probably on their best behaviour the first time. If it's any consolation at all, one dev said: "Nintendo is probably the easiest to scam. Once I’m in the door, I could make ‘Fart Fart Boobie Fart: The Game’, and maybe it would eventually get taken down."

There is a lot more in the IGN piece, less relevant to PlayStation, that we recommend checking out if you're interested in the issue; perhaps if we shine enough light on the situation, Sony will eventually do something about it (we are eternal optimists). What do you think about the PS Store's "eslop" problem? Let us know in the comments section below.

[source ign.com]