PS Store Shovelware
Image: Push Square

The PS Store has a pretty serious problem with shovelware — but you probably knew that already.

Granted, you typically have to go beyond the front page of Sony's digital marketplace to find the rot, but if you spend just a few minutes scrolling through the latest discounts, it won't take you long to stumble across some truly egregious examples of dodgy developers trying to make a quick buck.

The pages for these titles are often adorned with awful AI generated artwork and screenshots that don't at all represent the actual product. Meanwhile, the games themselves are usually an incoherent mess of premade assets.

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There have been plenty of stories about Sony removing such releases from the PS Store — usually because they infringe on copyright material, be it through names or assets — but more continue to pop up on a frequent basis.

One title in particular, the shamelessly named Hentai Supermarket Simulator, is currently making headlines because it was recently removed for very obvious reasons.

Incredibly, developer Voumik Nihar saw fit to take character models from Zenless Zone Zero and reuse them, unedited, as NPCs within its game. Naturally, as soon as word spread about this blatant misuse of assets, Hentai Supermarket Simulator was booted from the storefront.

Rather generously, Zenless Zone Zero studio HoYoverse does allow people to download and repurpose these character models — but only for nonprofit pursuits, like fanart or animations. Of course, Hentai Supermarket Simulator was not some kind of free software, slapped online for private use — it was a priced product on the PS Store.

It somehow gets worse, though. As pointed out by Automaton, Hentai Supermarket Simulator also featured art from existing hentai properties, simply pasted on top of in-game assets.

Now, while it's a good thing that games like this are being targeted and removed from the PS Store, you can't help but wonder how they end up on Sony's servers to begin with.

Based on what we've seen, you'd have to spend all of a few minutes playing Hentai Supermarket Simulator to realise that it's fit to burst with copyrighted materials. Sony needs to do better with this stuff, or there's even a chance that it could find itself in hot water for allowing such products to be sold through its store.

What's your take on the PS Store's shovelware problem? Feel free to facepalm in the comments section below.

[source gamespark.jp, via automaton-media.com]