The days of Crunkle Jump, Crunkle Pop, Crunkle Junk, Bunkle Bash, Flappy Bunk, and Crunkle Bunkle Extreme may soon be over for PlayStation, with an internal letter revealing their plans to wipe ‘shovelware’ off the PlayStation Store.
A dev letter sent to DEX.EXE founder Dex Fragg by an anonymous source has revealed PlayStation’s plans to shadowban or delist games that are considered shovelware, reskinned games, non-games, and platinum-trophy bait games.
The letter also reveals that developers regularly releasing games of this ilk may be completely banned from publishing any more games to the PlayStation Store.
According to Fragg, the letter continues by listing what punishments developers could face if PlayStation’s new policies on shovelware are breached:
- Content Excluded from PlayStation™ Store Merchandising.
- Discoverability on PlayStation™ Store is restricted.
- Content does not feature in automatic merchandising placements, such as the “New Releases” strand.
- Content Delisted from PlayStation™ Store.
- Content is not searchable and can only be accessed via direct link on web and mobile stores.
- Impact on CertOps Process.
- Content is not permitted to proceed to publication until policy violations are rectified.
- Review slot availability is affected.
- Content Takedown.
- Content is removed from PlayStation™ Store until policy violations are rectified.
- PlayStation®Partners Account Suspension or Termination.
- Multiple rejections or takedowns may result in the suspension or eventual termination of a partner’s PlayStation Partners account.
- Suspension limits the ability to submit and publish new content. Existing published content can remain on PlayStation™ Store, if that content complies with SIE policies.
- Termination of an account results in the removal of all content from PlayStation™ Store.
The PlayStation Store is no stranger to shovelware and easy-platinum games. I mean, they’ve got to be the easiest type of software to mock up and shit out, so why wouldn’t the market be oversaturated?
One can only hope that this strive for quality control will be seen on other platforms. Steam is a goldmine (or more accurately, pig sty) for nothingburger games that are direct copies of already-existing viral titles. The Google Play and Apple App stores are a whole other story.
All that being said, hopefully this move will make navigating online game marketplaces and trying to find good AAA and indie games a much more fulfilling experience. I personally don’t know how many more copies of Flappy Bird my poor brain can take before it explodes.
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