Why did Sony stop content curation and allow all kinds of shovelware on PS4?

[Segafreak]

Remember those obscure crappy games on Steam Jim Sterling makes fun of? Sony thought it was a good idea to have them on PS4 too









I remember last gen when PSN was curated, less releases meant less navigating thru the horrible games and slow store. I used to find cool deals scrolling down the sales events but stopped because it became too overwhelming after Sony opened the gates.

 

[Brazil]

It seems like they've all completely given up on curation. The Switch eShop is also dismal nowadays.

I guess it's because it works for Steam?

 

[Deleted member 8196]

Because they don't care about quality, but only about money.

You can argue that assets flip does not generate a lot of money and i agree with you, but at the end of the day, they just want more games to generate more revenue.

PS5 launch will be the same, the first two years is going to be heaven for indie devs and the store will be flooded with asset flips from everywhere, just like what happened with eShop and what is happening on Steam.

 

[hydruxo]

It's not just a PSN thing. The eShop is also full of shovelware.

 

[Kenzodielocke]

Just like steam I barely see those games anyhow. Switch surfing experience has been the worst.

 

[Tohsaka]

Have a look at the Switch eShop.

 

[DieH@rd]

 

[Windows-PC]

Because Shovelware also makes Money.

 

[Dan-o]

Because money.

 

[SteveWinwood]

because "curation" is flawed

there are going to be good games rejected in any curation situation, and one of the times its going to be a game you like and youre not going to understand. 'its so simple just put only the good games up!'

just because you think a game looks or plays like shit doesnt mean there arent people out there who wont want to play it. let people have their games, if you dont want to play them then dont

 

[TeenageFBI]

I remember when heavy curation kept all sorts of cool games off Steam because Valve simply wasn't aware of them. Allowing garbage that no one will buy on the store is a small price to pay to ensure that all good games are there as well.

 

[Rosebud]

I don't really know why it bothers so many people in every store.

I mean, when you go to Amazon/eBay you think "oh my god so many useless things where's the curation"

Even in Steam, I just use my wishlist as my "curator".

PS5 launch will be the same, the first two years is going to be heaven for indie devs and the store will be flooded with asset flips from everywhere, just like what happened with eShop and what is happening on Steam.

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I think BC kinda hurts the "indie paradise" in a launch system, there won't be lack of games.

 

[VodkaFX]

Try taking a look at the PSN Avatars section. Its hilarious, I really wonder who is legitimately buying those avatars. I don't think there is any filters yet to differentiate between 3rd party avatar creators and official avatars by the game developers. So unless you know specifically what you are looking for, you are forced to go through pages and pages of junk.

Switch eShop is also in a similar state.

I don't think there is a need for curation (since it has its issues too), but maybe some kind of improved filters or categorization will be a step in the right direction.

 

[SteveWinwood]

I don't really know why it bothers so many people in every store.

I mean, when you go to Amazon/eBay you think "oh my god so many useless things where's the curation"

Even in Steam, I just use my wishlist as my "curator".

Click to shrink...

people should see the kindle store if they have such problems with steam. jesus christ that place

 

[Lant_War]

This approach is still better as long as they let every game on the platform and not potentially deny great games.

 

[Noisepurge]

I don't really know why it bothers so many people in every store.

I mean, when you go to Amazon/eBay you think "oh my god so many useless things where's the curation"

Click to shrink...

Because it's fun to check out the New Arrivals every week. But if it's a hundred pages of junk, it's hard to find the actually interesting new games you haven't heard of before.

 

[Jakenbakin]

Because curation is horseshit.

 

[karnage10]

Because it is really hard to do curation. Has everyone forgotten that opus magnum was rejected from GoG because it was a mobile game?
I still remember seeing zeboyed games having a hard time entering the switch shop.

IMO its better to have very little to no curation then curation that stops great games because the people during the curantion don't see the appeal of the game.

 

[Mr. Genuine]

I'm going to be honest, I don't really see much of an issue with this, and I don't understand why so many people complain about lack of Steam curation. I understand not wanting offense/abusive stuff for sale, but why does it matter if bad games are being sold? Are you people seriously buying games on a whim that you never heard of just because of the description on its store page? I really don't see how quality curation is necessary in a digital marketplace. The internet is filled with people desperate to give your their opinions on everything, just go google it.

 

[TeenageFBI]

Because it's fun to check out the New Arrivals every week. But if it's a hundred pages of junk, it's hard to find the actually interesting new games you haven't heard of before.

Click to shrink...

Valve handles this problem with useful discoverability tools. Nintendo shrugs and dumps everything in the New Arrivals page.

Here's hoping they overhaul the store sometime soon.

 

[Acquiescence]

Talk shit about Skylight Freerange 2 all you want, but at least it runs at 60fps. That's double what most of Sony's first-party titles perform at.

 

[RedRum]

Even if you think a lot are trash, others might not.

This is why it's so hard for the little guy to make breakthroughs. We praise these big conglomerate game companies and then turn around and want to deny amateur devs from doing their thing.

 

[KaiPow]

Skylight Freerange 2: Gachduine is art.

 

[sibarraz]

All 4 major storefronts have their big share of shovelware.

It sucks, I remember the 360 days when you could only see the release of 3 or at most 5 new arcade games per week. It was cool because the release of a new game felt like an event and they came with demos, I bought lots of games that otherwise I would have ignored it (And to be honest most of them were nothing to write home about)

 

[Bowl0l]

Sony curation team KPI is censoring nudity. Blocking bad games is not a requirement.

 

[Deleted member 2317]

I'm going to be honest, I don't really see much of an issue with this

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Nor I. It offends none of my sensibilities.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

I can't think of a major storefront that isn't bogged down with garbage.

eShop seems to be the worst for such a young platform. I'm seeing loads of junk on sale for a nickel.

 

[Japanmanx3]

Because curation is horseshit.

Click to shrink...

.

 

[Mudo]

Agreed OP. I have no idea what is going on. PS4 and Switch are becoming wastelands of shit that you have to really dig through (or just search which is what I do except for sales) in order to find the good stuff.
I can see the advantage of having a system open to more kinds of games. But there surely is some kind of middle ground here? A lot of this stuff is just pure trash and honestly makes the platforms look bad to me at least.
However, if the alternative is a situation like Steam Greenlight was, then I guess I'd rather have it the way it is now. I don't ever want actual good games that are lesser known to be denied due to overly strict approval rules.
It's a fine line, but I feel like Sony and Nintendo have opted to just open the floodgates instead of doing any real curation.

 

[Gush]

because "curation" is flawed

there are going to be good games rejected in any curation situation, and one of the times its going to be a game you like and youre not going to understand. 'its so simple just put only the good games up!'

just because you think a game looks or plays like shit doesnt mean there arent people out there who wont want to play it. let people have their games, if you dont want to play them then dont

Click to shrink...

Nailed it.

 

[Septy]

 

[Strangelove_77]

Because they want to have as many of the same games as the other platforms have?

 

[cw_sasuke]

Just dont buy the games that dont speak to you ?
Is a store only allowed to list and have items available that cater specifically to you ?

No one cares about these trash games anyway, so i dont know why you are worrying about subpar games.

Not every dev is gonna start out with some great acclaimed project or as a part of an established team. The developer of todays trash game can make something more interesting tomorrow. It might be shocking but also devs of so called trash games need to pay their bills and be available on plattforms.

The market is way too big and relies on multiplattform devs for anyone to expect Sony, Nintendo and co. to go through thousand of games and reject everything that looks like it would get less than 50 on metacritic. Its for the market to decide what works and is worth the purchase, not the plattform holders.

If Sonys had those shitty games on the promotion front page and put a spotlight on them...sure that would be an issue - but just being available ? On a store with thousand of items you will never touch or play anyway ?

 

[Deleted member 37233]

because "curation" is flawed

there are going to be good games rejected in any curation situation, and one of the times its going to be a game you like and youre not going to understand. 'its so simple just put only the good games up!'

just because you think a game looks or plays like shit doesnt mean there arent people out there who wont want to play it. let people have their games, if you dont want to play them then dont

Click to shrink...

I agree.

And I never had any problem finding good games.

 

[2Blackcats]

I don't find it too bad, maybe because I'm pretty aware of what's coming out.

I've given up on the eshop though, if ever there was an argument for curation...

 

[KernelC]

It seems like they've all completely given up on curation. The Switch eShop is also dismal nowadays.

I guess it's because it works for Steam?

Click to shrink...

that comment falsely implies there ever was curation on Switch eShop at some point, didn't it launch with a mobile port of a witch using her broom that didn't work?

 

[Kinthey]

because "curation" is flawed

there are going to be good games rejected in any curation situation, and one of the times its going to be a game you like and youre not going to understand. 'its so simple just put only the good games up!'

just because you think a game looks or plays like shit doesnt mean there arent people out there who wont want to play it. let people have their games, if you dont want to play them then dont

Click to shrink...

The counterargument to this would be that the trash games prevent the real gems from getting any promotional attention. How many people are actually willing to dive into the garbage pile to find the good stuff

 

[Yerffej]

Click to shrink...

 

[Brazil]

that comment falsely implies there ever was curation on Switch eShop at some point, didn't it launch with a mobile port of a witch using her broom that didn't work?

Click to shrink...

Ah, I meant Nintendo in general. You wouldn't see trash like that on the Wii, DSi or 3DS storefronts. It started halfway through the Wii U era.

 

[StallionDan]

Seems mostly to be US PSN, a lot of it isn't on EU store.

Worst EU store seems to have is cheap tile moving games released so can sell themes and avatars (since themes/avatars need be related to a game/movie sold on PSN in EU).

 

[gnexus]

I feel like there's a shovelware issue on all platforms. eShop, PSN, Xbox store, Steam... They get a cut of the money, so who cares. It's not like it's impossible to tell a shovelware game when you see it. Move along.

 

[Rosebud]

The counterargument to this would be that the trash games prevent the real gems from getting any promotional attention. How many people are actually willing to dive into the garbage pile to find the good stuff

Click to shrink...

Word of mouth is the only way for these gems to be discovered these days. We get hundreds of new indies every month.

 

[Deleted member 12352]

Sadly not just a Sony problem, but clearly they haven't completely given up on curation considering the real low quality dreck is still only showing up pretty rarely on the PSN store rather than there being an endless torrent of it ala Steam. Plus we do at least hear about how they wouldn't allow that gross pick up artist game on their store last year, so there's clearly limits somewhere in there.

They've definitely gotten a lot more lax in recent years on this score though, that's for sure.

 

[nsilvias]

one persons trash is anothers treasure

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

Same reason why the eShop and Steam store are also filled to the brim with shovelware. Curation becomes unsustainable when you allow pretty much anyone to make games and sell them on your storefront. While platform holders should take more responsibility in ensuring the content isn't breaching their terms of service or ethics, it's more time consuming to keep games that are just plain shit off your store seeing as quality is so subjective.

The good thing about PSN, Steam and Xbox Live are that it's actually quite easy to avoid the trash. eShop still has a way to go in that regard. 3 years on the store still feels quite barebones, and outside the best sellers list, there's shovelware in your face at every turn.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Given the alternative of the dark ages when Sony denied countless great games, I'd vastly prefer things as they are now.

 

[eraFROMAN]

Easier to let them all through and land a big winner than to reject most and lose money, a potential seller, and the blowback from other small or one person devs. Mobile digital store model creeping in.

 

[Midgarian]

I'd rather have it like this. Restrictions are always going to end up with some false positives and lock out genuine efforts.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

The amount of content to sift through is overwhelming and can be annoying but, like others have said, I would rather they just allow everything than potentially deny good games being on there. Having lived through plenty of shitty regional curation and first-party censorship in past gens, I don't want that again.

 

[Eeyore]

because "curation" is flawed

there are going to be good games rejected in any curation situation, and one of the times its going to be a game you like and youre not going to understand. 'its so simple just put only the good games up!'

just because you think a game looks or plays like shit doesnt mean there arent people out there who wont want to play it. let people have their games, if you dont want to play them then dont

Click to shrink...

No I'm cool with not having racist games on shops. I'm cool with not having games that glorify rape on shops. There should be a bare minimum required, this libertarian philosophy sucks and it's why Steam is full of forums with Nazi sympathizers.