Since January, the PlayStation Store changes face. Discreetly, Sony began to withdraw hundreds of ultra-low cost games in waves, these productions often mocked as “shovelware” or “easy Platinums”. In April, a new salvo targeting the PS4 and the PS5 confirms that these are no longer exceptions, but a real policy.
Behind these deletions, we find games like Jesus Simulator, I Am Busy Digging A Hole Or Six Seven Nightssometimes using AI-generated assets and misleading cover art to imitate indie hits. Enough to ask a simple question to players: what exactly is disappearing from the PS Store, and how will this big cleaning change your experience?
PS Store: more than 2,000 games already deleted, and a new wave in April
It all really started in January 2026, when Sony suddenly removed more than 1,000 signed games ThiGamesspecialist in copy/pasted mini-titles, sold for a few euros and designed to offer a Platinum trophy in a few minutes. In March, a second wave targeted Nostra Games and CGI Lab, for around 700 additional entries counting all regions.
Early April, third stage: according to PSNProfilesthe complete catalogs of Welding Bytes, GoGame Console Publisher And VRCForge have been removed from the Store on PS4 and PS5. Here again, we are talking about “several hundred” games with minimal content, stuffed with generic assets and often very close to popular licenses to deceive the buyer.
Officially, Sony remains silent, but this sequence is consistent with a letter sent a few years ago to developers, in which the firm announced that it wanted to ban “shovelware” content and games whose only interest is an easy Platinum. The current purge clearly resembles the application of these rules.
Shovelware, AI games, easy Platinums: what is Sony saying stop on PS4 and PS5?
“Shovelware” are these mass-produced games: same engine, same ultra-simplistic gameplay, simple change of skin or title. For example, I Am Busy Digging A Hole is presented to recall the much appreciated A Game About Digging A Hole. The goal is to capture an impulse purchase without any real game design work behind it.
Many of these titles also useGenerative AI for visuals and sometimes texts, which allows you to produce dozens of variations in record time. Another key point: the ridiculously easy trophy lists, sometimes broken down into several regional “stacks” to multiply Platinums. So much so that tracking sites like PSNProfiles have decided to now count these games for 0 points in their rankings.
Your games, your trophies, the future of the PS Store: what this big cleaning really changes
If you have already purchased one of these removed games, you do not lose your access: the title is no longer sellable on the PS Store, but it remains downloadable from your library as long as the servers and licenses are working. Your trophies, including Platinums obtained on these “trophy baits”, also remain saved on your PlayStation profile.
On the players’ side, many applaud. On Reddit, we read for example: “I’m happy that Sony is reacting and I hope that all the stores will do the same” or “Good thing, keep it up. I love looking for new games and finding gems, but it’s difficult when 90% of the Store is laziness”. The objective for Sony is clear: to make navigation less saturated, to restore visibility to real indies and to improve the image of its store in the face of a Steam which simply displays a simple warning when a game uses AI.