Afil Games Removed From PS Store Over Shovelware
The removal shows Sony's ongoing crackdown on low-quality mass-produced games, while Microsoft and Nintendo have not taken similar action despite a 2025 report finding 40% of new Microsoft Store games were shovelware.
Reporting from 1 sources: Automaton.
Developer Afil Games has been removed from the PlayStation Store as of June 23 due to stricter enforcement against shovelware. The company, which has released over 900 games on the store, many of them clones, announced it will continue releasing games on Xbox and Switch. Afil Games previously apologized in March after it was found that multiple games reused the same level layouts.
Afil Games, a Brazil-based self-publishing developer, has released over 900 games on the PlayStation Store across different regions. Many of these are simple puzzle games with swapped assets, some mimicking popular titles. Sony revised its guidelines in November 2022 to ban mass distribution of identical titles. Afil Games was notified it could no longer continue its partnership and its games would be removed. The company blamed a game designer on leave for the issue in March. Despite the ban, Afil Games says it will continue on the Microsoft Store, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. A January 2025 report found that about 40% of new games on the Microsoft Store in 2024 were shovelware, with Afil Games accounting for about 20%.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.