Sony Crackdown on PS Store Shovelware Forces Two Developers to Remove Over 100 Titles
The removals show Sony is enforcing its anti-shovelware rules more aggressively, with small-scale developers who entered the store recently now being swept up in the cleanup.
Reporting from 1 sources: Automaton.
Developer GGmuks announced it will remove about 60 titles from the PlayStation Store and suspend future releases indefinitely, while individual developer Acyntha said 47 titles will be removed by the end of June. The moves follow Sony's 2022 guideline revisions and a wave of mass removals of low-quality games this year, including over 1,200 titles from Webnetic and 700 from NOSTRA GAMES.
Developer GGmuks, which entered the PlayStation Store in October 2024, said on June 4 it will remove about 60 titles and indefinitely suspend all future releases. The studio had been releasing casual games priced at a few hundred yen, ramping up from one or two per month to about one per week by September 2025. On its X account, GGmuks thanked users and called the year successful but expressed disappointment, suggesting the removals were not voluntary.
Individual developer Acyntha, active since July 2022, announced on June 3 that 47 titles will be removed by the end of June. Acyntha said the decision came from a notification, and a final sale period has been set. Both developers had released regional variants and separate PS4 and PS5 versions as distinct entries. According to TrueTrophies, GGmuks ranks 14th among PS Store publishers with 470 titles, and Acyntha ranks 25th with 277 titles.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.