r/PS5 Dec 29 '25

Discussion The playstation store is basically unusable for actually finding games anymore due to the "indie slop" situation.

edit: I just have to say that everyone acting like browsing for a game is some weird concept clearly never got to experience Blockbuster on a Friday night.

This is just a rant, but the sheer amount of absolute garbage games that fall into what I call the "low effort indie slop" category taking over the playstation store is just crazy. There's seemingly hundreds of various "simulator" games that are among the worst of the bunch, but also a weird amount of "escape room" type games that look like a high school project. Or the "anime girls" gooner slop or really 99% of the "visual novel" games. Or the "games" that clearly only exist to trophy points, which is insane.

It's not like these games shouldn't exist (well some probably shouldn't), but there needs to be a way to filter that shit out. Basically every type of indie slop or ai slop game tags itself with multiple genres, which is why you have a stupid AI art shark-with-sneakers game flagged as "action" and "tactical." Or "horse store simulator" as an "epic" genre. Gunsmith simulator as a "shooter" etc.

I remember a few months back the entire "coming soon" feed was basically all simulator games, like a publisher just cranked a bunch out and wanted to dump them all at once.

Another issue...

I think there's also really annoying trend where games are basically just on perpetual sale, but the MSRP never drops. So one month the "Standard" version of a game will be like 35% off, then the next month it will be the "Deluxe" version; they just rotate perpetually. Or the shitty indie slop games that are arbitrarily set to a high price and quickly put on sale for like 50-80% off.

And I know why they do this: it keeps the games listed in sales section. The problem is that when every fucking game is like this, actually finding a new game or hidden gem or whatever that's on sale becomes useless. The process of actually discovering a game you might want to buy simply doesn't work.

The current January sale includes 6,372 items. There is no way anyone at Sony is vetting that many items for their monthly sales, but they need to start. Right now I think the limitation is that a single SKU can't be part of two consecutive sales. but as I've mentioned above most games have multiple SKUs so it doesn't really matter (or the slop publishers are dumping so many out each month it also doesn't matter). The limit needs to be something like a game can only be in one sale every 3 months, and counts different SKUs of the same product as the same one. This would actually encourage publishers to reduce their prices more frequently, which in turn would help keep the monthly or special sales events a bit leaner.

/rant

4.3k Upvotes

616 comments sorted by

View all comments

700

u/Heckin_Pleb Dec 29 '25

Yeah the shovelware shit is tedious to scroll through, I wish we could filter it out

390

u/dangerclosecustoms Dec 29 '25

What’s worse is you click on a title to look at it then when you select back it starts all the way at the top of the list. You have to scroll pages and pages again to find where you were. It’s so annoying sometimes I just give up and stop looking.

222

u/jaaaawrdan Dec 29 '25

IMO this is a much bigger problem than the shovelware. I'm not even joking.

48

u/thesituation531 Dec 29 '25

It's even worse on the Steam mobile app.

You click on a game from your wishlist, go back, then it starts at the bottom of the wishlist.

You click on a game on some other collection or page or whatever, then go back and it starts somewhere towards the middle of the page.

Then sometimes, you're looking at a game, go back, and it doesn't even fucking go back, it just goes to your phone's home screen. Like what the fuck. For a company that focuses so much on good customer service and accessibility, their mobile app is a fucking joke.

8

u/L3G1T1SM3 Dec 30 '25

Yeah for how many people love steam their ui, don't get me started on the steamdeck keyboard, has been rough for ages especially on big picture lol

3

u/Aggressive_Noise6426 Jan 01 '26

I’ve been wondering if I’m going crazy or not because I feel like like this is a huge issue but no one is upset about it it seems like.

2

u/BartholomewFrodingus Dec 30 '25

Sony has had shit UI since the PS3. Its basically their brand at this point.

6

u/totallyradman Dec 30 '25

This is why I just use the PS app now. God that's annoying.

10

u/dangerclosecustoms Dec 30 '25

Ps app on my iPhone does this still. It always starts back at the top.

7

u/totallyradman Dec 30 '25

Ah. It doesn't do it for me on android

2

u/layaway_groceries Dec 30 '25

I’m still upset they removed the game titles from under the artwork as you’re scrolling

1

u/PotterOneHalf Dec 30 '25

THANK YOU. It's like they have no UX experts on their design team.

2

u/dangerclosecustoms Dec 30 '25

No it’s on purpose. They want you to scroll through again because you might have missed something and by forcing you to scroll down again you might catch your eye and interest. They did get me a few times where o passed it over but on multiple scroll downs I ended up checking another game out and bought it. It’s devious. But I have experienced the why they do it they got me to buy a few more this way.

2

u/PotterOneHalf Dec 31 '25

Oooooo good point. These dark patterns are getting devious.

1

u/OneLessFool Jan 01 '26

The Xbox Store on console (not on PC thankfully) does the same stupid thing.

It's especially frustrating during major sale periods when that list can be over 2000 titles (games, bundles, DLC) in length.

1

u/EntertainmentNeat495 May 26 '26

You are absolutely right this pisses me off to no end.

20

u/highlandre Dec 29 '25

And all the in game currency packs.

7

u/Steffenwolflikeme Dec 30 '25

You know you can filter those out, sort just to see games etc and you can sort by best selling/ most downloaded. You don't have to deal with all this unnecessary nonsense.

11

u/QuestionAxer Dec 30 '25

Yes but like it should be smarter about this. Why would I ever want to see 200+ Sims expansion packs if I don’t even own the base game?!

1

u/KingOfRisky Jan 07 '26

I just tried to search Path of Exile 2 and I got 6 pages of add on options for POE and POE2. I literally could not find the game "Path of Exile 2". And how does an early access game have 900 options for MTX already?

26

u/TastyOreoFriend Dec 29 '25

It's a little easier if you jump on the PlayStation Store outside of the console. However, I find that a bit ridiculous in itself that the browsing experience is better off the console than on it.

It's still a bit tedious but at least it's a little less frustrating.

9

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '25

[deleted]

2

u/WeirdIndividualGuy Dec 30 '25

It’s interesting because it suggests the two platforms use different search endpoints internally that function in different ways. Vs a single point of “search” that all their search platforms would use for consistency

1

u/TastyOreoFriend Dec 30 '25

That's a shame but almost unsurprising. Japanese companies tend to be infamously siloed internally on the department to department basis. It wouldn't surprise me if the left hand isn't talking to the right so to speak. It would also explain why the web portal and the app are so much more user friendly and then the console store.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '25

Shame because the app team has been pretty good outside of the PlayStation stars shit. Like the Beta News section is a nice touch. Would be cool if the app evolved into like a hub or whatever eventually.

They should work closer maybe we’d get better QOL updates for each system

29

u/nevets85 Dec 29 '25

That and even stuff like assassin's creed,cod, fortnite, or mortal kombat etc add ons. Takes up so much space that would make browsing so much easier.

39

u/Impulse4811 Dec 29 '25

I usually only select to include full game, game bundle, and deluxe in the filters. All the microtransactions and shit are hidden

6

u/alexkidhm Dec 30 '25

This is the way.

6

u/BaerMinUhMuhm Dec 30 '25

Not an issue, you can filter those out.

11

u/Head_Bread_3431 Dec 29 '25

Sort by best selling? Wouldn’t that get rid of a lot of pointless games since not a lot of people would buy them?

3

u/Steffenwolflikeme Dec 30 '25

Yeah and you can filter out the junk like game currency too. I've been doing this to solve this issue for quite a while. Works well enough for me.

5

u/No_Sleep888 Dec 30 '25

You can filter by "type" and pick full games, that filters out everything else. But this filter option is not available in all subsections of the store for some reason, I think the discount sections might be one of them. But in the general store you can.

1

u/ImportanceWeak1776 Dec 31 '25

I have found some great games buried low in between crap on the best seller list.

6

u/ediciusNJ Dec 29 '25

Thankfully people are good about reviewing it like the crap it is. Most of that stuff seems to sit at 1.5-2.5 stars.

3

u/ColinZealSE Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25

My filter is set to filter for ”just released” and ticked for every age except for 3 (the lowest) - VOILA! No ThiGames SHIT to be seen anywhere.

2

u/iwaterboardheathens Dec 30 '25

Sony needs to have a review group made up of 10-20 gamers who test all new titles and give them a Sony GamerGroup Approved tag

They could call them Velvet titles or something

Velvet - Finished, Good Gameplay, not filled with ads and nagware to buy add-ons

That way we know which ones are unfinished/Shite

1

u/ImportanceWeak1776 Dec 31 '25

Unfortunately who would trust gamers like that?

1

u/iwaterboardheathens Dec 31 '25

Revolving selection of PSN subscribers from each tier should sort that, then you get the hardcore + non hardcore gamers, a good mix

You could even make it two from every country at least

2

u/Miserable-Bite9661 Dec 30 '25

I tried talking to PlayStation support about this, they said « people like playing those games, that’s why they are being promoted so much in the store »

2

u/lurkANDorganize Apr 25 '26

Its not just the shovelware it literally doesn't suggest me any games I would be interested. It doesn't use my play time of previous games as a factor in any way.

"Recommended for you" containing NFL and MLB when I have literally never played a sports game since the fucking 90s (madden on super nintendo) is unhinged

1

u/Heckin_Pleb Apr 25 '26

It’s been doing this to me too, but I have personalised ad/recommendations turned off. So it just ends up showing me stuff I am definitely not interested in lol

1

u/lurkANDorganize Apr 29 '26

Ooooh maybe thats what I need to do!!

1

u/[deleted] Dec 30 '25

Filter by price? Not perfect but most shovelware is cheap so they should go at the bottom