It’s a relief to see that Sony has finally taken action to improve quality control for the Nintendo eShop, which has already hit rock bottom, as it’s practically nonexistent.

The company is reportedly enforcing stricter guidelines by cutting ties with alleged “shovelware” publishers, such as Brazil-based Afil Games. In a social media post, Afil Games stated that PlayStation introduced stricter guidelines for game releases and decided not to work with the company on future releases. Currently, Afil’s existing games, such as Chico’s Delivery and Damways, are still available for purchase on the U.S. PlayStation Store.

#Afilgames #Playstation pic.twitter.com/w4dmVToTIQ

— Afil Games (@AfilGames) June 23, 2026

Afil Games thanked players for their support on PlayStation and reminded them that the company remains committed to delivering new experiences on Xbox consoles and the Nintendo Switch. In January, Sony removed hundreds of games from the PlayStation Store, including those published by ThiGames. Some consider these games “shovelware” because they are produced quickly, often at the “asset flip” level, buying a few textures or concepts and doing minimal work with them, and generally offer a simple or shallow experience. These games are often viewed as a nuisance, but some players use them to boost their trophy counts. Indeed, it’s often easy to earn a platinum trophy with these shovelware titles.

Until they were removed, only three developers had more games in the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 stores than ThiGames: Eastasiasoft, Ratalaika Games, and Webnetic. We’d like to ask a question at the end: Given Steam’s laissez-faire approach, it doesn’t enforce quality control, unlike the former Steam Greenlight program, we don’t expect it from them. But we do expect it from another company: When will Nintendo clean up the eShop? There are tons of junk games there. Even games that try to imitate popular titles from other platforms.

Source: Gamesindustry