There's a peculiar situation brewing on the PlayStation Store and Nintendo eShop. Over the past few months, both platforms have seen a surge of games some users derisively call "slop."
Kotaku and Aftermath have documented this issue, highlighting the eShop's apparent proliferation of games utilizing generative AI and misleading store pages to entice purchases of cheap, low-quality titles that misrepresent their actual content. This problem has recently spread to the PlayStation Store, notably cluttering the "Games to Wishlist" section with questionable entries.
Critically, these aren't just run-of-the-mill bad games. Mediocre games are released daily; the issue here is a flood of strikingly similar titles overshadowing everything else. These "slop" games are frequently simulation games, perpetually on sale, often mimicking popular games' themes or even outright stealing names and concepts. They frequently feature hyper-stylized art and screenshots strongly suggestive of generative AI, yet rarely match the storefront promises. In reality, they often suffer from poor controls, technical issues, and a lack of engaging content.Furthermore, as many users have pointed out, a small number of companies churn these games out relentlessly. As YouTube creator Dead Domain discovered in their investigation, these companies are remarkably difficult to track down and hold accountable, often lacking public websites or readily available business information. Some even appear to change names frequently to further obfuscate their activities.
Recently, users of both stores have increasingly demanded better regulation to curb this "AI slop," particularly given the Nintendo eShop's declining performance, seemingly hampered by the sheer volume of games clogging its pages.
To understand this situation, I investigated how these games flood the storefronts, why PlayStation and Nintendo's stores are disproportionately affected, why Steam is perceived as less problematic, and why Xbox's store is relatively unaffected.
The Certification Process
I interviewed eight game development and publishing professionals, all requesting anonymity due to fears of platform holder reprisal. Their extensive experience releasing games on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch provided valuable insights into the game release process across these platforms, potentially explaining the varying levels of "slop."
Generally, the process involves pitching to Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, or Valve, gaining access to development portals and (for consoles) devkits. Developers then complete forms detailing their game, including technical aspects like multiplayer functionality, internet connection requirements, and controller support. This is followed by "cert" (certification, lotcheck—essentially the same process), where the platform holder verifies the build meets platform requirements. These are very specific technical requirements, such as testing save corruption scenarios, controller disconnections, and more. Steam and Xbox's requirements are publicly available; Nintendo and Sony's are not.
This process also ensures compliance with laws and accurate ESRB ratings. Several interviewees emphasized platform holders' strictness regarding age ratings, noting that discrepancies can significantly delay or halt releases.
A common misconception is that certification equates to a QA check. Several interviewees clarified this misunderstanding: "A common misconception amongst The Gamers™ and even inexperienced devs is this is tantamount to a QA check," one publisher stated. "This is incorrect; that's the responsibility of the developer/publisher prior to submission. The platforms check to make sure the game's code complies with hardware specifications."
Passing certification allows release; failure necessitates resubmission after addressing the issues. Interviewees reported rarely receiving clear guidance from platform holders on resolving submission failures, often only receiving error codes. Nintendo was frequently cited for rejecting games with little explanation.
Store Page Presentation
All platform holders have requirements for store pages, requesting accurate game representations in screenshots. However, enforcement varies. Screenshot reviews primarily focus on avoiding conflicting imagery (e.g., PlayStation buttons on an Xbox page) and ensuring correct language.
One interviewee shared a story of a game resubmitting screenshots due to inaccurate representations: "I know of one game that had to resubmit screenshots because the developer…submitted PC screenshots that had foliage and reflections that would plainly be impossible to render on the Nintendo Switch," they said. "Nintendo asked them if they were really from the Switch version and then they immediately realized their mistake. Nintendo's store team does not have access to game builds, and the cert team does not have access to store pages. Frequently those teams may not even be on the same continent."
While Nintendo and Xbox review store page changes before live deployment, PlayStation performs a single check near launch. Valve reviews the page initially but reportedly doesn't revisit it afterward. "You can quite literally submit the store page as one game, get Valve approval and then change everything and then put it live," one interviewee stated.
Interviewees indicated that storefronts perform some level of diligence to ensure product accuracy, but this varies greatly. "Typically, checking for accurate store information is not done in advance; rather, we've found that platform holders will usually trust the developer and what information they provide. In other words, developers get to ask for forgiveness instead of permission, basically."
Even when checked, the definition of "accurate representation" is flexible, allowing many games to slip through. "This can be as simple as 'Street Survival: Homeless Simulator' [one of the examples of so-called ‘slop’ I sent this person when pitching them on the piece] explaining [on its store page] that you start from having nothing to getting harder as you progress, and their screenshots not displaying anything at this moment that breaks [Technical Requirements Checklist]."
The penalty for misleading screenshots is usually removal of the offending content. While developers have incentives to avoid issues, a non-representative screenshot often results in minimal consequences, if noticed at all. Furthermore, none of the three console storefronts have rules against generative AI use in games or store page assets. Steam does request disclosure of generative AI use but doesn't restrict it.
The EShop and Beyond
The question remains: why are Sony and Nintendo's stores flooded with misrepresented, low-effort games? Why is Xbox less affected? Why is Steam's situation less controversial? Interviewees offered several explanations.
Developers explained that while Nintendo, Sony, and Valve vet developers/publishers, Microsoft vets games individually. This means that once approved, developers can more easily release games on Nintendo, Sony, and Valve platforms, as long as they pass certification. Xbox's game-by-game approval makes it less susceptible to the "slop" problem. "Which is why Xbox has fewer (not no) ‘game-shaped objects’," one publisher suggested.
"I think [Xbox] really puts a lot of effort into their service," another person said. "I would say they are tougher to launch on than something like [Epic Games Store] or Steam solely because they have pretty high standards for their pages and are very hands-on. In my experience, you work with their ID team directly to work through both your page and build cert. They will truly bend over backwards for you, even if you don’t see eye to eye.”
Nintendo and PlayStation's developer-based approval, coupled with a focus on technical violations, allows a few companies to saturate their stores with low-quality, AI-driven games.
"Nintendo is probably the easiest to scam," said one developer. "Once I’m in the door, I could make ‘Fart Fart Boobie Fart: The Game’ and maybe it would eventually get taken down, but it’s so odd.”
One publisher described a tactic used to boost visibility on the Nintendo eShop: "So many games will release a bundle and set their discount for 28 days long, the maximum amount of time you can be on discount," they explained. "They will then create a new bundle with a different (or identical!) configuration of game + DLC and set it for release the exact day the previous bundle's sale expired rather than waiting for Sale Cooldowns. This causes it to constantly be near the top of ‘New Releases’ and always be in Discounts, at the expense of dozens and hundreds of real games that people worked very hard on.”
A similar problem was described for PlayStation: "On all consoles, you get the opportunity to get featured, but you’re also on these automatic lists," they said. "If people are just pumping crap into the system, you get pushed down the list. Any list. The systems are being overwhelmed and you’re going to get pushed out of there. I’ve been working on my game for six years, someone else has been working on their game for six months and makes a dozen copies of it…it’s just crushing.”
While generative AI is often blamed, it's not the sole issue. Many games use generic art instead of AI-generated assets. The games themselves, regardless of quality, are still human-made. Generative AI is far from capable of creating games that pass even lax certification processes. Interestingly, while Xbox appears least affected, interviewees suggested it might be least likely to discourage AI use given its investment in the technology.
Steam likely has the most "slop" but faces less criticism due to its robust search and sorting options and its constantly refreshing new releases section, which quickly buries new low-quality releases. Nintendo, in contrast, presents new releases in an unsorted manner.
Platform Action and Concerns
Users have urged Nintendo and Sony to address the influx of low-quality games. Neither company responded to requests for comment. Microsoft also did not respond.
Interviewees expressed pessimism about Nintendo's willingness to improve the eShop, even with the Switch 2. One noted that improvements have been incremental across generations. "It’s logic-defying how their stores are so bad,” they said. “They could check anyone else’s store and see what to do...I am optimistic it will be 10% better than the Switch store.”
However, Nintendo's web browser eShop was noted as being significantly better than its console counterpart. The Switch 2's eShop might mirror the browser version.
However, aggressive platform regulation isn't without risks. Nintendo Life's "Better eShop" filter, attempting to remove low-quality games, faced criticism for wrongly flagging many legitimate titles. This highlights the potential for harming quality games through overly aggressive filtering.
"To be honest, all this talk about ‘quality control’, especially coming from non-developers, can be intimidating. Personally, I fear that game platforms like Nintendo, if they decide to actually take action, might accidentally target quality software that doesn't rely on generative AI or similar shortcuts. If our consistent rejections by ID@Xbox and Nintendo are any indicator, then platform holders' judgment of software legitimacy can be quite arbitrary. Nevertheless, non-developers should be aware that most of us aren't out to get anybody, or trick anyone out of their money--and neither are the platform holders with which we cooperate.”
One interviewee expressed sympathy for platform holders, acknowledging the immense task of reviewing countless games and the difficulty of differentiating between genuinely bad games and cynical cash grabs. "Generally, first-parties don't want [junk AI] games, but we forget perhaps that game submissions aren't really checked by corporations but rather by people, and being able to differentiate between a student project, a simply bad game, an asset flip or an AI-generated game is perhaps not as easy as we might think,” they said. “First-parties are trying to strike a balance between allowing bad games to be published and cynical cash grabs. And sometimes it's not easy to know where to put the foot down.”
