PlayStation removes Afil Games shovelware as Sony enforces stricter PS Store guidelines

PlayStation is removing the catalogue of one of its most prolific shovelware publishers. Afil Games, a Brazil-based studio behind hundreds of cheap, low-effort titles, confirmed on June 23, 2026 that Sony has dropped it as a publishing partner and will pull its games from the PlayStation Store. The studio said the decision follows stricter guidelines Sony has rolled out across 2026, and that those rules no longer fit its business model.

The removal is the largest single hit in a year-long cleanup of the PlayStation Store. Sony has quietly delisted thousands of low-quality games since January, and Afil Games ranked among the publishers with the most titles on the platform, nearly all of them shovelware. The studio's exit is the clearest sign yet that Sony's crackdown has real force.

Afil Games broke the news itself in a post on X on June 23, 2026, confirming that Sony had ended the relationship and that its catalogue would come down. "PlayStation has been implementing stricter guidelines for publishing games on its platform," the studio wrote.

It continued: "As a result of these new guidelines and their incompatibility with our business model, PlayStation has decided not to continue its partnership with Afil Games for future releases on the platform. Additionally, our games will be removed from the PSN Store in the near future."

The phrasing matters. Afil Games did not say it was leaving by choice. It said Sony decided not to continue the partnership, and that the takedown of its existing library follows as a direct result. In plain terms, the publisher was pushed out, and its back catalogue is going with it.

Video Games Chronicle reported that Afil Games has released more than 140 games on PS4 and PS5, and that every one of them is set to come down. The studio, which says its goal is to make "fun, casual, and accessible games," is one of the most prolific publishers on the platform. Its wider catalogue across all stores runs close to 1,000 titles, and some outlets, including Insider Gaming, framed the PlayStation delisting figure as high as 900.

However it is counted, the removal is one of the biggest publisher-wide delistings the PlayStation Store has seen. Sony is not pulling a few stray games. It is taking down the entire PlayStation library of a single high-volume publisher in one move.

The affected games give a sense of the catalogue. They include Piggy's Farm, Snack and Quack, The Cute Whale, Axobubble, Slap the Rocks, Duck Run, Honey Sprint and Collie Call. The names follow a clear pattern: simple, cheap, animal-themed titles produced at speed.

Afil Games is not an isolated case. It is the most visible target in a sweep Sony has run all year. According to Insider Gaming, PlayStation removed around 1,000 games from its store in January 2026, took down more in April, and pulled another batch of roughly 1,000 titles in early June.

PlayStation LifeStyle reported that games have been disappearing from the store nearly every week, and that dozens of developers have lost their contracts as the policy took hold. The pattern is consistent. Sony is not banning a handful of bad games. It is removing low-effort titles in bulk and cutting ties with the publishers that produce the most of them.

Shovelware is the industry term for cheap, low-effort games made in volume to flood a store rather than to be played seriously. They are often near-identical to one another, frequently copy the look of more popular titles, and usually sell for a few dollars. Critics describe them as digital clutter that buries quality releases in store listings and search results.

There is a second reason these games sell, and it sits at the center of the complaints against Afil Games. Many are built to hand out PlayStation Trophies, the platform's achievement system, with very little effort. Trophy hunters, the players who chase a complete profile, will buy a cheap game purely for an easy set of Trophies, almost regardless of how it plays. That demand keeps shovelware profitable.

Players have long accused Afil Games of leaning on that exact loop: short, simple games priced low and stuffed with Trophies that are extremely easy to earn, including quick Platinum trophies. That dynamic is part of why the cleanup is popular with PlayStation owners. The games were not just low quality. For many buyers they were a way to game the Trophy system, and they crowded the store while doing it.

Sony has not released the detailed text of its new publishing rules, and that limits what can be stated as fact. What is known is that the company has, in its own framing reported across outlets, implemented stricter game publishing guidelines, and that the result has been a wave of removals and dropped contracts.

Afil Games confirmed the existence of those guidelines from the receiving end, describing them as incompatible with its model. The strong implication, backed by the pattern of removals, is that the rules target volume-based, low-effort publishing and the trophy-farming business that depends on it. Until Sony publishes specifics, the precise requirements remain unconfirmed.

The studio is not shutting down. Afil Games said it will keep releasing games on other platforms even as its PlayStation presence disappears. According to Insider Gaming, it plans to continue publishing on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, the Microsoft Store, and Nintendo Switch.

That split points to the real stakes. Sony's decision does not end shovelware as a business. It removes it from one storefront. Whether other platform holders follow with similar guidelines will decide how far the effect spreads.

For PlayStation owners, the practical result is a cleaner store. Removing a publisher with a catalogue this size clears a large block of low-effort listings in one move, and it makes the kind of trophy-farming purchase Afil Games specialized in harder to find.

For developers, the message is sharper. Sony is willing to drop a high-volume partner outright rather than police its output title by title. Publishers whose entire model rests on flooding the store with cheap games now have a clear example of what that can cost them.

The bigger question is consistency. A one-time purge fades if new shovelware simply replaces the old. The stricter guidelines, if enforced steadily, are what would keep the store clean over time. Afil Games losing its partnership is the strongest sign so far that Sony intends to enforce them rather than just announce them.