PlayStation Removes Over 1K Games From Shovelware Publisher

PlayStation's war on shovelware is not slowing down. Following two major waves of delistings in January and April 2026, the platform is now coming for Webnetic, a publisher that held the third-highest game count on the PlayStation Store. Webnetic confirmed the news on its X account, urging players to check out its games one final time before they are removed. The publisher will continue operating on Xbox, Nintendo, and Steam.

The announcement is the latest step in what has become one of PlayStation's most significant store cleanup efforts in years. It follows a pattern that began taking shape in January when ThiGames, then the fourth-largest publisher on PSN by title count, had all 1,194 of its games delisted in a single removal wave.

Sony’s Crackdown on Shovelware

To understand the scale of what PlayStation is cleaning up, it helps to know what the top of the publisher leaderboard by game count actually looked like. As of January 2026, the four publishers with the most titles on the PlayStation Store were eastasiasoft with 2,018 games, Ratalaika Games with 1,279, Webnetic with 1,222, and ThiGames with 1,194.

Webnetic's library is made up primarily of mobile-style games that would not look out of place in a social media ad break. Recent releases from the publisher include titles like Archerio, Panic House Awakening, and Parking Problem. These are not games built around original concepts or meaningful player experiences. They exist either as low-effort knockoffs of recognizable trends or as vehicles for easy trophy acquisition, packaged in a way that technically clears the bar for store submission.

ThiGames operated similarly, with a catalog built around titles like Jumping Food Racer, Jumping Food Catcher, and Jumping Orange, each spawning multiple sequels, and social media promotions that explicitly targeted players looking for trophy stacks. Its removal is speculated to be connected to the joint Shared Commitment to Safer Gaming initiative announced between PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, suggesting this crackdown may be coordinated across platforms rather than a unilateral Sony decision.

Why is Shovelware a Major Problem?

Shovelware damages storefronts in ways that go beyond the individual bad game. When a store contains thousands of titles designed not to be played but to farm trophies or exploit brand recognition, it degrades the discovery experience for every legitimate developer on the same platform. A small studio that has spent two years building an original game competes for visibility in the same store categories as a publisher cranking out dozens of near-identical titles per month. 

Players who stumble across shovelware, particularly the kind that mimics the branding of well-known games like the Resident Evil clone Ebola Village, come away with a worse impression of the platform as a whole. The store's credibility as a place to find games worth buying is eroded every time a bad-faith product makes it through the submission process and onto the front end. PlayStation's crackdown is late by most measures, but it is the right direction, and the fact that it is continuing into a third wave suggests the company is taking the shovelware problem seriously.