Sony PlayStation once and for all this week has a developer with about a thousand product numbers (which may be slightly more than 100 for the actual number of games), but it is not clear whether this is an isolated event or whether it means that the platform’s attitude to crude and indiscriminate games is beginning to harden.
According to the Game Industry magazine, crude waste-making is an inherent problem of the industry – There are always some producers who are keen to make a quick gain by using a single template, replacing material, to produce poor mass games. However, such speculators broke the line on an unprecedented scale after the digital distribution model lowered the threshold of access, which was generally positive for the game media. The proliferation of garbage games has had a devastating impact on the discovery of quality games, and nothing can be compared with the replacement of cheap imitations, poor-quality pornography and material by the hard work of seeing themselves polished. It is even more desperate for independent developers to drown outside the list of “hot new items” in shops. Every attempt to discover improvements is reversed by the proliferation of crude, indiscriminate games and even outright counterfeits.
Worse still, whatever your views on the use of Generating AI in the development of games, it is undoubtedly a “dream tool” for crude-made game producers. At present, the bulk production of semi-finished games that appear to be professional enough to fool some players for modest profits is becoming faster, cheaper and simpler than ever. This looming crisis has made the attitude of the platform ‘ s holders, which has so far shown little willingness to acknowledge, let alone address, the problem of garbage games, all the more dramatic and disturbing. Sony and Nintendo, which once had a high threshold for access to the platform, now allow an alarming number of shameless and poor-quality games. Sonny’s next move this week is just a scratch of ice on the tip of the iceberg. The problem is similar to the situation faced by social media companies: actual content audits are difficult and require the hiring of manpower to make professional judgements, which they are reluctant to do. Most companies are comfortable in allowing services to deteriorate, significantly reducing user experience, simply because they are reluctant to hire employees to perform their duties. This, by the way, is indeed the only solution. There is no algorithmic detection process that can accurately identify crude and indiscriminate games, and AI cannot save us from this escalating crisis. Any “spread-net” action based on algorithms or AI models designed to clean up garbage can inevitably result in the injury of a variety of legitimate, small, independent games, re-formulations, visual novels, etc.; either the filtering is too loose to make sense at all.
However, the challenges will not disappear, especially for host platform holders. At the heart of their marketing to consumers is the provision of “the garden of the wall” and their commitment to act as a sophisticated and prudent curator within these walls. In recent years, they have largely ignored this responsibility: gardens have long been weeded. At least Steam did not make that commitment, and users were aware of its open platform, which meant that there was always a great deal of screening before you could find something good. Sony and Nintendo, on the other hand, implied a commitment not to be a player to raise the fine, “give you a pair of waterproof shoes so you can find yourself in the mud”. The Game Industry says, “Open and closed platforms have their place, and consumers have their preferences, even if I think that “consumers should choose platforms that offer fewer options.” This is ironic. However, when gatekeepers were negligent, the argument that the platform was closed became highly unreliable. If the platform does not really want to maintain the garden and clear the weeds, why should consumers accept being locked in by it?” This is not to say that garbage removal is easy. It is the difficulty of definition and regulation that increases the need for manual intervention rather than half-string algorithms. In the case of the developer, who was laid down by Sony this week, the game (which reportedly earned about $10 million in the store) is typical of poor quality under any standard, mainly to allow the player to pay for the trophies within minutes. In other cases, it may be more difficult to detect material substitution or induction games: there is a clear need for experienced and well-trained personnel to assess the allegations and to develop carefully crafted criteria for the fair treatment of legitimate developers and the strict protection of consumers and the Platform itself.
The current situation in the industry is so bad that formal games outside the 3As can hardly be distinguished from crude and indiscriminate games, which usually have no bottom line in the production profession. And when AI turns “fire hoses” of this type into “flood floods”, the situation will become a disaster. Digital stores may well become incapable of effectively discovering and promoting games other than large distributors, which essentially destroys the value they initially promised. There is no quick or cheap solution, but if Sony’s actions this week do reflect a hardening of attitudes, rather than a dispute with a single developer alone, it may be a ray of light that the situation will eventually be addressed.