Indie game developer Ternox Games announced on August 17 that their hit 80’s anime style stock market simulator STONKS-9800 is no longer coming to PlayStation. Not only that, but the dev’s entire portfolio of past releases is set to be removed from the PlayStation store come August 23.
According to Ternox Games, this is a result of Sony unilaterally terminating their PlayStation developer and publisher agreement for no apparent reason. At the time of writing, the platform’s support has not provided an explanation nor responded to Ternox Game’s emails “in any way.”
STONKS-9800 initially launched in Early Access on Steam in 2023, quickly earning an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on the platform out of over 3k reviews. The PS5 version was planned for 2027, with the developer hoping to also release a physical disc edition while it was still possible. However, due to this setback with the platform, they have no choice but to forgo the release entirely. Instead, STONKS-9800 will only be coming to Nintendo Switch and Xbox.
To make matters worse, Ternox Games currently has 13 games on the PlayStation store, 10 of which they released on their own over the course of five years, and three of which were transferred to their account by other publishers they collaborated with. All of these games are set to be removed from the platform by next week, unless Sony reconsiders the decision. “I’m really sorry that this happened and that I failed the developers whose games I published. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, unfortunately,” the developer wrote on X.
Still, Ternox Games remains hopeful that the termination might be reversed, and asked the community to help bring attention to the matter. While it’s difficult to know for sure given the lack of explanation from the PS Store, the timing of this incident does coincide with Sony reportedly enforcing stricter guidelines against so-called shovelware. While Ternox Games’s titles are not shovelware by any stretch of the imagination, it is possible that they were mistakenly flagged as such.
As they await a resolution to the situation, Ternox Games has created a thread showcasing their soon-to-be deslited games, encouraging users to buy the ones they like before it’s too late.
Saying their collection isn’t shovelware in the slightest is pretty disengenuous.
???
All their games look really competent. What makes them shovelware? This title for example really captures the PC-98 sprite aesthetic which is no small feat. Nexoria looks like a cool JRPG-esque roguelike combo with fun decision making elements. Shine On My Little Sun similarly has really high quality pixelart and visually stands out among other VNs. Taimumari looks like a fun sided roller action platformer. Where’s the shovelware?
maybe if you don’t know what shovelware means, which is not “small games that I’m not interested in”, but “zero effort garbage nobody cares about”, which is objectively, observably not true of a dev that has overwhelmingly positive reviews on their game…
I know everyone else might not be as resolved, but I’m going to actively avoid purchasing anything Sony related, moving forward. Bad business practices get retracted support.
Too bad that won’t matter. Sony makes all of their money from PS+ and people buying Call of Duty/Madden/Fifa/NBA every year. Ball and gun gamers will always outweigh us.
Except Xbox owns Call of Duty.
even spiderman ?
It’s ok. We can play it in steam, still. Time to throw out PS
I’m actually really thankful for this article, after reading it I went ahead and bought the game as well as the supporter pack. Can’t wait to dig into it!
Shovelware or not, it is atrocious business practice to terminate a contract with 0 reason given.
’80s not 80’s, unless your intent is to signify a possessive form for the number 80.
Actually “1980’s” is the more traditionally correct American usage, though it is giving way to the more popular British-style “1980s.” The apostrophe merely indicates its plural status, same as writing, “Capitalize all those A’s.”
Though I agree if you add the extra apostrophe of “‘80’s” it does start to get a bit heavy, lol.
This was probably for the best. Let’s assume trash was removed and we can, maybe, get back on course.
You are a special kind of stupid.
“I dont know anything about this but im going to assume the corporation is in the right and poor quality items were removed because the corporation can do no wrong”
I dont think you deserve to participate but unfortunately you do
“I lick Sony’s boots and agree with them on anything without thinking about it myself.”
Given the amount of outright slop and low quality mobile game ports is on the PS5 store, it’s madness to terminate the agreement with a dev actually putting real games on there.
sony can kick rocks