Descenders publisher Mike Rose has slammed Sony’s PlayStation Store for its placement of the new game on its launch day, saying that its curation makes him “feel genuinely ill.” Descenders released today on PS4, but as the No More Robots founder has noted, it’s extremely difficult to find the game on the storefront, with it even being buried for direct searches of its name.
Mike posted a video to Twitter scrolling through the PlayStation Store, with Descenders nowhere to be seen. Even after searching for the game directly, Descenders appears as the final result, beneath films, DLC, and similarly titled games.
Mike called its placement “super draining,” discussing how it was disappointing considering the “grueling” submission process developers go through in order to get their games onto the PlayStation Store. He then noted that his tweet had done a better job of advertising the game than the PS Store, saying that he should “be giving 30% to this tweet instead,” in reference to the cut Sony takes from games hosted on its storefront.
https://twitter.com/RaveofRavendale/status/1298202189236703233
Followers noted that the game can be found more easily on desktop mode and that it is also visible in the ‘See All’ section of the new games tab. Some also pointed out how Descenders is showing up as the first search result for the game for them, though doing so required a restart of the PS Store.
However, navigating to it still takes more work than publishers and developers releasing new games would hope for, with Mike shining a light on how the process can bury new releases that aren’t major games. Considering that many smaller games can live or die based on their placement on digital storefronts, it seems that Mike has echoed a sentiment shared by publishers and developers that Sony’s curation isn’t up to scratch.
