PlayStation’s October Lineup is a Tale of Quantity over Curation 

PlaySation dropped 25 games in one week in their latest October 25’ lineup, but most were forgettable names. Celebrity titles like Ninja Gaiden 4 and Jurassic World Evolution 3, got buried under a flood of low-quality games. Instead of feeling like a celebration of gaming, the release list looked like a digital dump.

Sony’s “more is better” release strategy turns the PlayStation store into a cluttered marketplace where real creativity gets lost in the noise. By flooding players with endless, low-effort titles, PlayStation risks devaluing its brand authenticity. They have got to get one thing cleared that quality games deserve spotlight, not to be buried under a pile of forgettable fillers. 

Nostalgia As a Business Model

The lineup is a sign of franchise fatigue as they have re-released the pre-loved games, hoping for their nostalgia to attract the masses again. Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, launching with negative preview coverage demonstrates publisher’s desperation. Rather than delaying the release for quality improvements, they’re releasing the under-cooked products under the fear of FOMO, hoping that franchise loyalty overcomes execution failures. 

Similarly, the Double Dragon Revive and House of the Dead 2 remake expose creative exhaustion. Re-packaging decade-old gameplay with modern graphics, while charging full price, is not the decent thing to do to your royal customer base. Don’t be naive and give into the narrative of “remaster” or “preserving the classics”, it is mere commercial exploitation that lacks creative vision. 

Digital Storefront Algorithm in Play

This release clustering isn’t accidental; it’s an exploitation of the Digital Storefront Algorithm. By flooding a single week with 25 titles, publishers overcrowd the “New Release” section, where visibility determines sale. Each game gets a brief spotlight before the next batch pushes it down, creating fake buzz and no time for players to judge quality. 

Steam, PlayStation Store, and Xbox Marketplace algorithms prioritize recent releases and purchase velocity. Publishers coordinate launches to grab a short visibility boost on these platforms, completely aware of the fact that most of the games would vanish from view within days. 

Hence, the release dates are less about “when a game is ready” and more about playing the algorithm for maximum exposure. This practice particularly harms Indie developers, whose low-budget, passion projects release alongside the legendary titles, such as Dora Rainforest Rescue, and struggle for algorithmic visibility. A solo developer’s game, built over years, gets overshadowed by cheap licensed titles, added just to bulk up the catalog, because the algorithm rewards quantity, not quality. 

PlayStation’s October release offers a reality check that digital stores have no interest in filtering out games by quality. By focusing on the number of titles instead of how good they are, most releases get lost in the noise. 

This approach, on one hand, hurts the small developers, whose games struggle to get noticed. On the other hand, it affects the players as well, who have to crawl through a flood of low-quality titles to find the few worth playing.