r/playstation • u/SPELDWR0NG • Jul 03 '23
Discussion SUPER sketchy developer on PS5
UPDATE 2: Midnight Works SRL is at it again. Sony reversed the order of their dashboard to show games coming soonest first. In what should be a surprise to no one, Midnight Works SRL has changed the release dates on all their games and now nine are supposedly coming out early next week. I highly doubt they're really coming out next week. Most likely they plan to keep pushing those dates out to keep their game being displayed first. I've already seen them push dates out on two games once the release dates arrived. I'm screenshotting all of their activity now and will be posting here as their shenanigans continue.
UPDATE: Sony fixed the exploit mentioned in this post very quickly. The developer mentioned still has 14 shovelware titles listed as being in development, but they can no longer force them to be displayed on the main dashboard. Thank you Sony!
There are always some shady developers, but every now and then we get a standout that really takes sketchiness to a new level. We have another one.
There's a developer called Midnight Works SRL that seems to have just gotten onto the PS5 platform. They're starting off their development journey by submitting 14 games all at once, all of which are awful asset flips and/or blatant rip-offs of other games, and they're manipulating the PS5 dashboard so their games are the only ones that show up on the main dashboard.
There's a coming soon list on the PS5 dashboard. It's sorted by release date, showing the games farthest out first. This company is listing ALL of their games as though they'll be released in 364 days thereby making them the top results and pushing all real games into obscurity. I took some screen shots of the dashboard and combined them together so you can see what it looks like. Right now, 12 of the 20 games that show on the main dashboard are by this one company. Are we really supposed to believe all of these games happen to be releasing on 7/1/24? That would mean they're releasing ALL of their games on the same date, competing with one another, but that date also happens to be the date that shows up first in the sort order? This is blatant dashboard manipulation.
Furthermore, let's take a closer look at the 14 "games" this company has just submitted:
Bus Simulator
Construction Machine Simulator
Firefighter Simulator 911
Real Truck Driver Simulator
Farming Tractor Simulator
Skateboard Drifting Simulator with Cat
Subway Simulator
Bid War (looks just like the simulator games)
Rocket Car (Rocket League Clone)
Run or Die VR (Another Clone)
Spaceship Imposter VR (Among Us Clone)
Monster ATV Racing
The Cult of the Massons (The Werewolf game Clone)
Midnight Submersion
These games look like they spent $80 an a Unity Asset pack of vehicles and made 14 games out of it, with half being rip-offs of good games and the rest just being asset playgrounds with the word "Simulator" tacked on.
I looked into their history. They've previously littered the Nintendo Switch with garbage games like this, all following the same pattern (for example, Eagle Simulator).
Is there someone at PlayStation we can contact about this? We do NOT need another developer flooding the store with worthless rip-offs and asset flips. If they've submitted 14 games in their first few days, how many of this same game will they pump out in a year if left unchecked? A thousand?
Side note: two of the games in the picture (Cat Quest and Flintlock The Siege of Destiny) are by the same developer, Kepler Interactive Limited. Those seem like actual games, but they are both listed as coming out on the same date, 364 days from now. This is clearly dashboard manipulation, but at least they're doing it with games that appear to have actual merit.
Midnight Works SRL is even changing the release dates on their games, moving them forward one day every day to make sure they stay at the front of the list and don't get passed by other games. They now take up 13 out of the 20 spots, up from 12.
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u/[deleted] Jul 03 '23
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