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.
