Chris Kohler has taken a somewhat surprising stance on an issue that Wii enthusiasts have to face daily: shovelware. Most people online seem to be of the opinion that Wii shovelware will cause the Wii to fail, the game industry to crash, and life on Earth to end (when aliens discover our copies of Chicken Shoot and declare us unfit stewards of our planet), but Kohler sees Wii shovelware as not just not terrible, but maybe even good.Supporting his argument is one of his best examples of shovelware gone right: D3 Publisher's Simple series. D3 admits in the very packaging that their games are cheap, with the implication that you shouldn't expect much. People buy them expecting flawed experiences, and can then ignore the technical issues. Simple games allow games by new developers with small budgets to share shelf space with AAA games. And if people don't want that, they know not to pick up the game.
People can spot a crap game, Kohler says, and know to avoid it. Nobody's going to be fooled into thinking a Data Design Interactive game is high-quality. Kohler likens it to knockoff He-Man toys or bargain-bin DVDs in Walgreens: people can tell the difference, and these things don't deter sales of real products at all. What they offer is a cheap, occasionally novel choice, and more choice is always better. If a "shovelware" game is at least a little bit fun, then it's good that it exists.
The final point he makes, which is something we hadn't considered: allowing garbage on the system is a message that Nintendo isn't so closely restricting content for the Wii. This could translate into AO-rated games in the future, or (we think) wildly experimental games.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-06-2008 @ 10:05AM
Nigeria: the graphics have amazing gameplay said...
I think these cheaper games are a wonderful idea. It could be the "real" start of a genuine equivalent to the B-movie.
We could have genre games that adhere to rigidly to the established conventions. And we could have games that attempt to shoot for the stars and be bigger than they're supposed to. And games that actually make you think about the way you live and your approach to life. Developers could actually try to create scenarios with emotional depth. And seeing as these games have less capital for their projects, aesthetically they'll have to move away from the "realism" that is plaguing the 360/PS3.
With smaller budgets the possibilities are endless. I just hope that it doesn't end up as a mini game minefield. That would be disappointing.
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3-06-2008 @ 10:05AM
Roto13 said...
I never understood why having a lot of shovel ware matters as long as there's an acceptable amount of great games as well. A console with ten great games and one crappy one is no better than a console with ten great games and a million crappy ones.
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3-06-2008 @ 10:28AM
Jeremy said...
I have a six year old and shovelware is the way to go. Cheap games are good for three reasons. One they are cheap, two they are great for young children, and three they can sometimes even be fun. I love the fact that my son plays these games since most of the time they are easy enough that anyone can pick up and play. Take Galaxy for instance when I was my sons age I could easily go though most NES games but now days high end games can be so hard that a child would have no chance. My son could only collect around 50 stars for Galaxy and I even had to help with some.
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3-06-2008 @ 10:55AM
Orion said...
I've always said this is a good thing for the Wii. Last i checked, the last system that had this much shovelware was the PS2, and we all saw how successful that was.
Shovelware means a system is popular, so everyone wants a piece of the profit pie. If there wasn't as much, like on gamecube for instance, it is a sign that the system isn't as popular, and poorer devs don't think they have a chance at making a quick buck.
Unless the atari thing happens again, which I doubt, I hoenstly have never seen how shovelware is a sign to be alarmed for the success of a system. He's absolutely right, we CAN tell the difference.. even my own mother can. The people who buy those titles want it, so let them have it.
If allowing shovelware will allow for the system to get quirky experiemental games on it like the ps2 had.. like that one skateboarding game with the special controller piece, or Mr. Misquito, or even Katamari... then I'm for it.
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3-06-2008 @ 12:34PM
zelderman said...
I don't think that will happen again, just imagine if people had readily available access to the internet, they would have found that "Big" Atari games like Pac-Man and E.T. were crap and they would not have bought them. This day in age, we have the internet and we can be informed weather a game is gold or crap.
3-06-2008 @ 2:15PM
Mr Khan said...
Shovelware itself is not inherently bad, it just tends to lean that way. But there definitely is GOOD shovelware, like what D3 does. One could look at No More Heroes as an example of Good shovelware (because beyond its brilliant writing and great music, the actual game parts of it were very unpolished, especially Santa Destroy overworld), but the possibility of being able to push out a cheap gem like NMH is worth having to sift through a mountain of Chicken Shoot and Ninjabread Man
Granted, No More Heroes could have been on 360, but Grasshopper would've incurred much much greater expenses
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3-06-2008 @ 3:14PM
Perverted said...
Why do you all have large posts.....making up for something else? joke...anyways...
Why do people always put shovelware down like this? shovelware to me is a bad & rushed game, it could also be a port(if it's bad/rushed/dodgy waggle etc.)
But a cheap and fun game isn't shovelware, why? It's cheap and FUN....
Bah....Am I making sense? I hope at least a bit :P
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3-06-2008 @ 3:41PM
Mr Khan said...
That makes sense, you believe that shovelware is bad by definition. I would partially agree. I think its low quality by definition (kinda like NMH, my avatar shows my love for that game, especially its villains, but it was poor quality from a strictly technical standpoint)
3-06-2008 @ 6:32PM
justin b. said...
Okay, whoa, NMH isn't shovelware. Just as Perverted said: shovelware is a REALLY CRAPPY, SEMI-UNPLAYABLE GAME. Just because a game is ugly doesn't mean it's shovelware. As long as the gameplay works and the game doesn't have horrible bugs, it is not shovelware, its a GAME. Whether or not it's fun isn't important, it's still a videogame.
Shovelware is "Hey, lets make a game about orange juice! It'll be minigames and you have to spin the remote to play them...oh wait, we don't have time to make it actually respond to your movements, just ship it."
NMH is actually pretty awesome. It's just not pretty. But half of Wii's games aren't anyway. Doesn't make them less of a game.
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3-06-2008 @ 8:44PM
Zark Flargg said...
this is the 1st I'm hearing about D3.. Simple Vol 4 & 6 look like they'd be fun.. so now that the FreeLoader is available, anyone know how to get our hands on these here in the States?
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3-06-2008 @ 8:52PM
Zark Flargg said...
...and to keep the flow going.. I can see NMH being called shovelware. I enjoyed it, but it felt like it was rushed to market.. it could have pulled itself out of the shovelware category if they had spent more time (and probably more money) refining the gameplay.. i enjoyed the combat.. but I have to agree that the overworld seemed like they threw it together as an after thought.
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3-07-2008 @ 2:24PM
hvnlysoldr said...
One of my church leaders shared a proverb, or whichever story word is right, to this effect. One day the master of a temple sent two monks to pick flowers off a mountain valley. The first monk took his time carefully examining each flower before collecting it. The second monk raced all across the valley and up the mountain collecting as many flowers as he could. The first monk looked at the second monk haphazardly collecting as many flowers as possible irrespective of quality and went back narrowly choosing each flower. At the end of the day the first monk had a dozen beautiful flowers to present to his master. The second monk bruised but good spirits had hundreds of flowers though half were unusable. But the other half was completely gorgeous and inspiring.
Although this is supposed to be applied to recruiting ministers it can also be applied to games. Cherry picking games can produce a good library. However the sheer massive library containing shovelware has many more times more gems that would not have been picked up since they were not given enough time, resources, or what have you.
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