Shovelware: The Real Issue Explained

So I've found a lot of examples lately where people have really misunderstood the Shovelware issue. The shovelware issue (or more specifically, the complaint of shovelware on Wii) is a big topic lately that is getting discussed a lot, and some people have taken it to be mean-spirited or spiteful. So to clarify this issue, I'm explaining it its facets:

1. NOT HATE
First off, the shovelware argument is NOT people trying to just hate on Nintendo because of console wars. While many Xbox/PS3 owners hate the opposing company just BECAUSE it is the opposition, almost every gamer on the planet was or is a fan of Nintendo. This is a common misconception, that the hating of shovelware is some fanboy thing. It isn't.

2. FROM WITHIN
The shovelware complain first arose from people who actually OWNED a Wii and play it as their primary console, NOT from owners of competing consoles. This is a complaint theme that rose from within the users themselves, because they were not satisfied with the VOLUME of good titles released on Wii.

3. VOLUME ISSUE
This is one of the real issues at stake. Many of the top selling Wii games of the year were reviewed well. The Wii has great games like Twilight Princess, Mario Galaxy, and New Super Mario Bros. But it only gets a few of these fantastic apps per year. This is often enough for the casual gamer, but for the core gamer who wants to play 1-2 new games per month, the quality releases on Wii are too spread out. There are about 20-30 games for 360/PS3 I would have liked to play last year, so I had to take my pick. But there were only about 3-4 new games for Wii that I wanted, so if that was my core console I would HAVE to play those 3-4 since that's all I had.

4. 3rd PARTY
This is another huge source of frustration for Wii owners, and a big part of the fuel on the shovelware fire. Third party game developers have a consistently BAD record on the Wii, as Nick himself points out in his observation that many of the top-reviewed Wii games were from Nintendo themselves. This forces Wii owners to get almost all of their titles from Nintendo, stifling their options. Especially since most of Nintendo's well-reviewed games are just new versions of old stuff (Mario Kart, Zelda, New Mario), so they are not getting any new IP for a breath of fresh air.

5. PORTS
The shovelware issue extends itself to the countless crappy ports to the Wii. Most developers either develop specifically for Wii or specifically for the 360/PS3. Unfortunately, a huge number of those 360/PS3 intended games get ported to the Wii, and most of these ports are lacking. The sub-par Madden for Wii, the ugly port of Call of Duty 4 for Wii, and the badly-reviewed Dead Rising port are all just examples. The fact that they are getting lower-quality and lower-resolution versions of games is a big part of angry Wii owners' complaint.

6. REAL SHOVELWARE
Now most of the afore-mentioned examples are of poor quality games, but they don't necessarily deserve the title shovelware. Shovelware denotes games that are hastily put out by a company even though they KNOW it is bad, and most 3rd party endeavors and ports were ATTEMPTS at good games. But there IS real shovelware on the Wii, and these are the cartloads of games that are never seen on gaming sites because they don't waste their time with them. These are the games like Wii Fire Fighter, Game Party 1-4, the many Deca sports games, Wii Ski, Wii Ski & Snowboard, and the countless other games who are so unmemorable that I can't remember them even after staring at their names for 6 months working in the games corner of Best Buy.

The majority of these games are poor knock-offs of successful games. The biggest games to knock-off were Wii Sports (the Deca knock-offs and many others), Wii Fit (the Jillian Michaels, Yoga, etc. imitations), and Mario Kart (Madagascar Kartz, some robot carts, My Sims Carts, etc.). These extremely basic and lacking games are the real examples of shovelware on the system, people buy the game because it looks like Mario Kart but get home and find that it sucks.

7. UNEDUCATED CONSUMERS
This is where the shovelware ceases to be a problem for just Wii owners, and becomes an issue for all gamers. Before this point, these were all just points of frustration for actively-gaming Wii owners. But when you add in the fact that the vast majority of consumers shopping for Wii games DO NOT do any research on their games, you get a serious issue for the entire industry. Having worked for Best Buy's gaming section for 6 months and a GameStop for 3 months, I can attest to this firsthand.

Most of the shoppers coming in to get Wii games are young kids and older parents, neither of whom had done research in almost every case I had seen. They pick out games based on their covers (don't judge a game by its cover!) and because the game looks SIMILAR to something else they enjoyed (this process works if its from the same series or company, like Mario Party 8 instead of Mario Party 7, but not when its MySims Carts instead of Mario Kart). More often than not, they don't enjoy these games, and tell me so when they come back in later weeks (I tried to steer people towards quality titles as much as I could, but most didn't want to hear any advice).

The problem here is that the users become disillusioned by games because they keep buying crappy ones that they expected to be better. It's part of the reason why the Wii is the top-selling system but research analysis shows that it is the LEAST played system. The consumers get sick of buying crappy games, and instead of researching them more thoroughly, most of them just stop buying.

8. THE FALLOUT
The Wii is bringing in tons of NEW demographics and NEW types of gamers, the it is scaring them away again with the bucket-loads of low-quality games on the store shelves. More experienced gamers know to pick up the well-reviewed stuff, and the employees like myself guide people towards the good stuff, which is why the well-reviewed games dominate the sales chart. But there are still a lot of those shovelware games being sold. DECA sports, which I'll bet most of you never heard of, sold way more copies than Mirrors Edge (& that's combining ME's PS3/360 sales). The We Ski series outsold Halo Wars. These are crappy games permeating the market, and making the consumers assume that all games are this bad.

Anyway, I hope that this helps explain the shovelware issue, as many people seem to have mistaken it as a simple console-wars flame topic. It isn't. It's a real issue that needs to be talked about and addressed.

- Scott

Top 5 Game Crossovers

With Lost Planet 2's release date only a few months away, many gamers have already heard about the cameo appearances in the game. For multiplayer, players who are sick of the LP2 characters can opt instead to play as Albert Wesker, the mastermind from Resident Evil. Owners of the Xbox 360 version can also play as Marcus and Dom from the Gears of War series.

There's been a lot of 'discussion' on the internet over the inclusion of the characters. Some find their inclusion to be ridiculous or unbelievable, or a shallow marketing scam. Others, like myself, don't mind the extra fan service of having characters from other games appear.

But love it or hate it, cameo crossovers have been around for almost as long as gaming itself. So I decided to look back at some of my favorite games that had cool cameo crossovers, and these were my top 5:

1. Soul Calibur 2 - Link
This is an easy choice for the top spot. Each console's version of Soul Calibur 2 had its own exlcusive character, but the GameCube version was a no-brainer. Link looked better than ever before, and played just as well. Many considered his mix of short and longe range attacks 'cheap,' which just means they were too lame to put down the Hyrulian. Soul Calibur IV almost toppled this cameo by including the almighty Darth Vader, but the widespread appeal of the green-clad hero still wins out.

2. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 - Darth Maul
The highlight of the Tony Hawk series. After a skateboarding game includes Darth Maul, where else can it possibly go? Sure the game also featured Wolverine and a cast of crazy characters (like a magical hobo?), but the Sith Lord slaughtered the competition (literally, with his lightsaber). And the acrobatic badass wasn't just a new skin: he had his own force-powered special moves, a hovering wheel-less board, and of course his dual-bladed saber.

3. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Solid Snake & Sonic
Super Smash Bros. was a series founded on crossovers, as its earliest ad campaigns showed (remember the big stuffed Pikachu & Mario in the field of flowers, skipping along and then suddenly pummeling each other?). But the first two iterations of the game featured Nintendo-only characters, which for a fighting game isn't much of a crossover. In Brawl Nintendo stunned the world with its inclusion of Solid Snake (from Metal Gear Solid) and the blue hedgehog. We don't know how the contract deals got approved for this, but we praise the gods of gaming. For Snake at least.

4. Dead or Alive 4 - Spartan 458
While DoA4 may not be the ultimate fighting game that its designer claims it to be, the game was good. And the best part came late in the game as an unlock: a playable Spartan II, dubbed Nicole, pulled straight from the Halo universe. Nicole looked intimidating in 7 costume variations, was the only character in the game to speak English, and was the best chick to fight as. Fast and powerful, this crossover character went the Link route of being overpowered fun. Nicole was the #1 reason to get DoA4.

5. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II - George Lucas' Car
Ok, so technically this isn't a crossover game character, as I don't believe Lucas' car had a game of its own, but I really didn't want to include Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe on this list. And nobody can deny how sexy George's vintage convertible looks in space. It even had fully-functioning Star Wars weaponry, making it more than just eye candy. The only thing lacking was a custom soundtrack while you cruised in the car, like the snazzy jazz ensemble from the cantina scene.


So that's the best 5 I can come up with, but I'm sure there are a lot more out there. Any of mine that you disagree with? Any cool ones I missed? Think Marcus and Dom belong in Lost Planet 2?

- Scott