So Who's Responsible for Shovelwares Anyway?

If you've been reading my past topics, you'll know that I don't like to classify games too much and that I don't believe that there's such a thing as casual or hardcore games. Regardless if you don't see my POV regarding these articles I've wrote, I think we can all be in agreement that shovelwares do exist and that they are starting to hide actual games on store shelves. It doesn't matter if you like playing Gear or Wars, Guitar Heroes, Zelda, Madden or Tetris, shovelwares are a common enemy that are probably contributing in sales lost of real games.

Shovelwares aren't anything new, we've had them since the days prior the age of Nintendo, hell, they are partially responsible for the Video Crash of 83'. When Nintendo entered the market and imposed restrictions for 3rd party games, companies started releasing better quality titles or at least games that would make today's shovelwares look like the original Super Mario Bros. With Nintendo giving more freedom to 3rd parties and the new contenders (SONY & M$) not imposing much, the shovelwares are starting to take over again just like the Atari days. Regardless if it's based on a movie/TV show or not, they all have 3 things in common:

1- They've been rushed
2- They're buggy
3- They're not fun

So who the hell is responsible the industrial amount of shovelwares we've been getting for the past years? Answer: Developers, Publishers, Retailers, Buyers

That's right, everyone is a bit responsible for these insults to the gaming industry. Developers make the shit, Publishers package the shit, Retailers sale the shit and Suckers... err... I mean Buyers will cough over the cash for shit with an appealing box art >_>

There's not much we can about Developers and Publishers, I mean for them, these games are cash cows and they'll keep making them as long as Retailers keep buying them. Speaking of which, Retailers who normally carry these craps are stores that either don't know any better (Wal-Mart) or stores that are stuck with Auto-shipping because of signed contracts. Buyers on the other hand, now that we can try to control.

If you're reading this, odds are that you don't buy shovelwares, but perhaps you know people that do (younger sibling, friend). It's your job to tell these people to avoid these kind of games and pinpoint them to actual games that they'll be able to enjoy. Now when I say enjoy, I mean don't point them to Metroid Prime 3 when they were thinking of buying one of those Ubishit Petz game for Wii, just point them to Animal Crossing or something. Finally, if your local store doesn't know better and is always stuck with shovelwares after voluntary ordering them, tell them, perhaps you could start some sort of relation were you tell them what to avoid and they can give you discounts on games once in a while.

Remember, only you can prevent the spread of shovelwares!