What the HELL happened to shovelware?

When I set up this blog one mere year ago, I remember telling myself that I wanted to discuss my loving relationship with the atrocious game genre (or medium, I'm not sure how to classify it truthfully) called shovelware. Shovelware, as the name implies, was video game software that was shoveled out for a quick buck. There were different categories of shovelware; the movie-licensed games made to convince parents and grandparents to buy for their kids/grand kids, the games that straight-up copied whatever trend was popular at the time, and just the bizarre and weird stuff that defied all logic and tried to hit you in the face so hard that you got curious. All three of these types, and any I may have forgotten about, had their high ups and the low downs. For every surprisingly good CSI game we got, there was someone out there who tried the same format with NCIS and created an unplayable nightmare.

My first console was a PlayStation one, and the first games I remember playing (aside from the demo disc) were Looney Tunes Racing, and Flintstones Bowling. The former was a Mario Kart clone that actually realized what was fun about Mario Kart, and the latter was, something. I remember playing the game, I remember liking it just fine, but I can't tell you any which way if it was a good game. Critics liked the first, and not the second, my point being that even early on I played both good and bad shovelware, and both suited me fine.

I played a lot of PC games, whatever was affordable to my parents. I got the great edutainment games, the bad edutainment games, Tonic Trouble (not a shovelware game, just a game I love bringing up in conversation because it needs more love), games that didn't even play properly, so on, and I have complaints on none of those games. I could beat most of them within a day, and they were exactly what I needed.

Come the PlayStation 2, you better believe I loved the crap out of Shrek Super Slam. You better believe I replayed Madagascar the video game like nobody's business.

Sure, I had great games for all of those listed machines. The aforementioned Tonic Trouble, the Humongous Entertainment games, CluefindersSpyro the DragonKingdom Hearts, but all of those games have stuck with me as much as the shovelware games. I have a blast playing crap as much as I had a blast playing great games, and I don't regret any of it. And it's not a kid thing, you sit me in front of a fun or crappy shovelware game, and I'll look for the bits that are fun. I know this, because I was doing this up until a few years ago.

Everything changed a few years ago for shovelware. It, vanished, as far as I'm concerned.

Back in the day, any movie-licensed game was shovelware by default. This was unfair for some, like Shrek Super Slam, but fair for Madagascar the video game. By making sure they tied in with the movie, they had to release the game as soon as they could.

Anyone remember the Brother Bear game? A short platformer and adventure game with kind of lazy graphics and animations, but solid enough voice-acting. I learned the entire map of the game and all it's levels, and all of the collectible locations, because I just replayed it over and over again, beating it in one session several times. The game was broken enough that I learned how to quickly defeat the only boss in all of his encounters. I just knocked him back with the roar when he was close enough to the cliff side. Yeah, just murdered him every time. Then he'd come back in a few levels, and I'd do it again. In final boss mode, it just knocked off a health bar, so I had to do it about three times. Wasn't even a hard boss, I just never felt like fighting him the right way because it took a lot longer. That's one of the beauties of shovelware, they are a lot easier to break in all the fun ways.

But for licensed games now, you rarely ever see it. They actually take their time now. Telltale makes licensed games for franchises that do not have upcoming movies, so they spend an actually development cycle. While their format is getting tired to some, they are still not considered bad, just repetitive, and that's only a criticism you can have if you've played a lot of their games, as fair as the criticism is. I was a fan of Telltale back before The Walking Dead games, so personally I'm just waiting for a return to their formula. I don't need another Sam & Max, just another clever point-and-click along the same lines as Sam & Max. I could use another Poker Night game though, speaking for myself.

Then you have something like the Goosebumps game. I bought it expecting it to be a crappy tie-in shovelware game that only people like me would enjoy. Turns out, it's a clever throw-back to LucasArt and Sierra games, with solid writing and an incredible art style. I'm not the only one who really liked this game, as the obvious effort shows. Aside from the recent Power Rangers game, lately that's all I've heard from movie tie-in game that aren't apps, that they are actually good games in their own right. I'd try the Power Rangers one, because that sounds like shovelware, but unfortunately I really hate Power Rangers as a franchise so I'm too put off.

The Goosebumps game was originally the reason I was going to do an article like this. It was going to be a call for some crappy shovelware while acknowledging the medium going forward was heading in a good direction. Good games for everyone, with artistic effort and clear love.

And then, Steam Direct.

Steam Direct, the absolute puddle of disgusting throw-away bit graphics and mechanics. The shallow muck of fragile pride and arrogance. I can't even be polite about it; f*ck. Steam. Direct.

A few years ago, Valve relieved a seemingly solid idea to help out indie devs: Steam Greenlight. Games would be voted on by the community based solely on the screenshots and video clips. While this did cause joke votes to be taken too seriously, it still lead to plenty of great games nobody would have heard of.

But, that was only at first.

The drivel started to out way the great, good, and enjoyable by bucketloads, then truckload, then country-mile loads. For every Huniepop, there were EIGHT HUNDRED OR SO unplayable and broken games. It was not that uncommon for a game to turn out to be nothing but a zip-file with NOTHING in it. No save data, no game data, not a single thing.

Steam Greenlight did nothing but show what happens when the lazy and untalented are allowed to rip people off, and the worst part was that Valve continued to act like there was no fault on their part. Thousands of uncreative and atrocious video games, if you could even call them that, within the span of a year, or even just a single month. The creators of these games would also often have public hissy fits and tantrums, just over simple and true reviews of their game.

Valve would say nothing, unless you really, really, really, REALLY, crossed the line.

Promote homophobia and neo-Nazism in your game and social media? Nothing.

Attack real and honest reviewers, professional and common-man? Nothing.

Send death threats? Nothing.

Steal assets, release a blank file the customer charged money for? Nothing.

SUE A REVIEWER? Nothing.

SUE THOUSANDS OF REVIEWERS? Okay, sh*t, we have to actually do something I guess. Ban them, say little to nothing about it unless grilled.

And that's where Steam Direct came in. The idea was, get rid of the voting, and only put in games where the developer pays a fee upfront. Many people were hoping for something good, I personally never expected anything remotely good to come out of it. Greenlight did not show me that letting anyone vote causes bad games and evil developers. Evil developers did not show me what happens when they make game. Greenlight showed me what happens when you let algorithms do your whole business and you twiddle your thumbs like it's nobodies fault while the evil developers so on a greed-induced rampage. Hell, I even realized right away how they claimed they'd actually play the games and test them first this time, and I saw that as the bullsh*t that it was before ANOTHER BLANK FILE was recently purchased by many. Said game later got it's files uploaded, and it is somehow considered the worst thing to ever grace the platform. It I was still capable of being surprised, I think that one might have done it.

They even said "Fake games", clearly mimicking (not mocking, mimicking, as if they saw good business dealings and competence from this guy, which says a lot) the individual who says that about the news when they criticism him so he looks better. It doesn't work for him, I didn't let it work for Valve either.

And this is the future of shovelware, as brief as it will prove to be. I'm a realist, not an optimist or a cynic. I do not believe this is forever, nor do I believe it will stop because of the goodness of people's hearts. This is all a get-rich-quick scheme led by incompetence and laziness, and when it boils over it will be swift and painful for everyone involved. And I feel comfortable saying this, because games media and consumers stopped giving respect ages ago to these practices. Learning their lesson will see them defeated forever, by trying a new scheme or by having their customers wizened up enough that they demand real quality up front. Of course I hope for the latter, we're just going to have to see.

Oh, also, why is PlayStation and Switch slightly getting on board with this? Mostly PlayStation, with Life of Black Tiger, the Solbrain game I talked about on here and did a whole video series on my personal YouTube channel, two more games from the same single developer as Solbrain Knight of DarknessVaccine, all those trophy-spam games which admittedly I'm harsher on than most other apparently (I used to be a completionist and I really don't understand it), and a good handful more of games I never thought I see on a console.

It's less surprising for the Switch, as shovelware always finds it's way onto handhelds, almost as much as PC. Also because Switch somehow has LESS shovelware than PS4, and I wish I knew why. Really would have expected more shovelware on a tablet than a console, even if the Switch is technically also a console. I know the PS4 is more popular which means shovelware is more likely, such as the PlayStation 2 or the heyday of the Xbox 360, but I'm sure you see my point in discussing popular tablet versus popular console.

I can't let Steam Direct go on any accord though. It still trounces the PS4 and Switch combined for terrible shovelware, it has killed what shovelware has always meant to me, and it has given rise to too many bad people.

I could upload a picture of my foot, draw googly eyes on it with Microsoft Paint, upload the jpg to Steam Direct, pay the fee, admit that's all the thing is, charge 2 dollars for it, and there'd be no questions.

Notice how I wouldn't charge much and also admit to what i was doing. This is something the f*ckw*ds can't do, and I just morally can't understand why. I am not a braggart, but that very foot of mine has more artistic talent and integrity than hundreds of those so-called game developers combined.

When it collapses, I ain't feeling sorry. And it's not worth saying "I told you so" either.

I actually miss the Brother Bear game after seeing the kind of horror show shovelware is now. And that game spoiled the end of the movie for me months before I even finally saw it.