Everything under a certain price is labeled as shovelware. Everything with even a passing mention of "romance" is hidden by default. What the hell are you doing?
Wich would be fine, if they weren’t enabled by default and there were more genres to choose from.
Maybe I want to filter out FPS games, or strategy or whatever, having a filter to do that COULD be useful. But singling out ‚romance‘ as a genre is disrespectful.
I think that the Simulator and Romance tags, are too broad and accidentally capture some games that should not be filtered by default: like the joke games Deer Simulator and Speaking Simulator.
I understand a lot of those games are slop, but they need to be more carefully sorted out.
Also you keep putting games based on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms under the Romance tag: that is not actually a romance, the title uses an archaic meaning of the word to emphasize the the dramatic telling of the historic stories
Also filtering Romance by default makes you look immature.
I just noticed from actually trying to explore the "Better eShop" that there's no way to actually filter or sort by genre even though that system seems to already exist for filtering games.
I should not be gaining this kind of insight on the creation of the website/tool.
I tried typing "Capcom" onto the search bar and it's only showing me games with "Capcom" in the title. I have to use an operator to search for games published by Capcom, "publisher:capcom".
To be fair the eShop does the same thing, but I was expecting better.
Overall what I'm getting from this is "Nintendo eShop, but we filtered out the games we don't like to see."
I guess it's subjectively better, I would rather something more feature rich than just a storefront with a games filter provided by the site's creator.
This is embarrassing. You should shut down your website because the sheer amount of "mistakes" you made is absurd. We don't need another database as bad as the woke games one lol
The site is heavily criticized for its community-driven "shovelware" tag that includes quite a few indie games, including very good ones, and hiding visual novels by default.
It's a good idea in theory but it wasn't really thought through, I think.
Gamers already struggle to find games they would enjoy that don't have the budget of the AAA space.
So you made a version of the market that buries them so far that they cease to exist?
Fucking... why?
We already have that.
A “better shop” with the problems this one has is making me think twice about spending time on Hookshot websites, let alone subscribing or suggesting that other people spend their time on them.
it is so backwards to have the mature filter turned on but keep the hentai filter off, on top of categorizing hundreds of indie games as shovelware and hiding romance for some strange reason
Yes, I often think that Rogue - a classic game that is so beloved, influential, and popular that today hundreds of games are made bearing its name every year - is "shovelware."
I heard everyone complain about titles in shovelware being there that shouldn’t be, and when I went to go take a look myself, I was having trouble finding out how to look for games in that section.
There are good ideas here but calling this the “better” eShop is stretching it. These filters are way too broad, especially the shovelware. Plus why is the only game genre filter romance? Only thing this experiment shows is the creator’s own bias. Do better.
Let's face it, when it comes to being incredibly weird to anyone who isn't white or naturalised within their own countries, Brits and Seppos are tied for first.
A cursory look at the shovelware tag shows you do not in anyway have the credibility to do this. Legit looked through it for 3 minutes and already came away with several not only quite obviously not shovelware games, but indie titles that you should probably be featuring not filtering out.
You say these games are 20% off, they were removed from the eShop a month or two ago. The company that released these, Live Wire, released another title, Mushihimesama, and you have that as shovelware, it is also not on the eShop anymore.
I was shocked to see Arc Systems rerelease of the classic NES game Crash and the Boys, which is part of the River City Saga. You have Aero the Acro-Bat and Cyber Citizen Shockman titles there too, all the Jallecole rereleases. It seems like you are targeting indie and classic games.
Shovelware is a teem being applied poorly here. You need to have someone with knowledge and understanding of the differences between shovelware & indie passion projects, some with limited resources. Looking through your markings, stuff with ai art, moneytraps for dlc, hentai ecchi games fit the mold
But not all games associated with the companies that make those are shovelware. It seems like some pay the bills with shovelware while supporting a few truly creative projects. Something does need to be done with the obvious shovelware, but this filter is of no value if you dismiss cheap indie games
A few other things. I noticed several dead links to games no longer on sale in the eShop and several games have tpd or something like that on price and they are priced and on sale.
The eShop does a poor job on metadata for genres and this seems to carry over to other sites too.
Thanks, that means a lot! I don't think Shi is a particularly expensive game, or do you happen to live in a region where prices don't convert well from USD?
It’s cheap. I’m scrounging for rent money broke. I love indie games & like to support these efforts. I will get it soon. I hadn’t come across your games before & I do dig through the shops. Stuff I really consider shovelware often obscures games like yours.
Glad to see this! I really wonder how Nintendo will handle the eShop going into Switch 2 since it really needs an overhaul. I hope it's not just, "Switch 1 eShop is here and Switch 2 eShop is there". Though I also don't want the poorly designed/managed eShop to carry over. 🤔 🤷♂️
genuinely: The standards this list was initially based on were inherently racist, sexist, and reductive. There is no fixing something made with that rotten a core. Just let it go.
Even glancing over that list is embarrassing. Especially as a former game reviewer. You literally tagged games you personally hadn't heard of or don't like the genre of as 'shovelware' and while there is an issue with shovel ware, delete that derp as list and actually play a game before adding it
Frankly you could be liable for lawsuits since this could affect sales. Whoever's stupid, lazy idea this was is an idiot. Genuinely. This is a false list, legal liability and hurts the indie scene. Do better, jeez
Expect a tonne more angry responses and you deserve them too. Wtaf NL
That's not even getting into what a lot of folks have noticed. Like, people are wanting an explanation as to WHY so many indies have been shoved into an illconceived shovelware section with so little care.
People are wanting an explanation as to WHY a product that automatically filters out romance would even be wanted. FFS, think what you want about Bioware now, but one of the reasons their games are popular IS the romance.
People are wanting to know why romance was automatically filtered out, and they're wanting to know why y'all thought so many visual novels were deserving of the shovelware category.
Because right now, we only have some pretty damning assumptions.
If this "better eshop" is going to continue to exist, and is going to be something y'all promote (I did notice y'all mentioned in the comments of your article y'all get a commission for eshop credit purchases via better eshop), then more than some patch notes are needed.
Yall have shown your biases as elitist jackasses. Bandage it all you want, nobody should be using this, and I'll be telling everyone I know to avoid it. The only shovelware here is this.
Your "shovelware" tag has been such a brutal misstep that it is making me reevaluate whether or not I even want to read articles on your site, as long as this "Better" eShop is offered. Think long and hard on whether or not you're up to the task of being the Judges of Quality for a whole store.
By Nintendo Life's logic, the entire When They Cry series is shovelware. Palutena help them if the Golden Witch Beatrice ever gets into the next Super Smash Bros. game.
So many problems with this. Why is my studio's game tagged as shovelware? Who thought it was a good idea to label filters Enabled and Disabled, the opposite of whether those games appear in the store? Who are you to decide what makes for a better experience? You clearly aren't researching users.
I'm not a litigious person in the slightest, but I also don't think I'd have much of a case. This is an independent store portal, and I couldn't prove loss of revenue because of it. It's just a poorly researched and designed product, and they need to look into why people actually dislike the eShop.
i don't know if you're referring to something else, but calling something shovelware is a statement of opinion, not an intentional false statement of fact with intent to do harm
This is a review publication that is often added to accolades by Nintendo themselves. This is filtering out games made by indie devs for a profit while they use the official Wii shop music on their website Impacting sales is legal liability
Plus Nintendo may take issue with their idea of Shovelware
Look, I love making fun of the current horrorslop too but objectively speaking without taking any of my opinions in the matter into account these 2 games are established indie horror game franchises, not shovelware
This is kind of disappointing stuff from @nintendolife.com You’ve managed to piss off a lot of hard working indie devs who don’t deserve to have their work buried under inaccurate labels/categories. I expected better.
You may have fixed it, but the internet doesn't forget.
You shouldn't get rid of the tags, you should get rid of this ill-conceived garbage built to funnel people into your eShop credit code sales.
Yo @nintendousa.bsky.social
Check this post and comments and read the room, because that is a decisive push back against a company you often add to accolades trailers who profits from this via eshop credits by denying indie devs while they play the official Wii shop music on their website
PR cringe
So...I genuinely hope this is ragebait, because at best? Y'all have no clue what indie games are on switch right now. (Seriously, how do you fuck up AERY and its dlc/follow up games being considered shovelware?)
At worst? There's a lot of sinophobia going in with y'all's shovelware selection.
Oh no wait. It's even worse. Ugh, were there ANY women consulted on this at all?
So filters are on in search. All enabled by default. You can't turn off all the filters at once. You HAVE to do it one by one. Which is how I discovered NintendoLife sees Romance as equal to "low effort/scammy"
Basically, they have a “Romance” filter, hidden by default, that’s meant to hide those softcore fantasy dating games
But they implemented it by tagging literally any game with “romance” in the title or description, which includes Wildermyth and every game set in Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Honestly, never wanted Nintendo to fiscally destroy someone's life permanently more than right now. This is such an openly hostile service and it's smug presentation makes it even more egregious.
I don't wanna be like "that's racist!", but also, the opposition a lot of gamers have to dating sims or games focused on romantic relationships is deeply rooted in anti-Japanese sentiment, and so filtering out "Romance" games by default isn't a good look.
Anyway, I hate being a narc, but @nintendousa.bsky.social, you should probably know that these guys are likely committing thousands of acts of copyright and trademark violation by pulling text and images directly from your store but inserting their own affiliate links so they can make a profit
Never forgetting Alex Hutchinson (creative director for assassins creed 3 and the google stadia) basically saying that game journalists were racist for daring preferring Bayonetta and other Japanese games over Gears of War because he thinks japanese games stories are "gibberish"
The dating sim genre received the worst of this, where system-selling smash hits like the Tokimeki Memorial series or Love Plus were incredibly popular in Japan, while English coverage of them constantly called them "strange" and "disturbing": https://www.nymgamer.com/?p=5050
You can still see echoes of this today, where many English gamers are completely ignorant about an entire genre of games and will insist that all visual novels are "dating sims" or that they're not "real games"... or people make tools like the above that try to simply hide all of them.
This is downright offensive. The auto filtering of the romance and simulator tags is pathetic, and they're filled with dozens of ignorant entries like fucking Diablo 2, fighting games like Melty Blood and Kuukiyomi.
Maybe if you play that last one you too can learn to read the air and apologise.
Marking visual novels as "shovelware" makes this whole thing racist by default. Fire everyone responsible out of a cannon into the sun and nuke it from orbit.
Look, I get that not everyone is into hentai games, and that there are concerns for safety of those under 18. But giving users the option to label any game as spam is like letting the troublemaker students run the class.
Also, saying that this is "better" is a bit of a stretch.
(Okay, I may not count. I'm a fan of some of nintendo's properties, but I am a rabid dog chomping at the bit whenever I get the chance to point out how much they suck. Like, I love pokemon! I love the Switch! I hate the company. Passionately.)
there were even mario and zelda picross games, that's what got me to learn picross in the first place, when they slapped mario on the game boy one! they gave away a free zelda one! there was a pokemon one for 3ds! these nerds don't have an excuse
Expecting the community to set tags well is ridiculous, the player-added tags on Steam are useless and would only get worse if people could label games with "shovelware" and "copycat"
Taking input from the community isn't a bad idea, but it *needs* to be filtered through a group of people with diverse taste in games, especially with how Nintendo Fans will blow off anything "too anime" in a direct
I think this comes with genuinely good intentions, but imo erasing LGBTQ+ or even Romance as a searchable category isn't the play here. That's not even touching the whole 'shovelware' being too broad of a category, with visual novels being chucked into the same list as AI games.
On the eShop? No, there isn't—sorry, I muddled my words up there. That being said, I can actively search for LGBTQ+ games on the eShop, and while it isn't perfect, it does give a pretty decent selection last I checked.
The reason why I think it might not be intentional is that there's no official LGBTQ category on eShop either. That said if you put the term in you at least get something. In this one you don't. But I'm not going to pretend that I know how the search system works for eShop so I could just be naive!
I love how "Pool Fever" is considered shovel ware and I play it daily. Its the best Pool simulation imo on Switch. I can't imagine how many indie games there are that you labeled as "shovelware". This is both disingenuous and ridiculous. I'll just keep using @dekudeals.com thank you,
Well one good thing about all this is I've not only been reminded of Milk's existence (its on my wishlist at least lol) but also being alerted to a second one.
This absolutely botched rollout of something that no one asked for will be talked about much longer than this platform will be useful
Don't categorize games from my favorite indie developers as shovelware - it's the easiest way to make enemies among the game devs that your site depends on to exist
why is every visual novel "shovelware"
are you fucking stupid or just too lazy to verify whether certain games are quality niche stuff or actual shovelware
looking at the full list and the way they're presented (poorly imo) it actually seems like those are the only two that WILL show you results by default: considering their entire thing is about getting rid of 'shovelware', why would they make it so 3k+ of such games are in the search by default?
Ikr, I've had a great experience with DD. You can set max wishlist prices by cost or percentage (so for instance you can set it so it only notifies you if an expensive game is at least 50% off) and their sort options seem fine to me. Don't think we need to reinvent it.
The "shovelware" filter has loads and loads of good games in there, and games that passionate developers put their heart and soul into. What are we doing here??
Like no actually delete this, if the first look at this site is THIS awful then there’s no salvaging it, delete it, give an apology to the devs listed as shovelware and never do this again
I hope for your sake that this is you being incompetent and not malicious because I will have much more harsh words if this is malicious…. Like delete your entire account and never make another article again harsh
If this is just incompetence do fucking better, if it’s malicious fuck off entirely
Comments
Maybe I want to filter out FPS games, or strategy or whatever, having a filter to do that COULD be useful. But singling out ‚romance‘ as a genre is disrespectful.
I understand a lot of those games are slop, but they need to be more carefully sorted out.
Also filtering Romance by default makes you look immature.
Divide and reorganize the Simulator filter to something along the lines of "Haphazard Port" and "AI Thumbnail".
Remove the default Romance filter, make it a category for the user to filter out themselves.
Read or listen to The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
I should not be gaining this kind of insight on the creation of the website/tool.
To be fair the eShop does the same thing, but I was expecting better.
I guess it's subjectively better, I would rather something more feature rich than just a storefront with a games filter provided by the site's creator.
What's the point in it without actual discoverability?
It's a good idea in theory but it wasn't really thought through, I think.
That being said I do like the better browsing and actual music
So you made a version of the market that buries them so far that they cease to exist?
Fucking... why?
We already have that.
Do better.
I guess nintendolife hate games about mental health lmao
What's the real motive here?
Fuck off, delete this, and whoever curated it should resign.
this is such a fun train wreck to watch
Very good database work. Impeccible.
https://www.nintendolife.com/eshop/epyx_rogue
Perhaps question just how bad the database is that it ever had the tag though.
fuck you
With terrible, ridiculous execution
y'all fucked up lmao
The eShop does a poor job on metadata for genres and this seems to carry over to other sites too.
i think it wouldve made more sense to put games on the shovelware filter list that are cheap and have low user ratings online (steam, metacritic)
“shovelware” is a debatable term, I guess, if a filter is being created for it, it needs a personal informed touch.
Expect a tonne more angry responses and you deserve them too. Wtaf NL
But I think this needs more than a little patch notes, because a lot of this CAN actually hurt the razor thin margins indies live on.
Because right now, we only have some pretty damning assumptions.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
Plus Nintendo may take issue with their idea of Shovelware
And I mean that in an extremely derogatory manner.
I now see your priorities as a company, and will make sure to never visit your website ever again.
Please address this.
Rogue.
ROGUE.
THE GAME THAT HUNDREDS OF NEW TITLES EVERY YEAR CARRY THE NAME OF.
ONE OF THE SINGLE MOST INFLUENTIAL GAMES OF ALL TIME.
R O G U E.
Shovelware.
This is as hilariously bad in its game categorization as those woke content detector knuckleheads' websites, y'all should be ashamed.
You shouldn't get rid of the tags, you should get rid of this ill-conceived garbage built to funnel people into your eShop credit code sales.
Check this post and comments and read the room, because that is a decisive push back against a company you often add to accolades trailers who profits from this via eshop credits by denying indie devs while they play the official Wii shop music on their website
PR cringe
At worst? There's a lot of sinophobia going in with y'all's shovelware selection.
Nothing. Not a single game. Which is interesting as one of the benefits of the switch are the number of otome available.
So filters are on in search. All enabled by default. You can't turn off all the filters at once. You HAVE to do it one by one. Which is how I discovered NintendoLife sees Romance as equal to "low effort/scammy"
At least on the nintendo eshop, I can look up "otome" and get a selection of otome games, including indies.
Wildermyth
But they implemented it by tagging literally any game with “romance” in the title or description, which includes Wildermyth and every game set in Romance of the Three Kingdoms
I dunno who the hell made the decisions regarding A LOT of the games put in shovelware but like holy shit man get it together
And the discussion of Japanese games being "weird" and Japanese gamers being "obsessive" was just treated as perfectly normal.
Maybe if you play that last one you too can learn to read the air and apologise.
What in the actual fuck is this, Nintendo Life?
ROGUE.
Is tagged as "Shovelware".
You know, that game that literally has an entire extremely popular genre of games named after it? Yeah, it's just shovelware.
Sorry, that doesn't fix the problem, and playing whack-a-mole with games that shouldn't be there in the first place isn't a solution.
Remove the whole tag, or, y'know, this entire incompetent project.
Also, saying that this is "better" is a bit of a stretch.
If a game has a female main character and happens to have *any* kind of romance, even a tiny side bit, its marked as romance. Smells misogynistic
Bullet hell, adventure collectathon and BRUTAL HORROR PUZZLE SURVIVAL GAME
I've played a fair bit of girl genius and it's really not a romance game lol
https://bsky.app/profile/ozzyog.bsky.social/post/3lfstpn6zhk2h
There's not much more I can say that hasn't already been said in the comments except, "May your L's be many."
True.
(Okay, I may not count. I'm a fan of some of nintendo's properties, but I am a rabid dog chomping at the bit whenever I get the chance to point out how much they suck. Like, I love pokemon! I love the Switch! I hate the company. Passionately.)
The total disrespect for their efforts is a damn shame.
Genuinely, log off and never come back
You should be ashamed of yourselves
Doing what Nintendon't I guess
delete this post
Don't categorize games from my favorite indie developers as shovelware - it's the easiest way to make enemies among the game devs that your site depends on to exist
are you fucking stupid or just too lazy to verify whether certain games are quality niche stuff or actual shovelware
Also https://dekudeals.com exists and does what you’re trying to do without the condescending branding and is actually useful :3
No actually answer me.
The fact that Nintendo Life made a curated list of game recommendations that's as xenophobic and bigoted as that "anti-woke" list is astounding
I understand you guys ignoring the game and not reviewing it, but please don't make it more difficult for me to get at least one other sale.
Thank you.
no but really this is dogshit. delete your account
Delete this
Like no actually delete this, if the first look at this site is THIS awful then there’s no salvaging it, delete it, give an apology to the devs listed as shovelware and never do this again
If this is just incompetence do fucking better, if it’s malicious fuck off entirely
Genuinely go fuck yourself
Maybe one that covers arson.