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[PtM]

Smartphones and tablets.

Steam greenlight and early access.

The shovelware is there and more pronounced than ever. It just made the jump from retail to digital.

+eshop. Shovelware pretty much went digital.

 

[Astral Dog]

After Wii, DS and Kinect died out, many studios focused on smartphones or tablets as that was seen the most cheap , casual focused and profitable market, who remembers all those articles that they would destroy not only traditional handhelds, but home consoles too?

Unfortunately this isn't always a good thing, less casual players means less revenue, means a more controlled small market.

 

[Shig]

As first post said, and lets be honest it has never been better

I dunno, a lot of publishers were able to gamble more often and more boldly on new AAA game projects because they had all the safe bet shovelware to bankroll them and cushion a failure.

 

[M3d10n]

+eshop. Shovelware pretty much went digital.

Yup. The 3DS eShop is filled with the kinds of games you'd find at bargain bins during the PS2 era.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Unfortunately this isn't always a good thing, less casual players means less revenue, means a more controlled small market.

I dunno, a lot of publishers were able to gamble more often and more boldly on new AAA game projects because they had all the safe bet shovelware to bankroll them and cushion a failure.

Yeah, that's the thing about a hit-driven business model. In place of smaller titles making up the bulk of their income throughout the year, relying on re-releases/remasters of big-budget last gen games may bolster revenue to eventually take more risks and be less mercenary with additional content and retailer-exclusive stuff, but I think it conditions the market further toward being less interested in smaller titles and what is generally accepted as a minimum of production values and marketing for them. It seems like it's sort of feeding a more corrosive version of the big tentpole release loop than what has already proven to be fairly unsustainable previously.

 

[Lirrik]

Do you miss shovelware? I don't.