Just consider for a moment what a huge undertaking it is to actually make a game. Whether it's a AAA effort costing hundreds of thousands of dineros and many lifetimes of productive work hours or even your more humble independent efforts where the costs may not be so great but the penalties for failure are still pretty stark indeed. From concept to execution, it's a massive toil to see something through to completion on the hope and a prayer that it finds both the audience and the success that game makers hope for.
Now consider the games that are not like that at all. Consider if you will the concept of... shovelware!
Shovelware is defined by its many qualities but broadly speaking these are games whose content suggests that very little original effort went into their creation. Think more quantity than quality. Through the usual channels online there has been an upsurge in discussion lately around these games and how they've been proliferating through all the major digital storefronts. You've probably seen them of you spend more than a little time browsing the new games section on console or PC. Their marketing invokes the design work of established, legitimate success stories in gaming. They usually have a plethora of easy to get achievements or trophies. Essentially their are low cost, low effort, low quality games that hope you have already parted with your money by the time you realize that Arab Drift Cars is not in fact Grand Theft Auto VI.
There you go, a screengrab from the PlayStation store just to prove I didn't fever dream that game into existence. Always a promising sign when the first game in the series is so confident of its success that it preemptively adds the 1 in the title right there and then. As if success was indeed a foregone conclusion. If you're wondering whether that optimism paid off I can indeed confirm that Arab Drift Cars 2 did see release earlier this year and after 3 years I'm sure it was the sequel we all deserved.
Naturally the proliferation of these games online has prompted much concern about how easy it is to get some clearly sub-par efforts onto otherwise legitimate digital storefronts, not to mention the risks of having such efforts drown out the genuine releases vying for your money. Mass produced low cost games with a heavy reliance on AI and pre-made assets are clearly making money for someone though as it feels like their presence online has only increased in recent years.
Yes it's a weighty subject to be sure but in lieu of any in-depth analysis of this problem I'm just going to take a casual look at some upcoming releases as listed on the same PlayStation store and crack wise accordingly. Join me if you will for my odyssey into shovelware. Also pre-emptive apologies if any of the below games don't fall into this category but if they are featured here, it means your marketing needs some work.
So as it turns out, the life of a bum is a topic that has been crying out for the videogame treatment. For here we have not one, not three but two upcoming releases competing to capture this emerging market of gamers eager to take a tour through vagrancy. With a title like 'Urban Survival Simulator: The Bum's Journey' you feel there is no risk at all of artificially inflated expectation. It's a punchy title too even if it's not quite as succinct as 'City Bum: Urban Survivor Story' also due for release in the very near future. I will give credit to whatever text prompt was entered into that AI image generator, it generated some quintessential bums for your game cover. The problem is when you check the screenshots for these games, you get something that looks like this:
That's a screenshot from Urban Survival Simulator apparently. I hasten to add that this same game promises an 'immersive open world', 'intense survival' and a 'compelling story'. I don't want to judge a book by its cover and I certainly don't want to spend any money to find out the truth of it all but really? Back when game characters were little more than abstract collections of dots on the screen you could get away with a wildy unrealistic game cover but now? Not so much. City Bum is listed with some shots of empty derelict spaces without any people in them so it fares a little better on the marketing front but not by much.
Moving on from simulations of homelessness we arrive at The Jumping Orange. What is this orange you might ask? Why is it jumping? How much game can you get out of this idea? I don't know and I don't think I will ever care enough to find out. Now I know there are the tongue-in-cheek meme humour games out there that revel in their absurd premise. Games like Goat Simulator or Untitled Goose Game come to mind here. This feels like an attempt to get in on that particular market of gamers. Will it achieve such lofty heights of success? I'm not saying no here, just heavily inferring in that direction you understand.
You know, I'd be lying to myself if I said there wasn't just the tiniest but of curiosity about LSD Battlefield Simulator and how it plays in the final product. I mean the title alone just sells it so well and 'far out hippie Jesus' is certainly a striking image to sell your game with. The screenshots give a low budget first person shooter vibe with a varied set of levels highly suggestive of pre-made assets. I feel like this idea could truly be done justice by a reputable studio. Think the PS3 era game Haze but with a 1970's Hunter Thompson vibe and I think you'd have something there. As far as this goes however, maybe not so much.
Some archetypal shovelware here as the game makers sneakily insert an extra word into the title to render it legally if not morally distonct from the acclaimed Squid Game TV series. Yes it's Squid Plays Game, a game in no way officially approved of or endorsed by the makers of the aforementioned TV show. Why any similarity in content or presentation is entirely coincidental I am sure. This is genuine, bonafide content right here, now hand over your money! Again the screenshots promise something highly reminiscent of the show whilst retaining the generic look of store bought game assets. If you want something almost like the genuine article but simultaneously nothing like the genuine article then this is the game for you!
Nearly all of these games feature the word 'simulator' in their titles. I wonder what it is about the lowly sim that draws them in like moths to a flame. It doesn't seem to be photo-realistix fidelity to the subject matter or an unswerving commitment to delivering an authentic simulation. Take Sneaker Resell Simulator for instance. You take a look at that image above and you might think it's a striking image if a touch bland all the same. Then you go take a look at the screenshots in the listing and you realise there aren't any. Nothing online either when I go to Google it outside of something in Roblox that may or not be related. This suggests it's makers are supremely confident that the game just sells itself or even they can't conjure a marketable image out of whatever content exists for this game. Naturally I choose to believe they are just really confident in their end product.
Man we're going to have to wait until the end of the year for this one? Not a moment before it's ready I am sure. One cannot rush such a game as Dark Farts: Parody Smell Edition to market a moment sooner than when it has reached perfection. You don't foist such a game upon the world, rather the world will have this game foisted upon it. Which is all another way of saying dear god what are we doing and why are we doing it? I have questions, ample questions about how this game came to be but I have neither the time, energy or inclination to pursue them beyond the confines of this lowly blog post. I haven't run the numbers but I am almost 100 million percentage points sure that AI was used to create the image above. The games marketing blurb deserves a special place here...
Yes I can see why such game makers wouldn't want to judge anyone, for they are hardly in a position to do so. I will applause their honesty about incoming emotional damage but I will ruthlessly judge them for the concept of 'fart-dashing'. Yeah we're smack dab in meme humour territory here with someone aiming big for the ironic Twitch streamer market. If someone in the far future is reading this blog right now, just know we weren't all like this. Also how did the downfall of society go in the end? Was it fun?
This is more a palate cleanser after the last one, again note the suspiciously AI style promo image and the humble simulator genre being invoked once more to sell us this: Life In Terminal Simulator. Again this could be legit I don't deny the possibility that this could be the hard earned end product of hours and hours of toil in the game development mines. This could be a creative and philosophical statement that it's makers just needed to get off their chest and express via the medium of video games. This could be all that but I have reason to be sceptical. The blurb invites us to 'forge unexpected alliances' and 'outsmart red tape' in what must be one of the driest video game ideas ever conceived. It's not even a game about navigating an airport to catch a last minute flight, you're just inhabiting the airport. Just waiting around. I know legitimate games have been made about more peculiar niches than this but something about this game really screams at me that it's not a labour of pure creative endeavour.
The challenges facing this year's coffee makers have changed so much it warrants a version fresh for 2025! Except I can't find any prior version of this game so this appears to be the first one out anticipating a long line of yearly barista simulators. Again apologies to the makers of Barista Life Simulator 2025 if this is your love letter to coffee shops and all those who work in them. Thing is, between the uncanny AI imagery and the irregular lack of capital letters in the title, I'm getting those rushed to market vibes that capture the essential feeling of so many of these games. Just a little attention to detail and I might have given this one more benefit of the doubt. Naturally I'll be keeping a keen eye out for Barista Life Simulator 2026 come this time next year!
No judgement or kink-shaming here but I do have to wonder who out there is so err... passionate about the daily toil of adult shop retail that they would seek this out for their perusal. Hentai Supermarket Simulator might indeed be a legit game undeserving of the shovelware tag. Yet all the aforementioned signs are there indicating that it might not be the work of unbridled creative expression. The blurb promises a quirky fun retail simulator but conpare the cover image above with the in-game screenshot below and tell me something isn't a little off here.
There we go I think we'll call it a day there. That's my odyssey into the uncanny valley of shovelware all over and dusted with. I don't know if the world was screaming out for simulations of hentai retail, drug induced warfare or abject homelessness but we got what we probably deserved in any case. Naturally there are more games like this available than I could ever list here. Just scroll through the the new and upcoming release schedule of your favourite online store for much, much more of the same. Until next time all!
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