Braben: 'Kinect Shovelware Should Fail'

[KichiVerde]

twesterm said:

Doobie_wop said:

It hasn't sold that impressively since launch...

I don't agree with him, I hate shovel-ware, but it's only a reaction to consumer demand. If stupid parents want to buy rubbish games for their kids, then let them and I'm sure they'll enjoy the horrible combination of visuals and gameplay, even if the more 'in the know' consumers know better. It also probably helps that they're cheaply made and more likely to return a profit. If the guy doesn't want the bad shovel-ware to tarnish the image of his shovel-ware, then he should probably take it up with Microsoft's quality control.

It's not that parents are always stupid, it can also be that they want to save money.

My sister has three young kids.  She can either buy them a $30-40 quality DS game or a $5 shovelware game.  I know which one is better, you know which one is better, she knows which one is better, her kids do not and do not care.  They care only about making their littlest pet run across the screen or that Dora is doing whatever it is she does.

Whichever one she buys, the kids are giong to get the same amount of enjoyment and paytime, so why should my sister pay 6-8 times more money?  A 4-8 year old is going to enjoy some horrible shovelware game just as much as they are going to enjoy New Super Mario Bros.

Shovelware games very much have thier place and are very useful to people that want to save money.  We would notice the difference, a four year old isn't and it's going to save the parents a lot of money.  If you don't like shovelware, don't buy it.  It's that simple.  It existing does nothing to bother you.

You make a good point. Shovelware exists for a reason. And a lot of times gimmicky games, made on a low budget turn out to be big hits. I don't see why people complain. The more games out there the larger the variety. And it's not like there is going to be another video game crash like back in the early 80's.