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Low quality filter

Due to the runaway success of the Nintendo Switch, the games library is huge, and has attracted a wide range of developers and publishers. This is great news for Switch owners! There are many excellent games to check out, and Switch Scores has many different ways for you to dive into the library.

Unfortunately, amongst the wide range of fun and enjoyable titles, there is also a steady flow of titles that some might describe as "shovelware". The bar for getting content onto the Switch eShop appears to be quite low - hence how these titles have appeared.

We're still keen to maintain as complete a database as we can, so we won't be dropping shovelware from the site. However, we will be starting to treat it a bit differently across the site with our low quality filter.

Criteria

What constitutes shovelware is a controversial topic, particularly for publishers of these titles.

The critical thing here is we are aiming to flag titles that are blatant attempts to dupe customers into paying for trash. This does not include games that didn't review very well. Even those titles have merit, especially when compared to true shovelware.

We have a few criteria for which entries should be flagged with the low quality filter:

  1. Asset flips: These are usually game "demos" provided with software development kits, which have been changed very slightly - or sometimes not at all - and uploaded as full games. The "asset flip" refers to images that may have been changed, but the core game is largely unchanged. For a deeper dive, check out the YouTube video "Switch Asset Flips: How Big is the Problem?" published by Star or Shovelware.
  2. Clones/Rip-offs: These are almost an exact replica of other popular titles but under a slightly different name. They will probably run into copyright issues anyway. One of the most common clones is the ball-shooting game "Zuma". Zumatch is a good example.
  3. Bare bones or extremely low quality titles: These are titles that barely have any content and exist purely to take your money, not give you any enjoyment. Piano is a good example.
  4. Repeat offenders: In pretty much every case we've seen, publishers who put up titles that are genuine shovelware tend to do so fairly consistently. We may base our decision to mark a title as shovelware based on previous titles from the same company.

How we flag titles

We flag at the publisher level. Most games in our database are linked to a publisher. If we deem the publisher to be putting out shovelware, all of their games will be flagged with our low quality filter on the site.

What happens with flagged titles?

A warning will be shown on the detail page for that game. Titles may also be hidden from certain parts of the website, although they will remain in our database and in our stats.

Appeals

While we are careful not to flag titles incorrectly, errors may occur. If a game you've developed or published has been flagged, you have the option to submit an appeal. Please see the contact details on our About page for how to get in touch.