Quote Originally Posted by bangtango View Post
Shovelware or not, any serious publication who gives a damn about covering the industry fully is going to review as many new releases as they can get ahold of and "test."

Besides, not everyone knows that shovelware is shovelware and sooner or later someone is going to buy it or think about buying it. So yes, a review of this stuff would help.

You can find well-written, professional reviews for darn near any movie that gets released whether it is a theatrical hit, direct-to-dvd rubbish or tv movie.

Any decent Atari, Sega or NES site/publication (dedicated ones) will give write-ups on the most horrendous stuff that those consoles saw because they are aware they have some degree of responsibility to their readers and to consumers.

Why should only AAA or niche video game titles get covered by a modern publication or web site? The "pick and choose what we want to score" nonsense doesn't sit well with me, especially when web sites with no genuine deadlines employ the same mentality.
Retro sites review everything because they've had 20 years to play them, and a lot them can be completed in an hour. I could review Contra right now without even playing it because of how much experience I have it with. Retro is a completely different beast.

Why should only AAA and niche stuff get covered? Because there's only so much time in the day. A magazine isn't going to give the shovelware space because, well, they don't have space. A website isn't going to do it because there's so little money to pay writers for all but the most major sites, and it's doesn't make sense to pay someone to review "Garbage Wii Shovelware 87" as opposed to the latest Call of Duty. COD will pull in endlessly more traffic.

As for movies, believe me, they don't get reviewed. I've been thanked for reviewing oddball Blu-rays in the past because the major sites wouldn't cover them. What happened? Something major that week didn't get covered.

Sites do review as much as they can; hell, I review as much as I can. There's only so much time and so much money to pay people though. If games were significantly shorter like they were before, this would be an entirely different conversation.