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Nintendo seems to have updated its eShop guidelines in an effort to filter out what's been commonly dubbed "eslop," or slightly more formally, shovelware, and a number of developers talking to IGN shared a similar sense of being encouraged but wanting more.
If you haven't noticed, the recommendation pages in a number of gaming storefronts, but most prominently the Switch eShop, have become inundated with low-quality, misleading, seemingly AI-generated, and often adult-themed titles from obscure developers and publishers, making it harder for players to discover genuinely worthwhile indies and thus harder for indie developers to find breakout success.
We've seen signs of Nintendo trying to curb the issue, and now IGN reports that it's spoken to multiple developers who have seen the new guidelines first-hand in Nintendo's developer and publishing portal. As of now, it seems they're specific to Japanese and Asian Switch 2 eShops, but it's a strong sign that Nintendo wants to make the platform more user-friendly in general.
The new guidelines reportedly went into effect with the launch of the Switch 2 on June 5 and include restrictions on how many game bundles can be put on sale (five per year in the game's first year and then one additional bundle per each subsequent year until the maximum of eight is reached), seemingly addressing a common complaint stemming from the belief that publishers release bundles in an effort to stay on top of the recommended page.
Nintendo also seems to be cracking down on sensitive content, with new guidelines against distributing titles that "would be considered damaging to the Nintendo brand," mostly centering around overtly sexual content, the sexualization of children, hate and discrimination, and political statements.
One guideline reads in full: "It is prohibited to provide inaccurate descriptions of the contents of a product. It is prohibited to provide description of the content of a product as under development if it is not expected to be implemented in the product."
I'm curious to see if Nintendo has any plans to address games like Repo Horror, a blatant ripoff of the viral co-op horror game Repo that surfaced on the Switch eShop in April and has since seemingly disappeared.
One developer IGN spoke with in the wake of Nintendo's updated guidelines still expressed frustration around the platform's discoverability, specifically as it compares to Steam.
"[Steam's] algorithm will more or less naturally bury AI slop or very low-effort releases. Sure, not every 'good indie' rises as high as they should but the visibility situation for indies with no marketing budget is significantly better on Steam," they said. "It gives you a shot when you release.
"On the Nintendo eShop you just get filed into an endless list of releases never to be seen by anyone. Unless you have a big name outside Nintendo already (like e.g. Balatro last year), it's close to impossible to stand out."
Another developer said the new rules "are a step in the right direction" but said "whether they exercise this right to combat slop is an unknown."
I asked my Switch 2-having colleague whether the new eShop is a significant improvement over the old one in terms of the amount of shovelware in recommendations, and he said it's a "massive improvement in terms of performance and usability," but couldn't comment on eslop because he mostly buys digital games on PC. IGN reporter Rebekah Valentine said the more targeted sections make it easier to organically find games she's into, but added it's still hard to find relatively unknown, but possibly great, games on the storefront.
"The flood of low effort games in digital marketplaces is definitely a concern to me as an indie developer," another developer said. "The space is already wildly competitive, and these stores don't always provide great discoverability (the eShop is particularly bad, even on Switch 2, though at least it runs much faster now!), so it sucks that we have to compete for visibility with bad actors who are just running a grift."
May our list of the best Switch 2 games continue to include great indies unburdened by shovelware on the eShop.
