Glossary Entry: Shovelware
Quick Definition
Before the internet was a thing, many computer gaming magazines came with CD-ROMs brimming with free or shareware games. You could also find similar CD-ROMs in stores or catalogues for a very small price. Getting 300 video games for the price of a single magazine certainly seems like a deal, but there's just one small problem.
Quality control.
Most of these CD-ROMs were randomly cobbled together from free download websites, and since numbers mattered more than the quality of the games, the majority of the programs on these discs weren't worth playing. This led to the creation of the derogatory term "shovelware" to describe the type of low quality software that was carelessly shoveled into these packages.
Quality control.
Most of these CD-ROMs were randomly cobbled together from free download websites, and since numbers mattered more than the quality of the games, the majority of the programs on these discs weren't worth playing. This led to the creation of the derogatory term "shovelware" to describe the type of low quality software that was carelessly shoveled into these packages.
Back to the list of miscellaneous terms