While in a scantastic mood, looking for holiday deals in various mailings, I noticed something rather curious in the November Dell catalog I received in the mail. It includes a page of video games. And not PC games.

Yes, Dell, the company known for making laptops, desktop computers, monitors, printers and PC accessories (at least, that’s what the title bar of the company’s web site reads), has an entire page dedicated to Nintendo games…

Not all shovelware is completely bad.

Sure, games that fall into the shovelware category, like Chicken Shoot and Elf Bowling, are often designed to purely to generate quick revenue. And yes, the quality of shovelware is more often than not rather atrocious. But that doesn’t mean that the mere existence of it is entirely bad.

Not only is shovelware a videogame tradition but its proliferation is a positive sign for gamers. Below are three important reasons why shovelware games are actually good…