Nintendo is taking action against shovelware games in the eShop. However, the problem has not been completely resolved. The company also won a case in the French Supreme Court.
Anyone who browsed the Nintendo eShop recently found not only well-known titles such as Mario Party or Mario Kart. Quite often, you also came across games like Hentai Girls: Flight Crush – so-called shovelware puzzles. These usually cost less than ten euros, and even less than five euros on sale. The idea behind them: minimum effort, maximum profit.
Nintendo has now taken action against this and deleted some of these games from the store. Titles from the publisher RedDeer.Games are particularly affected, as the company had created different versions of the questionable puzzle games in order to flood the eShop with barely modified variations of the same game.
The catch: if you search specifically for such titles, you will still find numerous of them – just from other publishers. The company still has a long way to go to completely resolve this problem, which has long been criticized by users. It is unclear whether Nintendo will even address it.
File hosting services must remove illegal content and block access
Meanwhile, Nintendo was able to score a victory in France’s Supreme Court. On April 12, 2023, the Paris Court of Appeal had already ruled that DSTORAGE SAS, operator of the website 1fichier.com, is liable for failing to delete or block access to unauthorized copies of Nintendo games on its platform. Nintendo had repeatedly asked DSTORAGE to remove any pirated copies.
On February 26, 2025, France’s Supreme Court upheld this ruling in line with the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal. The decision is final and marks the end of a long legal battle. In France and Europe, share hosting services such as 1fichier.com are required to immediately remove or disable access to illegal content. Otherwise, they are obliged to pay damages to the rights holders whose intellectual property rights have been infringed.
Nintendo welcomes the court’s finding regarding DSTORAGE’s liability, which has implications for the entire gaming industry. The ruling will prevent file-hosting services from invoking the arguments of sites like 1fichier.com during the proceedings, such as the need for a court decision before pirated content must be removed.
