This morning, people across the country will unwrap brand new Nintendo Switches. Maybe they’ll open up the eShop and look at the Top Sellers, where they’ll see a selection of the usual suspects: Smash Bros., Mario Kart 8, Stardew Valley. And then they’ll see Bouncy Bob.
Bouncy Bob is an unremarkable arcade game in which you control a little dark blob and try to jump on zombies. You jump by pressing the A button and watching a dotted line pendulate from left to right—Bob will jump in whichever direction the line is pointing when you release A. You need to make him hop on enemies, or grab boxes that shoot arrows that kill enemies for you. I bought it this afternoon—it’s clunky and frustrating and not very fun.
So why is Bouncy Bob the number two game on the Switch eShop on Christmas Day? Because it costs $0.01, that’s why. I don’t think Bouncy Bob worth your time at all, but it’s hard to beat a price like that, even if you’re Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. One could certainly argue that this is gaming the system—and that Nintendo should revise the Top Sellers list to prevent shovelware from dominating—but hey, at least now you can go buy a bad game for basically nothing.