Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Peer review/Xbox Live Arcade

Xbox Live Arcade

Have completely rewritten this page from top to bottom -removed a lot of trivial/unnecessary information, re-organized the structure of the page, redid every reference, added new info, etc. I think it meets the criteria for good article status now. Would like any feedback. SeanMooney (talk) 04:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Review by Jappalang (talk · contribs)

• The lead should summarize the key points in the article per WP:LEAD.
• Abbreviations are best declared in article text instead of in the lead. If declared, they are to be used in the text in place of the full form called for. Hence, "The Xbox Live Arcade service was ..." -> "The Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) service was ..."
• "To publicize the service, Microsoft distributed a starter disc that contained the Xbox Live Arcade software and a free version of Ms. Pac-Man. In addition to being available through the mail, the disc was also distributed via special issues of the Official Xbox Magazine and as part of the Forza MotorSport Xbox console bundle." -> "The XBLA software was obtained by ordering it on Microsoft website. It was sent by mail on a disc that also contains a free version of the Ms. Pac-Man video game. To generate greater publicity for the service, the disc was also distributed with special issues of the Official Xbox Magazine and as part of the Forza MotorSport Xbox console bundle."
• "and expanded the library" -> "and expanded its library"
• "of each game." -> "of a game."
• Get rid of the prices in the hidden table and just put in "Prices for the games range from USD 4.99 to 14.99." or such in the preceding paragraph.
• "Xbox Live Arcade was relaunched on November 22, 2005 on the Xbox 360." -> "On November 22, 2005, XBLA was relaunched on the Xbox 360."
• "all Xbox 360 hard drives are bundled" -> "the Xbox 360 hard drives were bundled"
• "Every Arcade title on the Xbox 360 supports leaderboards, 200 Achievement points, and high-definition 720p graphics. All Xbox Live Arcade games have a free trial version." -> "Every Arcade title on the Xbox 360 supports leaderboards, 200 Achievement points, and high-definition 720p graphics. They also have a trial version available for free download."
• "While these demos are playable, most offer only a fraction of the levels, modes, and content of the full game." -> "These demos are playable and most of them offer only a fraction of the levels, modes, and content of the full game."
• "Several new features and enhancements have been added through software updates including a friends leaderboard, additional sorting options, faster enumeration of games, an auto-download feature for newly released trial games, and "Tell a Friend" messages." These features can be confusing to the general reader. Take a bit of time to explain them. It does good to expand this sentence into a three or four sentences paragraph.
• "Microsoft continued the program and clarified that Wednesdays were the only day when new titles would be released." -> "When that summer ended, Microsoft announced that new titles for XBLA would also be released on Wednesdays." Instead of using the Joystiq source, use the GameSpot article it took the news from. Joystiq is not a reliable source on its own.
• "On September 5, 2006, Microsoft released Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Volume 1 as a retail package of six games. On October 18, 2007, Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 Arcade console SKU which includes full versions of Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, Luxor 2, Pac-Man Championship Edition, and UNO." What is an SKU? How does these two sentences tie into the article? In other words, other than the games being XBLA games, how do these two events tie in with the XBLA service?
• "Microsoft's general manager of Xbox Live, Marc Whitten detailed some changes for the service which included increasing the size limit to 350MB, and improvements to the digital rights management." -> "Microsoft's general manager of Xbox Live, Marc Whitten, detailed changes for the service that included increasing the size limit of the games to 350MB and improving the way digital rights management is handled."
• http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10620&Itemid=2 is not Gamasutra.
• "On July 12, 2006," "On September 5, 2006,", "On May 22, 2008"... Three successive paragraphs starting in the same manner leads to a proseline structure. Try to rephrase them to achieve a better reading experience.
• "Additionally, Microsoft has created a new internal first-party games studio focused on creating "high quality digital content"." -> "Furthermore, Microsoft created an internal games studio to create "high quality digital content" for XBLA."
• I suggest retitling "More information" to "Sales information of the service on the Xbox 360", seeing how it only has information from the time XBLA moved to the Xbox 360.
• The entire section on "Sales milestone" is proseline and droll to read. Try to dress it up in a prose structure, addressing what kind of acheivement was achieved by the service.
• http://www.xbox.com/en-us/community/news/2006/0815-texasholdem.htm is not GamerScoreBlog
• http://www.gamer.tm/news.php?id=52 is not Kotaku
• What makes the following sites and authors reliable as sources?
  • Play(tm)
  • Xbox360Fanboy.com
  • GamerScoreBlog
  • www.gamer.tm
  • Paul Thurrott
  • John Porcaro
  • Michael McWhertor

Look for an experienced copyeditor to go over the prose of the article as well. Jappalang (talk) 04:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. I've taken your feedback and made some changes.

• The pricing in the games table was removed and instead made a sentence (along with a reference).
• Copyedits
• I've fixed the error with those mistaken references and replaced all of the Joystiq, Gamer.TM, Kotaku etc references with more notable sources (mainly the official Xbox.com website).

To answer some of your questions:

• I listed the XBLA Unplugged disc and Arcade console bundle because those are two major steps Microsoft have taken to promote the service in retail.
• Paul Thurrott is a fairly well-known technology writer (who also has an article on Wikipedia). GamerScoreBlog is an official Microsoft blog (and John Porcaro who posts on it is an MS employee) - they frequently post XBLA information and official press releases there. SeanMooney (talk) 08:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• If they are major promotions, they should be written in a fashion to state them as such. Currently, they appear little more than stating that "these Arcade titles were also sold offline". To bring these sales into the correct context of the article, they should be phrased as something like "to promote the service, Microsoft released these Arcade games in special promotional packages".
• Unfortunately, Thurrott's article makes mention of his reliability as a source being doubted by other reliable sources. This can make defending him as a reliable source on higher levels of Wikipedia grading difficult. Okay, GamerScoreBlog being the official blog does carry good weight. However, their "Even though we do our best to make sure this information is accurate, the views and expressed by each employee are their own, and may not reflect the position of the company." here might be raised as an issue in higher level gradings. However, if the blog is used to source something not reflecting Microsoft's policy on XBLA (I believe release dates and general info should be fine), there should be nothing to worry about.

Good luck! Jappalang (talk) 14:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I've finally managed to find replacement references for the remaining two problem ones (Paul Thurrott and Gamerscore Blog) - both now link to pages on the official Xbox.com website instead. Also clarified the retail promotions paragraph a bit more. I believe I've now addressed most of the feedback - all information is there and properly referenced, I just need someone to copyedit the page. Is there anywhere to request that? SeanMooney (talk) 11:23, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

This would be the common piece of advice given to your question: use the League of Copyeditors. Unfortunately, it is inactive (and has been for quite some time). What I suggest is to look through its list of members and check if some of them are active and willing to copyedit on request. Ask them directly for a copyedit. Another place to raise the quality of a page would be The FA-Team; their primary mission: to raise the quality of an article to FA status. Note that some are busy or might be unwilling to accept the request, so you have to be slightly thick-skinned in asking, and assume good faith that they are too busy to accept if you receive no answers. Good luck. Jappalang (talk) 01:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Review by David Fuchs (talk · contribs)

First off, if Jappa has brought up any of the following concerns, feel free to disregard the duplicates:

• Lead needs to be expanded to two paragraphs which summarize the entire topic.
• Layout: I'm not sure 'more information' is a helpful header, as it doesn't tell the read from looking at the table of contents what kind of information is in this section. Something like "Sales and pricing" or similar?
• Also, there needs to be a source for the number of games released in the lead, which leads to List of Games section. There needs to be prose in the section in addition to just a referring template. This would be a great place to stick the number of released games, and give a general overview of the games themselves. For example: "As of Febtober 14, 2009, there are 150 Xbox Live Arcade games available for download.[source] [and then a couple more sentences]"
• Then you can talk about the game genres, how games are rereleased or something like that. Then rename the section to 'XBLA Games' or 'Games' or similar; after all it's not a 'list of games' in this article.
• In all sections there should be no 1-sentence paragraphs. Either flesh out the sentence's idea and elaborate or merge the disparate statements together and trim.
• Size: Currently, the article is 5.23 KB and 876 words. It's a short article. While I'm not expecting 45KB on this topic, it seems a little on the short side, but then again if you add in a lead and games prose it might be comprehensive enough. Then again: while the 'History' gives an overview of the features, perhaps the article should start of with an overview of the service, how people buy the games, et al? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 17:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Review by WilsonLu (talk · contribs)

• “Every Arcade title on the Xbox 360 supports leaderboards, has 200 Achievement points, and high-definition 720p graphics. They also have a trial version available for free download.” -> “Every Arcade title on the Xbox 360 supports leaderboards, high-definition 720p graphics, 200 Achievement points, and a trial version available for free download.”
• “Several games were temporarily free, including Texas Hold 'em, Carcassonne, and Undertow.” -> “Several games are temporarily free, including Texas Hold 'em, Carcassonne, and Undertow.”
• I have never heard of the game “Garthvader: Revenge of the $ayler”. That game does not exist even when I Googled it for its history. I looked at your source for that chart and the source is outdated or nonexistent. Can you please update the list with a reputable source or evidence to where that list of games came from?
• I agree with David Fuchs (talk · contribs). Your article has several one sentence paragraphs. Please combine them with the other paragraphs or flush out the sentences with more information. You could easily edit the one-sentence paragraphs in Removal of Games to form one paragraph.
• “However, Microsoft has never removed a game using the method.” -> “However, Microsoft has never removed a game using this method.”