Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 115

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 110

←

Archive 113

→

Should multi-platform Reception charts be removed?

Lately there has been a division over which Reception chart to use. Some people claim that it's okay to use multi-platform Reception charts for multiple consoles, while others say it's not okay. I tried using the multi-platform Reception charts on articles like Need for Speed: Underground, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and Need for Speed: Underground 2, and yet these IP edits always revert them to standard Reception charts, claiming that multi-platform Reception charts are "completely unnecessary and a waste of space where it gets to the point in making the article section completely un-watchable for the reader to look at and it forces the editor to revert it back to the standard reception box where it makes the article section less of a mess." On the other hand, I tried replacing multi-platform Reception charts to standard ones on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (video game), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, X-Men Legends, and The Da Vinci Code (video game), but editors always revert them to multi-platform Reception charts, saying that "Don't see why the multi-console review table cannot be used. Stretching it out so tall ruins the flow of the article anyway." I feel so confused! I'm stuck over which Reception chart to use. I don't know which of the people are right: the "standard Reception chart people" or the "multi-platform Reception chart people". It's getting to the point where I can't use multi-platform Reception charts anymore! And I have a feeling that the multi-platform Reception charts from this link here should never have been used in the first place. So, what do you think? Do the multi-platform Reception charts deserve to be removed and replaced with standard Reception charts, even if there are over ten console versions? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 17:39, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Data: we have 4,960 articles that use the template in single-platform mode and 225 that use it in muli-platform mode. - X201 (talk) 18:46, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I think we should look on this as a matter of the requirements of an article. The reason why I used the multi-platform reception charts on The Sands of Time was that the normal chart was impractical given that the game released on six different platforms (admittedly, only five could be made to appear in said article's chart). In my view, the standard reception chart was not practical when faced with that many scores/platforms, so I made a conscious decision to use the multi-platform chart. For games that are only on two or three platforms, the standard chart is certainly the better bet. Maybe we should have a standing rule: if a game has been released on more than three or four platforms that received a critic review, we should consider using the multi-platform chart for that article. But that's just my view. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:05, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

But IP editors like 81.158.229.85, 81.153.133.15 and 86.142.171.225 are making it harder to use multi-platform Reception charts by claiming that I should only use multi-platform Reception charts to "fill in ALL of the platform review scores and NEVER leave any of them blank." This is pretty confusing. What advice should you give these three IP editors? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 19:33, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

That this problem is the same in any chart, it's just more obvious in multi-platform (which should not prevent it from being used). Also (being frank), never leaving anything blank is a little silly. There are sites that review some versions of a game and not others. Besides, there are "blank" spots in every article in existence. It sounds like on their argument, an article would be ineligible for GA because worldwide sales data, or confirmed sales data period, is unavailable; or that there are no western reviews of a game. But there are plenty of GAs around without that kind of information. Of course, if there is room for a sensible discussion about this, it should be started rather than leaving this to fester. Simply, blank spaces are inevitable. It isn't a problem, it's a fact that shouldn't stop anyone from using a desired chart for an applicable article. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:52, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

So I made Reception charts in Need for Speed: Underground, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and Need for Speed: Underground 2 multi-platform again. But I have a problem that the IP editors will try and turn them back into standard Reception charts that are too tall and start an edit war. Am I doing the right thing like you did? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 21:33, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

You can use multi-platform boxes Angeldeb82, but only use it for the ones that have been released on 4 or less console platforms, so that it makes reading the reception section much more easier to look at and less squashed. 81.158.229.85 (talk) 22:56, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean? You're saying that I should do multi-platform Reception charts on four console versions or less, but only the standard Reception chart on 4 to ten console versions or more?! I can't do that, as doing standard Reception charts for more than four or up to ten games makes the Reception charts too tall and ruins the flow of game articles; and this is what you always do. Didn't you take ProtoDrake's advice? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:24, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

You mean 5 to 10 console ports. Using mutli-platform boxes on 5 to 10 console ports IS breaking the flow because it really doesn't help when the text on the left only takes up like 30% of the reception section and the multi-platform boxes takes up 70% of it with 5 to 10 console ports being put on. Standard helps works when it's likes 5 to 10 console ports because it makes the reception section less of a hassle and more of an entertaining read. So is multi-platform boxes as well, but using it for 5 to 10 console ports is a massive mess and a chore to fix because it breaks the flow. What ProtoDrake said is NOT advice. It's an opinion, which does NOT count as advice. 81.158.229.85 (talk) 23:32, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

You are the one (not me) who always breaks the flow of the game articles by making single Reception charts too tall and ruins the purpose of the article! I'm trying to make everything right, but you always do everything wrong! --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:39, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Saying things like "I'm trying to make everything right, but you always do everything wrong!" isn't going to help on proving your point, it's just provoking. Think on what your saying before you actually type it down to be a reasonable editor. 81.158.229.85 (talk) 23:44, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, there it is again! 81.158.229.85 always creates multi-platform Reception charts for only less than four console versions like in Fight Club (video game), but always makes single Reception charts for over four or more (up to ten) console versions on other articles, making single Reception charts too tall and doing the opposite of what is intended and startinng an edit war! Can't you do something and teach this IP editor a lesson? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:35, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

If it was an edit war, it would be a 3RR. Spreading around false rumors isn't going to help on proving your point Angeldeb82. Just calm down and think this through on what you are saying. Provoking isn't going to help by saying "I'm trying to make everything right, but you always do everything wrong!" It makes the debate a lose-lose situation. 81.158.229.85 (talk) 23:40, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm so confused right now! If that is your case, 81.158.229.85, then I'm not making video game Reception charts anymore on video game articles! You're always too much for me. I'll have to tell ProtoDrake about this if I get the chance. I hope you're happy. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:54, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Pres N just solved the whole pointless argument, so don't bother wasting your time talking to ProtoDrake to fix it yourself. 81.158.229.85 (talk) 00:02, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

1) You both (81.x and Angeldeb82) need to calm down, not just one of you. There's no need to get angry over boxes on articles.
2) For the sake of all our sanity, please try not to tell other people what they meant instead of telling them what your opinion is, no matter how right you think you are.
3) Please keep this discussion to one section; right now y'all are copy-pasting responses between two different sections.
4) The idea that an opinion isn't advice is ludicrous on it's face. Advice is, by definition, the opinion of someone else.
5) The argument is silly in the first place. The box, of whatever size, isn't ruining the article by being too tall or too wide. The box should be proportionate to the amount of text in the article's reception section- right now, it looks like you guys are fighting about how to organize some numbers in a box but no one is actually writing reception text, which is the more important part. Maybe you should just drop all the reviews from the template and just list out the metacritic numbers for each platform if the box is too overwhelming. Or just delete the template altogether! It's not required by any means- heck, if the above stats are correct, a reviews template is only used on 5000 articles, and we have at least 20000 articles on individual video games. --Pres N 23:53, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

"if the above stats are correct", they are, the template has hidden tracking categories (Single, Multi). - X201 (talk) 08:24, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree on the "Maybe you should just drop all the reviews from the template and just list out the metacritic numbers for each platform if the box is too overwhelming. Or just delete the template altogether!" part. 81.158.229.85 (talk) 23:57, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, in trying to correct the Reception chart, the guy always makes Reception chart too thin in Need for Speed Underground; replaces Famitsu's scores with Edge's dead link in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory; and removes GameRankings' mobile score in Need for Speed Underground 2. I keep correcting the mistakes the guy has made. Isn't that enough? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 00:44, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, how was I suppose to know that? How was I suppose to know that the Famitsu's scores with Edge's dead link were still there. I could have reverted that back in for you like I did with putting back in the GameRankings mobile scores, which you said ARE notable ports. But no, let's debate on that for another few minutes shall we? The edits you made are NOT "correcting mistakes", they are "replacing links". Oh, and by the way, I am NOT a guy. 81.158.229.85 (talk) 00:49, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, 81.x, it seems like I have no choice but to take your advice, and not the advice of other people like ProtoDrake's, even if it means making standard Reception charts too tall, or multi-platform Reception charts too short. Are you happy? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 01:03, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean you have no choice? What do you mean am I happy? You DID have a choice but you decided to just give up and call it quits and no, I am NOT happy. There's no need to be so forceful and aggressive about it. There is a way to solve this, but it just needs time. Don't jump to conclusions. 81.158.229.85 (talk) 01:05, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

As you know, I redid Fight Club (video game) and limited the reviewers to 10. So what do you think? Do you like it? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 02:37, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it looks alright, Angeldeb82. And it's reminded me of something else. What about game articles like Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U? Because of the amount of reviews cited, the multiple review table works there, even though it was only released on two platforms. Yeah, I think this whole subject need to come under review from the Wikipedia higher-ups so a proper, reinforced decition can be reached about table usage. --ProtoDrake (talk) 08:37, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, PresN, after carefully observing your advice, I've decided to go with the "not too tall, but not too wide" approach. For only one console on video game articles, I will go with the standard Reception chart. For two to four consoles, I'm going with the multi-platform Reception chart. For 5-10 consoles, though, I'm doing the standard Reception chart only for GameRankings and Metacritic scores, but write the gaming website reviews in text-only. So, in conclusion, I will continue to do Reception charts on video game articles, but this time following your advice. I hope that makes you, 81.158.229.85 and ProtoDrake happy. Anyways, it's a great day to be back on board. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 14:56, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, here it is again. I tried modifying the Reception chart to multi-platform on 2-4 console versions, like The Fast and the Furious (2006 video game), WWF Attitude, and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, but 86.142.171.205 didn't like them and reverted my edits back to the standard Reception chart, even though 81.158.229.85 said I should use the multi-platform ones "for the ones that have been released on 4 or less console platforms, so that it makes reading the reception section much more easier to look at and less squashed". This is confusing. Can somebody do something? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 18:35, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Let me just say this, "Whoops! I forgot!" They've all been reverted back to your edits. 86.142.171.205 (talk) 18:38, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, except Mario Tennis, which I reverted back to multi-platform Reception chart for you. But thank you. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 18:47, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Discussion relating to use of a disambiguation as "... (MMORPG)"

See discussion at: Talk:TERA:_Rising#Requested_move_15_August_2015 Greg Kaye 07:05, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

In this case, I'd actually point to a quite recent discussion on this page, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games#Disambiguation for visual novels, that might have some overlap to this. I think that I would generally prefer to use the more general (video game) over (MMORPG), much like how we prefer (video game) over (visual novel). ~Mable (chat) 12:28, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Except we don't prefer video game over visual novel, and this is clearly the case. --Izno (talk) 21:24, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

"The only other article (that I could find) using (MMORPG) as a disambiguator is Neverwinter Nights (MMORPG), which according to the letter of NCVGDAB would be Neverwinter Nights (1991 video game) or Neverwinter Nights (MS-DOS), I guess. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:51, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I really don't think we should ever need to use genres as disambiguation. I can only imagine that would be necessary in some extreme case where the same developer made two games with the same title in the same year for the same platform, but in different genres or something. @Maplestrip: Well, while WP:NCVGDAB says to use (video game) when a naming conflict exists and no further disambiguation is needed, some editors in the linked discussion seemed to think (visual novel) was more appropriate... no one has responded to my last post in the thread, so I don't know if we can say that "we prefer (video game) over (visual novel)" yet... There doesn't seem to be a consensus one way or another, whether we should follow the VG naming conventions page or call visual novels an exception and change the page to reflect that.--IDV^talk 20:14, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to codify the use of the disambiguation "visual novel" at WP:VG/GL--guidelines are for the most part descriptive--given the lukewarm reaction that was mostly in opposition to your question/request. Alternatively, start an RFC. --Izno (talk) 21:24, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The use of the OS would be for the case of two games with the same name and same release year. Also, I moved those around boldly. (There's probably a discussion in there about the fact that the series article should be at the main location.) --Izno (talk) 21:24, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Meh, FWIW the "series" article just shouldn't exist. One game + a sequel (and a load of DLC packs) does not warrant a series article, especially one so devoid of content. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:59, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Console generations

IP user 83.171.146.109 has been changing the years for various console generations on various articles and templates. I'm not sure what the correct years should be (there don't seem many sources on the actual articles) could some review their changes and see if its vandalism or bold editing. Thanks. - X201 (talk) 10:47, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

While I pointed this out before and the comment of circular research came up (in that WP itself is partially to have contributed to how the generations are called), This IEEE timeline should be considered authoritative. --MASEM (t) 14:00, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Photography help needed (for MOMA in NYC)

For List of video games in the Museum of Modern Art, it would be great if we can get someone over to MOMA in NYC to get some freely-licensed pictures of the general layout of the museum's exhibit. While there's an image in the article, it's likely non-free and based on commons we should be able to get a free image of the generalized exhibit layout, where the video game(s) are less the focus of attention (eg in de minimus). --MASEM (t) 17:13, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Possible ventures for people interested in making new articles

So there is a huge backlog for possible articles to be made. Along with Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Requests we also have Category:Draft-Class video game articles with 171 drafts tagged currently. If anyone wants ideas for articles to make you can look at these options. GamerPro64 21:13, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Game database for PAL region?

Hi guys! There is Famitsu database for JP released games, and IGN database for NA released games. IGN may list UK and AUS release dates, but not always. So is there any database for PAL region? By the way, is GameDB of Eurogamer.net considered as a reliable source? --CAS222222221 (talk) 16:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of X and Y

The game was met with very mixed reception. GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of 57.52% and 59 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version, and 55.25% and 58 out of 100 for the PSP version.

I see the above fairly often and wanted to get the read of the room. (Yes, the GameRankings percentages should be rounded.) I don't find the writing out of metascores (or scores for that matter) in the prose to be a helpful practice. I would much rather see that space characterize the reviews in a broad stroke ("Reviews were "mixed", according to Metacritic.') or not in the text at all. A "59" could mean a variety of things, none of which are immediately accessible to the reader. Same would go for scores, apart from when the score is in context (e.g., the reviewer never gives scores this low/high) or when a reviewer gives a score that denotes something else (e.g., EGM's 9/10 representing a "gold" award or monthly selection). I'd like to see a recommendation added to the guidelines if others agree. Open for suggestions. – czar 05:43, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Although I see other editors (including ones I respect) mentioning Metacritic, etc. scores in the start of their reception sections, I personally hate it. I don't feel that an opaquely-derived number from an organization already given too much weight has any place in a section that should be telling the readers what reviewers thought of the game, rather than what number they pulled out of their behinds to slap at the end of pages of text for people who don't want to read. If readers really want it, it's in the table one inch to the right. We don't mention the individual review scores in the prose (or at least we shouldn't, and I'll frown on your GA review for doing so), so we shouldn't mention aggregate scores in the prose either. --Pres N 06:24, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not fond of aggregator scores being described in prose either, though approve of them being in the table. They are even less useful to me than the scores given by specific reviewers. I don't think they have a place in the prose, but starting out a section saying that a game has gotten a "mixed" reception is much more useful, if you follow it up with the good and bad aspects according to specific reviewers.

Being specific about the different versions is particularly ridiculous unless the versions are vastly different. I can live with a line stating a game's aggregated score according to those websites, but the above is something I'd get rid of right away. ~Mable (chat) 12:37, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I would support removing the aggregate scores from prose and just writing short summary sentence ("Reviews were "mixed", according to Metacritic.') as suggested. I already omit individual review scores from prose when I'm writing reception, I think it's more important to cover the points that a reviewer raises rather than the number they assign. So I'm fine with this being added to the article guidelines. --The1337gamer (talk) 13:05, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I personally don't see it being worth the effort to enforce this. The video game fanbase, for whatever reason, obsesses over this sort of thing. It's going to be an uphill battle to maintain this, and I'd personally like to spend my time and effort towards more important things. Sergecross73 msg me 14:41, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

One mistake with this is that "GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of X and Y". They didn't give it the score, did they? It just has the score. I think Pokémon Black and White#Critical response does it reasonably well.

Pokémon Black and White have received largely positive reviews by critics, having an aggregate score of 86.35% on GameRankings and 87% on Metacritic (indicating generally favorable reviews).

This lets the reader know that the score is not something to be weighed on its own, but is an aggregate of various scores, and thus a "consensus" among reviewers that the score should be around there. Like said above, even if we all know that these scores are not as meaningful as they should be, most of the people reading these articles cares a lot about them, so it probably isn't fair to omit it based on personal bias. Just make sure it is represented in an accurate form that doesn't lie to the readers. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 15:05, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree that these scores should be written in a broad stroke. However, I do not see the need of removing them from text. These information served as a foundation for most articles, especially for articles that do not receive much attention from us, like Deadpool, or other indie/mobile games. Some of them may never get an in-depth reception section. Having a section about the game's scores would definitely be better. Without them, what's left is an ugly one-sentence paragraph, which is discouraged. AdrianGamer (talk) 15:46, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Two thoughts on recent replies above: (1) At what point does X percentage become mixed or largely positive? In previous discussions, others have raised the contention that it's original research to make that conclusion on your own. That's why I prefer to directly quote Metacritic's characterization of the score range ("mixed", "critical acclaim", etc.) (2) If readers like the numbers (based on what polling, who knows), they're still in the vg reviews box like the rest of the reviewer scores that don't go in the prose. The only change is to change the recommendation to stop listing numbers in prose (I'm thinking of the examples used in the Angeldeb section above). (3) As much as it's "a practice", I'd venture to say that editors do it more out of habit than conscientiousness. I don't remember seeing such a removal ever contested, actually. Enforcement is only as much an issue as using four digits for GameRankings instead of two—it's a recommendation and change-it-if-you'd-like but no one cares enough to get into an impasse over it. Regardless of whether we set it as a guideline, I'm going to be axing it in my cleanups based on the rough consensus above. Readability should be the foremost concern here. – czar 03:41, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, then you're going to have even more of an uphill battle, as you don't really have a consensus to point to over here. You're free to do this, but I predict a lot of extended/repetitive arguments on talk pages and people just undoing your work in the coming days/weeks/months. Sergecross73 msg me 12:34, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Let's note that the mentioned game, Deadpool, has six reviews for the Xbox-version alone. Most seem of decent quality. You can't have a Metacritic/Game Rankings score without existing reviews to aggregate from, so arguing that "it's better than nothing" seems like arguing that no description of the game's reception is really needed. Let me also note that these scores on said article are way easier to read using the table than using the prose. "gave the Xbox 360 version 65.76% and 62/100,[16][20] the PlayStation 3 version 65.62% and 61/100[17][21] and the PC version 63.33% and 63/100.[18][19]" is somewhat of a hassle to get through compared to

GameRankings: (X360) 65.76%[16], (PS3) 65.62%[17], (PC) 63.33%[18]

Metacritic: (PC) 63/100[19], (X360) 62/100[20], (PS3) 61/100[21]

The prose version could use the word "respectively" at least, to indicate which score belongs to which aggregator. ~Mable (chat) 13:46, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it's fine to keep the (2-digit) MC and/or GR score as prose. One thing that we do miss out a lot on that the film project does when they use something like Rotten Tomatoes is they say "Film X has received a Fresh rating of X% out of Y reviews." - For MC/GR we have the X but we don't mention the Y. And this can indicate the difference at a glance between a game that has a agg.score of 90% from 50 review sources, and an agg.score of 90% from 5 sources. I do agree to staying to the language MC uses to describe things "mostly positive" or whatever language they pick, and would even go to quote that in prose to make sure to the reader this is not WP's accessment but MCs. --MASEM (t) 15:46, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Also describing the amount of reviews an aggregator has used for its score in the prose of our articles would mean yet another number extra. An example of the Deadpool article would be:

"[Metacritic and GameRankings] gave the Xbox 360 version 65.76% and 62/100, based on 5 and 6 reviews respectively, the PlayStation 3 version 65.62% and 61/100, based on 7 and 9 reviews respectively, and the PC version 63.33% and 63/100, based on 7 and 6 reviews respectively."

This is quickly running out of hand. I'm not sure how to add this information to the table, though, as we'd need another column to list the number of reviews per version and aggregator. ~Mable (chat) 16:12, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

True, we have the issue of where there's multiple reviews due to platform which complicates it, and while I would love to say "pick the 'preferred' platform for the game and focus on that", that decision is nearly always going to be OR. We don't want the reception lead to be a mess of numbers, agreed. As for the table, you don't need another column; just say for, example MC "85/100 (40 reviews)"; it might nudge it a tad wider but that's fine, better than another column that we don't use for any other field in that. --MASEM (t) 16:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

We should also keep in mind that in cases such as Batman:_Arkham_Knight, where different versions got vastly different scores, the aggregated score of different versions are all notable. However, I'd much rather have this explained in prose rather than having to read through all of this:

Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic, respectively, gave the Xbox One version 87.50% based on 10 reviews and 85/100 based on 11 reviews,[124][127] the PlayStation 4 version 88.40% based on 48 reviews and 87/100 based on 81 reviews,[123][126] and the Microsoft Windows version 68.12% based on 4 reviews and 64/100 based on 8 reviews.[125][128]

I did not expect what I described earlier to actually exist in an article somewhere - this is just ridiculous. ~Mable (chat) 16:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

No, this is definitely far too many stats in prose. First, if one is going to include a score, it should be either GR or MC, with MC being favored only because they also have an automatic system that calls out a game with a certain qualifier ("generally positive" etc. ) based on the agg. score. Second, if it is two or more platforms, the score should not be included for exactly the situation the example above shows. Howevever, as the case of most multi-platform games, since the average doesn't normally vary that widely, one should still say the general MC descriptor. "Game X received scores across all 3 platforms described by MC as "generally positive". In the rare case of a game like B:AK , the scores still aren't important but the different qualifiers are and should be noted separately. --MASEM (t) 20:13, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm late to this debate, but article bodies should not generally contain score numbers of any kind. They're obnoxious and disruptive to read, much like full dates in lead sections. If at all possible, it's always better to leave detailed numbers for an infobox. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

ZombiU article move

Zombi (2012 video game) has been proposed to be moved back to its original title, ZombiU. The discussion has already been open for 17 days so additional input and/or a closing admin would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 23:58, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Using "easier" titles?

Hi everybody,

I haven't been very active lately, so if this is a thing I must've missed it. Yesterday I edited the article on Saints Row IV, which has been partially reverted by @Czar:. For some reason the article uses 4 instead of the Roman numerals IV, which I changed to, in my opinion, to the correct IV. Czar said in their edit summary: ""SR4" should be fine, as it's what many of the sources use, easier to write than the official title". Is this a thing now? Street Fighter 4, Final Fantasy 7, Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link? The Metal Gear Solid games are titled 2 through 4, but Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain have the Roman V. Or to stay on Saints Row, some sources went for Saints Row 3, instead of The Third, can we now use that too? --Soetermans. T / C 14:34, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

That is a poor reason to arbitrarily change the official title of the game. "Easier to write"? It's Roman numerals, not a dead language. This only leads to consistency issues. In fact, in that revision of Saints Row IV 4 and IV is used interchangeably throughout so it's not even properly enforced. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. That's not how we handle any of the Final Fantasy games, the last time I checked. I mean, its fine for redirects, but that kind of flies squarely against WP:COMMONNAME and our efforts to stay consistent within articles. Sergecross73 msg me 15:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Don't think it's that cut and dried. The sources predominantly used "Saints Row 4" and "SR4" throughout their articles rather than "Saints Row IV" despite the latter being the official name. (The official name is not always the common name.) The "IV" is more of a stylized trademark than the common name—RS may use it in titles but generally not throughout their reviews. I felt that it was a fine editorial decision to use "IV" as the official name in the lede and as the article title but to use "4" throughout the article, which would be similar in practice to what the RS did. – czar 15:18, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Is there much of a precedent for handling it like this though? I was under the impression that we wanted to stay consistent with whatever the article is titled (outside of listing long subtitles over and over again, etc) in the prose. Sergecross73 msg me 15:29, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

No, but it worked, and it was fine for GAN. I raised it at MOSTM and they recommend just going with the common name. IV is fine for now and I'll bring up a RM in the future if warranted – czar 16:01, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:NCVG#Games item 4 says to use the official numerator. This is contrasted by items 5 and 2 in the same section (5: consistent within series even if differing numeral types--not sure we follow this one at all; and 2: use most common name) and given an interesting exception by WP:NCVG#General item 1 (1: prefer most specific convention where conventions conflict). Perhaps WP:NCVG needs a look (explicitly on these points). --Izno (talk) 15:53, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm with Sergecross73. Between the generally serious tone of, say, Edge or Game Informer and the more casually and entertaining approach of, say, Kotaku or Giant Bomb, I do believe Wikipedia should maintain a formal tone. Even if codblops is easier to write than Call of Duty: Black Ops :) --Soetermans. T / C 11:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would make an argument that "codblops" is the game's common name. And Saints Row 4 is just as "formal" as Saints Row IV... so I'm not sure what you mean. It's more a matter of style and usage in RS (common name) than of gamerized concatenations. – czar 16:01, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Article review

Hi. I recently created page GTANet.com. And I need some help. I'm wondering if there are enough references. Also I'd love to hear some tips on how to improve it.Cha cha cha dancer (talk) 18:25, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

See also User talk:Sergecross73#Article review about GTANet.com. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:09, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I was actually going to post this here myself, to see if there was anyone who was interested in looking into it. I'm not not really into GTA or writing articles about websites, so I'm not the best for actually working on the article. My extent was just advising on policy. Sergecross73 msg me 20:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for replying, Salvidrim. Yes, Sergecross73 gave me very good tips on how to improve article and I'm following his guidelines. Since than I added a lot of references that are third party and are discussing and referring to GTANet.com. Of course it will be very hard to find news article which are discussing sole GTANet content without mentioning GTA. Google news give a wide coverage over GTAForums (GTANet), but many are only mentions. However I managed to find few good sources, I believe. Some of them are: BBC one (Hot Coffee), International Business Times (article about tool on GTANet), April Fools' Day joke covered by n4g and qj, DigitalTrends (Google street view of GTA provided by GTANet). Any further tips will be welcome.Cha cha cha dancer (talk) 20:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything that meets our notability or verifiability requirements. I've started a discussion at Talk:GTANet.com#Notability. Woodroar (talk) 21:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

The BBC one does not mention GTANet as a place where mod was hosted, however gives information on something that is a content of GTANet, GTAModding. On right side of article there are references and the second one, below Illspirit, there is GTAForums. This source serves for what it was put on. Claim that GTANet has developed modding community as Illspirit is one of GTANet modding staff. The IBT one, the whole article was written based on content that was found on GTAForums and it serves the claim that GTAForums is active in predicting new content. For April Fools', originally the whole story was transferred to media by Whatifgaming, however it is not possible to reach the article no more. When talking about trivial mentions you need to understand that many sites listed in reference list literally wrote gtanet or gtaforums once, however whole article was based on rewriting of something made by gtaforums. No one can affect on how many times they will use word gtaforums while writing article based on solely something found there.

For subject like this, fansite or forum, it is not possible just to say: there are no verifiable content because article makers didn't write: GTANET is a website and I am going to make thousand words essay on its features while mentioning word gtaforums at least 100 times. It is not possible to find such sources, no one will do that for any forum. For the coverage of content GTANet has, I believe GTANet is notable enough to be here. Besides, coverage on that April fools' joke satisfies that field to some point. I'm also considering the influence this fansite had on GTA itself which I referenced in many sources.

I'm using mostly google news and books for finding sources. Could anyone suggest me some alternative to this. Thanks. Cha cha cha dancer (talk) 07:41, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Try the video game reliable sources custom Google search – czar 16:02, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! It provided me a lot of links. I was able to find some sources for which I believe fit WP:N for primary and secondary sources. I'd love to hear feedback. List is in my sandbox.Cha cha cha dancer (talk) 16:32, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

RetroN

Hi, I created the page for the console RetroN but I can't find any references for the RetroN 1 and 2. I don't know if I'm looking in the wrong places or using the wrong search terms. Could some people please help me with this? Ana r chyte 08:36, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Coverage seems meager, there are a few video reviews for the Retron 2 on Youtube. Here's a pre-release reference on Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5916563/behold-the-retron-2-a-machine-that-is-both-an-nes-and-a-snes. Considering the Retron 2 came out after the Retron 3, and is 'only' a cheaper version for NES/SNES without the capability to play Genesis games, that would explain why not many people bothered with reviewing it and major news ignored it. Technical specifications for models 1,2,3,5 can be found on the company's website (looks like only the 5 has HDMI output and the other ones have S-video and/or Composite AV outputs, so the current intro of the article is a bit misleading). Rh73 (talk) 09:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

A model 4 doesn't seem to exist (no mention on the company website or internet). My guess is that they skipped to '5' because that one plays games from 5 major systems (Gameboy, NES, SNES, Famicom, Genesis; 10 subsystems in total). Rh73 (talk) 10:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC) Oops, there are pre-release references for the #4. But no mention on the company site, nor any post-release reviews (not even forums, blogs, youtubers), which is a bit unusual. Was this project cancelled? Rh73 (talk) 10:46, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Are personal pronouns (including "who") to be avoided for fictional characters?

Please take part in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Are personal pronouns (including "who") to be avoided for fictional characters? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

The consensus here is coming out pretty overwhelmingly "No, in fact they're standard." The only issue is whether the MoS or MOS:FICTION should state this explicitly or whether it's so obvious and the problem so minor that it can be expected to go without saying. Contributions are still welcome. If you know of any edit wars or other conflicts that have arisen because someone wanted to change "a character who" to "a character, which/that," then please contribute. If you know that this problem is rare, please come say so. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:35, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Non-free video game screenshot rationale

The template for the canned NFC rationale for video game screenshots has been nominated for deletion [1]. However, I think I've offered arguments for why it needs to be kept which the nominator has agreed are reasonable, which boils down to the fact that the "purpose" (the part for meeting NFCC#8) of this template is terribly poor and while the intent is there, it really should have a stronger "default" position. So I don't think this will be deleted (so this is not a call to participate there), but instead that we do need to come up with a better "purpose" rationale language or choice of language that is better than "to show what the game looks like". This is based on the fact that nearly every video game article, that as long as it is notable, has sourcable discussion of gameplay, and for that, the image helps to explain gameplay. There may be more reasons beyond that in other cases, obviously, and when better rationales can be provided they should be, but the default gameplay-demonstration reason needs to be much better. --MASEM (t) 18:04, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

As I mentioned in the discussion, the purpose of this template is to fill out a main NFCC template - not to replace it. The NFCC template is the canonical template used for all fair-use images, and this template is simply a helper to reduce the amount of work required to generate a rationale for images that are being used in common ways. Used properly, this template results in a real NFCC template, and any editor can then go and alter the text in the resulting template. As such, improving the generic descriptions will affect future images that are rationalized with this template, but would not affect existing ones.

I think that we can go one of several ways with this:

Simply improve the text or add more options to make this helper more specific - we should be careful not to make it too complex, because at that point it would be easier to just manually type the entries into the main template than to use this one.
Turn this into an actual template that is intended to partially replace the NFCC template. This would involve getting approval from the folks who monitor image use so they can include this template in the set of allowed templates when they patrol images.
Delete this template outright and instruct users to go back to filling out the NFCC template by hand.

Given that the need for this helper has likely waned quite a bit since I first wrote it, and it was intended just as a way to save time and effort, I don't feel too strongly that it needs to be kept. I think it served its purpose when we had a huge surge of images without proper fair-use rationales and apparently looser rules on what text was acceptable. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 21:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think #3 is reasonable considering how often this same rationale is invoked. I'm for a combination of the first two, and would prefer not substituting the template (#2) so as to make future maintenance easier. – czar 15:47, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I think #3 is fair too - or at least deprecating it. Unfortunately, because the template is linked in the screenshot license template, I can't easily tell how many instances of the template are not subst (as they were supposed to) to know how many to fix as to "freeze" this template before we consider deletion and switch over to recommending just using a standard NFC approach. (Though we should adjust guidelines to explain what to include in such rationals specific to video games). If this was a small task , like under a 100 images to fix this way, we could clean that up quickly and move to deletion. But right now I'd recommend deprecation until we have a better handle. --MASEM (t) 17:00, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

IGN wiki and date reliability

I sometimes see IGN wiki landing pages (e.g., [2]) cited for release dates, and I usually see them removed. Where do these release dates come from? Are they reliable or are they coming from a user-submitted database? Are they coming from the same database that IGN uses in its own article review infoboxes? The same database that lists all games made by a dev/publisher? I don't recall seeing a discussion about the dates provenance and whether they should be cited as reliable. Was the site redesigned recently? I remember the dates appearing much more obvious as user-submitted, but I'm not that familiar with IGN's backend – czar 17:02, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to know myself too, if anyone finds out. I've only used it typically when working on things like 90's video games, where it can be hard to track down release dates that don't trace back to Gamefaqs, and its varied from exactly right to "obviously wrong", so I've tried to use it sparingly... Sergecross73 msg me 17:10, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think they are "user-submitted" but it doesn't mean they should be taken as true without exception. I've seen "fudged" dates; such as games which were released, say, "Fall 1996" but we don't know when exactly, but for which IGN presents a specific date such as "September 1st, 1996". I don't trust this date specifically, but this mistrust is definitely OR, so unless we have better sources, Wikipedia policies probably say we should use and cite that date. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:15, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Psychonauts

Given a recent republished post-mortem for the game on Gamasutra, I've been able to fill out Psychonauts's development, and have done a whole bunch of other cleanup, so it should be rather close to GA. I'd like a tiny bit of help trying to flesh out the review and award sections (including if necessary trimming out non-notable/sourceable awards), but this should be pretty much it of any difficulty within the project's guidelines. --MASEM (t) 19:57, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Can articles with in-game screen snaps be FA?

I was under the impression that articles can only go to FA if all the images in it are permissive. Halo has a number of screen snaps that are clearly marked Fair Use. Is there a special-case rider for these articles? Or is the article in question from before the permissive licensing became an issue? Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:07, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

The featured article criteria states that "Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly". As long as the fair use rationale is completed fully and appropriately, I believe non-free media is allowed. – Rhain1999 ^{(talk to me)} 14:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, there's no requirement that a FA VG article has to only use free media. NFCC has to be met, meaning that typically only the game cover and one screenshot can get by as somewhat standard elements, any additional screens need to have clear context to be included. We'd like you to try to get free media particularly if it is a small indie studio in control of their own work, but there's no requirement for that. --MASEM (t) 14:23, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Sigh. I've actually removed some images from FA entrants because I was told otherwise as part of the FAC. I'll wise up. Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:25, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

What FACs were those? I'd be curious to what the reasoning was. --MASEM (t) 17:49, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

There is a requirement for any image appearing on the main page to be free-for-use, which may be a/the point of confusion. --Izno (talk) 19:55, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is that one. But when that's the only one you have... in the case of Halo, what would be the solution? No image at all? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:38, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Picture of a key develop or development team? In the case of Halo, pictures of people cosplaying as Master Chief? (Which we do have at commons, I know there's some guidance on where and when this is not a copyright issue). --MASEM (t) 20:47, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

There have been FAs with no image on the Main Page. Seorsumuscardinus was the most recent. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:02, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Scope question

Does this page fall under the scope of Rockstar wikiproject? Cha cha cha dancer (talk) 07:40, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd say the article certainly falls under the scope of the WikiProject, but I'm not quite sure if it's suitable for Wikipedia yet. A lot of it reads more like an editorial than an encyclopedic article (particularly sentences like "Their effect ... varies from mod to mod. For example, a specific mod may replace the model of the player's character with a fire breathing cat, while some other will spawn unfriendly zombies"), and there's quite a few grammar mistakes. I also think that the "Favorite GTA mods" section is a bit unnecessary. However, the references are pretty impressive, and there's a considerable amount of coverage there, so I think the article might meet the notability guidelines. I think we might be able to determine its standing on this site after a basic copyedit. – Rhain1999 ^{(talk to me)} 07:58, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for reply. I'm pretty much wikipedia noob so I probably did do a lot of mistakes when it comes to copyediting. I'll be looking to fix it. For Favorite GTA mods, I added it to provide some sort of list for most media coveraged single mods, but it might be unneeded. Cha cha cha dancer (talk) 09:30, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

What does it mean when an article is bolded on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article alerts‎

Some articles have their links bolded and others don't, why is this? Ana r chyte 10:08, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I think any new additions since the previous edit are bolded. Also any alerts that have their status changed (AfD closed, GAN promoted/failed, PROD deleted/deproded, etc.) since the previous edit are bolded. --The1337gamer (talk) 10:39, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Yep. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 14:53, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Freedom Planet

Is anyone willing to help bring Freedom Planet up to date? I left a message on the talk page a couple of weeks ago expressing my concerns, and Tezero hasn't been around. I tried emailing him as well. I hate to bring it to WP:FAR based on what shouldn't be too much work, so I'm asking here before going there. --Laser brain (talk) 12:49, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll be happy to take care of it. JAGUAR 12:54, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I've addressed all of the initial concerns. If anybody else here would like to add any additional insight to the talk page, that would be great. I'm surprised how rapidly a Featured Article can become out of date in just a few months... JAGUAR 15:42, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

It's a bit extreme to suggest FAR based on something so minor. Most of WPVG's FAs have gotten into way bigger problems since they got their bronze stars. Glad the issue's been resolved, though. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 18:38, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Scare tactics get the job done it seems. GamerPro64 18:40, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Citation help

I stumbled across an archive link to this Edge making-of, but only the first page is live. An early version of the post is available ([3], [4], [5]), but you can't access each page by clicking "next" or the page number. Instead, you have to work through Wayback to read all three pages. The question is this: how is it possible to cite three separate archive URLs? I considered using the |pages parameter and adding external links from there, but that's not an ideal solution by any means. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:56, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Couldn't you just make three refs, one to cite all content on page 1, one for all content on page 2, and one for page 3? That way you can use the three archives, and whatever you are citing are from the actual page it came from not the article as a whole. At least that's how I'd do it. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 20:14, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

That is a possibility, actually. If there isn't a better way, I'll do that. Thanks for the tip. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:50, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I think that's your only option, besides dropping the cite template altogether and just manually writing out the ref+formatting inside the <ref> tag. --Pres N 00:32, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Might get hassled over that at FAC, unless I drop citation templates across the board, which would be a mess. It's probably best if I use Favre's suggestion. Thanks guys. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:16, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I've always either (1) set a ref for each page (identical citation with different |page= params, e.g., Fez_(video_game)#cite_note-1UP:_review_p1-12 and #cite_note-1UP:_review_p2-11) or (2) used short footnotes {{sfn|Edge|199X|p=Z}} in a "Notes" section (with other short footnotes) separate from a "References" section with full citations (e.g., Knight Lore#Notes). The latter works better when there are multiple sources (e.g., instruction manual, individual book pages) that need to be cited this way. – czar 03:12, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Forgot (3) You can also forgo the citation template, and manually list the page links (e.g., Deathrow_(video_game)#cite_note-IGN_review-3). I think this is the worst solution as it's the most imprecise. – czar 03:18, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Review Thread 17: Er... we don't have anything applicable yet

I think we know the drill for now: listed below are all the unclaimed GANs, featured content reviews, and other objects such as peer reviews. As a matter of course, and hoping this continues to whittle the list down, users willing to reduce the backlog at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Requests are welcome.

FAC

FPC

~~Apple Bandai Pippin~~

GTC

~~The Last of Us~~

GAN

Peer Reviews/Other

FAR

Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (nom)

Begging thread

I'll begin this by saying that I'll leave comments on anyone's Peer Review for comments in the Peer Review for Persona. Still a little flaked from a bit of a recent GA marathon, so not feeling fit to take on reviewing GAs at the moment. --ProtoDrake (talk) 14:43, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I know it's only been up at GAN for a couple of days, but I'd love it if someone could take a look at Labyrinth for me. The article's pretty clean—it should be a fast review. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I do not have much things to trade, but I have few articles sitting at the reassessment category. Would be great if someone can carry out a reassessment for them. AdrianGamer (talk) 06:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks like we have potential Featured Articles on the docket. Take a look gang. GamerPro64 00:23, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Polygon's Provisional Review

So I was looking through Polygon's review of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and was thinking about how their review was being used in the article, yet its filed under "Provisional Review" currently. Since that means that score isn't their official score yet, should that mean their reviews should be held off from being used until they finalize their score? Comes off as an incomplete opinion on a game when its added in that state. GamerPro64 02:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd treat it like any other site—content/scores change over time and someone invariably updates the article accordingly. Their "provisional" status mainly stands to reserve judgment on the launch multiplayer (see the SimCity 4 debacle). – czar 03:08, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I can't remember, did Polygon "keep" their preMP-fixed SimCity review? I know their numbers changed, I just don't know if they appended or overwrote. If they appended, then its find to include the prelim review (possibly noting it was pre-MP) and then include the full review when its completed; if they overwrote, I would wait until the final review is out since that original text may disappear and fail WP:V. --MASEM (t) 03:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that text was only appended and that no major changes to the review itself were made. SimCity review, provisional review policy – czar 03:52, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Then it should be okay. I recognize that these sites may make small updates (and generally if it is a correction will indicate that), so a small discrepancy from when the WP editor looked at it and the reader looked at it might crop up but should be easy to figure out. On the other hand, if massive swaths of review text are replaced for a later review, and we included material from the earlier, "removed" parts of the review, that's a bit harder to justify, hence that would be better to wait for the final. This doesn't appear to be the case here but caution should always be exercised. --MASEM (t) 16:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Automatic citation archiving

Heads up: User:Cyberbot II has a new task that automatically adds (Internet Archive) archival links to citations! I inquired for more details on how to invite it over to your article, but thought y'all would want to know as this has been a perennial concern of ours. (User:WebCiteBOT is still down.) – czar 03:48, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Please let us know how to do this once you get info back, as this definitely should be done for nearly all of our articles that are based on web-based sources. --MASEM (t) 16:45, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Steam Spy as reliable source?

Relatively recently a site called Steam Spy ([6]) has appeared, and sponsored by GamesIndustry.biz. The site polls user profiles on steam to estimate the number of game sales (or at least owners) on the Steam platform. Obviously only useful for PC/Mac/Linux games, this would be mana from heaven for any Steam-based PC article where sales numbers are lacking. That said, I do think if we want to use this we need to make sure it is included carefully. As the programmer that developed the tool warns, it is only an estimate based on user profiles and not directly from Valve's internal sales database. So we should be using statement like "As of such-and-such-date, Steam Spy estimates that 500,000 copies of a game have been sold", instead of "...Steam Spy saids that 500,000 copies..." In contrast to VGChartz, I think the method of the collection of data is very open and technically reproducable (he used open Steam APIs for this), so doesn't have the VGChartz stigma. The site has been covered from other RSes so I'm thinking if we're going to say this is an okay source for estimated sales, we should create the article on it so that an interested reader can learn how the data is collected. --MASEM (t) 18:55, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

To add, the programmer notes that games with low sales values (as of about April, where the game is owned by less than 0.1% of all steam profiles, or about 100,000 units) there could be great error, so we should be careful only to use this for larger game sales, 100,000 or above. --MASEM (t) 18:58, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Steam Spy figures are statistically accurate reliable within their given margin of error and should be used unless a publisher or developer has given more accurate, up to date numbers. These figures are almost always uncontroversial and can be used. Winner 42 Talk to me! 19:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think it could be of use. The articles they give out are on a thing called Medium. Is it possible to use those as sources as well? GamerPro64 19:04, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Medium remains a questioanable site since as I understand it they invite writers to write but w/o editorial oversight. But here , we have Polygon, Gamasutra, and Ars Tech all providing coverage on the site's announcement and explaining the algorithm, so I think we're good with both how it is seen by other journalists and for notability for an article. --MASEM (t) 19:08, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Medium is not an indication of reliability, anyone can write for it. There are some reliable sources on Medium, as they have an editorial staff on Matter and other such magazines/collections. Treat it like Forbes. - hahnch e n 21:00, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, I found the medium piece was a republished article from a different print journal, so I was able to grab that and avoid Medium. --MASEM (t) 21:09, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll see if I can dig up a verifiable source to support the assertion I'm about to make, but: SteamSpy's numbers, from what I've heard from multiple devs, are sometimes incorrect beyond the provided margin of error. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:13, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Although, thinking about it now, I can't remember if they were comparing sales or comparing users, so 4-packs could have been throwing them. Still, that's another issue, since Steam Spy can only determine that a user owns the game, not how they own it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:19, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Reading the about page, I would say no, we shouldn't be using to cite sales figures. --The1337gamer (talk) 19:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I am presently writing the basis for a Steam Spy article, irregardless of the issue here (it's notable), but I think it could still be used if we are careful to attribute it to Steam Spy and say "an estimate". The key is the method is very much open and anyone else could technically do it too with access to enough computer processor and stats. --MASEM (t) 20:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with 1337. I actually think it's quite accurate, but none of the reliable sources that have covered it have offered a clear indication of its accuracy. Steam Spy is a poll of only one channel, this post by Wadjet Eye Games states that sales figures are actually "much higher" for the games as a whole. The Witcher 3, while it may be an outlier, sold half its PC copies on GOG. - hahnch e n 21:00, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

The site owner is very clear that numbers don't include GOG, and there's no dollar figures here (so you can't just multiply # and cost and get revenue). There are definitely cases I would avoid like Witcher 3 (which had huge promotion on GOG) or at least be clear that estimated Steam sales were X but did not include GOG sales. But yes, there are a lot of caveats to include there. --MASEM (t) 21:09, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

To be clear, it doesn't measure Steam sales, it measures Steam ownership. It can estimate ownership numbers for games sold elsewhere if they're distributed only on Steam. It can estimate sales if every sale only includes a single license -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Creating an article for an upcoming game

A game will be released within a month. It has been mentioned on several occasions on IGN, is mentioned by Gamestop and has a Steam page. It was featured in Gamescom 2015. Should it have a page? Leeds United FC fan (talk) 20:33, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

... Tell us what game you're talking about and maybe you'll get an answer. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Grand Ages: Medieval. Leeds United FC fan (talk) 20:50, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

A quick search tells me there should be plenty of sources to create an article with. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:52, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

So, it is notable enough for creation? Leeds United FC fan (talk) 20:53, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes yes yes yes. On wikipedia you can make an article about the flying spaghetti monster so long as you have reliable sources to establish its notability--Misconceptions2 (talk) 21:36, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

You can always look at WP:VG/RS for more information on which sources are considered reliable enough to hold up an article too. Nomader (talk) 00:31, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, in general, if you can find 4-5 sources from that list that have articles dedicated to the game, and can write 2-3 solid paragraphs in the article, you usually are pretty safe and unlikely to get your article nominated for deletion. Sergecross73 msg me 01:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

JRPG template input

This template, by Misconceptions2, has been showing up on some articles on my watchlist. Wanted some input - is this appropriate in template form? I feel like this template would be downright massive if it was actually filled out in its entirety... Thoughts? Sergecross73 msg me 20:01, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I plan on filling it out to ts entirety, it is filled out to 30% of what is on the article--Misconceptions2 (talk) 20:06, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

That's actually my main concern. Once you add them all, it's going to be far too large. It'll be very difficult to read or navigate. Sergecross73 msg me 23:53, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Probably not. Navigation templates are for grouping related links. As noted at WP:NAV, "If the articles are not established as related by reliable sources in the actual articles, then it is probably not a good idea to interlink them." I think JRPG is too broad to be used as a grouping. The articles in this template aren't even closely related. --The1337gamer (talk) 20:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I see it as no different than Template:UEFA associations which is on every European "Football Association" (FA) article. Articles on Template:UEFA associations are related only on the simple fact that each article is about a "European FA", in this case each article is about a "Japanese RPG", so it follows the same relation standard as Template:UEFA associations , Template:AFC associations e.t.c .--Misconceptions2 (talk) 20:28, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I think this is a bad counter example. Each national football association is part of and an official member of their respective continental association. The relation between these organisations is far less trivial than you're suggesting seeing as operate together in many ways. Meanwhile, the articles in this template are grouped by a vague and broad criteria with members that are not related to each other in any meaningful way. --The1337gamer (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, not a great example. A more comparable example would probably "Comedy film series" or "Horror book series". They'd be unmanageably large or terribly incomplete. Sergecross73 msg me 00:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

GTFO, Zelda isn't an RPG. Both this template and my own disagreements are WP:OR, though -- this should (and already is?) a category, not a navbox. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Legend of zelda (LOZ), the LOZ is a very special case for this template and its inclusion is explained in List of Japanese role-playing game franchises, it is because some reliable sources as well as Shigeru Miyamoto himself (the creator of the franchise), considers LOZ an RPG.--Misconceptions2 (talk) 20:54, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

They're wrong or misusing the name of the genre. I am a fan of both Zelda and RPGs and I will never recognize LoZ as an RPG. >:( ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:42, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this perfectly illustrates the next issue I was going to bring up, if consensus had somehow been to keep the template. If it was kept, we'd need to organize by something more objective than the extremely subject area of genre. There would be too many arguments like this if done be genre, whether it be Zelda, (which isn't labelled a JRPG anywhere on Wikipedia) or long running series like Final Fantasy, which straddle multiple categories. Sergecross73 msg me 00:24, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

This is what categories are for, not templates. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Agreed. List alone is sufficient. – czar 23:42, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Also agreed. The list is fine, but this template doesn't seem appropriate. The Legend of Zelda is not an RPG as far as I'm concerned; as Serge stated, if the template is kept, it'd likely be subject to recurring debates. —zziccardi (talk) 01:20, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Close

I will remove the template from the articles I put it on, there will be no categories either.--Misconceptions2 (talk) 01:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

A thought: Using non-breaking spaces in console/platform names

AFter coming across an article where "Wii U" was line-wrapped at the space between those, I checked that the MOS does suggest that in some cases like this (their example is the Boeing 747) that we use the NBSP character to avoid this break. I would argue that this definitely applies to the Wii U, but would also apply to any console name where the second word is four letters or shorter, so Nintendo 3DS, Xbox 360 or Xbox One, Playstation 3, 4, or Vita for example. It should not apply to longer names like the Magnavox Odyssey. This might be something to stick into our guidelines to be consistent. (I'm sure that for FA and PR this is picked up but doing it from the start might help). This also should apply to game titles where the last word is short or often a number (ala Mass Effect 3). --MASEM (t) 00:22, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Don't see why not. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 01:56, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Support, but could we make a template for that? {{NBSP|Wii U|Magnavox Odyssey}} -> Wii U, Magnavox Odyssey? --CAS222222221 (talk) 16:19, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I could see doing this for the console/platform names via a single template, maybe {{pl|Wii U}} --MASEM (t) 16:58, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

How is this going to be different than {{Nowrap}}? --Pres N 02:31, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Right; {{Nowrap}} not only does the same job, but does it much more easily and with fewer keystrokes. And it can be even fewer (Template:Nowrap/doc § Usage): «The template names {{j}} ("join"), {{nobr}} and {{nobreak}} redirect here (Template:Nowrap), so may be used instead of "{{nowrap|…}}".» --Thnidu (talk) 16:31, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Title of Ingress article

This is about the "augmented-reality massively-multiplayer online role-playing location-based game" Ingress (video game). To most people, "video game" suggests a game that's played at the console, or possibly moving around on a mat. There's already a redirect from Ingress (game); I propose swapping the titles: moving the article to Ingress (game) and making Ingress (video game) a redirect. There's a Category:Pervasive games that includes the Ingress article, but that term's unfamiliar to most non-gamers, including most Wikipedia users. --Thnidu (talk) 16:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

We typically use "video game" to include mobile games when a disambiguation is necessary, so I'm not seeing that a special case is needed here. If anything "mobile game" might be okay, but "game" generally is too generic as to separate it from board games or other more physical-based games. --MASEM (t) 16:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (video games) has more on the convention behind Masem's explanation – czar 17:55, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Masem and Czar: Thanks for the tips. I see now that "video game" is the correct disambiguator to use, as part of a well established system for these names. --Thnidu (talk) 02:07, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Help with Samus Aran

For some reason The Mary Sue wrote an article calling Samus Aran a transwoman and shits gone ape. The page is protected now but the talk page is already going downhill. Help. GamerPro64 01:41, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:05, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

That was pretty my much reaction as well.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:08, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

This is literally the most insane thing that has happened to me on this site. I blame it all on The Mary Sue. GamerPro64 02:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I've honestly had worse. This is a bit below "IGN calling Poison a trap" and "The Final Fantasy Legend's japanese name" in terms of my tenure here.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:13, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I just got Metroid 2 on my 3DS. I didn't need this in my life. GamerPro64 02:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

There must be other sites covering their article too, because I had heard about this earlier in the day from my Twitter feed, but I don't follow The Mary Sue Twitter account... Sergecross73 msg me 02:17, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Maybe check your feed again to see if it was related to TMS article. Because that's all I'm seeing on Google. GamerPro64 02:20, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah it was signal boosted by one of the authors, Brianna Wu, so it makes sense for this much of a reaction to such an article all at once. I see it flash in the pan at most.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. Looking back, it was the Neogaf Twitter account that posts every time someone makes a new thread, not an actual article. Sergecross73 msg me 02:27, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

[7]. Samus, Link, Zelda, Tails and others must all be protected to reflect the reality here. 166.171.120.182 (talk) 01:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

You're making it very difficult for me to assume good faith when you make edits inserting the unsupported, quickly-reverted claim that a game character is transgendered, and then come here raising the spectre of that exact kind of 'vandalism' to demand the articles get locked. It could appear like you're trying to fulfil your own prophesy: pretending to be one of those you criticise and doing the things you say they'll do to pre-emptively justify your concerns. clicketyclick 03:28, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposing to delete genre and video game engine navboxes

Recently I've come across a couple of navboxes, which to me do not seem necessary. I would like some input before I nominate them (and if they can in fact be nominated, have some help in doing that all at once). I'm talking about navboxes that are based upon genres, like ~~{{MMOs by Sony Online Entertainment}} and~~ {{MMOs by Electronic Arts}} (which I've nominated for deletion already) and the ones listed here: Category:Video game engine templates. I think that these kinds of templates fail WP:NAVBOX and are more suitable for a category. For instance, Grand Theft Auto V and The Force Unleashed both use the Euphoria game engine, a certain technology, but that's it. Two MMOs by the same company can be widely different too: Need for Speed: World and Star Wars: The Old Republic. --Soetermans. T / C 13:22, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree that navboxes based on game engines is not really something one would navigate, and I would also tend to agree that the "genre by publisher" (rather than by developer) navboxes aren't the type of thing you'd navigate. Games by the same developer, yes, but likely that would have a general developer navbox that would include all of those. --MASEM (t) 14:03, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you both sum up my feelings on this as well. Especially the one on game engines, I feel like Masem hit that right on. That's not really something readers are likely to browse by... Sergecross73 msg me 14:04, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I mostly agree, but I think there is a place for Navboxes like {{Freescape engine}} which with a few tweaks and links could document the entire topic of Freescape. - X201 (talk) 15:53, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I've converted and moved {{Freescape engine}}, it now covers everything to do with {{Incentive Software}} - X201 (talk) 18:24, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I should add having categories for either situation is fine (well, a category for game engine; you'd have a category intersection on the genre by publisher area). --MASEM (t) 14:18, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the Daybreak template should be deleted, since the scope could be pretty easily expanded to include all of their games. --Mika1h (talk) 14:28, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Sure, make sense. I'll edit it so it'll include the rest. --Soetermans. T / C 14:46, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Moved {{MMOs by Sony Online Entertainment}} to {{Daybreak Game Company}} and included their other work. --Soetermans. T / C 15:36, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Should this include games published? I'm fine if consensus says it should remain, but it looks a bit cluttered with all the published only games being included. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:45, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I looked at other developer-publisher template, like {{Epic}} and {{Electronic Arts}}, which include games developed by others. Not sure if that's the way to go, though. --Soetermans. T / C 07:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

GamePolitics.com revamp

So GamePolitics went down for a week and came back (Source). Moved from Drupal to Wordpress so that might mean there will be some broken links to the site here. Just a heads up. GamerPro64 22:29, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Modern company names being used retroactively.

I don't believe we should be using Daybreak Game Company as the developer of EverQuest, instead of what the company was named when the game was released. I'm aware of the MMOs still being active under Daybreak, but are there any guidelines to this? I ask because it seems really inconsistent. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:51, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Definitely make sure the original dev name is used at the time of the game's creation, as that will help those that need to search more to find appropriate search terms. This came up for me for BioShock when (temporarily) Irrational Games was named 2K Boston and then reverted back later. So for EQ, I would start the article "EverQuest is an MMO created by Sony Online Entertainment (now known as Daybreak Game Company)." Once you establish that, I would keep all needed company refs to the original name. --MASEM (t) 23:56, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

What about another name that was used in between? Say company A was renamed B in 1998 and brought out several games as B, then was renamed again to C. If that's ever happened, ISTM that the appropriate name to use would be the one in use at the time of the event referred to. What to do about spans including a rename? Following from the above example, "From 1994 to March 2007 ____ had its corporate headquarters in Austin, Texas. In March 2007 they moved to Las Vegas." What to put in the blank? (Not that I expect to need to know; I'm not a video gamer.) --Thnidu (talk) 02:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Probably best to just go with the original name at release, and the name as of today, if that's the case. Also, would the former or current name be the listed one in the infobox? (the question I should have asked.) ~ Dissident93 (talk) 03:42, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

{{Daybreak Game Company}}? I don't see why we couldn't add (formerly Sony Online Entertainment) to the header. --Soetermans. T / C 07:04, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm referring to the infobox, I should have stated that in the OP, sorry. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 07:35, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

In the infobox, I would go with what was on the game's cover (proverbially or literally) at the time it was released, and meant the name change in the lede / body. --MASEM (t) 13:57, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

List of characters and playsets

As you all probably know, games like the Disney Infinity, Skylanders and Amiibos are very popular. There is also the upcoming Lego Dimensions. Collecting the physical toys is a big part of it, but is having huge tables and long lists like Disney Infinity 3.0#Characters, Skylanders: Trap Team#Skylanders: Trap Team Characters, Amiibo#List of Amiibo-branded NFC items (or Amiibo#Exclusives) and Lego Dimensions#Packs not WP:GAMETRIVIA?

I think for Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions, it should not be WP:TRIVIA. These physical toys are not simply in-game characters. They are closely related to the game's release. Take Disney Infinity 3.0 as an example. Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are released in different playsets, which have different release dates. AdrianGamer (talk) 13:48, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I think AdrianGamer's point definitely stands for Amiibo - tracking the toys has been a huge thing. Less so for Infinity or Skylanders. But these lists should be limited to the characters with physical releases and not just any random ingame crossover character. --MASEM (t) 13:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I was wondering if it would make sense to split of the list of Amiibo figures into a separate list - List of Amiibo figures. It doesn't seem like notability is an issue, for what it's worth, and I do agree that the table is pretty huge on the already nicely-sized article. Product lines for Disney infinity and particularly Skylanders are more difficult to form an opinion on. I think some of them would definitely fall under gametrivia. ~Mable (chat) 15:03, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

But how is that notable, @AdrianGamer:, from a gameplay point of view, to mention and link to Darth and Anakin? The gameplay sections mentions lightsaber and Force combat, but what is the difference between Darth and Ani? Take for instance the Lego Dimensions level packs: "Level packs contain a character with a vehicle/gadget and a new level to play in." Characters, vehicles/gadgets and levels seem like WP:GAMETRIVIA to me. Are we making an exception, solely because they're released with a physical object? It reminds me of this release chart. --Soetermans. T / C 17:08, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

A list of Amiibo releases would be considered notable because a lot of reliable sources cover each new wave and announcement, as you can see by Googling news related to Amiibo: [8] ~Mable (chat) 17:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

No, they have nothing to do with gameplay. They are part of the game's release. The nature of these playsets is similar to character packs or downloadable content. AdrianGamer (talk) 04:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

If DLC is mentioned in an article, we also try to describe what it is and how it changes the game. While they might be part of the game's release, they're just listed without any substantial information. Right now, I can only guess what Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters, a hoverboard from Back to the Future or Taunt-o-Vision from The Simpsons will bring to Lego Dimensions, or what Nick Wilde from Zootopia, Joy from Inside Out or the Hulkbuster Armor from The Avengers can do in Disney Infinity 3.0. Is that not WP:NOTCATALOG No. 6? "An article should not include (...) availability information unless there is a source and a justified reason for the mention. Encyclopedic significance may be indicated if mainstream media sources (not just product reviews) provide commentary on these details (...)". Just because these packs are or are about to be released, is that enough reason to mention it? The games can still be understood without all this release data. Seems like WP:NOTEVERYTHING to me. --Soetermans. T / C 14:44, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Lego characters lists

And speaking of Lego, I keep seeing lists like Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham#Characters, Lego Marvel Super Heroes#Characters and The Lego Movie Videogame#Characters. Same question, isn't that WP:GAMETRIVIA? --Soetermans. T / C 11:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the Lego characters (except Dimemsions) are trivia. The lists were previously removed for that reason, but recently returned. WP:GAMETRIVIA#6 says lists of unlockable characters are inappropriate content. The important characters will be mentioned in the plot summary anyway. I wanted to remove these sections myself, but felt it should be discussed first since someone obviously disagreed with their previous removal. Reach Out to the Truth 17:40, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Moving the character bit down. I've removed the lists again. --Soetermans. T / C 14:44, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Given how many characters are in those games, that's inappropriate. It is different from, say, crossover fighting games where there is at least a reasonable finite roster. --MASEM (t) 14:56, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

That's also probably why Lego Dimensions might be unique in that we'd at least identify the major characters that have a physical toy release too (eg Chell from Portal), but if the gameplay has a deep line of virtual characters associated with the other properties, yeah, that's inappropriate. Listing the other properties and the physical release toy(s) associated with it is fine, but not a full list of characters if that has the potential to go forever. --MASEM (t) 14:59, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption is a Featured Article nominee

A quick note of the above featured article discussion which needs more eyes on it. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:31, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Is Apple TV a new console or should be treated as iOS device?

I am not a big Apple person, so I'd like to check that as I understand how it was announced yesterday, the Apple TV device, which is being pushed to include major gaming applications (eg Guitar Hero Live is one I am concerned with here), is basically a more powerful iOS device but otherwise nothing new in terms of consoles: it is what Ouya was to Android, or Steam Machines was to Linux; there might be limited cases where a specific game is tuned or exclusive to Apple TV but at its core still remains an iOS application. Is this correct? --MASEM (t) 18:16, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I should add this is for fourth generation Apple TV's that use the newly revealed TvOS (see Apple TV for details). I still feel this is effective iOS instead of a new platform for all purposes. --MASEM (t) 18:18, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

"I talked to Craig Federighi and he told me that tvOS is "95 percent" the same as iOS, with modifications to the interface layer to support the new remote and display on a TV screen." [9] Additionally, it seems like iOS apps need to be released specifically as tvOS apps, but that the conversion process is just making sure they come in chunks of under 100MB and work right with the controller instead of a touchscreen. The first restriction is just a storefront restriction (a la Steam/PC), while the second makes it a device-specific restriction- a la iPhone vs iPad. I'd say that basically a tvOS game is just an iOS game tweaked to work with a different control setup; I'd treat a tvOS-only game (if such a thing ever exists) the same as an iPad-only game, or an Ouya-only game. So basically, I'd only call out the tvOS release in the infobox/lead if it was especially noted (like the launch titles), or if it was tvOS-only for a bit (like you would a FireTV release: still totally an Android game). Other than that, it's just like an Android game that only works on a subset of devices- details ignored due to NOTACATALOG. --Pres N 18:58, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd classify it as a iOS device and/or a smart tv, not a console. My thoughts are pretty in line with PresN's comment above. Sergecross73 msg me 19:17, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

That's what I thought. In the case of Guitar Hero Live, Activision announced it would be one of their debut titles for the Apple TV, though not necessary a debut title for the device overall nor the primarily launch platform for the game, so I'm just mentioning this in the article body, otherwise treating it as iOS for infobox. --MASEM (t) 19:29, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Calling all editors who can access academic libraries

Can you do me a favor? If you have access to an academic or local library that subscribes to databases (most do), can you check whether you have a subscription to any of these packages by Gale?

Gale

Academic OneFile, 05/1993-01/2009

Book Review Index, Sep.2007-Sep.2007

General OneFile, 05/1993-01/2009

General Reference Center, 05/1993-01/2009

General Reference Center Gold, 05/1993-01/2009

General Reference Centre International, 5/1993-1/2009

InfoTrac Custom, 5/1993-1/2009

InfoTrac Junior Edition, 8/2008-1/2009

InfoTrac Student Edition, 05/1993-01/2009

Pop Culture Collection, 05/1993-01/2009

Popular Magazines, 05/1993-01/2009

Gale appears to have indexing for Electronic Gaming Monthly back to 1993 and full-text support from 1999. If it's true, we'd be able to search magazines that are heretofore not generally accessible online. Please take a moment to check your nearby library, especially if you're a university student. If you can't find your university's database listings, either ask a librarian (or send me the library's home page and I'll look for you). Feel free to email me details if you prefer. Appreciate your help. I'll keep looking for other mags that might have indices. – czar 04:46, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Gale indexes Computer Gaming World too, if you can just post any Gale databases you can access. A few other hits have some spotted indexing, but nothing nearly as wide as these two. – czar 04:57, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Man, wish I could help you, Czar, but mine doesn't have access to it. --Soetermans. T / C 07:52, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I think I have access to Gale, but not the databases you need. If you'd like to look yourself to make sure, this is mine. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:36, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm happy to report I have access to Academic OneFile, General OneFile, and General Reference Center Gold. —zziccardi (talk) 03:11, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

@Zziccardi, nice! Would you be able to check if you get any hits for "Mischief Makers" (would only show up in titles since 1997 doesn't have full text search) or "Kameo" (2005: should show up in full text)? – czar 04:24, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything for Mischief Makers, but Electronic Gaming Monthly has four articles (August 2003 – January 2006; ranging from 81 to 519 words) on Kameo (and another on Ninety-Nine Nights that mentions it in passing). —zziccardi (talk) 14:12, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

GAR for Apple TV

Apple TV, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. --sst^flyer 14:09, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:VGRS question

Already posted something at RSN but I wasn't sure whether here was the first venue I should go to or not; suppose discussion could continue there. What is the general opinion on these particular VG news sites (news items provided for context):

They're not mentioned on VGRS, whether as sources to use or sources to avoid. As I mentioned on RSN, I can't check them in detail right now because I'm at work and site blocks suck, but I'd love to hear whether or not I should nuke these from my current source list. Thanks!! ^BLUSTER⌉⌊_BLASTER 15:20, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

On the top of my head, Technology Tell is considered reliable, Kill Screen might be reliable but no real consensus on that. And Niche Gamer is unreliable though that might be because its a relatively new site. I'm not sure about GameSkinny though. GamerPro64 15:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Technology Tell is already listed as reliable: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources#General and Niche gamer as unreliable: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources#Checklist at WP:VGRS. --The1337gamer (talk) 15:26, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah, geez! Thanks for nothing, ctrl+F. But thanks, guys, I'll have to strike out those ones at the RSN post for sure. ^BLUSTER⌉⌊_BLASTER 15:42, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

GameSkinny is user-submitted: "Easy posting. Say your piece in a few minutes. Instant audience. You’re not posting to the void." They say editors look it over, but there's still no reputation for accuracy/reliability. I'm of mixed minds on Kill Screen (I could have sworn it was already in the list?) I've seen them mangle facts, though I believe it's generally trusted. I'd be more conservative on that one. – czar 16:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought we had a discussion that was sorta inconclusive about KillScreen, either here or at WP:ALBUMS, but I'm not finding it. Their about us section looks like there could be some potential, being founded by a former Wall Street Journal reporter and all... Sergecross73 msg me 16:08, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I almost want to call Kill Screen situational. It has potential. But I'm not really seeing what it has to offer in terms of use. GamerPro64 04:04, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Kill Screen is one of the most respected publications in its field (alt VG coverage), at the moment. I can't believe Wikipedia doesn't have an article for them yet, let alone consider them a reliable source. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 05:46, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Respected by whom? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 13:10, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

They partnered with Pitchfork Media for awhile in 2011, and they've partnered with The Atlantic (example) and the WSJ (here). They've got 21k Twitter followers and they've been cited by The Atlantic (on top of the partnership) and profiled by Fortune. They were named one of TIME's best blogs of 2011, in a glowing write-up. Their founder has been brought in by NPR for several segments on video games. They've been given interviews by people like Ralph Baer. The list goes on. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 18:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
Plenty of RS SIGCOV about the magazine if anyone wants to write an article about Kill Screen (magazine): Wired, Engagdget, Ars Technica, GameInformer. I'd say it is both notable enough for an article and reliable enough for referencing. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

If anything, what is the actual argument against KillScreen? The only one I've seen so far was from Czar, which, I can't really confirm or deny, as I don't really know much about that Cuphead game... Sergecross73 msg me 13:45, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't really have a problem with Kill Screen. Their Vision Statement is pretentious to the point of hilarity but they do seem to know what they're talking about. Their staff seem competent. I know Chris Priestman wrote for IndieStatik before its controversy and also writes for Silliconera. GamerPro64 14:11, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Note for anyone who wants to cite a KSD review: as far as I can tell, the number in the badge only vaguely corresponds with the text of the review. I've seen 12 and -1 on pretty cheerful reviews, and 80's on dismissive ones. My best guess is it's a subtle dig at the idea of a scored review- the number literally tells you nothing, even when you think it does. Metacritic does not include them. (Also, on the subject- their Infinity Blade review is one of my favorite reviews anywhere, though I'm not sure it makes sense if you never played Infinity Blade.) --Pres N 03:35, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

The KS issue is more editorial control. I definitely removed another one of their links for factual inaccuracies compared with other sources, but I don't have a record of it. KS's Cuphead article spawned this debacle, which was incorrectly blamed on Polygon. (Trust but verify and never retract incorrect, sensational headlines) – czar 00:38, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

By that standard, we should probably blacklist IGN as a source. They've had a track record of posting misinformation for around 15 years. (See this as a recent example.) Fact-checking has rarely been the strong point of games journalism in any form—I've had to deal with flatly contradictory sources basically since I started editing VG articles. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 00:46, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

So far I'm getting that there is no real consensus on Kill Screen's reliability. Being straight up reliable seems to be off the table. Would just being Situational fit the bill? GamerPro64 01:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's about right. Another one of the sources where it's usuable, but maybe not for controversial statements. The type we avoid if there's other options, but still use it to prove notability at AFD and whatnot. Another Siliconera or Joystiq type. Sergecross73 msg me 01:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Speaking of Joystiq, how does its rationale even work since its been dead since February and it got absorbed into Engadget? GamerPro64 01:36, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I can't understand lumping KS in with blogs like Siliconera and Joystiq given the stuff I linked earlier. Siliconera and Joystiq have not partnered with Pitchfork, The Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal, nor have they been profiled by Fortune magazine. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

That is true that linking KS with Siliconera is like apples to oranges (Even though, again, someone writes for both sites). Maybe we should all put it up to a vote? GamerPro64 01:51, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm personally fine with calling it reliable, but consensus at the moment, as mentioned above, is looking closer to "situational". In respect to Joystiq, I'd assume we'd treat it like any other defunct source - by the same standards as we had when it was active - though in all actuality, people always seemed to treat it as a full on reliable source. I don't recall any particularly controversial statements or huge screw ups from them really... Sergecross73 msg me 01:56, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Kill Screen is reliable. - hahnch e n 17:33, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

All right. So I guess we have consensus with having Kill Screen be a reliable source here. And if there's going to be another "Cuphead debacle", more than likely we have good judgement to find another source in case Kill Screen gets something wrong, which Czar points out will happen. Sounds like any other source we use here (Looking at you IGN). GamerPro64 20:03, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Space Invaders sales

Hey all, I'm trying to finish off List of Square Enix video game franchises, and I'm trying to track down sales numbers. I'm good on most of them, but I'm completely adrift when it comes to Space Invaders - Square Enix owns Taito, who make the Space Invaders games. The only sales numbers I have are for the original arcade game and its Atari port- given that there's been at least 20 games since, I'm probably missing a few... million sales. Does anyone have any idea of where I can find sales numbers on the series, from any time period, for any subset of the games? --Pres N 21:05, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Language problem

The IP user making this edit is clearly struggling with English, but they are also having a hard time understanding that what they wrote does not make much sense. Can anyone please help out here? 65.126.152.254 (talk) 22:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I reverted the edit, and suggested they work on a better wording on the talk page. If they continue to ignore, let me know, I can give a more direct warning, or start up the discussion myself. (I don't know much about comic book characters or the game in question, so I'm trying to avoid that, but I can if need be...) Sergecross73 msg me 13:29, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, will do. 65.126.152.254 (talk) 13:33, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

September 2015's TFA

Coming up on September 17th, we have Grand Theft Auto V appearing on the main page as that days Featured Article. Commemorating the second anniversary of its release on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. GamerPro64 18:07, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

And following that on September 28, we have Halo: Reach on the main page, commemorating the 5-year-and-two-weeks anniversary of the game's release. --Pres N 19:30, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

One more coming to the front page this month. September 27 an image of the Magnavox Odyssey will be that days Picture of the Day. Keep an eye out for that one. GamerPro64 20:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Corpse Party media listing

Just thought I'd drop an explanation for why I'm breaking the standard anime/manga/video game style on this particular article. Prior to my edit, the page had a massive introductory infobox listing 15 of 16 the various media attached to the Corpse Party series. This extended past the actual prose of the article and on my monitor (screenshot on imgur) it went beyond the external links section. To alleviate this, I created a wikitable detailing the same information under a "Media listing" section, separating the contents by medium (video game, manga, or anime/film). I've opted to avoid using the {{Video game titles}} template in order to better adhere to WP:MOS (based on my experiences with table-based MOS at featured levels). For the local Japanese titles, I've placed them into individual notes so the table itself isn't overwhelmed with titles. In order to avoid giving extra weight to a particular title, I've removed the infobox altogether and simply kept the promotional artwork of Blood Covered: ...Repeated Fear as the main image.

I'm not entirely sure that the individual games can support stand-alone articles as the games themselves are not the notable aspect of the series, it's what the series is about that makes it more notable (in my opinion). Based on this, I feel that having this wikitable is a suitable compromise to the cumbersome infobox while retaining all the same information in a single article to avoid content forking. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 03:23, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I have to see I like this change - it makes it a lot easier to read. I do think the article still needs an infobox, though, even if it isn't complete. What is the best way of doing that? ~Mable (chat) 05:57, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps similar to other games with anime series and multiple related media, like Chaos;Head or Senran Kagura? Jotamide (talk) 21:37, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Though the Chaos;Head info box is somewhat long, it's nowhere near the problem Corpse Party's infobox was. It's also shorter than Steins;Gate. I don't think it's needed in this case. Senran Kagura might be a good idea. It's also not as long as the one in Corpse Party was, but it's still pretty freaking long. I don't really know where the limit lies exactly, though, and it might depend on article length? ~Mable (chat) 08:34, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Nintendo restructuring

So, it was announced today that Nintendo EAD and SPD were merged into one department, now called Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development. Because of this, the articles should now be merged and re-written, so it would be nice to have some help with this. Maybe we could keep SPD's game list, to avoid bloat in the merged article, but move over the history section? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:11, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Looking through the articles, it looks like, to me, both divisions are sufficiently notable (read: searchable term) that while the divisions are no longer separate, the separate articles prior to this reorganization are completely reasonable. The existing articles would just have to be clearly stated that this are no longer standalone divisions at Nintendo having been merged. (So they get "past tense" verbage). That lets you keep the game lists with minimal hassle. --MASEM (t) 23:39, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

So create an entire new article, leaving these both as historic/legacy ones? That might be an easier and better way to handle it, yeah. Only real question I have at this point is how the internal groups will be handled (I.E. will Zelda Wii U still be developed by Group No. 3, or has that been changed as well?) ~ Dissident93 (talk) 00:01, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

As details come out, I'm sure that is information that can be filled in, but I think keeping the existing articles as legacy is the best starting point. Maybe half a year from now, it might be better to merge them all in, but right now, with as little as we know, this seems like the easiest solution on everyone. --MASEM (t) 00:05, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 00:12, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development article, but it needs work still (Kanji name, etc). Any help with this would be great. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 05:56, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I filled in the rest of the {{nihongo}} template to the best of my ability; if someone who's a little more familiar with Japanese could double-check my work, though, that would be much appreciated. —zziccardi (talk) 15:14, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Categorization of Assassin's Creed related articles

An IP user added Category:Video games developed in Romania to multiple articles concerning Assassin's Creed franchise. I reverted them as his claim wasn't backed up by the article content. After doing some research it occurred to me that the reason behind this category implementation might be this. However, Ubisoft Romania wasn't listed as a developer in most of these articles. Furthermore, according to this article, many Ubisoft oversea subsidiaries "supported" the development. Surely that means we have to categorize the articles based on locations of those subsidiaries as well? I want to make sure that my reversion of IP edits aren't entirely unjustified. -- Chamith (talk) 01:22, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Only include the main developer's location, not any assistants. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 01:27, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

What you're saying makes sense, I don't object personally. Sergecross73 msg me 13:16, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Less than stellar edits on TDs

Have a look out for ExplorerX19 (talk · contribs). I don't think he's editing in bad faith, but I just went through a bunch of edits made to tower defense and related articles and reverted the changes. --Izno (talk) 13:24, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Articles about League of Legends players

Hi, I'm new here, so I'm sorry if I'm asking this question in an inappropriate place(but hey, the text says I can ask it here). So, I'm sort of keen on writing about notable LoL players(I've already written one about xPeke, which was later edited by various people), so can I put them for review somewhere around here when I write them? Just to get some guidelines from more experienced authors and not do anything the way it's not supposed to be done. Thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kostaurus (talk • contribs) 20:53, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

EDIT: Also, how do I sign my posts?

Type ~~~~ to sign your post. The welcome message on your talk page contains a list of links to pages with useful information on. They are pretty long-winded but I would recommend reading them so you get a better idea of how to do things. Initially, you may want to try creating new articles using the Article Wizard and choose to create the article in the Draft namespace rather than directly publishing it into the main namespace. If you've created a draft you can then submit it for review using the Articles for creation process to get feedback before it is moved to the main namespace. When creating a video game related article, add {{WikiProject Video games}} to the corresponding talk page so someone can assess the article. --The1337gamer (talk) 21:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
A quick tip - You can't use wikis/wikia as references on Wikipedia, because anyone can change it at any time. Sergecross73 msg me 22:05, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

   Thanks for the advice, guys. By the way, it wasn't me who added the references from Leaguepedia, and thanks for fixing the article a few times.--Kostaurus (talk) 19:50, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikibreak notification

Just to let regular VG editors know, I am taking a wikibreak until the 28th of this month. If you have any queries for me, then post them, but do not expect any response from me before that date. --ProtoDrake (talk) 14:30, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Satoru Iwata FAC

Just wanted to give a shout out for this one because User:Cyclonebiskit has been working his butt off over the last two weeks to whip this article into shape, and I would hate to see it fail for lack of interest. We have one support on prose, a completed source review, and a mostly completed image review. Come on down and leave your comments at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Satoru Iwata/archive1. Indrian (talk) 17:38, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Cite video game

I recently updated cite video game to rely on Template:Cite book rather than Template:Cite journal. If you have any comments or questions, please see Help talk:CS1#Cite video game for more info. --Izno (talk) 17:45, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

How should music writers/composers be listed in the infobox

Should music writers/composers be listed in the infobox according to game credits? Or should they be listed in order of who has more tracks in the soundtrack album? For example, take Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the game credits explicitly list Harry Gregson-Williams above Nobuko Toda (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwq1rbRfJnU#t=6m42s). I am in favor of the infobox matching the game credits, so I list Williams above Toda. However, Dissident93 listed Toda over Williams because in the game's soundtrack album, Toda has more tracks than Williams.

Also, there are cases where composers are listed in the game credits but don't have any tracks in the soundtrack album. Take Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for example; this game has composers Shuichi Kobori and Seiro Hirose listed in the game credits (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESBxEcd8r7Q#t=3m32s). But in the game's soundtrack album, Kobori and Hirose don't have any tracks. I am in favor of keeping these composers listed in the infobox as they are still credited by the game under "music by", whereas Dissident93 wants them omitted. -- Wrath X (talk) 08:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I think it would be better to list them alphabetically. That way, you can leave out any ambiguities (and potential discussion) over "who contributed more" to a game's soundtrack. On the topic of credits, sometimes composers do work for games but their music does not end up appearing on the commercial soundtrack CDs. If the composers are listed in the game credits, I think it is ok to include them on a composer list. Jotamide (talk) 20:53, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Music by doesn't always mean they actually composed, and 95% of the time, the soundtrack liner notes are way more detailed regarding who actually wrote what. I don't see why listing them by order of contribution is controversial for the games/soundtracks that explicitly state it. The problem for the MGS games, is that they normally credit the guy who did the main theme first, under the tile of "lead composer", then have the guy who actually wrote majority of the soundtrack second. Most other game series have composers correctly listed in order of contribution, so not like this is a major issue for all video games. And @Jotamide:, I'd rather just list them the way Wrath does (billing order), than alphabetically. First of all, we'd have to make the directors, producers, artists, etc, all follow the same order, and second, we'd have to do this to every single game on Wikipedia. Not realistic, and in no way better than either of the preferred ways above. Keep in mind, that the current infobox documentation clearly states "The writers should be listed in the order of their contribution, with those who wrote the game's scenarios/scripts listed before the game's story writers.", so having the composer field with the same consistency shouldn't be controversial. (and the revised guidelines above even state this without any objections.) ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:54, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Wouldn't it make more sense though to list them as they appear in the game credits? After all, the game credits is how the developer/publisher has chosen to officially credit its staff. What I'm trying to say is: if composers are listed under the same credit, then in the infobox we should list them in order of the game credits. For example, in GTA V's opening credits, composers Tangerine Dream, Woody Jackson, The Alchemist, and Oh No are listed under the same "Original Score" credit in this exact order (see here). It's, of course, only logical that these composers should be listed in the infobox in the same order they appear in the game credits. -- Wrath X (talk) 22:42, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'd normally agree (majority of games have them listed correctly anyway, including GTA5), but if you haven't noticed, the way the credits are arranged in the MGS games are a mess. Composers who did just the main theme are credited first as "lead", and the composer who did 75% of the soundtrack is credited with simply music along with a few potential others. Why are writers given the sole right to be listed in order of contribution in the infobox, when that's way more open to interpretation than being directly told the amount in the way that liner notes do? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 04:18, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
Credits > liner notes, use given order, per the above. We should be doing as little original interpretation as possible. – czar 03:42, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Fairly blatant paid-editing - Pixel Press

Take a look at the new article, Pixel Press, by new editor User:Bathchurnning. A new editor, proficient with wiki-markup, sourcing and NFCC. Places in the lead a list of media coverage in the same way that a corporate website or press release would. It's clear to me that this is a paid placement, and while I believe Pixel Press is notable enough for an article (I had previously redlinked it from another article), I'm not sure what we do with undeclared WP:COI edits now. Even after uncovering the massive paid editing network, I think there's still a no-fishing rule at Wikipedia:CheckUser, so I'm not sure if there's anything to be done. - hahnch e n 15:28, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

OrangeMoody has caused a lot of eyebrows to be raised with stuff like this. I like this should be kept an eye on. @Sergecross73 and Salvidrim!: and any other admins with the project, gonna need some thoughts on this one. GamerPro64 16:39, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

The immediate relatively high quality of the article, along with a complete understanding of citations and formatting, from a brand new user certainly makes you wonder.... I'm not familiar with how cases like this are handled, but I guess anything that stands out as promotional material (such as the last line in the lead) should be removed as per normal conventions. Since the subject is notable I see no reason to delete it despite the potential COI. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 16:48, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

If there is a COI found on this article, there might need to be some rewrite to get some NPOV. GamerPro64 16:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Looking at this, there's nothing that immediately jumps to my eyes as a clear COI. Even if that was the case, the article seems decent, and failure to declare COI would really be the issue here -- if there is one and it is declared, then such articles are even desirable, in my (unpopular) opinion. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:52, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't look bad on the surface, but the way some statements are worded certainly leads one to assume there is COI: Pixel Press' platforms have been embraced by schools, such as the Grand Center Arts Academy, offering development of skills, such as critical problem solving and design thinking, to its users. This particular sentence reads like an advertisement, in my opinion. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 16:55, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Alright, yea, some NPOV cleanup might be needed. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:45, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

The content was never really my concern. My concern was that we have undisclosed paid editing, and no recourse? We have no idea who owns this sock. - hahnch e n 19:08, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Undisclosed paid editing is grounds for a ban per the TOU and our subsequent interpretation. If you sincerely believe that is the issue, take the problem to WP:ANI. They'll ship it to WP:SPI if someone recognizes where this editor may be originating from. --Izno (talk) 19:14, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I started a discussion ~~here~~. Now for the waiting game. GamerPro64 19:30, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Discussion is here now because that wasn't the right place. GamerPro64 02:53, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

"Fairly blatant" is not the term and actually is quite accusatory. I just left a message on my talk page from an editor who was quite pleasant and clear as opposed to some of the accusations on this thread. I am not a paid editor and I am not associated with Pixel Press. It took me a while to research and then write the content of that article. If there are issues with it, let me know and I will address them. I plan to write additional articles on Wikipedia so if there is an issue with the writing style, please let me know. I believe that everything I wrote on that page conforms to the pages and pages of guidelines that I read prior to posting the article. --Bathchurnning (talk) 19:24, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

To be even more clear, this [10] is the page where I will be getting my article ideas.--Bathchurnning (talk) 19:33, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Nintendo Gamer, April 2011

Hi there. I know it's a long shot, but I was wondering if anybody has access to the April 2011 issue of Nintendo Gamer? I'm looking for the review of Ni no Kuni: Shikkoku no Madoushi, and I can't seem to find anything about it online (besides the score). Thanks in advance! – Rhain1999 ^{(talk to me)} 07:12, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.nintendo-gamer.net/review/* – looks like it wasn't archived, but I would try the OP at http://grcade.co.uk/t:ngamer-issue-60 and search for "ngamer" instead of "nintendo gamer magazine". Also Edge #224 looks promising. The Strong doesn't hold N-Gamer issue 60, so no help there, but some European libraries hold it. Ping me if you don't get any bites and I'll set up an interlibrary loan request. – czar 05:59, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips, czar! I managed to find a picture of the Edge review online, which is really helpful. As for Nintendo Gamer: I contacted the OP of the post, but he doesn't appear to have the issue anymore. I've searched for the issue/review for a while now, but the closest thing I've found is a few blurry frames of someone flicking through the magazine from a YouTube video. I seem to be out of options at this point; if it's not a bother, would you be able to help? – Rhain1999 ^{(talk to me)} 12:12, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I tried contacting the YouTuber. Ping me if we don't hear back in a week or so. – czar 13:37, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

And voilà! http://imgur.com/a/H6YqK @Rhain1999 – czar 01:14, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

You're my hero. Thank you so much! – Rhain1999 ^{(talk to me)} 01:25, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption is a Featured Article nominee

A reminder that the above is a Featured Article nominee as of August 29, 2015. It has one support, does anyone have the time to put eyes on this nomination please? Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:48, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I think there's overall a lack of volunteers for the FACS as of now. See the Iwata thread up top. Now I would review the Iwata article if I wasn't involved around the time he died. Meanwhile I'm just waiting for people to review Maniac Mansion. GamerPro64 21:51, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll drop in and review for prose and comprehension (same goes for Maniac Mansion). I'm still not familiar with sources for video game articles so I won't be able to cover comprehensiveness...will have to AGF and believe the articles cover everything necessary. I think Iwata's article has changed more than enough to dispel concerns of involvement with the article, Gamer.

But I won't push, of course~ Cyclonebiskit (talk) 23:53, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Piggy-backing on this section: we now have an FLC for the first time in a few months, with List of Square Enix video game franchises now at FLC. Come on by! --Pres N 03:56, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Syfy and G4

So continuing my adventure of discovering defunct sources coming back to life, I've just learned that G4 is technically still around thanks in part to Syfy Games. Its tagline is "Now Featuring News from G4" with the G4 logo being part of it. I will say this surprised me. Then again with EGM still being a thing anything is possible. Its relatively new, starting earlier this year so I'm not entirely sure how reliable the source is. Especially this being a far cry from the original G4 channel. GamerPro64 20:52, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Redirected articles

Electron toolset, Aurora toolset, and Infinity Engine were recently redirected without any apparent attempt to merge them. In review, the sourcing looked a bit weak, but given the popular games they were used on, I'm sure the sources exist somewhere to restore and improve them a bit? 73.168.15.161 (talk) 12:04, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

What is there to merge exactly? All three were rubbish quality articles with poor sourcing. The Electron toolset article was just a list of unsourced engine features, and barely any of the content was useful or encyclopaedic. Summarising any reliable sourced and noteworthy information under Neverwinter Nights 2#Development is more appropriate. Same thing applies to Aurora toolset, it can be appropriately covered under Neverwinter Nights#Development and BioWare#Aurora Engine. And information on Infinity Engine can be covered under its respective game articles. Notability isn't inherited either so having a game engine being used on popular games isn't a valid reason for separate article. --The1337gamer (talk) 12:35, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
- My reason for bringing this up wasn't to determine whether or not the articles, in the state they were in, were worth keeping. What I wanted to know is if anyone had any sources to improve the articles. If I wasn't clear on that, hopefully I am clearer now. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 23:57, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Toys-to-life tables

Hi everyone,

A little while ago I asked about release tables in the "toys-to life" articles, like Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions. Is there someone familiar with these franchises? Because I don't think a table like Level packs is the best way to go right now. Starting from the left: first column, name of franchise. Second column, level pack, repeating franchise name with the words "level pack" behind it. Third column, content of level pack. Fourth column, release date. Fifth column, "series". Sixth column, "wave". Starting from the level pack table, it is the first time in the article that "series" and "wave" are mentioned, so what exactly are they? --Soetermans. T / C 13:00, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't this violate WP:CATALOG and some other policy? I say we remove it, and redo it as prose if possible. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:17, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Not necessarily. The release of these packs get coverage, and particularly with the cross over nature. There is likely a better way to do the example table to explain the terms, and reduce the duplication. --MASEM (t) 01:21, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, make them collapsible? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 01:34, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd classify Disney_Infinity_3.0#Characters as an indiscriminate collection of information. If these toys are important in specific, it's through how they're discussed in secondary sources. What's important is their real world context, what critics said about them, not their "wave" or release dates (that's the type of stuff for Wikia). The names of their "packs" is trivia. The Disney table also has accessibility issues as is—it should repeat itself rather than using those merged cells. Prose-ify wherever possible (e.g., list the franchises from Lego_Dimensions#Level_packs in prose and drop the rest, unless there are RS to show its importance). czar 02:57, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of X and Y, Part II: Too confusing

Continuing on from this link here, I have a problem regarding the Reception sections for the Medal of Honor (1999 video game), Medal of Honor: Underground, Medal of Honor: Frontline, Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, Medal of Honor: Infiltrator, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, and Medal of Honor: European Assault. It's just that all of them use the Reception article's English that is too convoluted. For example: the Medal of Honor: Underground Reception section says, "The PlayStation version of Medal of Honor: Underground was met with positive reviews. It received an 85.65% on GameRankings and 86/100 on Metacritic. The Game Boy Advance version of Medal of Honor: Underground was met with negative reviews. It received a 49.67% on GameRankings and 46/100 on Metacritic.", which is just ridiculous. The Medal of Honor: European Assault Reception section claims that the game "received favourable reviews", when in fact they're mostly mixed, not "favorable". And almost all of them say, like European Assault, "Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 2 version 73.23% and 73/100, the Xbox version 73.09% and 72/100 and the GameCube version 72.78% and 71/100." This wording is too ridiculous. I tried to take someone's advice from SSX 3 and round the GameRankings scores to the nearest whole number, but 81.158.229.168 kept reverting my good edits to too confusing English and GameRankings' decimal numbers and kept warning me to use only one separate way of one score instead of two, which they accuse me of, and that if I kept using two separate ways, like this, then they will ban me! What can I do? I'm too confused, I just don't know what to do anymore! I don't know if I can continue to edit video game articles or just quit. Please help me. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 00:50, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

We have a reviews template for score. In prose, scores should simply not be mentioned whatsoever IMO. See Back to Stone, an article I wrote without mentioning a single score or aggregator summary in prose. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:04, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

First off all, saying things like "This wording is too ridiculous" doesn't really help in proving your point because the previous wording makes it better for the Wikipedia viewer to read. And also, I NEVER reverted any edits on SSX 3 because I didn't even bother reverting that article and you did what you were told. I looked over mine and your edits on that article and nowhere did I EVER revert on SSX 3. Are you seriously trying make yourself even more of a bully and a liar than ever before? Calling your edits "good"? You still have a lot to learn about editing Wikipedia because your edits are NOT ENTIRELY good by the looks of things. If you read the Wikipedia guidelines more often, you would know more about how to edit Wikipedia. Take a look at Watch Dogs and Wolfenstein: The New Order for example. They have the best Reception sections in their articles and they both have one thing in common that goes with the Wikipedia guidelines. 81.158.229.168 (talk) 13:04, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

@81.158.229.168: Admin warning- tone it down. You're being entirely too aggressive and ALLCAPS for a discussion of how to word a couple sentences in a video game article, and calling Angeldeb82 "a bully and a liar" is way over the line of no personal attacks. Do it again and blocks come out. Perhaps you should read some of the wikipedia guidelines you're so confident in?

As to the debate itself, we're discussing whether putting a bunch of review percentages in the text is a good idea or not. Saying that it is because Angeldeb82's edits are "not entirely good" makes no sense, and proclaiming that her arguments are ridiculous because you're clearly correct is pretty nonsensical, especially when several other people here agree with removing the numbers. Including myself, it's much harder to read them in the text as prose then in, say, the table in the box 2 inches to the right. --Pres N 14:35, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

If I was too aggressive, I would have every single word in "All Caps". Then how come Angeldeb82 made up an accusation that I reverted that person's edits on SSX 3 when I clearly did NOT? Please look at my edits and you will see that I have never EVER even reverted those edits on that article.

I brought up Watch Dogs and Wolfenstein: The New Order as examples of reception sections because they use the two digit percentage per T:VGR and WP:VG in the Wikipedia guidelines and that applies to both "in the review box" and "in the review text". Since when did I say "I was right and Angeldeb82 was wrong"? I NEVER said that, I just said that they need to improve. Don't get me wrong, I need to improve too, but I do NOT call my edits "good" because I'm right and they're wrong. And yes, I did go overboard by saying "You still have a lot to learn about editing Wikipedia because your edits are NOT ENTIRELY good by the looks of things." because I really don't like people that claim themselves to be the best Wikipedia editors and claim that their edits are "good" in their snobby and disrespectful attitude. 81.158.229.168 (talk) 16:00, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

No. You don't get to define yourself what "too aggressive" is, especially not as "well, I could have been more aggressive and confrontational so it must be alright". You've received the warning; whether you take it to heart or blow it off is up to you. --Pres N 16:22, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Why are you being so aggressive all of a sudden? When did I define myself what "too aggressive" is? I NEVER said ANYTHING about that in the previous comments I wrote. OK, I definitely did NOT say "well, I could have been more aggressive and confrontational so it must be alright" in the previous comments I wrote. Why are both you and Angeldeb82 suddenly making "false accusations" about me such as "Broken English" and "Too Aggresive"? Are you REALLY trying to get something out of me when I actually don't? Because whatever it is that you two are trying to do, I'm not buying. 81.158.229.168 (talk) 16:35, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Quiting Wikipedia because GameRankings and Metacritic is confusing? I think you're taking this too seriously. I mean Metacritic's scoring is a trade secret, to the point that a lot of people do not take it seriously (film wise at least. Rotten Tomatoes is more beloved). My suggestion is to not use Metacritic or any aggregation. I'm using them for Dyscourse but that's mainly because all the reviews for the game are sevens. GamerPro64 01:13, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not talking about GameRankings or Metacritic. I'm talking about the confusing words and grammar in the Reception sections of Medal of Honor articles, because they sound a bit robotic, IMO. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 01:19, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

"The confusing words and grammar in the reception sections, because they sound a bit robotic, IYO"? Since when did you make up that accusation? It NEVER sounds robotic. It makes it a lot easier for the Wikipedia viewer to read. How are they "confusing"? Because your wording and grammar needs a bit of work as well. Have a look at Watch Dogs and Wolfenstein: The New Order before making up accusations. 81.158.229.168 (talk) 13:08, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

As mentioned last time, drop the scores from the prose and instead write, "The game received 'average' reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic" (quote their exact phrase). The scores numbers are worth little without context. czar 02:42, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I see. I'll do that next time if I get a chance. Thanks, Czar. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 03:39, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

To the point at hand, I would agree that rote repetition of MC/GR percentages in the prose in "complex" situations (games with multiple console releases) can be dull and not helpful. There's no point to reiterate the difference between an MC aggregate scroe of 71%, 72%, and 74% for different consoles for the same game - that's all, give or take, the same score, and the extra digits should be summarized in the table. So instead of being drab, I would simply go "The game received 'average' scores on all platforms according to aggregate Metacritic." If there is a console port that stands out far outside the 5-10 point range (such as the case the OP points out), that should be the start sentence of a separate paragraph to focus on why that port was good or bad. --MASEM (t) 15:23, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

That's what I've been trying to say to Angeldeb82 but won't listen to me because I'm wrong and have "Broken English", which doesn't make sense since the term "Broken English" is people that go "wuy dunt u git ur eidets prubpaley". Now, THAT'S "Broken English". 81.158.229.168 (talk) 16:07, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I took czar's advice and removed aggregate scores from prose on the aforementioned Medal of Honor articles and the Mad Maestro! article in order to satisfy all of you. Hope this helps. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 16:14, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't forget to round the GameRankings scores from 4 digits to 2 digits and it goes by WP:VG to make life more easy. (Example: 74.51% to 75.50% = 75%) 81.158.229.168 (talk) 16:19, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll do that too. Thanks. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 17:17, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

VG infobox credit field oversights?

Couple of questions and remarks concerning Template:Infobox_video_game#Credit_fields:

*producer
The popular names of the game producers in overall charge of the production of the game. The names can be wikilinked.

List only the person credited specifically with the title "Producer";

Do not list the "Executive producer" or other "sub"-producer credits, as they are not generally as intimately involved in a game's development;

If three or more people are credited as "co-producer"s, discuss whether any one played the most significant part and, if decided, list that person;

List the "Creative producer" only if said person's involvement in the game is discussed in the article's development-related section.

I don't understand this. No. 1 says: only producer. No. 2: says: no "sub"-producer. No. 3 says: if there are three or more people credited as co-producer, we should decide who played the most significant part. But there are co-producers, someone must be listed as producer, right? Does that mean we can list co-producers, if there's a producer, or that we shouldn't? What if we can, what if there's one producer, and three co-producers and we don't know who of those three did the most work? Also, discussing who had the most significant part in the development starts from three, so we should pick one name. But two is okay? Unlike other fields, this doesn't have a limit to it. What if there are eight producers credited?

*designer
The popular names of the game designers, i.e. people who worked on the game's system. The names can be wikilinked. This field is often unfilled in modern high-budget development due to large team sizes and collaboration. Older games and indie games are more likely to use this position.

If a single person is credited as "Lead designer", list that person; synonyms for this position include "Game-design director" and "Lead planner";

If there is no equivalent to #1, omit this field;

If three or more people are credited as "lead designer"s, discuss whether any one played the most significant part and, if decided, list that person.

Same thing, what if there are two lead designers, that's okay? Or what if a small indie game just has 'designer' as a credit, right now it says that name should be omitted. Sidenote: why don't we change the name of the field from designer to lead designer?

*writer
The popular names of the game's writers. The names can wikilinked. The writers should be listed in the order of their contribution, with those who wrote the game's scenarios/scripts listed before the game's story writers.

If a single person is credited as "Scenario director" or "Scenario writer", list that person; synonyms for this position include "Lead writer";

If there is a person credited as "Scenario concept writer" or "Original concept", also list that person here;

List no more than three people in this field.

If there is one 'scenario director', we should list that person. If there's a 'scenario concept writer', we can list that person too. If either one of these titles are listed, does that mean other writers shouldn't be mentioned? Also, again we can have three names, without having to discuss to pick one.

*composer
The popular names of the composers who worked on the game's music.

List people who contributed significantly to the soundtrack. Discuss inclusion criteria on a per-game basis on the talk page.

Here, there is no limit of names, unlike other fields.

Do you see what I mean? These discrepancies might not our biggest problem, but I think it would be helpful to have a clear understanding of how the infobox can and should be done. Soetermans. T / C 10:55, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I've asked twice in the past to help redo this section and make them all standardized with each other, but nobody seems to have any opinions regarding it. If people are ready this time, we can go through each field and give them new/updated guidelines. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:51, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Some of these questions require some odd reading of the text to reach, but whatever, it can certainly be tightened up. Here's my suggestion for a revamp; I tried to make the wording similar in the different roles: --Pres N 00:23, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Producer: The popular names of the game producers in overall charge of the production of the game. The names can be wikilinked.

List only the person credited specifically with the title "Producer"; do not list the "Executive producer" or other "sub"-producer credits, as they are not generally as intimately involved in a game's development
If a second producer or co-producer is credited they may also be included; if there are three or more, list only the one who played the most significant part
"Creative producer" is generally treated like other "sub"-producers unless said person's involvement in the game is discussed in the article's development-related section.

Designer: The popular names of the game designers, i.e. people who worked on the game's system. The names can be wikilinked. This field is often unfilled in modern high-budget development due to large team sizes and collaboration. Older games and indie games are more likely to use this position.

If a single person is credited as "Lead designer", list that person; synonyms for this position include "Game-design director" and "Lead planner", or simply "Designer" on games with very small development teams
If a second lead designer or co-lead designer is credited they may also be included; if there are three or more, list only the one who played the most significant part
If there is no clear lead designer, omit this field

Writer: The popular names of the game's writers. The names can wikilinked. The writers should be listed in the order of their contribution, with those who wrote the game's scenarios/scripts listed before the game's story writers.

If a single person is credited as "Scenario director" or "Scenario writer", list that person; synonyms for this position include "Lead writer"
If there is a single person credited as "Scenario concept writer" or "Original concept", that person may additionally be listed in this field
If three people are credited as Lead writers or Original concept (or equivalents) they may be listed; if there are more than three, list only the three (or fewer) who played the most significant parts

Composer: The popular names of the composers who worked on the game's music. The composers should be listed in the order of their contribution, with those contributing the most tracks/music listed before those with fewer contributions

If a single person is credited as "Composer", list that person
If a second or third composer is credited they may also be included; if there are more than three, list only the three (or fewer) who played the most significant parts

The composer field should also state that if a composer was known to only do one song, AND if his role is already mentioned in the article, then he shouldn't be included in the infobox. (look at Xenoblade's for the best example.) The rest I agree with, though. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 00:58, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

In the infoboxon Xenoblade, Yasunori is currently listed as a composer - isn't that exactly the opposite of what you are suggesting, Dissident? Either way, I think these guidelines all sound very good; much more clear than the original guidelines and it makes a lot of common sense :) ~Mable (chat) 07:07, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

That complication could be my fault. I wrote/maintain the article, and argued that his involvement was important enough to be mentioned there. (He's got a big role in the Xeno (series), sources reported his involvement a lot, and his specific role for this title was to create one massive track that was meant to sum up/represent/encompass the games entire massive soundtrack... Sergecross73 msg me 17:04, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

How, exactly? He did one track out of 91, I simply feel like it's better to list their role in the game in the article in detail, (which it is for Mitsuda/Xenoblade), while having these type of contributions omitted from the infobox. For some games, you could have 3 or more composers who only wrote a single track for the game. If we added every single one, the infobox would get mighty bloated, wouldn't you agree? Of course, if the article doesn't have any mention of the composer's single track role, then I think it's fine to leave them in the infobox.

On another topic, could we use something like that's been done on the Sonic 3/Sonic & Knuckles articles for games that have more than three composers? (collapsible lists) I'm fine with this, as it doesn't bloat up the infobox, but doesn't omit details simply because it goes over three. The "three or less" should be used as a general guideline, what if there were four members who did 25% each? @Wrath X: has been removing producer information in the Metal Gear Solid series because of this, but this information really should remain. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 18:22, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Er, I thought my last comment covered that? It's an all encompassing centerpiece to the game, created by a long-time contributor. I don't mean to get in the way of a consensus here or anything, I don't really care much about what the standard is, just as long as we get a consensus for one to be enforced, I'm merely saying that there should be room for important exceptions. Sergecross73 msg me 18:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

My comment was meant for Maplestrip, but agreed. All of these should be used as general guidelines only. Exceptions should exist on a per-article basis if they improve the article, and aren't aren't misleading. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:55, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I suppose I should note for clarity: I agree that a person who has only composed a single track should generally not be listed in the infobox. ~Mable (chat) 20:53, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

User Wrath X continues to remove personnel from the MGS5: Phantom Pain article, simply because the number of producers and writers goes over the arbitrary three. Does anybody mind having four in the infobox, as long as they were all the lead producers/writers, which is the case here? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:18, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Another thing, Wrath X states that, for composer listings in the infobox, we should go with what the game itself lists, rather than how much they actually contributed. He claims that, what the original soundtrack states (how many songs each composer wrote is clearly listed in the liner notes), is WP:OR, and that because the game itself credits Harry Gregson-Williams first (for "music" in Ground Zeros, yet it actually states Akihiro Honda is the lead composer right after), that we should go with that the game states. Does anybody disagree with this? It's not like I'm guessing on how much they contributed, like screen time for an actor in a film. This needs to be changed, as we are supposed to list writers by order of contributions, and we don't even have something as clear-cut as soundtrack liner notes for them. It just doesn't seem right to have Williams listed first, when he really only did two tracks in the entire game. I'd really like to have all this wrapped up soon, since it's becoming just edit warring between us two. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 07:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

The order or hierarchy credited makes more sense, I agree. ~Mable (chat) 07:52, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I think that's the opposite of what he said, actually... anyways, it seems clear from the example that the game credits them in alphabetical order, but if it clearly says that one was the lead composer, then they should be first, and the others ranked by contribution amounts- if there's liner notes with track credits, then you don't have to guess. In the end, though I guess it doesn't really matter that much, so if it's frustrating you maybe just drop it for now and work on the body text. --Pres N 16:16, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

It's misleading and shouldn't have to be, it only exists because of the template guidelines being vague for the most part. I mean, nowhere does it state to order it the way he's doing either, if you want to be technical. Everybody seems to be on the same page here, but since none of this is in the official template doc yet, he keeps reverting it, going by the old and vague guidelines. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:14, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Anybody against making this public? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 03:30, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not really following what issue is under discussion. If the problem is unification of standards, why wouldn't we just put a notice above all fields that (1) the goal is to provide quick reference to the clear, "lead" contributors, (2) a "lead" distinction is preferable (see individual fields for equivalent titles), (3) if there is no clear lead, it likely isn't worth enumerating in the infobox, but generally do not list more than three co-leads. And (4) prefer the order of the credits, whichever requires the least original interpretation. Something like that and reduce the redundancy. – czar 04:10, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
- I agree with all of your points, but is it really "original interpretation" if the liner notes (considered a reliable source) clearly state one composer did 3 tracks while the other did 20? Most games (MGS excluded) have the composers billed in the correct order (in order of contribution), so not like this is a major problem for all game articles. To the general, mostly unaware reader, it's most likely assumed that the first listed in the infobox did the most in their field, be it art, music, etc. Even though the MGS games do credit guys first under the "lead" role, in reality, it's only because they wrote the main theme and nothing else. The reason why I argue this is that it could be misleading to some readers, however slightly. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 04:25, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Would be hard to comment on that without the full context, but if one composer did seven times the work (though this might not be reflected by track count alone), I would hope to see that reflected in the credits order. It's very hard to argue with how a work chooses to portray its credits, egalitarian or not. (Liner notes aren't "reliable" in that they have no reputation for fact-checking/accuracy, but they are usually "official" as a self-published source.) – czar 05:33, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Which is exactly the issue I was having on the MGS5 articles. (Ludvig Forssell did 90% of the soundtrack, but Justin Burnett, who was credited with just four tracks by himself, was listed in front of Forssell) And how do liner notes have no reputation for fact-checking? Many of them have comments from the composers/game designers themselves, so it would be silly to not consider them reliable. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 09:03, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd say that's for Forssell to take up with the publisher—not our place to right great wrongs, and we don't know the production differences between the soundtrack and the game (hence we are best off engaging with the least amount of original interpretation). Self-published sources can lie or at least not remember accurately while secondary, reliable sources, by their mandate to fact-check, review the evidence to make a judgment call. Secondary sources provide that extra degree of vetting. Anyway, I'd like to stay on topic about unifying the credit fields' documentation. – czar 10:00, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't see how this isn't relevant, especially as the current documentation says to list the writers in order of contribution. And I really don't see how liner notes can lie any more than the game's credits could, if we're worried about that. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:14, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, why aren't character artists to be listed in the infobox? (Do not list people with titles such as "Character designer" or "Environment artist" (these should be described in the article's development-related section);) This rule is ignored all the time, even on FA ranked articles such as Chrono Trigger. I say we change this to include them in the infobox officially. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:39, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Should multi-platform Reception charts be removed? Part II

Continuing on from this link here, I was following the rules by using multi-platform Reception charts for only two to four console versions, and yet 81.158.230.137 broke the "not too tall, not too wide" rules by reverting them all to Standard Reception charts and using improper English on the following articles: Burnout (video game), Burnout 2: Point of Impact, Burnout 3: Takedown, Burnout Revenge, Burnout Legends, Burnout Dominator, Burnout Crash!, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2002, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2001, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2000, Tiger Woods 99 PGA Tour Golf , and Minority Report: Everybody Runs. Could somebody do something about it? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 22:04, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Never mind. I remodified Reception charts to multi-platform for two to four games, dropped the GameRankings digits to two, and removed aggregator scores from prose on all articles, and I did it all by myself, if that makes you happy. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:18, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

To be honest, it's your choice. But for me, it's the standard reception charts because it doesn't take up/waste too much space by filling in N/A to review websites that don't have publication reviews on a port such as iOS, but it's your choice which one to use. And can you please stop using the word "improper English" because that is a very rude and hypocritical thing to say and that completely disrespects the Wikipedia guidelines. 81.158.230.137 (talk) 01:45, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I'll be careful and watch my manners and language next time, okay? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 01:52, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Foreign language titles in the lede's opening sentence

(example) Our project has a strange habit of putting Japanese titles in the lede's opening—the article's most precious sentence. Non-English names, unless the article topics have strong affiliations with the language, really have no business being in the first sentence. MOS:FORLANG:

If the subject of the article is closely associated with a non-English language, a single foreign language equivalent name can be included in the lead sentence, usually in parentheses. For example, an article about a location in a non-English-speaking country will typically include the local language equivalent

Chibi-Robo might be a Japanese series, but its Japanese title is of little consequence to understanding its content, and it is not closely associated enough to warrant that type of exclusive real estate. Unless we need the Japanese characters/alt title to understand the sources (...do we ever?) it makes little sense to give whole lines in the intro to stuff that is useless to almost all of our readership. (This is not limited to Japanese titles, but that is the language most often abused in the opening sentence.) I suggest moving the foreign language titles to a footnote, if not just eliminating most of them altogether, and updating WP:VG/GL accordingly. czar 03:49, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm all for it, I've always thought all the Japanese names/characters always cluttered up the opening sentence to a majority of readers, who don't know the language. However, I've been met with a lot of resistance whenever Ive briought it up in the past, so I don't know how well this will go over... Sergecross73 msg me 04:06, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

An idea was raised at the FAC for Children of Mana that I've decided to adopt going forwards that's kind of a compromise- putting most of the Japanese title in a footnote. For that article, the lead sentence is now "Children of Mana, originally released in Japan as Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana,[Note 1] is a 2006 action role-playing game for the Nintendo DS handheld console.", with Note 1 as "Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana (聖剣伝説DS CHILDREN of MANA Seiken Densetsu DS: Chirudoren obu Mana^?, lit. "Legend of the Sacred Sword DS: Children of Mana")". That one came about because the nihongo template got stupidly long, but I think in general even for shorter names yanking out everything but the romanization de-clutters the lead quite a bit. The original name of the game may be important enough to put in the lead sentence, but probably not 3 versions of it. --Pres N 04:56, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with PresN and the approach given on Children of Mana. For anyone trying to look up Japanese sources for a video game, knowing the Japanese title is the first step, but leaving most of the title as a footnote declutters the lead.--十八 05:04, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm on board with shifting it to a foot note as well. Keeps the content but prevents it from cluttering the lede. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 05:09, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Unless the Japanese name of a game is common to the majority of its international releases as well, example Ni no Kuni, I concur with de-emphasizing the importance of Japanese titling or {{nihongo}} use in article leads by either the footnoting method laid out above, or any other solution that's determined as workable. ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏʟyᴄʜ - ✉✎ 14:51, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Also would add the case where there was never a western release, such as Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan. (Katamari Damacy would also qualify for the above as a Japanese title that remains adopted with the western release). --MASEM (t) 22:21, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Take note of MOS:JAPAN#Using Japanese in the article body, which I would believe is why this occurs. You should seek a guideline change there in tandem if you believe this to be poor form. --Izno (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, Chibi-Robo might be a Japanese series, but its Japanese title is of little consequence to understanding its content is not the criterion, which you even quoted for our provision. It is not understanding that a name is to impart but a close associat[ion]. Your argument on this point is specious. --Izno (talk) 13:10, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

If it isn't clear, many of us think that most games developed in Japan do not show a "close connection" with the country, especially when their Japanese titles are so sparingly used in English sources as to be impertinent. I also see no conflict with MOS:JAPAN, especially when the title moves to a footnote in the pertinent cases. If it's a video game developed and exclusively released in Japan with only Japanese sources and only known by a Japanese title, by all means add the template. Those cases are not my concern and are but a small subset of the ways in which we currently invoke {{nihongo}} in the lede. czar 14:29, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the Ni no Kuni is the exception that proves the rule. Rule being: place the Japanese name or names in a footnote. Exception being: unless the name of the article is in Japanese to begin with. What's the call on translating a fully Japanese title in the lead? I'd also like to open the discussion about a policy on use of {{nihongo}} to provide katakana for every. single. character name. E.g. Goemon (series). Axem Titanium (talk) 15:47, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I've got a feeling this should be determined by the length of a game's foreign language title: for instance, the lead of Final Fantasy Type-0 doesn't seem overly long to me, while something like Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga is rather large from the inclusion of katakana and romaji. A single long title can be seen in Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below, which is properly gigantic. Mind you, this could make things overly complicated, so it might be easier to make something like this a footnote for all titles. --ProtoDrake (talk) 15:54, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the more caveats you add, the more editors will try to find ways to weasel out of them. Better to have a cut and dry rule, IMO. Axem Titanium (talk) 17:26, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Understood. --ProtoDrake (talk) 18:21, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree too, especially it seems like a lot of the time its drive-by or newbie editors - it'd be best to make it simple to explain and understand... Sergecross73 msg me 18:32, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

How about a suggested minimum length of characters before a foreign name should generally be moved to a footnote? Seems to me that once something goes over 50-or-so characters, it could be moved into a footnote. Of course, this could be used as a general guideline. ~Mable (chat) 18:37, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree; I always thought that "Metal Gear Solid (Japanese: メタルギアソリッド Hepburn: Metaru Gia Soriddo)" wasn't particularly necessary to mention. --Soetermans. T / C 09:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Generally, I consider nihongo templates overly excessive if the game's title is "western" to begin with, even if it is a Japanese-developed game. Example cases would be Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy, where even the Japanese title is a katakana rendering of the western title. In cases such as Toukiden (討鬼伝), however, the Japanese name in the lead paragraph would make more sense. Perhaps something should be written in the VG guidelines which points out when it is best not to add Japanese names to the lead paragraph? --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:23, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

GameZone review pages end up with errors!

Something is terribly wrong with GameZone's review pages, as all of them have gotten error messages! And it seems that these review pages haven't been fixed yet! Here are these two examples. Does anyone have any idea why? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 03:25, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Probably links that are broken. Maybe use the Wackback Machine to get them back or contact GameZone to see if they can do anything about it. GamerPro64 03:33, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Speaking of errors, it seems that the entire 1UP.com website except its home page has been down for days! When will it be back up? Here's an example of the link I'm trying to post to the Medal of Honor: Infiltrator article here. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 21:02, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Well the issue with 1UP is that its dead and they have robots.txt to prevent the Wayback Machine from archiving it. And with Archive.is being banned from Wikipedia, unless you have used WebCite on a link before it died on 1UP, its pretty much gone forever. Basically we're watching a corpse of a body once loved slowly deteriorate without being able to properly preserve it. GamerPro64 21:09, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

A bunch of 1UP.com articles on Halo: Reach that were down a few days ago are accessible as of right now; I was just able to archive those and I archived the Infiltrator page for you just in case. —zziccardi (talk) 17:48, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

More eyes on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources

Since sourcing is essential for a proper article here, this is a call to have more people to take a look and get involved with the Source talk page. There are a lot of sources that are being discussed on their reliability and consensus hasn't been reached for some of them. GamerPro64 16:28, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I'll try to be more active with it again... Sergecross73 msg me 19:33, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Help needed with K′ reception

In trying to add reception for the character of K′, one review that talked about him was removed from Gaming Age. I tried using the archive [11] to find in the Dreamcast section King of Fighters '99 Evolution but it gives me a mistake. Any possiblity to still find this source? Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 22:47, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

More general language to avoid : calling out position on MC/GR w/o non-MC/GR source

This is a problem that I've seen come up for films too (particularly The Shawshank Redemption) in that editors will want to include a game's position on the overall MC/GR lists based on lists these sites have. I would argue that we should avoid using that type of approach, and only call out the MC/GR position if a secondary or third-party source does so (such as [12] that covers GTAV hitting the highest score in 2013, where a number of other games are listed). This avoids any type of potential OR that might come from favoritism (eg, does one consider only one platform, ignore other platforms a game came out of, etc.) as well as reflects the fact these lists remain dynamic. --MASEM (t) 18:56, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Ugh never do this. Hopeless to maintain and a largely meaningless metric. Not only are the publications different between games, but most likely different people reviewed them within the same publication. There's not even a basis for comparison at this point. You're not comparing apples to apples, you're comparing apples to cream of IKEA furniture soup garnished with the tears of the fallen 2016 Republican Presidential candidates. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:05, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Eyes on Masafumi Ogata

Can someone take a look at Masafumi Ogata? My redirect was reverted. czar 21:49, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I focus mainly on VGM and it's composers on Wikipedia (you might have noticed), but besides co-composing Sonic CD, he isn't notable at all. He's a better fit for Sega Retro. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:56, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

That's what I thought, but I need extra eyes/external judgment on these sorts of articles so it's not just me making broad strokes. I plan on bringing more cases to WT:VG so more people can watch & participate (instead of me writing tomes in isolation on the articles' talk pages). czar 15:38, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Formatting for DLC content titles

What is the proper way to format DLC content, if it is named, with italics or quotes? I've always done quotes because I felt that was the most appropriate. Or might it depend on what the content is? I'm wondering, due to it being brought up in the GA review for Batman: Arkham Knight. Here are some examples of its DLC, with the titles put in bold now for uniformity here. Example 1: story, playable DLC Batgirl: A Matter of Family. Example 2: Bat-family Skins pack, which includes six character skins based on alternate timelines for the playable characters of the game. If the format isn't uniform, would 1 be italics and 2 quotes? Thanks. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 05:33, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I am definitely not an expert, but I feel that if the DLC pretty much is its own work (new campaign, new levels, new story... that sort of thing), it should be in italics, and if it merely adds onto another work (like a costume pack or a new set of weapons or items), it should be in quotes.--IDV^talk 05:49, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree with IDV. The scope and tone of, say, BioShock 2#Minerva's Den is not the same as Just Cause 2#Downloadable content. --Soetermans. T / C 08:05, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

This doesn't come down to rules about size of the DLC—it's about what is and isn't a creative work. If Minerva's Den and Enter the Dominatrix are treated by sources as creative works (usually as standalone experiences distinct from the main game), then its title should be italicized. But the Bat-family Skins is just a proper noun—it doesn't even need quotation marks... unless you need to refer to it as some kind of discrete entity? In most cases, it's better to use a description of the DLC instead of "Bat-family Skins" (i.e., "Following the game's release, the company released a series of cosmetic downloadable content packs for purchase, including alternative character models for the main character.") The article's sources use no quotations, quotations, and italics in different places for "Batgirl: A Matter of Family", but the most common treatment is quotations. After it's first introduced in quotations (as a discrete entity alongside the other quoted DLC releases), I would drop the quotes and leave it a proper noun in title case (or, better, refer to it as the Batgirl story/whatever). czar 15:05, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. It doesn't seem likely that the MLA/New York Times is going to come up with formatting rules for DLC anytime soon, but this is how it goes for written works and visual media:

Standalone creative works get italics (Book Title, Movie Name, TV Show)
Creative works that are a part of a larger whole get quotes ("Chapter 1", "Short Story in a Collection", "Episode Name")
Non-creative works get nothing

Note that TV episodes and Short stories, even though they could be a "standalone thing" that's read/watched on its own still get quotes, because they're part of a series or larger book. By that logic, the game is a standalone work (Batman: Arkham Knight), a DLC that is a creative work only exists as a part of the game ("Minerva's Den"), and a skin pack is just a thing (Bat-family Skins). I agree with Czar that it's usually less awkward to just drop the "name" of a skin pack/item pack and just say what it actually is in prose. --Pres N 15:36, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the input everyone. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 20:09, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Navbox style?

Does someone know of a general guideline on video game series navboxes? WP:VG/T doesn't say anything about them. Is there a reason to shorten titles? For instance, {{Borderlands series}}, was changed, from Borderlands 2 to 2, from Tales from the Borderlands to Tales. Is this necessary? Does this save space? Would the general reader automatically assume that 2 is short for Borderlands 2? Or {{Fallout series}}, with Fallout: New Vegas as New Vegas? Or the {{Assassin's Creed}} games, dropping Assassin's Creed from the link? --Soetermans. T / C 10:58, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

There's no guideline. I like to shorten because it helps the reader to more quickly identify the page they are looking for, as they already know the context is "X topic" and the game "X game". There's a discussion in there about accessibility to be had, but that's really only a question for the 1-numeral games such as Borderlands 2 being shortened to 2, IMO. --Izno (talk) 13:39, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, more to the point, one single character is a lot tougher to click than the series title plus that character. Tezero (talk) 15:16, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, but when you have a bunch of games in a row with similar names and no shortening, you end up with a sea of blue links where most of the words are repeated. --Pres N 15:32, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Single digits are passable when everything in that line is a single digit. When you start getting sub-titles and single digits mixed together it looks a mess and is a navigational pain. - X201 (talk) 15:36, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

I believe its generally acceptable, though in the templates I maintain, I only do it if the naming structure is the same in every title. I usually revert it if the naming structure differs. For example:

Acceptable - Assassin's Creed * 2 * 3

Not Acceptable - Borderlands * Tales

I'd only keep the "Tales" version, for example, had the title been literally been Borderland Tales, which it of course, was not. Sergecross73 msg me 15:51, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Seems like potayto/potahto aesthetic fixes for stuff that ain't broke. I can see it working with numerical sequel titles like Assassin's Creed 2/3/etc. but with names that don't follow a consistent format like the Tales from the Borderlands -> Tales one, it doesn't seem very intuitive for someone unfamiliar with the series (like me!) to look at that and surmise what the title actually is. @ClassicOnAStick:, comments? ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏʟyᴄʜ - ✉✎ 16:12, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

What about New Vegas, keep Fallout or drop it? Or say, {{Five Nights at Freddy's}}? --Soetermans. T / C 17:28, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

While I did come up with the question after seeing @ClassicOnAStick:'s edits, I by no means mean that those are somehow incorrect :) --Soetermans. T / C 17:51, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I dunno, I'm no expert, but... for FNAF, I would say that since that new "FNAF World" game isn't structured with the full name (Five Nights at Freddy's) as part of its official title/common name like the other entries, just the acronym, I would say it should be 2 - 3 - 4 - FNAF World, but I don't feel strongly enough about the aesthetic difference to disagree with 2 - 3 - 4 - World; at most it would just be WP:IDONTLIKEIT grumbling from me over personal preference. As for the Fallout one, it's more cut-and-dry for me; Fallout: New Vegas consists of a subtitle that doesn't have an unusual structure in comparison to other entries, and I'm pretty sure New Vegas is referred to as such often in RSes and is also easily recognizable by readers as what game it may be. I think it would be better as 2 - 3 - New Vegas - 4, but I wouldn't be bothered that much by it being done differently. My 2 cents-- again, over aesthetic differences that I don't really think make a huge difference to the WP reader's experience overall... ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏʟyᴄʜ - ✉✎ 17:59, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Oops, forgot FNAF World is a spin-off that's in it's own row, but yeah. Just took a proper look at the FNAF navbox, and yeah, those IMO shouldn't all be written out in full. ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏʟyᴄʜ - ✉✎ 18:11, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

My 2 cents - If Five Nights at Freddy's World is on its own row, then I'd write it out fully. If one were to merge it up to the mainline level, then I'd shorten it to World. Same with the Fallout template. Sergecross73 msg me 19:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion at Crytek UK

See Talk:Crytek UK#Requested move 3 October 2015. --Mika1h (talk) 09:20, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Dragon Quest subtitles in the page name

According to WP:SUBTITLES, it's preferred to omit the subtitle in the page name. Does anybody oppose this? If not, I'll ask User:Anthony Appleyard to move them. The other main series Dragon Quest already omit the subtitle. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:31, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

In the general, WP:SUBTITLES needs to be balanced with WP:DISAMBIG. In the specific case of video games, it seems to me we have a large number of articles including subtitles outside Dragon Quest. I'm not sure it's sensible to move Dragon Quest around and no others, if we think that SUBTITLES is something we should care about. --Izno (talk) 23:57, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, I don't believe we should apply a naming convention guideline meant for books to video games. :P --Izno (talk) 23:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Also if we do decided to remove subtitles we should not remove them for games that use them but don't have any Roman or Arbaric numerals to denote sequels (ex the Zelda and the ace Attoney series).--67.68.29.107 (talk) 00:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
I've been applying SUBTITLES for years. I don't think the idea is to blindly chop the subtitle off, but to see what the sources use. If the sources refer to "Chapters of the Chosen" instead of "Dragon Quest IV" throughout the reviews, then there would be a strong case to keep the subtitle as a necessary part of the common name. (I don't think it needs to be all or nothing for the series.) This said, reviews rarely use the subtitle alone and it's rarely ambiguous when the subtitle is not invoked often enough to be part of its common name. czar 01:08, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
The policy you linked was originally only applied to books. It was unilaterally expanded to include "other medium, such as a movie, TV special or video game" on April 27, 2013, on the basis of one person's suggestion at a completely unrelated discussion. As far as I can tell, the Film, Television, and Video games WikiProjects were not consulted about the change, nor provided any concerted project input to the discussion. My preference for subtitles has always been to include them in the article title wherever possible to aid in precision (except to the point where it crosses into nebulous "super long title" territory, e.g. Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden), but to omit them for reading flow as necessary in the prose. A prime example is an article I'm currently working on: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, when Final Fantasy XIV exists. Axem Titanium (talk) 04:58, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- I understand, but there is only one Dragon Quest IX, so would that still apply? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 05:08, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm very much opposed. WP:SUBTITLES points to WP:CONCISE. That says "The goal of conciseness is to balance brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic to a person familiar with the subject area". There is also WP:PRECISION: "Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that". How is having article titles like The Elder Scrolls V, Metal Gear Solid 3 or Assassin's Creed IV more "concise" or more "precise" than having the actual title of the game? I don't think WP:COMMONNAME applies either, because then we would wind up with titles like Skyrim, MGS3 or AC:BF. Besides, what's keeping us from changing a guideline? --Soetermans. T / C 09:47, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

- - Nothing, I just thought it was inconsistent with the other DQ games (Dragon Quest II and III don't have the subtitles listed) Would it be better for articles that don't have the subtitles in the name, to add them? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:38, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I say we should. We can't have inconsistencies like this. What has been pointed out already is that the subtitles guidelines was decided elsewhere that it should apply to video games also. --Soetermans. T / C 08:08, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd say the actual official title (unless it's super duper long) is the most concise and precise name that requires the least amount of interpretation to arrive at, and a worthy basis for a project-wide style guideline. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:09, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

...the common name is what sources use most often to refer to something. So I think there's a solid case for Skyrim as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's common name. How does the game's title appear in sources? When sources use the subtitle just as much as the series name+number, it makes sense to keep both (I imagine Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag would fall in that category). Again, the subtitles shouldn't be unequivocally chopped off but reflective of how the sources refer to the game. If the subtitle is rarely used in reviews, it should absolutely be removed per the guideline as is established practice. czar 15:32, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

That's exactly the point I tried to convey, most omit the subtitles when talking about the main series DQ games. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:04, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Video game articles are rarely called their common name, which I still think is a good thing, because most of WP:VG/RS is, in the end, still written for an audience familiar with video games. So we have articles starting with Call of Duty, not COD. GTA 5 is a common abbreviation, but the article's title is Grand Theft Auto V. Sources use The Phantom Pain, we have Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. James Cameron's Avatar: The Game is called, understandably, Avatar. Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie is called King Kong in reliable sources. In the end, most "common names" for video games is just a VG/RS dropping half of the title or using its initials. --Soetermans. T / C 19:05, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article titles is a WP policy and it explains why "GTA V" would not be a sufficient for most people to know what it was. The full yet subtitle-less name is usually the most concise and precise name over the abbreviation. I also cannot recall a single move request to an abbreviation like COD or GTA in my years here. Again, The Phantom Pain is not sufficient for recognizing the subject and I just moved PJ's KK (while distinguishing from the film by the same name). czar 14:37, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Though I agree that with video games, we should usually use the official name for articles (though I doubt anyone would want to rename Call of Duty to "COD" ;p), I was wondering about Street Fighter II: The World Warrior - I've never even known Street Fighter II had a subtitle until I was redirected to the article. I figured I'd bring it up now the topic is being discussed anyway. ~Mable (chat) 20:18, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

TWW is likely to distinguish it from all the other SFIIs. Sometimes the subtitle is better for distinguishing the title than the game's release year. czar 14:37, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Sort of related, so I'm gonna ask about it in this thread. Gyakuten Kenji 2, the sequel to Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, is almost always referred to as Ace Attorney Investigations 2 in English by reliable sources, and even by Capcom themselves. Should it be moved to Ace Attorney Investigations 2, despite how it has not actually been released in English? --IDV^talk 12:11, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd support that based on a skim of the sources used in the article. (For those following the above, it's a better fit for recognizability and naturalness.) czar 14:37, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Potential alternative to Metacritic in the works

Before I begin, it's important to note that the site in question is still in its building stages and definitely not ready for consideration right now. However, I see that it has potential and worth keeping it in mind for sometime down the line.

I'll be blunt. Metacritic is problematic. Extremely problematic. It's a for-profit website that seems to have an undue influence not only on the public perception of a game, but also in some cases the payout of bonuses for developers. It has a deliberately hidden weighting system that obfuscates the basis of its primary metric, the metascore. Certain major publications are omitted for unpublicized reasons and the ones that are included may be subtly increased in weight for purposes unknown (read: money). A disingenuous Metacritic-reviewer-publisher industrial complex has developed in which publications which have "made the cut" to appear on Metacritic are favored by publishers and get review copies of games early. This Wikiproject's reliance (or over-reliance) on Metacritic scores to set the tone of a Reception section is also quite problematic, given the above. This has been discussed many times, but this particular discussion jumps out in my head. In including Metacritic on virtually every modern game reception section, we are contributing massively to the feedback loop echo chamber that is only amplifying Metacritic's power. Whether or not that's a bad thing is something I'd like to discuss more as a project but not here.

The new website is called OpenCritic. Here's the link to the FAQ. Pros:

It's not for profit, no chance for even the appearance of collusion
The "formula" for composite score is open: it's just a simple arithmetic mean
Unscored reviews are featured instead of excluded (but still don't contribute to composite score)
Sensitive to the current trend of "updated review scores" based on actual performance post-launch (e.g. SimCity, Halo Master Chief Collection, DriveClub, etc.)
Documented criteria for what publications have earned a spot in the system

Cons:

Not currently planning to populate the back-catalog of games from before 10/1/2015. They have about ~1000 major releases of the past three years which fit some criteria outlined in the FAQ but they only claim "comprehensive coverage" for all games released post 10/1/2015
No 3DS and Vita (yet?)

I just wanted to get this site on people's radar as a potential alternative to Metacritic when/if it becomes comprehensive enough to rival the big MC. I had previously argued for the inclusion of GameRankings because its mere presence (even if potentially unduely high) dilutes the monopoly that Metacritic has established. Hopefully OpenCritic will become a resource that provides the same function as Metacritic without the caveats and problems. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:15, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I made a draft for the article: Draft:OpenCritic. Sources for it are hidden in the References section but if anyone wants to help make it into an article that would be great. GamerPro64 22:20, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

- Draft expanded. It should be ready to be moved, but would rather have someone else check that. Note that the site's logo should be PD-textlogo (too simple to be copyrighted), though a screenshot of the website would of course be copyrighted if it uses game images. --MASEM (t) 23:17, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
  - Mainspaced it. And I think OpenCritic might be a swell source to use in the future. Probably also help offset the controversies Metacritic bares. GamerPro64 00:10, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

I definitely think it should be a consideration for WP:VG/RS, as well as for inclusion on {{Video game reviews}}, in the future. – Rhain1999 ^{(talk to me)} 01:11, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to see how the rest of the industry reacts to this before we solidify it as a source. I would say that if we don't use it for reception including an external link to the game's page on OC would be easily within the realm of reason. --MASEM (t) 01:48, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Of course, we should definitely wait and see how the site is received beforehand. – Rhain1999 ^{(talk to me)} 01:56, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, we definitely need to wait and see how this goes, and if/how well its adapted to the industry. I hate to be the only negative one here, but sometimes hyped things like this flop. A few years ago a lot of people thought that the Ouya was going to redefine the industry, and we know how that turned out... Sergecross73 msg me 14:58, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

"reviews are presented with the review author's name listed" I take it Edge won't be on Open Critic then? Seeing as they never list reviewer names in order to allow the reviewer freedom to say what they want. - X201 (talk) 14:25, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

adding opencritic to the videogame template

This is an alternative to metacritic that is transparent in calculation method and includes editorial reviews — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.23.55.237 (talk) 20:29, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I think we should wait a little bit before adding it to the template. The sites three days old. Though I will say I like what I'm seeing from it so far. GamerPro64 20:33, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree we need to wait to use it on the template, but as I mentioned before I can fairly see an EL to the site on game pages that have it. --MASEM (t)

For the sake of keeping everything in the one place, I'd suggest continuing the discussion within the thread made earlier: #Potential alternative to Metacritic in the works. --benlisquare_T•C•E 15:03, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

VG templates for deletion

Checking the VG templates, I've nominated a couple for deletion, see Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2015_October_5. --Soetermans. T / C 10:52, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

And another one. --Soetermans. T / C 12:33, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Mushihimesama Futari

user_talk:czar proposed merging Mushihimesama Futari to Mushihimesama#Sequel. I believe the article has enough mention/external sources to be notable for an article by itself as per Reliable Sources for Video Games [13]) as stated under WP:VG/RS. ♠♠ BanëJ ♠♠ ^(Talk) 09:40, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

WonderSwan

I think anyone should take a look at Godzil's statement in Talk:WonderSwan#To Hounder4 and any other try to revert correction. -- Hounder4 12:50, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Premature GANs

So I've just noticed that Lucasstar1 has rapidly nominated five Sonic articles at GAN, all of which they have not contributed to and will most definitely fail once reviewed. Sonic the Hedgehog CD still has numerous citation needed tags and a big "verification needed" tag at the top. Sonic Heroes and Sonic Colour's leads are too short and just will not pass. I left a message on his talk page asking if he would be interested to contribute to the articles instead of nominating them or if he would withdraw the GANs. I don't want to discourage him, but it would put my mind to ease if I just removed all the nominations now and help him improve the articles if he's really interested. Should they be removed? JAGUAR 16:03, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

I think they should. Editors shouldn't throw things at the wall and hope something sticks. Especially when its editors who barely edited on the article. If at all. GamerPro64 16:06, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

I think Lucastar1 should be contacted too just in case.Tintor2 (talk) 16:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Quick fail them, or whatever the not-WP:BITEy way is at GA. --Izno (talk) 16:12, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

I've removed the GANs from the talk pages and let Lucasstar know that they would have been failed without improvements made. It would saved somebody reviewing them just to quick-fail them, I suppose. I didn't want him to feel discouraged from improving anything, so I explained that I might be able to help him out if he's interested. JAGUAR 16:16, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I saw these pop up on my watchlist earlier today but didn't have the time to do anything about it. I would have done the same, I maintain a lot of those articles, and they aren't quite GA-ready. (Sonic Generations actually failed a GAN years ago, and really hasn't been reworked since...) Sergecross73 msg me 17:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Adding expansion packs to a company's games list

So a user states that because other articles list expansion packs to their main games in their work list, such as BioWare, Obsidian and Bethesda, the CD Projekt Red article should as well. My argument when reverting him is that these expansion packs have their own articles, while the ones for The Witcher 3 just redirect to a small subsection on the main article, so I didn't think they were that notable to be listed. Opinions? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:45, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

There's the red link/redirect aspect of "you will never know those pages exist in that context without red(irecting) links to the articles". Then there's the "this isn't a WP:NAVBOX problem nor a WP:WTAF problem". My feeling is that including the links is not a problem in this context and will enable navigation from the developer's list of games. --Izno (talk) 16:14, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

His/her argument was that since it's also a retail product, it should be listed. I suppose he's right, though. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:17, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Dark Souls series

I notice that the page for the Dark Souls series was renamed to Souls (series). However... there is no "Souls" series.

Dark Souls is the spiritual successor to Demon's Souls, not the sequel. The page in question states as much itself, as do the Eurogamer article it cites, the pages for the individual games, and those pages' own citations. Also note that Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, directly states "Dark Souls series" in interviews such as this one.

I believe it would actually be a violation of copyright for Dark Souls to be part of the same series as Demon's Souls, as Demon's Souls is a Sony IP. This is why From came up with a separate IP and developed a spiritual successor instead. Splatterhouse5 (talk) 09:58, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

There was already a discussion about this. Souls Series is the WP:COMMONNAME. And if you want sources, in this interview with Eurogamer, Hidetaka Miyazaki says that his favorite boss from the "Souls" series is a boss from Demon's Souls. CurlyWi (talk) 10:51, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm finding it difficult to consider it a series at all. But if any name is suitable, then I htink it would be "Souls". That's what I think I've heard it called most often. --ProtoDrake (talk) 11:29, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

I feel that the series page should make some distinction that the name is a term of art rather than a proper "series" name (ala Call of Duty). I don't have a problem with the grouping of the games together as it does, sources clearly support that, but I do think that "Souls" is not as much a proper name but a shortcut for lack of a proper name. --MASEM (t) 14:38, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Keep in mind, reading that article carefully, the only person calling it "Souls" is Jeffrey Matulef (the Eurogamer writer), not Miyazaki. That shows that "Souls" is a term adopted by the press, but not any official name. --MASEM (t) 14:40, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

That's the whole WP:COMMONNAME discussion again... Is one source (I don't know if there are more) enough to call it the series Souls? And more importantly, are we going to consider Demon's Souls a Souls game? Sony might own the IP to Demon's, it was developed by From. While not an actual Souls title, Demon's Souls is similar in tone and gameplay. I am not familiar with Dark Souls; are the games narratively connected? If so, does it refer to Demon's? If not, I'd call the series' article Dark Souls and mention Demon's as a spiritual predecessor. --Soetermans. T / C 15:45, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) As far as I can tell, only the Dark Souls duology have any kind of plot connection, and then only a very tenuous one. Demon's Souls is its own entity (Dark Souls is a "spiritual successor" rather than a sequel of any kind), as is Bloodborne. The only "series" connection between any of them is their dark tone and hardcore gameplay, which isn't as strong a connection by any means as many other series. --ProtoDrake (talk) 15:54, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

On top of that, Demon's Souls is itself the spiritual successor to the King's Field series. If being spiritual successor is a strong enough relationship for different works to be considered part of the same series for the purposes of this wiki, then the article should be merged into King's Field (series). Splatterhouse5 (talk) 00:18, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

It's pretty clear from any basic search that (1) sources refer to Demon/Dark Souls as a series, and (2) they call this series the Souls series. From the first page of hits without any quoted text in search: [14][15][16][17][18]. It has less to do with what its creators call it as much as what the sources call it, as that's what we're using to substantiate an article (a.k.a. its common name). czar 15:52, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- This is why I think we should have an article but we should be clear that "Souls" series is a name adapted by the press and far from any official capacity. Instead of "The Souls series of video games devloped by From Software." we should state "The Souls series is a term-of-art used by the video game press to refer to several video games developed by From Software feature common gameplay elements and themes but otherwise not linked in any narrative fashion." (roughly). --MASEM (t) 16:05, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
  Wouldn't "The Souls series refers to ..." suffice? I.e., phrase it such that it doesn't imply official status. I think the extra detail about what journalists do strays close to original research. It would be better to follow-up with a source citation that says so if the dev doesn't see the series as a series. czar 16:10, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
  - That works too. I would just want to make sure that it's set as a non-official designation for the set of games. --MASEM (t) 16:53, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
Those links don't prove that Souls is the common name for the series, only that three media outlets have called it such. And only sometimes; each has also used Dark Souls as the name of the series. [19][20][21] Furthermore, it's not just that the creators choose to call the series Dark Souls. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are legally distinct IPs with separate ownership rights. Splatterhouse5 (talk) 00:18, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- - Personally, I would move Demons Souls to the Related titles section. Axem Titanium (talk) 05:58, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
    I agree. Splatterhouse5 (talk) 00:42, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Reading WP:COMMONNAME in detail, I see that it's not even applicable to this situation. It is not a policy for when the subject of the article is in question, but for what to call that subject. You can see this in every example. For FIFA, there's no question as to what FIFA is, but whether to call it by the full name or the acronym, in which case the acronym is used due to being the common name. Here, however, we're not really debating the name, but if there is a Dark Souls series (spanning Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, and the upcoming Dark Souls III) or if there is a Souls series (spanning the above and Demon's Souls). It's verified that the former exists, and the latter is just a term of art inconsistently used by some media outlets for a set of games that includes the Dark Souls series. Splatterhouse5 (talk) 00:42, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- I think this is a correct reading of the situation and support your interpretation. Demon's Souls seems to be often spoken in the same breath as Dark Souls/II/III. If anything, "Souls series" is a superset of the "Dark Souls series" which should be discussed in the context of the burgeoning "Dark Souls-like" genre. From an encyclopedia documentation perspective, I think it's proper to name the article "Dark Souls series" and put Demon's Souls in the Related titles section. It also has the side effect of obviating the need for the positively ridiculous hatnote, "Not to be confused with Soul (series)." Axem Titanium (talk) 01:24, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
The only reason Dark Souls wasn't named Demon Souls II was because Sony owned the name. I disagree in that we should considered Demon's Souls to be a related title only. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 01:28, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Is there a source for that? From what I understand, there are substantive gameplay differences, in addition to being set in a different fictional universe. Axem Titanium (talk) 03:53, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Hub world

When reading the wiki article for The Walking Dead: Season 2, I became confused with a passage that said reviewers were annoyed by the lack of hubs. I have a vagye idea of what hubs are but wanted to read more about this and was shocked to discover Wikipedia doesn't have an article on this... despite the fact that many articles currently include the text "hub world". Thoughts??--Coin945 (talk) 03:55, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like a good candidate for a description at Glossary of video game terms#H. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 04:04, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I was unable to find any sources to use, but hub world does have a Wiktionary entry, which could also be used: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hub_world — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maplestrip (talk • contribs) 08:12, 11 October 2015 (UTC)