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List of Pokémon (yes, this again)

Hope you all didn't miss me too much! Taking a break from working on the recent blizzard and diving back into the nightmare that is revamping the List of Pokémon (sandbox here). If you can recall, I started this project back in October and reception seemed pretty positive, so I do wish for this to come to fruition. The main issue I'm running across is determining exactly what is considered valuable encyclopedic content versus unnecessary in-game information. Personally, I think including information from the Pokédex would go a long way to helping readers understand the species in their proper context. A sentence or two at most for each Pokémon would suffice in this aspect. I figure that at a minimum, a section discussing the designs of Pokémon over the generations and the general reception to them is warranted in this article and have begun compiling sources accordingly. Various interviews with Masuda and Sugimori have revealed the basic process of designing Pokémon so that aspect is covered. What's more needed is specifics on each species—that's actually provided in a reliable source...which is the main problem thus far—so every Pokémon has at least something discussed about it.

If you have any sources that can be used in this list, please feel free to drop them off here or on the sandbox talk page. Many thanks in advance!! As a side note, since the list is beyond the 200 kB mark, splitting it by generation (with a main overarching article) when it's ready to be published is probably the best course of action. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 18:46, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Including information from the Pokedex would likely be a WP:COPYVIO if provided for every species. --Izno (talk) 19:31, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
That certainly throws a wrench in things... any ideas for a work-around? ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 19:45, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
I would say anything that approaches COPYVIO is not actually summarizing information, but is trying to present it all. In other words, it has gone into too much detail at that point. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:09, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
@Izno and Hellknowz:, I was thinking something along the lines of this (Bulbasaur example), though with the removal of the species name to avoid excessive quotations down the line. Leaves out some of the information provided in the Pokédex, but hits the main points about the seed and its relation to the species. The subsequent entries for Ivysaur and Venusaur would simply touch on the seed growing and blossoming. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 20:18, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
  • If this column format is the best way to do this, I'd consider limiting the last column to secondary source material so only the most important information is included. It's fine for some items to have little or no information, but I imagine this will collect a whole lot of cruft without a rule. I'd also avoid entries like GameSpot's Frank Provo and Kotaku's Patricia Hernandez have described Marill as "cute" because it doesn't add anything, on balance. I also think the color-coding might be overkill. The types column could just simply list "Grass, poison". czar 04:34, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
    • I think a one or two sentence (leaning toward one sentence) limit—with an edit notice specifying this limit if/when it reaches the mainspace—on in-universe material would suffice for keeping things in check, assuming the articles are monitored regularly. Checked in with a few non-video game people off-wiki and they said something in-universe would be helpful for understanding the context of each Pokémon. Going to hold off on doing anything on that front until I get more input from here, though. Definitely agree on removing the cherry-picked reception; I think those were just added in when we started merging content that's presently available in the mainspace. I'll go either way on the coloring, it's mainly there just to liven up the look. The split columns for primary and secondary typing are for enhanced sorting. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 04:49, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
      • I definitely prefer the table with color-coded typing, simply because this makes the (large) table a lot easier to read. My eyes flow from left to right easily because the colors are there. It also looks prettier, but that's subjective. I think a lot of the sources Cyclonebiskit linked in the draft's talk page can be used for other Pokémon-related articles as well, so it might be worth looking through them.
      • On-topic: I don't think it is bad not to have descriptions. If we only make use of secondary sources, we can make sure that everything said about the Pokémon is notable to some degree. I honestly think it is pretty decent already in generation 1, though I am sure it can be expanded upon. Design and name inspirations, design credits, real-world influence, and cross-the-board reception is probably what we should be focusing on. It'll always be difficult to balance, but at least we won't have a wall of in-universe text forming in the "notes" column. I think that would be more unfortunate than not mentioning Caterpie is a caterpillar-like creature. ~Mable (chat) 12:28, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
  • On the issue of color-coding the types, let's be honest, no one is going to come to Wikipedia to look up a type of a Pokemon; they gonna go to Bulbapedia. I think it would be easy for anyone to tag the article with {{Overcolored}}. And personally, I find it hard to see Ice, Electric and Steel since their colors behind the white text are very light, and I'm not even colorblind. How much harder or confusing would it be for someone who can't see shades of red (Fighting, Psychic, Fairy), green (Grass, Bug) or blue (Dragon, Ice, Water)?--十八 12:56, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Forgot about WP:ACCESS; going ahead and removing the coloring accordingly. Not going to be as pretty to look at, but it'll comply with MOS. Types are still useful to readers from an encyclopedic aspect as it's a core aspect of the franchise and helps establish what the creatures are. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 17:38, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
      • Just a note, WP:ACCESS says that color cannot be the only method to convey information; words+color is fine because it's an added visual discriminator that is helpful for readers who can see color and neutral to those who can't. I would prefer the colors to be kept and instead improve the figure/ground contrast between the text and cell color. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:11, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
        • Oh, well that makes this a bit more fun. I'll play around with colors in the contrast tool and see if I can come up with a scheme that's appropriate yet still similar to the colors players are used to. Definitely think the color is needed to make these tables more enjoyable to look at. Thanks for the clarification, Axem! ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 18:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
If you wanted to do it yourself, here's some ideas, but if not you could copy the colours Bulpapedia uses in their table.
Green (#18601E) = Grass
Red (#FE2E2E) = Fire
Blue (#0404B4) = Water
Yellow (Possibly #FFFF00 or #AEB404; hard to find a nice yellow) = Electric
Pink (#DF01D7) = Fairy. Anarchyte (work | talk) 23:46, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
@Anarchyte: Had the colors from Bulbapedia already used, but their formatting didn't really jive with WP:COLOR. Already devised a modified color scheme that betters the contrast while mostly retaining similar colors, but thanks for the suggestions! ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 00:16, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
  • On the point of accessibility, the mega evolutions might be an issue for screen readers (which read the rows directly across). I remember being linked to something related to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Accessibility#Data_tables in the past, but I can't find it now czar 00:36, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
    Hmm, appears to be an optional thing as it only pertains to screen readers that are presumably outdated. Unless it's requested, I'd rather leave it be. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 01:16, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
    Yeah... I'm big on ACCESS, and I'm a delegate at FLC (which requires general compliance), but even I'm fine with people using rowspans sensibly- I'm sorry, but if non-visual browsers a decade old support them, then they're fine. We don't support visual browsers like IE3, why would we support ancient (in internet terms) non-visual browsers. Also- my opinion is that the coloring in your test table is really great, much easier to read (as a non-visually-impaired person). You should definitely keep/use it, not fall back to plain text. --PresN 03:36, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Started up an example of what the sub-lists would be at User:Cyclonebiskit/Kalos. Given the relatively limited prose, sub-lists by generation should be just fine to make everything comfortably navigable. Should give everyone a good idea of where this is heading. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 01:21, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Category:Biopunk video games

Not sure Category:Biopunk video games is a defining classification. I can barely find any sources that discuss video games with this term. Thoughts? czar 20:28, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if this really tells you anything, but I'm a huge reader (and writer) of science fiction, and I'd never even heard the term "biopunk" before now. Sources in the WP article on biopunk indicate that the term was coined in the early 1990s and hasn't entered the mainstream consciousness yet. I think that will make it hard if not impossible to find video game references which use the term, especially for games released back in the 1990s (e.g. Final Fantasy VII).--Martin IIIa (talk) 15:59, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
If no sources use this term to describe video games, or only a very small amount do, than it shouldn't be a category. A lot of games may fall under this category without them ever being defined as such by anyone, making the category ultimately useless to find biopunk games. ~Mable (chat) 16:50, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_January_31#Category:Biopunk_video_games czar 18:08, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

bandboxing is jargon

The1337gamer recently tagged "bandboxing" as jargon. My opinion is that the jargon is "solved" by providing the link, since bandboxing is a difficult concept to explain in a summary of an article's gameplay. Thoughts? Should The1337gamer revert his edits or are the edits fine? --Izno (talk) 16:44, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

The link goes to a disambiguation page... --The1337gamer (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Which, as its 4th bullet, provides the desired definition. Should we be pointing to one of our lists of gaming jargon using something like bandbox (video game term)? (I know we have at least one.) --Izno (talk) 16:49, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Linking to a disamb. page is useless. It would be fine if the glossary of terminology article included the term "bandbox", and to link there, though it would be nice if you could find a source describing the term when you do so. I've never heard of "bandboxing" before, and wonder if it's even a real thing now... ~Mable (chat) 16:54, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) A link to a disambiguation page is no good. The reader shouldn't have to figure out which definition for an obsure term is correct. I think rewording the sentence to not use bandbox would be best, but a creating a link to Glossary of video game terms and adding an entry for bandbox would be fine. --The1337gamer (talk) 16:55, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Given that the term is something is also a common UI approach (drag and select), the lack of finding this term commonly even outside VGs definitely put it as jargon. There are other ways to say the same thing (eg "drag and select") that would be better here. --MASEM (t) 17:16, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
  • This is a generalist encyclopedia—the concept should be written out in the article in plain English. If it works, it can also link to an entry on the concept in the aforementioned Glossary, but only if we can source that Glossary entry to a secondary source. czar 18:05, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
    • I've been playing PC games for twenty years and I've never heard of that term. I just say "click and drag" to refer to that concept, which I think is much more commonly understood. Regardless, I agree that it doesn't help to link to a dab page where the desired definition isn't even the first one! Axem Titanium (talk) 00:51, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
      • I've been around computers since before GUIs and mice were standard features, right back to the 80x25 monochrome days, and used some of the earliest GUIs / window systems on the market (e.g. GEM, early MacOS, etc). I rate "bandboxing" as a highly unusual or obscure term. The first hits in Google are related to air traffic control. I recommend "drag-and-select", "drag-select", or similar; if it really needs to be mentioned. Looking at the article, it might be better to just say something like "selected with the mouse" and lose the detail (I don't see it as really necessary to have that level of detail), to be honest. Murph9000 (talk) 02:51, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Can't say I've encountered the term often. I've seen it occasionally (some of usages weren't UI related). But it's not common use and we wouldn't expect general reader to know it. So it should have a description or just alternate phrasing. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:48, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguators for video game industry BLPs

Hey'all! We need to discuss what disambiguator to use for BLPs about video game industry people. There is a lot of variety for disambiguators that ultimately don't mean anything different.

Of what I could find by quickly scanning the "(Company) People" categories for big game studios, I found:

Now, we can't use a "one size fits all" of course, but the first two mean the same thing and should be consistent, the third and fourth as well, and so do the last three (although these are not VG-specific). ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:08, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I believe game designer, programmer, executive, and businessman are preferred over all the others mentioned. I personally prefer disambiguators to actually refer to what the topic is. David Rosen probably isn't a "business" - I assume he's a businessman. Don James is not a video game, nor is he even a "video game-related topic" in the traditional sense, like Health (gaming) is. I'd think "businessman" or "executive" would be more proper for him, as that's what his profession. ~Mable (chat) 18:21, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
I would absolutely avoid "(video games)" and "(video gaming)" BLPs. We should try to use the profession as best as possible, to make it clear the disamb is a person. --MASEM (t) 20:00, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree that "(video games)", "(video gaming)", and "(business)" should be avoided for biographical articles. I also favor "(video game designer)" over "(game designer)", which could as easily apply to designers of board games, role-playing games, card games, mathematical games, etc.--Martin IIIa (talk) 15:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
No topic nouns like "video games" or "buisness". I prefer "video game designer", though I know we have a lot of just "game designer" and "game programmer", which is slightly ambiguous. For general stuff we have titles like directors or producers that the people are cited for. Probably up to whatever BLP guidelines are for even more generic dabs. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:52, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
I bluntly moved three of the above-listed articles to their actual professions (video games > executive; video gaming > consultant; business > businessman), which is definitely an improvement. I don't believe "executive" and "consultant" are the most common disambiguators, but I believe they do their job and describe the people well. ~Mable (chat) 14:29, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Erm...

So a page like this was simply deleted? http://web.archive.org/web/20151106152737/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takuyo

This is unbelievable and simply ridiculous. Keep up the good work Czar. Thanks for making the English Wikipedia a better place! You rock. --Raidiculoux (talk) 05:09, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

It was deleted because it didn't meet the video games notability guidelines. Please remain civil, and you might want to read about why it was deleted here. Anarchyte (work | talk) 05:24, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
So is this a regular contributor who has created a new account just to whine about something without giving away who they are? --The1337gamer (talk) 06:06, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Not much is lost, seeing as it was just a list of video games. If you can find proper sources, Raidiculoux, feel free to share them. Would be nice to be able to rectreate the article, but it would need some actual content. Note however, that most bluelinks in this article go to the Japanese Wikipedia. I thought it may be possible to create a category for this company ("Category:Takuyo games"), but we don't actually have any articles for these games. ~Mable (chat) 07:57, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Gambling in CS:GO?

Do you think it'd be possible to create an article about Gambling in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive economy? It seems to be a pretty large part of the community, with new (gambing) sites etc popping up all over the place, plus the scandals surrounding matchfixing (such as the iBuyPower and NetCodeGuides.com one). This would also include the case-opening mechanic of the game. So far I've found these sources on gambling in CS:GO:

Listing of sources

* = not sure if this is reliable, it's not listed on WP:VG/S
^ = listed under "unreliable"/currently has a discussion open on WP:VG/S

General

Match fixing / Scandals

Websites

Discussion

So with this all out the way, do you think it'd be possible? Anarchyte 09:14, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

edit: added a few more links Anarchyte 10:39, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Firstly, you should check the above sources against WP:VG/RS.

Secondly, it's probably a good topic, but it may be better to expand the content at eSports#Ethics first. --Izno (talk) 12:31, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I've already checked them all against WP:VG/S, Izno, as you can see by the small text. Anarchyte (work | talk) 12:43, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, it seems. I'm collapsing the sources so people can focus on the discussion. --Izno (talk) 13:47, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
I would tend to agree this might be a better topic under eSports (or perhaps even a new topic, "Gambling in eSports"). I don't think CS:GO is unique to have gambling, though certainly a mention on the CS:GO page and a link to the larger discussion at eSports or elsewhere makes sense. --MASEM (t) 15:39, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Both ethical gambling and non-ethical issues such as matchfixing are not unique to CSGO, no. The current section at eSports#Ethics notes matchfixing in StarCraft: Brood War; I'm sure there are other instances. --Izno (talk) 15:41, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
This all belongs in a section in the main CS:GO article, and maybe the eSports as one. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:03, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, summary style in the main article. If this spirals out into its own concept, you'll be able to tell by the length of the section compared to its weight within the article czar 04:36, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
I could try writing a draft for the CS:GO article but writing one for eSports would require more references than just ones about CS:GO. Anarchyte (work | talk) 05:19, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
You could make something of Competitive Counter-Strike, which right now redirects to an article which fails to cover professional competition. Spin out Counter-Strike:_Global_Offensive#Professional_competition and then extend it with gambling coverage. - hahnchen 11:22, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
I was thinking about putting it under the "Post-release" section called "Gambling and betting", or just making a new section named "Gambling and betting". Anarchyte (work | talk) 11:30, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

On economy, there could be a general video game economy that discusses the in game economies a lot of video games have developed, such as CS:GO, TF2, and various MMO models. Pinguinn (🐧) 18:22, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@Pinguinn: That'd work! There's references in the TF2 article about the hat market, etc. Runescape and other games might have content there, I haven't checked. Anarchyte (work | talk) 23:37, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
I don't think "video game economy" is a thing. If anything it'd be "economics of video games" but I think even that is way too broad to be sourced well. Unless you're talking about some institution of gambling across multiple video games (not to be confused with gambling, which it itself a game of chance), it's best discussed in the context of this single game, CSGO. czar 23:59, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
What about this article? Virtual economy. Anarchyte (work | talk) 00:59, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I've added the info to the CS:GO article. You can read it here. Anarchyte (work | talk) 09:22, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Talk:Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

For the last couple of months, I've been discussing the depiction of Quiet in The Phantom Pain on Talk:Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. To rephrase that: I've been repeating Wikipedia's guidelines on notability, on reliable sources, on what is controversy, on what is a decent article layout. The most active anon editor switches IP's often. @Czar:, @Prisonermonkeys: and @Sergecross73: have also responded, but this user cannot stop. It's annoying enough that they can't seem to understand that their reading of the guidelines is not the same as intended, but they're doing it constantly with a message like: "Stop trying to push your agenda. It's transparent to anyone that you try to stir up a controversy where there is none. You always do. That's your whole spiel. If it wasn't some game you could bitch about what you personally perceive to be "sexualisation", you'd find something else to be artificially offended about". Or "You folks obsess over this kind of stuff for no other reason than to be as obnoxious and supremacist as you can. What's going on in your heads? What's with this obsession? Are you incapable of differentiating between fiction and reality? Are artists not allowed to do whatever the hell they want with their characters or their work in general? Are they supposed to pander to you, the non-buying minority, simply because you're afraid of the female body?" Today: "I think we need dispute resolution here as you can't really argue with these kinds of people, unfortunately. Everything is sexist to them, it seems. Really every single thing. They can't even think of a world where something isn't sexist. Therefore, they have no endgame, no solution. The only thing they do is go around and troll/declare everything to be sexist."

This user cannot stop making accusations like this, calling people who do not agree with him "illiterate" and "trolls". I've had it with this guy. What is the right way to handle this kind of stuff? --Soetermans. T / C 10:47, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

WP:ANI. An admin there will probably be able to help, most likely by semiprotecting the article if not the talk page (given that the IP is hopping a bit, perhaps not deliberately). --Izno (talk) 12:42, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
I've protected the page for a month -the same length as the last time. (For the record, I'm not actually involved, I just commented on the talk page once or twice informing them how Forbes Contributors should be avoided.) Sergecross73 msg me 13:32, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
I've started an ANI discussion. --Soetermans. T / C 14:54, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
  • If consensus is against the editor, you're not required to entertain their refusal to listen. Stay cool when the editing gets hot and ping vg admins to diffuse whatever you need. I suppose the page protection will do that work for now. czar 05:30, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
To me right now it's more about the constant unfair criticsm and personal attacks on the talk page. The IP does not seem to understand when a lot of experienced editors do not understand with them, they're probably not right. --Soetermans. T / C 10:10, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
If you've got a consensus beyond the IP's stance, then just move on without their support. I'll re-protect the page if they continue to disrupt. I can also give them the "comment on content, not editors" speech, and even start reverting their comments if they're strictly rantings about editors. Sergecross73 msg me 13:32, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
@Sergecross73:, there's a recently created user that's on the same rant as one of the IP's. With comments that are the same, without contributing anything constructive, is reverting those comments okay? --Soetermans. T / C 11:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
@Sergecross73:, again today. Apparently, we keep going against consensus. It's very nice of them to remind us to be civil and less hostile. --Soetermans. T / C 16:07, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I'll leave a note on the talk page. All in all though, don't get too wrapped up in his rantings. They're ridiculous and annoying, but technically nothing I can prevent or act on. Still though, as long as the IP doesn't have a policy based consensus behind him, the changes won't happen. I'll continue to protect the page as long as necessary, and will start blocking if necessary if they begin to actively edit against consensus. In the meantime, merely make short, policy based responses, and ignore all the dramatics. His long winded responses aren't doing him any favors regardless, all they do is stifle discussion, something the IP needs if he wants to persuade people to his viewpoint. Sergecross73 msg me 18:12, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Thoughts about StrategyWiki

Can I ask the various members of this project for their thoughts about StrategyWiki? I'm wondering if there are more possibilities for overlap between the work that you guys do here, and the work we do on StrategyWiki. What do you guys think of the site? Are there things you think we could be doing better? Are there things we could be doing better to interest you in helping out there, or reasons why you would not choose to help out there? I'm hoping to create more collaboration between the two sites, but I'm not sure how to proceed. It just seems like a missed opportunity because you're passionate about compiling info about games, and we're passionate about the same thing, and yet the two communities have little interaction. Thanks very much in advance for your responses. Plotor (talk) 03:32, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Your user page redirected to Strategy Wiki. What's up with that? Are you trying to recruit people onto that wiki? GamerPro64 03:50, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
His user page here isn't redirected. He just uses a sig with interwiki links. StrategyWiki is in the interwiki table. Murph9000 (talk) 03:59, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm much more active on SW than I am on WP, so some time ago, I just started redirecting people there for convenience. I'll switch it back if it helps. As for recruiting, I'd certainly like to find people who are interested in writing about video games, and I can't think of a singular group of people who might be more interested than the users of this project. It seems like an obvious choice to me, but there's clearly something that I'm missing or misunderstanding, and I'm trying to discover what that is by talking to you. Plotor (talk) 04:04, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
From content side, we often get overly detailed gameplay, and occasionally it's decent quality, even more occasionally it's usable guides. Those get promptly trimmed when discovered. Is StrategyWiki interested in such content? I know I've previously tried to migrate some otherwise-deleted but otherwise useful content into game-specific non-WMF Wikis, but that got promptly rejected and deleted (mainly due to what we would call WP:OWN). You could also look at article tagged {{game guide}} in case they ever have something usable, though they are usually terrible. There's not a whole lot of non-generic content here, as most users just go to individual game wikis, because we delete such stuff. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:45, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
We would absolutely be interested, the issue you've described is exactly the basis upon which SW was formed, and that continues to be true to this day. SW has the same license and philosophy as WP, so WP:OWN would not be an issue, we're completely compatible. The only impediment would be where in a guide the content belongs, but that can be sorted out by an administrator.
I guess to foster more of a conversation about this, I should describe my own experience with both sites. I tried long ago to be a regular WP contributor, but I found that my desire to add gameplay to articles was too strong. I enjoy sharing knowledge such as how to perform a Shoryuken in Street Fighter 2, and where that first invisible 1-Up is in Super Mario Bros., and a good ninth key pattern for Pac-Man. Obviously, that content isn't welcome here. I struggled to find an acceptable place to put it. After trying a few alternatives (WikiBooks, WikiKnowledge) StrategyWiki was formed with the expressed purpose of housing video game knowledge and walkthroughs, and it was a perfect fit.
While I understand that WP is not the proper place for such content, nor will it ever be, I have to imagine that there are some among you who feel as I do; that it's enjoyable to share and collaborate on video game walkthrough information. I know that it takes a certain mindset to be a dedicated member of this community, and I know the hard work you all put into it. What I don't entirely understand, and am trying to get a better comprehension of, is what is the difference between the two communities that inclines some editors to prefer and stick to WP, or to be disinterested in contributing to SW? Please understand that I am in no way asking anyone to abandon WP in favor of SW. I completely understand how this kind of question may come off. I hope that you understand that I'm asking out of genuine curiosity and a desire to learn what makes us different. Plotor (talk) 14:42, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
To answer your question, I, for one, have no interest in describing gameplay (or plot), and find most of my enjoyment of being a Wikipedia editor in combining sources into a proper general description, as well as finding out about creative influences and development processes. Every person is different, though ^_^ ~Mable (chat) 14:55, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
To me personally, StrategyWiki would be a middle ground between Wikipedia and a game-specific wiki. Personally, I contribute either to Wikipedia or to the specific wiki, like Minecraft or something. SW doesn't appeal to me, because when I want to go into detail, it's full-on detail with detailed pages for each feature and concept and such. On the other spectrum, there's Wikipedia with encyclopedic content first and I'm primarily interested in good sourcing. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:05, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
StrategyWiki scope tends to cover most details of a game, comparable to game specific wikis. It's mostly limited by the interested contributors.
I try to transwiki things that are being deleted when I notice them by watching Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Video games, but that doesn't include pages that are being re-written. If pages are cut down, feel free to let me know on my talk page here and I can transwiki all the deleted information out of the page history. -- Prod (Talk) 00:02, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
@Prod:, you said "As for recruiting, I'd certainly like to find people who are interested in writing about video games, and I can't think of a singular group of people who might be more interested than the users of this project", but we already write about video games. Are you asking this because I nominated {{StrategyWiki}} for deletion? --Soetermans. T / C 10:13, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
@Soetermans:: That was me you're quoting, not Prod. You only write about video games within the scope of what Wikipedia permits, which is only a fraction of the knowledge there is to write about a game. I am asking, not because of the template deletion nomination, but because I believe there must be others in this group who would like to write more about video games than the sliver of factual, citable information that Wikipedia allows. The analogy I use is that if a video game is on a disk, Wikipedia allows one to write about everything outside the disk, but not anything inside the disk. You knew exactly why I was asking this question, I don't see the point of your feigning ignorance to highlight your nomination. Maplestrip and Hellknowz have provided very useful and insightful answers to my question, and I thank them. Plotor (talk) 16:04, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
@Plotor:, I'm sorry for confusing two similar names of two editors both in favor of StrategyWiki. You could at least assume good faith, you know. I am not feigning anything, I just think it's odd that you're looking for more collaboration with WP:VG, right at the time the StrategyWiki template is up for deletion. --Soetermans. T / C 16:20, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
WRT you and only you, @Soetermans:, I do not assume good faith, I assume the opposite. You haven't done anything to further the point of the conversation, you've only chimed in to highlight (once again) the template deletion nomination. What have you contributed constructively to this conversation? And historically, I've made a small number of attempts to bridge the two communities. Plotor (talk) 16:43, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
@Plotor, Soetermans is merely trying to point out that, apart trying-to-discuss, the template you are talking about is up for deletion regardless. It will produce about zero outcome if you do not participate in the template's delete discussion, either countering or supporting arguments with other arguments. Although you have already had a word there, chosing this talk instead won't change it a bit. Instead, try to convince the people of your thoughts on the deletion discussion. Lordtobi (✉) 16:51, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Plotor: Uhh, getting angry at Soetermans for so much as mentioning that a template is up for deletion (while claiming you have nothing to do with that) is a bit out of line; assuming good faith is a pretty central guideline for interacting with people on wikipedia, and proclaiming that you're not going to because of a single comment he made that mixed up your username is going to be pretty frowned upon. It's also a strange thing to do, since it is likely to alienate other editors, when the point of this thread was to try to request that editors do you a favor and write stuff on your wiki. --PresN 16:54, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
OK, two replies. First, if I had to choose between two things, defending the SW template or building better relationships between our two communities, I'd delete the template myself if it would guarantee more collaboration between us. So understand my priorities before you suggest where my focus should be. I lack the ability to argue on a level playing field when it comes to defending the template, I'll leave that to people who are better capable than I. Honestly, I care more about building better bridges between us.
Second, I don't assume bad faith because Soetermans got our names confused, that was obviously an honest mistake. But I do not believe, for one second, that Soetermans did not understand the nature of my question. To suggest that he didn't understand that I was talking about writing more in-depth about video game content would be to suggest that he's stupid, which frankly is more insulting than assuming he's merely being surreptitious. I have at least afforded him the assumption of being intelligent, but I do not believe his comment was made in good faith. Plotor (talk) 17:33, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
At this time, I am pretty frustrated and dismayed by the results of this communication. I came here to learn. I genuinely wanted to have a dialogue about what motivations we have in common, and where we differ. I got two very constructive and informative answers for which I am grateful. Beyond that, I got questioned about my sig, and the timing of my inquiry, which touched off further derailment of the original intent of this thread. I make no effort to hide the fact that I am a huge proponent of StrategyWiki, I think I've been entirely transparent about that. I am also a proponent of Wikipedia, albeit to a smaller extent. And admittedly, I do bare some hostility towards Soetermans, but I believe I've been civil about it. Despite my best efforts, it is clear to me that my questioning will not be received with the open-mindedness that I had hoped for, and that's very disappointing. So be it. Plotor (talk) 20:38, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry this didn't work out well for you, Plotor. I think the problem is twofold
  1. Us Wikipedia editors can be a bit skeptical about people coming in to recruit people for their websites, as there are constantly people who show up to Wikipedia purely to try to promote their own websites, attempting to benefit off of Wikipedia's popularity. This conversation seems to be in good faith, but many are purely here just to promote. It can be hard to discern at times though.
  2. As you may have seen from some of the responses here, many of the mainstay, hardcore editors here, are the ones who prefer to write from an encyclopedic standpoint rather than than a gameguide perspective. I'm one of those people - I much prefer documenting the creation of a game than how to play it, for example. So anyways, the type of people who'd respond here may not the type to be into StrategyWiki. That being said, there are a lot of casual/newbie editors who try to add strategy guide type information to Wikipedia, and feel disillusioned when their work is deleted as "inappropriate for Wikipedia. Those are the types of people you'd want to tap into. I'm not exactly sure how you'd do that. Personally, I've said to many of new editors wanting to write strategy info, that they should write for websites like Gamefaqs or fan Wikias. I could start adding StrategyWiki to that example list... Sergecross73 msg me 21:11, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Adding StrategyWiki to that example list is a good idea. I'll keep that in mind as well :) ~Mable (chat) 21:17, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Geez, what the hell. You're not assuming good faith towards me, just because I didn't understand you. Why would I "feigning" anything, when we're talking about StrategyWiki? You even "bare some hostility" towards me. Anyway, let me give you my answer: I spend a lot of my free time editing video game related articles on Wikipedia, because I want video games to be seen as actual, decent cultural products. The old stereotype of a nerd, alone behind a flickering screen is starting to change: more and more are video games becoming accepted by the general public. I think articles like BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us or That Dragon, Cancer show just how the medium has grown. To spend my time explaining how to finish games would be taking a step back.
Regardless, it's been three hours since your last message, and you're already giving up? Here at WP:VG, we have a common goal of making video game-related articles better, so we keep working together, even if we don't agree or don't understand each other. I can't speak for other editors here, but if this is how it goes at StrategyWiki, I can't imagine WP:VG and SW collaborating. --Soetermans. T / C 21:21, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Ooh, are we listing why we spend our free time writing encyclopedia articles on video games? Serge likes exploring and sharing video game development, Soetermans to document the increasing cultural cachet of the medium, and I do it because I like to document niche areas to inform other curious people with no other real options- nowhere else in the world can you find a cohesive, accurate discussion of Final Fantasy music, or the early history of video games, but now you can here. Anyways, I wish you the best of luck, Plotor, but I'm not as interested in writing strategy guides. --PresN 21:30, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I just want to say thanks for the last couple of responses. I effectively "rage quit" from the conversation because I was hoping to remain constructive, but the anger generated by Soetermans' response caused me to fail at that and, as PresN pointed out, I was beginning to hurt my own cause. I have dedicated a huge portion of my life to SW over the last 10 years, so to say that I'm passionate about it is an understatement.
The common thread in all of your responses has illuminated something that I wasn't really cluing into: that many of you are as motivated by the medium (the structure and encyclopedic nature of Wikipedia) as you are by the subject (video games themselves). To that end, SW would not be an enjoyable alternative for you. Where as I find the restrictions too limiting, so I prefer SW. A lot of this never really occurred to me. I thank you wholeheartedly for sharing this with me.
Specifically to @Soetermans:, I can assure you, the members of SW are exceptional at working together. My decision to quit the conversation was motivated by my perception that I was not going to receive any more informative answers (which I've been proven wrong) and that my anger towards you was degrading the quality of my response. Despite disagreeing almost entirely with your communication, I can at least respect your motivation for working here; I am actually a video game software engineer (I currently work for Big Huge Games) which probably explains why I'm more interested in documenting game mechanics and their evolution, than the more encyclopedic work gathered here. So on the point that video games are valuable cultural products, we at least agree on that. Plotor (talk) 23:15, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
TIL Big Huge Games still exists. That is all. Axem Titanium (talk) 01:59, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Offer to editors

Hey there. I'm a bit strapped for a prose review in the Persona series FAC. I'll trade a VG-related GA review (aside from VC III) for an FAC prose review. A different type of contribution to the FAC is also acceptable. --ProtoDrake (talk) 22:22, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

What about a Peer Review of an article that's already GA? --JDC808 ♫ 02:25, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
@JDC808: I'm happy to do that too. --ProtoDrake (talk) 09:50, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

New navbox

I've created a new navbox for major publishers and digitial distributors of video games: {{Top video game publishers}}

{{Top video game publishers}}

The rationale for inclusion is stated here: Template:Top video game publishers/doc. I was wondering if there was any comments? --Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:31, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, there's WP:NAVBOX.
  1. All articles within a template relate to a single, coherent subject.
  2. The subject of the template should be mentioned in every article.
  3. The articles should refer to each other, to a reasonable extent.
  4. There should be a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template.
  5. If not for the navigation template, an editor would be inclined to link many of these articles in the See also sections of the articles.

The subject is not video game publisher, but "top" video game publishers. You've based the distinction on two articles and by synthesizing other Wikipedia articles. That seems WP:OR to me. The articles do not refer to each other. There is no Wikipedia article Top video game publishers. Since there's already List of video game publishers and Category: Video game publishers I don't think this is needed. --Soetermans. T / C 15:44, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

My main issue would be calling the publishers "top"/"major"/"mid" and having the topic of navbox an original grouping. It appears to be WP:OR in this case as we have no objective way to group publishers like that. Of course, there's other navbox stuff, such as that the pages are not actually related to each other in anything but a very broad manner. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:55, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Well there is very clear criteria for the first group: the sources used are reliable: http://newzoo.com/free/rankings/top-25-companies-by-game-revenues/ and http://mmos.com/news/superdatas-2015-stats-place-league-of-legends-and-clash-of-clans-at-the-top and http://www.pocketgamer.biz/list/60889/pocketgamerbiz-top-50-developers-2015/entry/1/ and http://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-publisher-rankings-for-2014-releases and http://www.statista.com/statistics/273838/revenue-of-the-largest-video-game-publishers-worldwide/#. As for which article, the natural one is Video game publisher which merely list ones on the basis of an article on metacritic, which clearly is flawed, missing out many of the biggest revenue suppliers of video games. Also List of video game publishers is completely WP:OR being completely unsourced and arbitrary. If you listed every video game supplier you would end with a ridiculous template which would be of no purpose.

As for WP:NAVBOX.

  1. All articles within a template relate to a single, coherent subject. Correct.
  2. The subject of the template should be mentioned in every article. Correct.
  3. The articles should refer to each other, to a reasonable extent. Correct.
  4. There should be a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template. Video game publisher and Digital distribution
  5. If not for the navigation template, an editor would be inclined to link many of these articles in the See also sections of the articles. Well maybe not every article, but it would certainly be favorable for Video game publisher and Digital distribution and List of video game publishers.

Could I remind you it is not an article, but merely a means of navigation between articles. So all this WP:OR business is nonsense. It's based on a lot of research and contemplation. Compare it with these navboxes, which all fulfill the criteria to the same degree.

I would like to state these also equally fulfill the navbox guidelines, and are more importantly equally useful. The only difference being the number of subjects are able to fit into one navbox. if you listed all the publishers it would be ridiculously unwieldy, there are literally thousands.

But I've renamed the navbox:

{{Top video game publishers}}

--Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:47, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Distribution platforms are not synonymous with publishers, that's comparing apples and oranges. You personally researching and contemplating to make the distinction of what is "major" and "mid-sized" are your own conclusions, are they not? Have you checked WP:VG/RS? Newzoo and Statista aren't on there, while MMOS.com failed the test. While Pocket Gamer is reliable, the source you provide says top 50 developers, not publishers, and mobile developers at that. Metacritic is also a reliable source, but it's the only one left at this point. --Soetermans. T / C 21:34, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Personally, it reminds me of the the template someone created that was to document all JRPGs, which was wildly incomplete in its creation, and would have been massively bloated and unreadable were it to be populated with every entry that belongs on it. Sergecross73 msg me 14:23, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
  • This is best as a cat (or ugly list, if that's needed at all) and at worst a magnet for indefinite edit warring—I agree that the major/mid is original research unless there is some agreed-upon distinction of which I have no knowledge. Navbox items are meant to be related. There is no relation between each other here. Please ping me if this is brought to TfD. czar 23:24, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
This is all ridiculous. Distribution platforms are not synonymous with publishers well obviously. Thats why video game publishers and distributors. Note the and distributors part of that title. But companies gain vast revenues through video game distribution. For example Apple, google, and Facebook gained over six billion dollars revenue in 2014 from video game distribution. Their vast video gaming revenue makes them very important players in the videogaming industry.
Major publishers / distributors are based on http://newzoo.com/free/rankings/top-25-companies-by-game-revenues/ and https://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/us-digital-games-market/?mc_cid=7ebaa0e28f&mc_eid=7c265c760f so are highly methodical. It's based purely on video gaming revenue. How the heck is it OR when it is based on reliable sources?
While Pocket Gamer is reliable, the source you provide says top 50 developers, not publishers, and mobile developers at that I've only listed publishers and distributors.
Also, Apple, Google, and Facebook are now video game publishers? please actually read the title of the navbox. They are digital distributors of games, with revenues out far out-stripping most game publishers. Note the title of the navbox.
I agree that the major/mid is original research unless there is some agreed-upon distinction of which I have no knowledge. I've explained again and again that the distinctions are based on reliable sources. Navbox items are meant to be related. well of course they are related, they all gain large revenues from video game publishing and distribution.
i really can't the hostility towards this navbox. We have navboxes for digital distribution of other media, but for some reason video games are an anathema. All this WP:OR is ridiculous, I've explained the rationale is based on reliable sources. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 09:47, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
They aren't digital distributors like Steam or GOG, they simply host the game on their website. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 05:11, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
You saying the sources are reliable doesn't mean they are. See WP:VG/RS. You deciding what is "major" is your own research. See WP:OR. Distribution platforms and platforms aren't the same, so you shouldn't compare other navboxes with this one. See WP:OTHERSTUFF. You shouldn't confuse criticism with hostility. You should also accept the fact that at this point it won't survive a TfD. --Soetermans. T / C 10:58, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
based on [sources] so are highly methodical. It's based purely on video gaming revenue. I always assumed that navboxes should, theoretically, not need any sources to construct. The relation between the articles in navboxes, such as all the works by a specific creator or all the works in a specific grouping, would be obvious by looking through the articles themselves. I'm sure that's not the actual rule, but it's the way I started thinking about this. The way this navbox is framed makes it feel like making a navbox based on the top 20 video games in List of video games considered the best - it's not technically original research, but it's not entirely appropriate. I'd be fine with a navbox containing "all" distributors of a specific thing ("E-book digital distribution platforms" above seems to be "complete", thus it makes sense to have a navbox for it), but picking the most important ones for a navbox just doesn't work. ~Mable (chat) 12:24, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Look people are bandying around the term OR but are not giving me a single example of how it is OR. You could you point out one entry in it you consider to be OR? Anyone? --Jules (Mrjulesd) 13:37, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, but I am against it as well. Its too broad of a subject, and too hard to enforce inclusion criteria on something like a template. And while revenue is a concrete criteria, where you draw the line and label it, is original research. Sergecross73 msg me 14:20, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
The biggest problem I see is that the template is bound to be a magnet for editing conflicts over subjective issues. Even assuming there is a clear, verifiable distinction between between "major" and "mid-sized" publishers and distributors (and it seems that no one here knows of such a distinction), we can't use references in navboxes, so ultimately which companies are included in the navbox and how they're categorized within comes down to the personal opinion of whoever edited the navbox last. Also a big problem: I don't understand why you would put two topics (publishers and distributors) which you yourself admit are completely different things in the same navbox.--Martin IIIa (talk) 04:37, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
The distinction is purely based on video gaming income. Please see earlier in the discussion. Why combine vide game publishers with distributors? The differences between the two are getting increasingly blurred. There still remains a difference, but it is not as great as it was. In the old days a prime responsibility of the publisher was distribution: they would arrange manufacture of the games, and distribution to shops and mail order suppliers. But these days with digital distribution this function has been usurped. There is no longer the need for distribution by publishers. These days distribution is handled by the digital distributor. That's why so many more games are being self-published, the only use of publishers these days is the funding of the developer and publicity. Their distribution role has been usurped. And the digital distributors get vast revenues from supplying this service, making them highly important in the business. And the differences between them have become blurred. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 13:32, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
The issue is, where do we draw the line between major and medium-sized companies? Is this specific distinction provided by the source we're using? Furthmore, how many companies do we add to this list? 20? 30? 40? Whoever is number 41 won't be in the template in this example. Is there a clear "gap" or "point" from which we can say that companies aren't mid-sized anymore?
I can imagine this list existing as an article (List of most financially successful video game publishers and distributers), but that too will be kind of awkward. The only source we really have is statistics, after all ~Mable (chat) 16:05, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
I've nominated the template for deletion. See Template:Top video game publishers (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages). --Soetermans. T / C 16:36, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

1000 Good Articles!

Hot on the heels of our last milestone, with the passing of Marvel vs. Capcom Origins we have now reached 1000 Good Articles! (Table and category counter not necessarily up to date.) Congratulations to all 211 editors who have nominated at least one successful current GA, and special thanks to:

Congrats to everyone who has made a Good Article. Now let's start a reassessment purge and ruin this milestone. Who's with me? GamerPro64 16:24, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Haha, technically that just means we get to hit the milestone twice! --PresN 16:39, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Goodie! Still, I doubt any of mine will need reassessment, at least for a while. Those done by SNAAAAKE!!/Niemti on the other hand.... --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:47, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Congratulations to all! And thank you PresN for making this list. Now let's get another 1000. JAGUAR  16:56, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
I was about to say that I have 10 GANs, but then I saw your note and of those 10, 6 have become FAs. Awesome feat though. --JDC808 ♫ 17:36, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Congratulations everybody :D I was going to nominate Zone of the Enders (video game) and Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner but I am now in the middle of requesting a copyedit of a anime film. If anybody wants, nominate the two ZOE games.Tintor2 (talk) 17:42, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Congratulations all! I had no idea that 15 GAs I nommed were still kicking around. I figured the number would be closer to five at this point. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:25, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Neat! I wonder how you got those numbers, though - AFAIK I've only done 11 GAs, one of which wasn't even nominated by me (12 if you count the minor fix-ups I did on Shantae, which also was not nominated by me).--IDVtalk 21:45, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Fast and loose, which is why I had the disclaimer- I opened up the last passing GAN for each of the 1000 GAs, and looked at who was the responder. If it wasn't clear (because there were no comments, or because there were multiple people responding), I checked the talk page history to see who actually posted the GAN template. I suspect I got your 13 because I counted your regular 11, saw that you were the responder on Zero Escape (and didn't check that you posted the template), and thought you did Shantae for the same reason. It took way, way too long to get through all 1000 this way, I didn't want to get to far into the gray areas of who nominated/responded precisely for each one. --PresN 21:54, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

New articles - 5 February

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements

New articles from the past week. I also included articles from the New article announcements that have been moved into draft space and redirected (the ones I have spotted) over the past week and the number of articles from that page that have been deleted. This post has been made to help raise the visibility of new articles being created that fall under this project.

January 23

January 30

January 31

February 1

February 2

February 3

February 4

February 5

Salavat (talk) 07:28, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

FAC

Hey fellow gamers. Anyone willing to spend a bit of their time taking a look at my FAC for Ancient Trader? I don't want it to be closed again because of lack of participation :( → Call me Razr Nation 21:24, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I'll have a look in return for a Peer Review of God of War: Ascension. --JDC808 ♫ 19:59, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
@User:JDC808: Just read this message. I'll take a look this weekend :) → Call me Razr Nation 09:29, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Permadeath

If anyone is interested in the concept, there are a few discussions going on at Talk:Permanent death that I think could use more input. An IP editor top-posted his concern, so don't overlook that if you visit the talk page. Plus, if anyone wants to take a whack at cleaning up the article, I'd love to help. I've been meaning to do this for a long time. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 18:25, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

There's a move request on the page also. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:44, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Uncontroversial move, it seems ^_^ The rest of the content, not so much. ~Mable (chat) 15:16, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Category:Video games on Steam

Hi, I just created the category: Video games on Steam, to document all the video games released onto the Steam platform. I've already added ~140-150 articles to the category, but I'm gonna need help if it's going to end up with all or most of the Steam games in the category. Anarchyte (work | talk) 11:13, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is an appropriate category. It's basically saying what games a storefront sells. There are aspects of Steam of note as they relate to development (greenlight, early access) but just being on Steam is not necessarily an appropriate category. --MASEM (t) 15:12, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Masem on this one, if we have a Steam category outside the already existing Greenlight and Early Access categories, we could as well just include a "GOG.com games", "Desura games", "Square Enix online store games", etc. This category is of low to negative importance, as it server no subsistantial information to anyone, apart from "you can buy it in a specific place". It might be similar to the "PlayStation Network games" category, but that category expresses that it was released digitally for PS3/4/Vita, as there is no other official digital PlayStation storefront, same with Xbox Live. I suppose that this category is far from necessary and should be removed again. Lordtobi (✉) 15:17, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Category:Nintendo eShop (including Category:Nintendo 3DS eShop games and Category:Wii U eShop games) somehow manages to survive for quite a long time. Should these be deleted as well? AdrianGamer (talk) 15:22, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I want to say there's a difference as the eShop is the only place you can get digital games for those systems, so it is more saying "of Nintendo's system catalog, what games can be obtained digitally?" Same with PSN and Xbox Live. On the other hand, Steam is an optional delivery system (though clearly has the bulk of the market) so it is far less a defining factor. --MASEM (t) 15:28, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
The eShop categories should be deleted imo. A game being released on the eShop is not a defining characteristic of the game. Even if we limited the category to eShop-only games, it's the equivalent of categorising games by digital-only release or retail-only release. --The1337gamer (talk) 20:41, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I do think there's a contrast here between console/handheld games, which nearly most are physically distributed, compared to PC games which most are digitally distributed, nowadays. A PC game being on Steam is not really a surprise; a 3DS game being on the eShop is. It's not a perfect line, but I feel there is a difference here I cannot put my finger down 100%.
One factor I think might be interesting to distinguish is with elements like backwards compatibility. The current line of PS2 classics that are appearing on PS4, for example, seems to be an obvious category to have, even though one can argue its simply being a storefront for all such games. --MASEM (t) 21:16, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
"Games only on Steam" would be interesting. Do we have categories for that type of video game? --Izno (talk) 15:25, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Here's the trick is , how do you know they are only on Steam? Games that require Steamworks to function (akin to Undertale or Pony Island which rely on the Steam client interface for some aspects) definitely would be of note, but if we're just saying that they are only available on Steam, that's a bit of a concern. --MASEM (t) 15:28, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps this would be better served as a companion of List of games using Steam authentication‎, which is a relatively well maintained list of games that actually require Steam? -- ferret (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Not *that* notable, since some games only feature Steamworks DRM on Steam, but are DRM-free on GOG.com or other DRM-free storefronts, so that is not really a usefull category, oppositely, the game could cause readers to think that it only uses Steamworks DRM, but that is on some articles just false. I feel like that category should also be deleted. Lordtobi (✉) 15:44, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't think the "List of games using Steam authentication" article is particularly accurate either, nor clear in its scope, nor having solid references. Anyway, for the category, see above: it's like "games sold at Best Buy." Delete, it isn't exactly comparable to PSN which is a little different. SnowFire (talk) 20:09, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Considering an article on "hard game" or "hard game club", trying to see if there are sources

One topic that I've hit on in a few more recent edits is the concept that exists in the VG field of the "hard game" or "hard game club". Note that this is not solely a measure of game difficult but generally games that have a very difficult learning curve that become more rewarding/satisfying as you overcome them. The Demon's Souls/Dark Souls games are commonly in this block, as well as more recently Darkest Dungeon and previously Super Meat Boy. It's one of those concepts that I felt could easily be supported by our RSes for VG, but when I have started to dig for them, it becomes hard to nail down the term. That might mean there isn't something there for an article but I'd like to see if anyone else had an idea of sourcing.

Separately, I would see a potential in an article List of video games considered the hardest (taking account of previous issues with List of video games considered the best to avoid OR), but that remains a separate issue from the notion of "hard game". This would be much easier to source, obviously. --MASEM (t) 18:10, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Eve Online may have some use here. Notorious for it's learning curb but I'm not sure how well that holds up now. -- ferret (talk) 18:44, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Kaizo-level fan mods/UGC (such as Mario Maker) are central to the concept of difficulty-for-difficulty's sake. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ —Preceding undated comment added 22:22, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
User:New Age Retro Hippie suggested an article on "Masocore gaming" back in archive 84. I discouraged it then, and still feel the same way. Difficulty (and extreme difficulty) in games should be written as an expansion to Balance_(game_design)#Difficulty_level. - hahnchen 22:50, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly support this effort, even if I have no idea what it might be called (and I don't think the game-playing community or media have settled on one yet). I think this hypothetical article would need to consider the lineage from early "Nintendo Hard" to the current inheritors of that legacy, including Super Meat Boy/N++/etc. Also Spelunker --> Spelunky, Gradius --> bullet hell (Touhou), and stuff like EVE or Dota (really "hard to get into" games). Just some thought vomit on a page. Axem Titanium (talk) 23:03, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Hahnchen on the independent notability, summary style approach czar 23:19, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
"Evolution of video game difficulty"? "Extreme difficulty in video games"? Just spitballin' here, but based on Axem's post, I can imagine an article on this topic. First, we'd need a good amount of sources covering topics like "Nintendo Hard", Dark Souls difficulty, and bullet hell difficulty in detail. If we base such an article on reviews, we're basically just making an article topic up ourselves. Until someone makes a good draft, it's definitely better off as a subsection of Balance (game design). ~Mable (chat) 08:22, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
"History of difficult video games"? Alternatively "History of challenging video games"? Axem Titanium (talk) 16:30, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Talking about "difficult video games" is inherently subjective from the POV of individual players. We should instead talk about "difficulty in video games" as an objective element of game design. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:40, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
One thing I noted above was the possibility of List of video games considered the hardest. If we were to create that, my criterion for inclusion would be to require the game to be explicitly stated as one of the hardest games relative to others (not just in its own right), and to be stated by at least 3 (maybe 2) different RSes from our highest-tier RS group (the non-situational ones) and from non-traditional but mainstream press. Yes, it remains a subjective measure of what is a hard game but we're putting weight on others saying that and using the best sources to avoid OR otherwise. --MASEM (t) 17:44, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
I think a List of video games considered the most difficult would be a bad idea, but I agree with Salvidrim that some "difficulty in video games" article (distinct from Balance (game design)) is a possibility, if someone wanted to put in the effort and find the sources. ~Mable (chat) 18:31, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm leaning toward "History of difficulty in video games" now, which would describe/track trends in design attitudes with respect to difficult. This would include both older games (Nintendo Hard stuff), the recent trend toward focus groups, tutorialization, and sanding down the difficulty curve, and then the even more recent backlash against this process (rise of the masochistic game). Axem Titanium (talk) 21:21, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
If taking this route, this article could also include the (forced) use of in-game tutorials and commentary/reaction to that. Not 100% sure on that, but I feel that's where it could fit. --MASEM (t) 16:36, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
  • "History of difficulty in video games" is original research unless there are sources that, in their scope, are histories of difficulty in video games. That's why I recommend doing summary style whenever possible—if you find such a source, you can always spin it out. czar 16:46, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
This is why I suggested "Extreme difficulty in video games" as a possible title. ~Mable (chat) 19:55, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Notability of video games books and novels

I have little interest in books. Anyone want to help establish notability (WP:NB) to warrant having separate articles for the following video game books/novels? Otherwise, I'd like to propose merges for all of them to their respective video game or video game series articles. -- The1337gamer (talk) 13:18, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Extended content
Sort of related: For some time now, I've been wondering about the notability of the Digital Devil Story novels. They are not actually based on games - instead, the highly notable Megami Tensei series was originally based on these novels. Are the books notable? If not, should they be merged with the game franchise article, despite how the game series comes from the books and not the other way around?--IDVtalk 14:42, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
It might be worth bringing this up over at WikiProject Books as well. Digital Devil Story would be a difficult one to say much about, as I have no idea how much it was talked about in Japan in the 80s and 90s. Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei being named after it doesn't help with Googling either ^_^; Apparently, Yu Godai wrote a book series based on the original book series? [1] Best I managed to find that isn't video game-related. Surely, the original book series was a big deal as well? ~Mable (chat) 15:31, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I have no idea if the Digital Devil Story novels were big in Japan back in the day or if they are just remembered for being the base of the first Megami Tensei game. Godai's book is based on her script for the game Digital Devil Saga, which despite the similar title is not related to the Digital Devil Story books.--IDVtalk 16:05, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
In that case, I have no reason to oppose such a deletion. It's mentioned in the Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei article, after all, and if that's the only thing it is known for... Unless someone can dig up some sources, that is. ~Mable (chat) 16:17, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I feel like we should handle it like we commonly do - if the book meets the GNG, has 4-5 sources and s few paragraphs of content, keep it as a standalone article. If there's a lack of sources, or only a few sentences of content, merge it back to the parent article. Sergecross73 msg me 16:54, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I assume the suggested issue is that, to establish notability of these novels, we have to use sources outside of WP:VG/S, which was why I suggested to bring this topic up over at the Books WikiProject. ~Mable (chat) 20:01, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Andrew Augustin

Dear video game enthusiasts: This page about a video game developer was declined at AfC and then moved into mainspace without improvement. It has a lot of references, although some don't mention the subject or are about side issues. Can someone familiar with gaming sources please check to see if this is a notable game designer? I don't follow this topic (although I like Tetris...) Thanks. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:07, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll note that a quick google search indicates that the author of the article is the subject of the article. Clear WP:COI. --The1337gamer (talk) 14:12, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, The1337gamer, that makes it particularly important to make sure that independent, reliable sources that talk about him extensively are present or are added; otherwise the article will have to be tagged or sent to AfD. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:18, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
That is true, Anne. In this case, it seems like not Andrew Augustin himself is the notable topic, but his indie company is: Notion Games. Super Ubi Land/Super Ubie Land may be a notable work on its own, based on briefly looking through the amount of sources. Regardless, with the name of the game developer himself rarely being mentioned in the sources, it is clearly not the actual "topic" of said sources. ~Mable (chat) 15:17, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Detroit Free Press has deleted all the video game reviews since its revamp

I have a problem. It seems that Detroit Free Press got a facelift at the beginning of February, but now all of its video game reviews that were saved from late 2005 up until 2015 got deleted. Even worse, almost none of them were archived at the Wayback Machine before this month. Instead, all the reviews got redirected to the main page! This link is an example of what it used to be before it was deleted and redirected to the main page like everyone else. This stinks! Now what? Perhaps I may do only the ProQuest Archiver ones for Detroit Free Press from now on, huh? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 04:22, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I checked on your last contribution, Fusion Frenzy, and found you can at least locate the print version (enough to meet WP:V) via [2], (eg FF2 is at [3]). This means that they are still good if they've already been sourced but you'll have to replace the template with a cite newspaper to use these. --MASEM (t) 05:18, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I see. Well, thanks for your help. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 17:06, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Listing video games

Recently, the question has arisen to which should be considered good practice when it comes to (longer) video game series in order to give the reader a good overview with most looked up information in order to promote transparency:

Basically, there are four ways to present an overview over a series:

  1. Video game timeline (Template:Video game timeline) - only contains Year of Release and Title. Example: The_Legend_of_Zelda#History
  2. (Sortable) tables (Help:Table#Sortable_tables) - can be adapted to contain all basic information as desired & may include sorting function. Examples: Mortal_Kombat#Media, List of Square video games
  3. Video game titles (Template:Video game titles) - usually contains extensive information about each title in a series and usually used in "List of ... video games" articles. Example: List of Final Fantasy video games
  4. Video game table (Template:Video game table) - apparently no widespread use yet? -- promote/encourage its use?

Quality video game articles:

Participants (hereby pinged) so far (in alphabetical order):

Manual of Style:

We are trying to find a consensus that is compatible with Wikipedia principles and standards. Hippo99 (talk) 09:17, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Why does this need to be standardized? What's wrong with different articles doing different things? czar 12:15, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Well, T:Video game titles and T:Video game table don't both need to exist--they're functionally equivalent and neither is particularly more accessible than the other (I have an idea about that). I might TFD the lesser-used regardless of discussion here. --Izno (talk) 12:20, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Czar - Arguments/disputes keep arising over it, so it probably is a good thing to discuss. I'm generally against them - unless there's something relatively convoluted that needs to be outlined in a more visual manner - but there must be other reasons out there to use them too - as Lucia once pointed out, there are some Featured Articles that use the format...(like Mana (series). Sergecross73 msg me 13:57, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Ooh! I wrote a gigantic essay about this topic for the VG newsletter last year. To answer Izno's point:

  • "Q) What details matter to this series? Specifically: Do international release dates matter? Console releases? Both?
A) This is what really splits up which template you want to use. Compare Video game table with Video game titles. "Video game table" makes it very clear which titles were released in which region, and on which dates. It does not highlight which consoles they came out on—that's presented in one of several bullets inside the game's row. It's therefore best used when your series has spotty releases in English-speaking countries (i.e. it's a Japanese series) where the games generally don't get released on multiple systems or ported very often. "Video game titles", on the other hand, gives console releases a bit more prominence, and while it lists the release dates they're no longer as obvious—this is better for series where it can almost be assumed that the titles all came out in NA/EU, but which had multiple console releases."

You also missed one- {{ListEntry/VG}}, used on e.g. List of The Elder Scrolls video games. --PresN 14:01, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Also- while Video Game Table isn't used as much, it is used on 5 Featured Lists... --PresN 14:08, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't know if I've ever commended you on that Feature, PresN, so I will now. Damn, son! That's a mighty fine Feature. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:50, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Sorry I have not had the time to participate in this discussion. Has a consensus been reached? Osh33m (talk) 21:24, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

This discussion isn't that long...it seems pretty clear that no real progress has been made yet... Sergecross73 msg me 02:19, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Neo Geo sources

What kind of sources do we have for Neo Geo game reviews? The only Neo Geo GA is The King of Fighters '94, and it uses GamePro. Do we really have no other magazines or reference sources that go in depth for Neo Geo games? czar 11:01, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Electronic Gaming Monthly and Next Generation also did Neo Geo reviews. If you're specifically looking for KoF '94 coverage, Next Generation reviewed the Neo Geo version in issue 5. Maximum: The Video Game Magazine did Neo Geo CD reviews in their first few issues, but I'm pretty sure I've already added all those reviews to the relevant articles. Diehard Gamefan almost certainly had some Neo Geo review coverage, though I can't confirm that myself.--Martin IIIa (talk) 23:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
@Martin IIIa, was looking in general—most Neo Geo game articles have pitiful sourcing. If there's no hope of finding more than two small reviews for each game, we should be looking at making some kind of merge... czar 16:50, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm sure there are more than two contemporary reviews each for pretty much every Neo Geo game released up through about 1996, even ignoring the fact that many (most?) Neo Geo games were ported to platforms other than the arcade, Neo Geo AES, and Neo Geo CD. There are likely a few Neo Geo articles where anything other than merging isn't worth the effort, but I'll bet that in most cases it's just a matter of doing the research.--Martin IIIa (talk) 03:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Many (most?) of our Neo Geo game articles are on titles that were not ported, which is why I raised this question on where/how to do the research czar 03:57, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Comparison of graphic adventure games

Thoughts on improving Comparison of graphic adventure games? It doesn't do much comparing as is. czar 19:36, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, for one, Graphic adventure game (a section) has literally two sources. This list has no inclusion criteria. Seems rather indiscriminate. ~Mable (chat) 19:57, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
We seem to have lists of games that fall in a specific genre; clearly they should be categorized, no question, though I'm not 100% sure if these lists are bad or not. --MASEM (t) 21:00, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm fine with lists of games that fall within a specific genre if they can be adequately sourced, or add something to the topic. As Czar said, there isn't much comparing as is. Not saying that there can't be.
That being said, even just using a few random top ten lists combined with whether we have articles on the topic is fine as inclusion criteria. It would make the list incomplete by nature, but we have categories for listing all Wikipedia articles by genre. It would serve the purpose of listing topics in the same way that sources do. ~Mable (chat) 15:07, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
If we require all such lists to either have a blue article link (not a redirect) or sourcing from a secondary source to affirm membership in the genre, that's fine, then. We just want to avoid promotional aspects here, so being as inclusive as possible as allowed by sourcing seems fine. --MASEM (t) 02:28, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
The Graphic adventure game section needs some cleanup anyway, the main body gives away what it is genreally, and then what a point-and-click adventure is BEFORE the point-and-click adventure games section. Lordtobi (✉) 16:26, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Akira: Tetsuo's Edge

I've noticed that Akira: Tetsuo's Edge was created some time ago as a video game adaptation of Akira (manga). I looked for reliable third party sources on Google, but I can't seem to find any apart from fake posters on Flickr and on Tumblr, and it fails WP:GNG and it appears to be a fictitious video game, which violates WP:CRYSTAL and WP:OR. Thoughts? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 23:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

GameTrailers is shutting down

Breaking news, everyone. GameTrailers announced on Twitter that they are shutting down. We're going to have to figure out what to do with the links here. GamerPro64 00:59, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Spot check shows GT links are archived at archive.org but this obviously doesn't include video segments. It might be worth firing off a message to them if they are going to have those archived anywhere. Best I know if we are sourcing the videos and it is impossible to get the videos again even if we can link to the original page that showed them via archive.org, that still fails WP:V since the source can't be verified. --MASEM (t) 01:10, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
For reviews, there is the text counterpart like so to this video. Spike does have a text copy, but I cannot get the video to play. « Ryūkotsusei » 02:04, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
The good news is that GameTrailers posted many videos to its two YouTube channels—3,896 videos on its main channel and 4,321 on its reviews channel. I imagine we could cite those, although I'm not sure whether it would be more appropriate to fill in the website parameter with YouTube or with GameTrailers. —zziccardi (talk) 02:41, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I would treat the YT versions as "archive", so it would be filling in the archiveurl and archivedate; publisher remains GT. --MASEM (t) 02:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. —zziccardi (talk) 02:53, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

The Barbarian (2002 video game) article is contradictory because of GameCube

I'm having a problem with the Barbarian (2002 video game) article, always conflicting with the GameCube version. The article claims that this version was never released in the U.S. or Europe, and I keep trying to correct the information that it was released in Europe in 2004 via IGN and GameFAQs links, but Azrety312 keeps reverting it back with a claim: "This game was NEVER released in Europe. This is a wrong information Ign. All those who collect GameCube pal games are agree with it." I don't know who's telling the truth or who's lying. Is Azerty312 lying, or are IGN and GameFAQs lying? Was the GameCube version of Barbarian released in Europe in 2004 or not? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

You may be right. Even these images are contrary to Azrrty312's claims that the GameCube version was released only in Japan. Can you try and visit the guy's talk page about that? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 00:19, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Here's Edge screenshot [4] with GC listed as platform, here's an ad in EGM [5] with GC logo. Unless someone has seriously messed something up, it looks like it was on GameCube. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK
It seems that baring a extremely late cancellation the game did come in the West on the Cube so it should be added back unless there is evidence of a cancellation.--69.157.255.109 (talk) 00:58, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I now notice that the article states that the GameCube version was cancelled in the States without any sources. Since the sources found here are suggesting that it was not cancelled I think that should be changed unless a source for the canlelation can be provided.--69.157.255.109 (talk) 22:38, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @Azerty312: You continue to add the Japanese release to the infobox, but we're not supposed to anymore for non-Japanese games, per a recent consensus. I've also gone ahead and added the 2004 GameCube European release, but this page needs to be monitored as the user will continue to remove the info. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:57, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Which logo should I use?

I don't know which logo I should use for the article on Rust. I have the choice of continuing to use the current one, using the one currently on Steam or one of the many on the Rust website. Anarchyte (work | talk) 06:48, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Naming discussion at Talk:Traveller's Tales

There's currently a discussion going on at Talk:Traveller's Tales about how best to cover the wider company, TT Games. As we hammered out there and at TT Games Publishing, Traveller's Tales merged with a publishing company in 2005, forming TT Games (now a subsidiary of Warner Bros.) "Traveller's Tales" was retained as the name of the development wing, but the company's structuring has evolved, and at any rate, we now have no article that discusses the wider company, which is more common in the sources. We have a few ways we could go about this: rename Traveller's Tales to TT Games and rewrite/expand, (re)create a separate article on TT Games, or leave as is and just include info on TT Games at Traveller's Tales. We've got sources to improve the article(s), but we need more input on how to proceed. Thanks,--Cúchullain t/c 22:17, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Just a brief note, although I hate to "other stuff", but Bethesda Softworks and Bethesda Game Studios more or less represent the same situation. I'd just go with two articles, as long as the sourcing will support WP:GNG. -- ferret (talk) 22:21, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Free-use Chaos Reborn media

I've negotiated with Snapshot Games to release their press-kit under a free CC license. The media is available at http://www.chaos-reborn.com/press/ (the CC-license is at the bottom) and I will forward my email chain to OTRS later for confirmation. I'm fairly busy right now, so won't have time to upload the press kit to Commons until maybe next week. If anyone else would like to do so in the meantime, feel free. I still need to clarify whether they own the music rights in the trailer, so hold off on that one. - hahnchen 11:43, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Internet Archives adds Win3.1 games/software

Like last year around this time for DOS games, the Internet Archive has added over 1000 Win3.1 games and other applications, in what is apparently a legal offering within US copyright law (spot checking, you can play the games in a browser window, but unless the game had legal allowances to be dl'd, you can't get the actual software directly). This should be linkable in our articles (as an EL) as the DOS additions were last time. Link is here: [6] Keep in mind the information on the pages probably don't meet RS , however. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Here, have this template.
  • {{#if:{{{1|{{{id}}}}}}|[https://archive.org/details/{{{1|{{{id}}}}}} Play ''{{{2|{{{name|{{PAGENAMEBASE}}}}}}}}''] at the [[Internet Archive]]|<span color="#ff0000">No parameter given</span>}}<noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude>
  • {{InternetArchivePlay|win3_ROULET20|Roulette}} or {{InternetArchivePlay|1=win3_ROULET20|2=Roulette}} would result in Play Roulette at the Internet Archive
Texts and template name are only examples, change if you wish. Lordtobi (✉) 15:41, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

New articles - 12 February

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements

New articles from the past week. I also included articles from the New article announcements that have been moved into draft space and redirected (the ones I have spotted) over the past week and the number of articles from that page that have been deleted. This post has been made to help raise the visibility of new articles being created that fall under this project.

February 5

February 6

February 7

February 8

February 9

February 10

February 11

February 12

Salavat (talk) 07:27, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for doing this, it is interesting to look through these and either support or discourage their existence. Sergecross73 msg me 01:46, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
No worries and thanks to User:Czar for encouraging me to post these weekly. It definitely seems to have raised the visibility of new articles under the project. Salavat (talk) 04:34, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

New articles - January 29

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements

New articles from the past week. I also included articles from the New article announcements that have been moved into draft space and redirected (the ones I have spotted) over the past week and the number of articles from that page that have been deleted. This post has been made to help raise the visibility of new articles being created that fall under this project.

January 20

January 22

January 23

January 24

January 25

January 26

January 27

January 28

January 29

Salavat (talk) 07:37, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

@Maplestrip, I think the mainspace policies should be tighter, but that's another story. I think the idea of posting these new articles for discussion has been successful thus far. It's a shame that we waste our time on so much cleanup for very little quality content. czar 16:38, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Third party request

 Done and message left at the User's Talk page as well. Woodroar (talk) 20:39, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Windows 10 exclusives

We should list Windows 10 instead of Microsoft Windows as the platform for games that are only available on Windows 10, correct? Games like Quantum Break are only going to be on Windows 10 (and Xbox One), so I think we should be specific and state this. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 00:22, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

It's less a "Windows 10" exclusive, and more a "DirectX 12" required. I know that might be nitpicky but... What have we done in the past when games required DirectX 10 or 11? (I.e. didn't work on XP anymore) -- ferret (talk) 00:29, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
No. Microsoft pulled the same thing with Vista and previous versions of Windows. --The1337gamer (talk) 00:32, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
So we're to consider the versions of Windows like the versions of OS X? I guess that makes sense. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 00:44, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
There are thousands of PC games that don't work on older versions of Windows. Listing each and every version that a game is compatible with seems unnecessary. I think just having Windows alone is sufficient enough. --The1337gamer (talk) 00:49, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
True, but since it was marketed as such, I thought maybe it could be different. I don't mind either way, I just needed to know for sure as we are going to see more and more of these type of exclusives. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 00:57, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
I think it would be fine to mention Window 10 exclusivity in the article body, but I would just use Windows/Microsoft Windows in the infobox. --The1337gamer (talk) 01:03, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
If it is a matter discussed by sources. I do recognize that with the upcoming news about Xbox One/W10 cross buys, this might create something more, but in general, if sources really don't go into this exclusivity/limitation to DX12, then we shouldn't worry too much about it. --MASEM (t) 01:07, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

This may sound silly, but we differentiate what consoles that games work on (instead of a generalized "PlayStation", "Nintendo", or "Xbox"), so why not differentiate what versions of Windows they work on? --JDC808 ♫ 20:03, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

From my perspective, it's because most games basically work on all versions of Windows from the one that it was released on up until now. It's not a very walled garden, unlike consoles, which basically are only available for that specific release. I can't play a PS2 game on a PS4, so it makes sense that we would list it differently. I agree with Masem's point above. If they talk about it being specifically only for Windows 10 ever, then it's something that we can discuss on a case by case basis. Nomader (talk) 20:56, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Reliable sources rarely differentiate between versions of Windows. You'll find most websites and magazines just say that a game is coming to "PC" or "Windows" rather than "Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10". They don't treat different versions of Windows as separate platforms. The only time it happens is a case like this, where a new game is only available on the most recent OS release. In which case it can be covered in the article body if necessary. Also, a lot of software tends to work across a large number of Windows versions. The majority of Windows XP games work on Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. Listing every version of Windows that a game is compatible with is excessive. If we started listing each individual Windows version for games, then we have to do the same for OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, etc. It becomes unmaintainable and unnecessary. --The1337gamer (talk) 21:07, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
  • It is merely a formality because PC is generally a single class of hardware, but there are various definitions of a PC and not all games will run on every definition of a PC. Plus their general categorization of "PC" also takes alternate platforms such as Linux and Apple OS X into account. Again, a lot of newer games have a dependency on components only contained within a specific version of Windows or newer (i.e. only supporting Windows Vista because it needs DirectX 10 and does not have a DirectX 9 compatibility layer). We should not use a blanket assumption that a game is supported by "Windows", because that could literally mean anything. IMO the technological requirement for a specific version of Windows is the same as the technological requirement for a new Xbox that also runs Windows. ViperSnake151  Talk  22:43, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
I'd say just describe in prose that Quantom Break works only on Windows 10. There are some console games that require more than just the platform, like Perfect Dark and the Expansion Pack or Donkey Konga and the congas, but to list that in the infobox would be very unwieldy. We can also look at it from the early Windows games, that often do not work automatically on the newest versions, and listing the versions of Windows where it does work is unclear and confusing. --Soetermans. T / C 08:51, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
To add, there's more than sufficient sourcing out there to discuss in prose the W10 exclusivity (as well as limited distribution channel) for Quantum Break, both MS's reasons and other reactions to it. When we talk about system requirements being described by sources to include this is the type of discussion that is healthy to support sysreq inclusion. --MASEM (t) 17:32, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Strategy video games stubs

Hello.

While going through the backlog of the video game stubs, I noticed that Category:Strategy video game stubs shows up as a hidden category, while other video game stub templates show up as a regular category. I was wondering why this was the case. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 16:22, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

 Done Issue has been fixed, thanks for reporting. Lordtobi (✉) 16:36, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

G4TV is now Esquire Network

I have some news that you may not like. It appears that at the start of February, G4TV is now Esquire Network. All the G4TV links that were in Google (like this one here) are now redirected to tv.esquire.com. Now what? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 19:34, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Google's page cache seems to have these, but archive.org does not. We may need a bot help to capture the google cache for more permanent backup if this content isn't at Esquire. --MASEM (t) 19:38, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
The Wayback Machine. Simple enough. GamerPro64 19:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
Didn't this happen like over a year ago? My memory, and the G4TV article, suggests this switch wrapped up in 2014? Or was 2014 the TV station, and now its officially affecting the websites? Sergecross73 msg me 19:42, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
This appears to be blacking out all the g4tv websites and just hard redirection to esquire; the conclusion of this process. --MASEM (t) 19:55, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Calling all experts

Are you an expert? We have 51 pages tagged as in need of expert cleanup. Think we can crush it by the end of the week? czar 23:36, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

  • Some of these are really mistagged. Would knowing details about specific games count as expert knowledge? We have the potential to create WP's largest backlog here! —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 00:16, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
  • This search seems to be mis-hitting... For example it caught Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which is tagged on talk page as needing attention from the Apple WP due to their project banner's B criteria. No expert tag there. (And that said, I wouldn't even think the Apple WP cares about that article. We don't tag every PC game on Windows with the Microsoft project) -- ferret (talk) 00:56, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
I think that was right, actually. Warhammer had the hidden expert cat from a {{Technical-statement}} inline template. (But I resolved that and removed the article from the Apple project.) Warhammer still needs to be written without jargon (which is the main call for expert cleanup) but that might as well come when it's finally sourced and rewritten accordingly. czar 01:53, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
My bad. I looked for big banners on the page and it's talk, didn't realize the hidden cat hung off a tiny inline tag... :) -- ferret (talk) 14:17, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Does the link Czar posted still work for everyone else? It worked for me when I looked at it for the first time after he posted it, but not anymore.--IDVtalk 14:21, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
It didn't work for me this morning, no. --Soetermans. T / C 14:45, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Catscan2 might just be hosed—it hasn't loaded for me at all since last night czar 15:18, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
And WMF Labs was supposed to be so much more stable than the old Toolserver... :p Try using Catscan3 instead? ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 15:32, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Well that's new. All right, all, we're back on: 46 to go czar 00:35, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Today the link's not working for me. I tried others at WP:VGB, but I only got time outs, 404s or very long loading times. --Soetermans. T / C 12:29, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
The Catscan3 links are back up, but yeah, the tool's not quite as stable as it used to be czar 14:01, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
@Kiyoshiendo, the heading is tongue-in-cheek: if you're able to resolve the tags, you're an expert. They're usually a matter of untangling (usually deleting) jargon or rephrasing sections so they can be read by a general audience. czar 01:44, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Notability questions

Is the category Category:Slow motion video games notable? Its description is "Video games which allow the player to interact in slow motion". To me, that's pretty arbitrary. I would get that Fallout's V.A.T.S. is seen as "slow motion", but the player selects which body parts to attack and shows the results in slow motion, not true "interaction". I do not recall Skyrim having slow motion, or am I missing something? Max Payne and Red Dead Redemption bullet-time might be appropriate, but at the same time, we don't have categories like "flying video games", which allow the player to fly. --Soetermans. T / C 11:29, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Skyrim has slow motion death cams, but you can't exactly interact when they're playing. CfD. - hahnchen 11:37, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Hey, you're right! I remember turning that off as soon as possible. I did have some more questions.
What about List of celebrity appearances in video games? "This is a list of celebrities who have appeared as themselves in video games." What constitutes as a "celebrity"? Does appearing mean voicing a character with the same name? What about a celebrity portraying a highly fictionalized version of themselves, like 50 Cent in 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand?
Or when is List of fictional towns in video games notable, and/or arbitary and incomplete? A fictional town? "This list should include only well-referenced, notable examples that are integral to the storyline of a video game". Every city in Pokémon? What about video games based upon other media, like Star Wars? Oh, and what is a town, as opposed to a city? --Soetermans. T / C 11:49, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Also asking for my nomination of List of Mercenaries characters, is List of Killzone characters notable? --Soetermans. T / C 12:12, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
List of fictional towns should definitely be sacked. It's a bit like List of fictional universes in games, but even less defined. Currently, it looks more like a "list of notable locations in video games", where all the locations happen to be cities or towns. It's listcruft, really.
List of celebrity appearances in video games is more difficult to ascertain. It's not something that happens often in video games for a "celebrity" to portray themselves. I assume with "celebrity appearance", the actual celebrity played a role in motion-capturing, voice over, or possibly writing. The inclusion guidelines seem pretty straightforward to me: make sure the celebrity and the game have an article and look for sources. Finding sources for this topic, however, may be the difficult part. Neutral on the topic.
I've never been fond of "List of x characters"-type of articles. This one only uses four inline citations in the entire thing. Urgh, I'm biased, though. ~Mable (chat) 12:44, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Coverage is proportional. If the cast of characters is not itself the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable, independent sources (?), a section in the main article (if even that) would be sufficient. czar 13:52, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Which category? The fictional town, slow motion, celebrity appearances, or all three.--72.0.200.133 (talk) 16:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
There's one category about slow motion in video games, the other two are list articles. --Soetermans. T / C 16:12, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Ops missed that.--72.0.200.133 (talk) 16:15, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Fictional towns AfD'ed. --Soetermans. T / C 08:55, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Killzone characters too. --Soetermans. T / C 09:01, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
And is List of local multiplayer video games by system at all necessary? --Soetermans. T / C 09:07, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Anyone? List of local multiplayer video games by system? soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 09:14, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
At the very least, the "by system" scope is too large. A list by a single system is large enough (and I'm not sure that even that is beneficial). I'm not finding reliable sources that discuss "local multiplayer by system" as an independent topic, but some do discuss local multiplayer on a single system. I suppose that would be the way to do this, even if that makes my stomach churn too. czar 14:23, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Source on "Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven" title

It looks like there's confusion with the title of Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. Many articles on the web refer to it as "Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven" yet the developer and Take-Two (parent company of 2K - the publisher) call it simply "Mafia". Polish and German wikis are the only ones that noticed it. Debeet (talk) 00:10, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

We tend to go by what reliable sources call it. The WP:VG/RS custom Google search brings up PC Gamer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, GameSpot and Eurogamer calling it Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. --Soetermans. T / C 07:55, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
@Soetermans:, so the publisher and developer are not reliable enough? Debeet (talk) 15:14, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
That's a difficult question, because we have to by reliable, independent sources (WP:VG/RS), not what the creator says or calls it. Capcom for instance called Resident Evil 6 a "dramatic horor" game. But that's not an established genre and sources didn't call it that. There's also guidelines like WP:COMMONTERM (and the essay WP:OFFICIAL). soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 15:26, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
Looking at the sourcing in the article, this is definitely a case for using Mafia (video game) over the subtitle. The game is best known as simply "Mafia" than with the full subtitle (based on its usage in the sources). I'd contrast the reviews with the previews. czar 08:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
*chuckles* I knew this was going to bring up the WP:VGNC/WP:SUBTITLE discussion again! Well, I guess you know what I think. --Soetermans. T / C 09:07, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
@Czar: See WP:NATURALDIS and get back to us on whether policy is superceded by a guideline. On top of which, WP:SUBTITLES isn't about video games, and if we want to have a discussion about its vague parenthetical expression about video games, I'd be more than happy to start an RFC. You have so-far declined to do so to actually clarify the matter. The reason SUBTITLES exists is because there are some subtitles that are actually very long and so it serves us to trim them. Not so with most video games. --Izno (talk) 12:23, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
...Can't we just do a tally of the sources and go by common name? Just "Mafia" seems to be the common name in this case. The developer and distributor simply call it "Mafia" as well. I don't think WP:SUBTITLES even applies here, even if it would have otherwise. ~Mable (chat) 12:37, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
WP:NATURALDIS. Please read it. We prefer natural disambiguation where possible. --Izno (talk) 12:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
And let me expand a bit more: Reliable sources have the luxury of not needing to disambiguate within the context of their articles, as they are always talking about a singular game or a series of games. We do not have the same luxury at the page title level. My suggestion is that WP:SUBTITLES does not have consensus outside the context of printed works as I can point to a large number non-printed works which either a) include the subtitle or b) only go by the subtitle. I might just start the RFC myself to eliminate that phrasing in that guideline. --Izno (talk) 12:48, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
EDIT CONFLICT: Ah, I completely forgot to consider that, and missed it earlier because I'm apparently not paying attention ^_^; Where does the "The City of Lost Heaven" title actually originate from? It isn't on the box cover, and as has been said, it isn't used by the game's creators. I'm all for natural disambiguation, but is the full title even recognizable? ~Mable (chat) 12:51, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
While I believe consensus has been reached for applying WP:SUBTITLES to media other than books, I'm not certain there is consensus for applying it to video games, specifically (despite what the guideline itself says). I've previously argued against using it in video game titles because it is often in direct conflict with the naming conventions for video games. And video games are not the only form of media where WP:SUBTITLES isn't always preferable. Take film: A prominent example would be Star Wars (film), The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Each article title needs to be considered on its own, so I'd say starting an RFC couldn't hurt. As for WP:NATURALDIS, I'd argue natural disambiguation also shouldn't always prevail; in this situation, where The City of Lost Heaven doesn't even appear on the game's cover, I find it hard to prefer any title other than Mafia (video game). —zziccardi (talk) 15:55, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
  • That the subtitle guideline resides at the books naming convention instead of another page is an artifact of history—it has long been used for other media if only because it is a basic extension of Wikipedia:Article_titles#Conciseness. Mafia (video game) is sufficiently recognizable, natural, precise, concise, and consistent to convey the nature of the subject. There's nothing wrong with using the subtitle as a "natural disambiguator" in itself, but not when there is a shorter and more common form that suffices for all points of the naming criteria. czar 14:55, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
Concensus can change, right? I've been saying this several times now, WP:VGNC does not reflect WP:SUBTITLE. We should try to have some sort of WP:CONSISTENCY. Remember Eternal Darkness vs Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem? What about Injustice: Gods Among Us? There is no video game called Injustice (while Injustice (video game) does redirect to its full title), so what should be the title? The counterpoint is then to use whatever sources call it. But then there's the issue of games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which is called Skyrim or Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which is called Black Flag in RS'es. There is no guideline on WP:VG that says something about these issues. We can't just point to WP:BOOKS because of historical reasons. There's nothing keeping us from deciding what should be done. --Soetermans. T / C 15:25, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is interpreting the subtitles guideline to mean that every subtitle should be clubbed into submission. By and large, however, game subtitles are not nearly used as often as the main title to identify the work. I think it'd be fine to add something to NCVG along those lines if you wish, minding some of the notable examples as you mention. (But to answer the perennial question about those examples, I'd move Skyrim but not Injustice or Black Flag. "Skyrim" certainly is enough to succinctly identify the game per the NC, and "Black Flag"—disambiguated as Black Flag (video game)—would not be enough. I don't feel strongly about either, though, and I'm open to being convinced. From a cursory search, I think Injustice is a good case of the natural disambiguation mentioned above, or at least better than the Mafia case, based on the sources. These examples are separate discussions but once they happen or don't happen, we can use them as examples in NCVG.) czar 23:00, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
I'd like to reiterate Mable's question about where "The City of Lost Heaven" came from, because I think it got buried in other discussion. I'd like that information before putting my 2 cents in. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:17, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
It's ironic we're having this whole discussion, because looking up "mafia cover", "the city of lost heaven cover", "mafia the city of lost heaven cover" there was only this that comes close. I suppose the subtitle was just used in pre-release material. --Soetermans. T / C 16:00, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Yeah based on what I've seen, it seems like the official name was changed to just "Mafia" by the time the game actually came out. I would support a move to "Mafia (video game)", without making any further recommendations about other subtitle guidelines about video game article titles, which should definitely be discussed. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:14, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Move requested, thanks for pointing it out, @Debeet:. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 09:11, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

New articles - 19 February

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements

New articles from the past week. I also included articles from the New article announcements that have been moved into draft space and redirected (the ones I have spotted) over the past week and the number of articles from that page that have been deleted. This post has been made to help raise the visibility of new articles being created that fall under this project.

February 11

February 12

February 13

February 14

February 15

February 16

February 17

February 18

February 19

Salavat (talk) 06:51, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks mate, I've been looking over these. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 00:33, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
In any event, it's empty. I'd let the user continue the draft somewhere out of mainspace. czar 04:35, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
What should we do with this article? Delete it and give the creator a chance to move it to their user space? --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 02:43, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, great work, @Salavat:. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 08:52, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

HowLongToBeat on Wikidata

I'm told I should be canvasing my HowLongToBeat proposal. For now its only a link, with a possibility of pulling the numbers from the website. — Dispenser 05:31, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

  • Now that you're here, can you please tell me what Wikidata is for? --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 05:34, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
    See wikidata:Wikidata:Introduction. It's a system for linking datapoints of various items (including mostly Wikipedia articles and labels) in a way that is easily machine-readable. To put it another way: Wikipedia's end-product is "encyclopedic articles". Wikimedia Commons' is "freely-licensed media files". Wikidata's is "structured datapoints". ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 05:38, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
    I don't know much of wikidate, so let me just ask: is it common for wikidata to be used for user-contributed data? I understand why you'd want somekind of algorithm for completion time like we have for film and books, but I'm not sure if crowdsourcing is entirely proper. I know how wrong HowLongToBeat can be at times: it gives a good idea of whether a game is phenomenally short or long, but it's consistently off by, my guess, at least 30%. A game listed to take 100 hours can take 50 or 150, and it really depends on the kind of people that use HowLongToBeat. Books may have these discrepancies as well, but the algorithms created to calculate reading times are probably better studied. ~Mable (chat) 07:11, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
    Wikidata is still in the data ingesting phase. There have been many attempts to build a structured database (e.g. James Burke's KnowledgeWeb, 2002). The most successful have been Freebase (to become the proprietary Knowledge Graph aka Google Infoboxes) and WolframAlpha's database. These have been derived Wikipedia's Infoboxes, with all the notability biases we have. Wikidata is going to surpass all other projects due to the coupled with Wikipedia. Currently many people migrating Wikipedia:Persondata, and not many are interested in video games.

    The proposal is to allow claims to link to HowLongToBeat and from there 3rd-party programs can open the website in a browser window or scrape it. Similar to getting IMDb ratings. The approval process is sanity and interest check. My last property took nearly a year to get approved, so I'm hoping to speed it up. — Dispenser 17:15, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

  • Isn't this subjective? Many games have optional objectives. Many have different approaches. Many have secrets and 100%. Many have new game+ type stuff. Then some games are based on replaying. Furthermore, some have customizable gameplay length. Some games don't even have a win state. How would this even approach measuring co-op and online games. Then there's so many one-offs like idle games or games you can "end" early. While HL2B tries to account for various common variations per game, it's still case-by-case to be meaningful. Plus, the pool of users that contribute these numbers are not necessarily the majority. It's all kind of interesting, but it's very iffy to make conclusions in many of the cases. I don't think this information would be verifiable and encyclopedic. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:07, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
    Which I believe is why Dispenser is looking to add the ID as a claim in Wikidata, not the data itself (besides copyright reasons). However, I find it unlikely that any wikis would find the information valuable. --Izno (talk) 14:54, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
    Wikidata's purpose is not to serve Wikipedia and does not have its notability or encyclopedic requirements, but to be a database of structured information. This property could be useful to somebody building a games browser (e.g. Enhanced Steam) or creating an App (4 hours to kill, give me a puzzler with a 90+ Metacritic rating). — Dispenser 17:15, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
    While this is true, we should avoid going outside of Wikipedia's bounds to include information that would normally not be included in the project. In this case, game completion time is highly subjective and thus not something we can readily verify, so inclusion of that information would be inappropriate. In contrast while we do not include ESRB or other ratings visible on pages, I would see no reason wrong with being able to support Wikidata with this since it can be verified. --MASEM (t) 21:28, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
    I'm "fine" with HowLongToBeat being used for wikidata, as someone who has nothing to do with that project, but it is true that the website is so biased and unbalanced that it probably wouldn't be worth it. ~Mable (chat) 07:12, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

More video game templates up for deletion

I've nominated a bunch of video game related templates for deletion. Amongst other things, {{Video game console timeline}}, {{Map of Square Enix companies}} and {{IPhone video game engines}}, but also {{StrategyWiki}}. Input would be appreciated. --Soetermans. T / C 15:39, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Here is the complete list of VG-related templates from Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2016_January_27 (N.B. the first link given skips past the first few of them):

Murph9000 (talk) 18:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

And you can visit the article alerts report for daily updates on all your favorite processes! </shameless plug> —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:19, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Thoughts, @Soetermans? czar 20:15, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry for my late reply. I agree, I don't think those two are needed. --Soetermans. T / C 08:22, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
@Soetermans, want to nom them? (I defer to your TfD experience) czar 21:49, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Haha, yeah, I guess I'm the deletion guy by now, huh? I'll nominate probably tomorrow. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 09:13, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Template:GameSpot (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages) and Template:Arcade History (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages), both TfD'ed. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 15:01, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Of members of Category:Video game external link templates, I think IGN (same reason as Gamespot), GameTrailers (unused), one of either AMG or Allgame (duplication of functionality), and BattleTechWiki should definitely be deleted. Mobygames stuff (and to a lesser extent, Allgame and KLOV), as the game equivalent of IMDb, should most likely be kept. The rest are fine, no strong opinions. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:10, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Are any of these templates more useful than what an external link will provide? --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 16:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Those can probably go to by this point. I'll try to go over them tomorrow. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 21:53, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Finding video game redirects?

You know how redirects to video games get a template on their talk page telling us it's a redirect (example: Talk:DOOM)? Is there a way to find redirects that don't have anything on their talk page? It's a little thing, one which would be useful for data purposes. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 21:14, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser has a "What redirects here" function. There's also an external tool, Rdcheck. They both generate a list of redirects to a single page on Wikipedia. You can then filter this list by articles tagged/not tagged with the WikiProject template. I'm not sure if you can apply the "What redirects here" function or Rdcheck to a set of articles though. --The1337gamer (talk) 21:47, 21 February 2016 (UTC) 
SELECT ref.page_namespace+1, ref.page_title
FROM u2815__p.projectbanner /* Dispenser's DB, updates weekly */
JOIN page        ON page_id=pb_page
JOIN redirect    ON rd_namespace=page_namespace AND rd_title=page_title
JOIN page AS ref ON ref.page_id=rd_from
LEFT JOIN page AS talk ON talk.page_namespace=1 AND talk.page_title=ref.page_title
WHERE pb_title = "WikiProject_Video_games"
  AND ref.page_namespace = 0
  AND talk.page_id IS NULL;
-- ... 82190 rows in set (1 min 0.39 sec)
Now before you start creating 82,000 pages (currently class=redirect is 72), what in Wikipedia do need to do this for? — Dispenser 22:36, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
I have no idea what this script does. I thought it would add some legitimacy to the project and its redirects if we categorise what we leave behind. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 22:46, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
Its exactly what you asked for: All redlinks talk pages of redirects pointing to WP:VG articles. Me on why classifying redirects is unproductive. — Dispenser 23:09, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
Do you think this is a thing the people at bot requests would be down for automating? --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 01:57, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
It doesn't need to be done, its just a time waster. — Dispenser 15:59, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Why do we have a redirect class then if it wastes time? Should I (or you) make a discussion about that? --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
If a redirect page will forever remain a redirect, then tagging it with the wikiproject template and class redirect really makes no difference, this is the majority of redirects. However, there are some cases where a redirect class is useful. If an existing article gets redirected, then it should be changed to class redirect; previously editors would just remove the wikiproject template from the talk page. The problem with removing the wikiproject template is that if the article gets recreated, the wikiproject won't know it exists, it doesn't show up as a new article or a page that needs assessment. I've found dozens of articles that were untracked by the wikiproject because editors removed the wikiproject template when they were initially redirected. Using a redirect class in this case means the page will show up as needing assessment if an article is ever created. --The1337gamer (talk) 06:19, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Do we need to tag them? Is there any weird-case cleanup needed, assuming we can build the list to bulk-check for specific issues. As far as I know, almost no project has all the redirect tagged. <shameless plug>Did you know that Article alerts now also reports untagged redirects that redirect to project's pages? </shameless plug> —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 23:10, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Criteria for deleting games articles?

I've been looking through some backlogs and found some stub articles which doesn't seem to be notable. I'm confused about whether it's moral to nominate them for deletion. What's some of the criteria for deleting articles through WP:PROD, since I would like it explained simpler please. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 07:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

The easiest way to figure out whether a topic may be notable is doing a Google News search. Google the game's name, click on News, and see if any reliable sources pop up. Game Informer, Polygon, we got a large list. If it can be sourced, it should not be deleted. Older games or foreign games may be difficult to source this way: magazines and foreign websites can also be reliable sources, and they may not show up in a Google News search. If you're in doubt, though, you can go through the deletion process and see if it goes through. Possibly the best way to learn :) ~Mable (chat) 07:21, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
The VG/RS custom Google search engine is extremely useful. Maybe that'll help, @Kiyoshiendo:. I don't know who created it, but it's fantastic. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 15:03, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
@Soetermans: @Thibbs czar 15:22, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Ah, but with major error testing assistance from Czar! -Thibbs (talk) 00:35, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Even easier for games that have been (supposedly) been released in Western countries is to go to MetaCritic or another aggregator and search for reviews, which are pretty much a necessary element for any video game article. If there are no reviews from notable sources, there's a strong chance the game is not notable. Yet-to-be-released games are more difficult to determine but a news check as Maplestrip points out above can help to check. --MASEM (t) 15:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
The custom search linked above is the best bet. MetaCritic includes reviews (although unreliable ones too). MobyGames (otherwise unreliable and can have mistakes) can point to older game print reviews. News can bring up mainstream reviews. If none of these have anything, it's likely not notable. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:18, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you all. I will nominate prudently now. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 16:51, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I rarely get involved in deletion, but I imagine Zelda Classic is a good candidate. It lacks notability and has been deleted several times. Correct? —zziccardi (talk) 03:12, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

AfD'ed. Thanks, @Zziccardi:! soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 08:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Review Thread 22: February Call to Arms

It's February, and after a lull, the number of GAs has built up and FAs are being left in the dust. And as with previous threads,if anyone is interested in creating new articles,Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Requests now stands with a four and a half year backlog for requests.

FAs
  • Jumping Flash! (nom): Now on its second FAC review, has been active since 19 November 2015, and has numerous comments, along with five Supports.
  • Persona (series) (nom): Has been active since 10 January this year, has two substantial sets of comments, and one Support.
  • Ancient Trader (nom): Now on its second FAC review, has been active since 16 January this year, and has numerous comments, along with three Supports, one Neutral and one Oppose.
GAs
PR
FTC/FLC
Featured Portal

Begging thread

Here's my offer. I'll take any GA above that's not Mana or Kingdom Hearts in exchange for comments on the Persona FAC. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Will do an RPG peer review soon. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 19:02, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Did Sword Art Online and would like someone to spread magic on the SNES article --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 03:54, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Have put a few comments on the Persona one as well as the Jumping Flash FAC. --MASEM (t) 20:11, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

A possibly clean way to work with Japanese names

I have been watching (unable to help too much) @IDV: improve the Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors article over the last few weeks, and one thing I noticed was how the original Japanese titles were handled in the lede. Instead of keeping them in that first sentence, IDV used a footnote to keep the original Japanese names (including the glyphs and rough English translation) present in the article, while making the first sentence far less gibberish if you are primarily an English reader. I think this looks tons cleaner and would seem like a good way to approach games that were originally released in Japan as to keep their original names while focusing on how they are known in the West. For games that did not get Western releases like Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, here, I would keep the Japanese roman-character name, but do the same move of the glyphs and rough English translation to a footnote. I would assume that in the case of such a game, if the English translation is important, it would be something sourced (as we can do for Katamari Damacy meaning "clump spirit") but otherwise keeping this out of the way seems to keep things a lot clearer. --MASEM (t) 19:41, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I seem to recall this being discussed recently, and that using footnotes for extended titles was found to be a generally favorable solution. It's what I've been doing lately anyways. It's what I did with Ladybaby's single titles. I didn't find a way to use {{efn}} in-line and the actual note content in the "Notes" section to avoid in-line cluttering so I used list-defined refgroups but it's the same result. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:47, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
The discussion where it came up was back at the end of September, and yeah, we all seemed pretty in favor of the idea then. --PresN 20:05, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Just gonna point something out. This footnote approach arose from how the first sentence in Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward was structured, the sequel to 999. As the game had received a different name in Japan, North America, and Europe, instead of clogging up the first sentence with all three names, it was suggested to move the Japanese and European titles to a footnote. Famous Hobo (talk) 20:18, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yeah, unless the original foreign language title is very well known in English, or very short, I've come to prefer putting it in a footnote. Keeps the lead - which is arguably the most important part of the article - clean and easy to read.--IDVtalk 20:23, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I love this and wholeheartedly support it. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 20:48, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I haven't been making a particular effort to convert older stuff to this format but I've been using it on newer stuff I've worked on, in the case that the English is not a straightforward translation of the Japanese. Axem Titanium (talk) 21:47, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I've been using it for multi-titled games, games with awkward Japanese names, or games whose Japanese title would really make the lead rather unwieldy. Games with snappy titles (Tales, Drakengard, Final Fantasy) don't tend to need it. --ProtoDrake (talk) 21:49, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Since there seems to be general support for this, I've added that as a recommended (but not required) practice to WP:VG/GL here. --MASEM (t) 22:01, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Wasn't it already present a few lines down in the "Readability issues" section? Not as explicitly, maybe. I've merged the two sections.--PresN 01:53, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Good idea, as it makes the articles look cleaner. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 22:48, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not a fan, myself. I say this as someone who is firmly in favor of having games at English article titles, even for some Japanese-only games, but I think the original language of a work is usually important enough to be mentioned directly in an article and not hidden in a footnote. For special cases where there's 4 different names, I guess it's okay to hide it in a footnote, but even then, that implies readers from different regions might be expecting their local name. When there's just 2 names, I'd definitely say that it should be English + original language. For other domains, see The Brothers Karamazov (includes Russian), Fermat's Room (includes Spanish), etc. And sometimes it's done even when there are tons of other names: e.g. Cagot. SnowFire (talk) 19:08, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, but the Nihongo template means that it's not English + original language, it's English + original language x3. I personally chop it down to just one- in Legend of Mana, it's "Legend of Mana, originally released in Japan as Seiken Densetsu: Legend of Mana,[Note 1]", not "Legend of Mana, originally released in Japan as Seiken Densetsu: Legend of Mana (聖剣伝説 LEGEND OF MANA?, lit. "Legend of the Sacred Sword: Legend of Mana")". --PresN 19:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
That might be an exception solely because the English title is being repeated in the Japanese, making it a tad redundant. But in general, what's the problem? Or, at the very least, if there is a problem, it's a Wikipedia-wide style issue to switch to English-only. Even if we restrict to Japanese rather than French or whatever due to there being "more titles", I'm not sure why Japanese video games should be different than other works originally in Japanese - e.g. Yojimbo (film), The Tale of Genji, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, etc. all use the Nihongo template in the lede. SnowFire (talk) 19:51, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm a strong proponent of the footnote approach as well. Basically, I think it comes down to the reader. Japanese isn't a common second language for English readers, so for many, these lengthy, awkward Japanese video game titles create these awkward, hard to read opening sentences that have all this text that simply doesn't mean anything to the reader. I have no problem with your examples like Yojimbo above, but with video game titles, it's commonly more like:
''Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon (テイルズ オブ ファンタジア なりきりダンジョン, Teiruzu Obu Fantajia Narikiri Danjon) is a role-playing video game for the Game Boy Color released by Namco on November 10, 2000, selling 136,000 copies. Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon's characteristic genre name is Dungeon RPG (ダンジョンRPG, Danjon RPG).
Many of these sorts of scenarios are better handled with footnotes. Sergecross73 msg me 20:11, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
I think it should be up to the editor how to handle a situation, and that it shouldn't really be something to fight about. As a rule of thumb, though, I suppose if the lead includes more than a line of Japanese words, using footnotes is a good idea, though still optional. I've been in situations where I had difficulty reading a lead section because of an abundance of Japanese words, so footnotes can definitely help out. ~Mable (chat) 20:25, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
FWIW, there's totally no need to translate "Dungeon RPG", and I'd question using the Japanese title of the "genre" anyway. ("Dungeon crawler" is closer to English terminology, and possibly not even needed in the lede anyway?) I suppose it's an issue that comes up more with video games in that it's one of the rare areas where lots of English-speaking people consume works originally in another language, in translation, and are also quite possibly totally uninterested in the original context. El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha is a long name but if you're reading a story about a Spanish nobleman wandering around Castile you're probably not shocked at there being a Spanish title in the lede. That said, I'm still unsure... I'm trying to think of low-culture examples of foreign-language works that have long titles and all of them seem to still have the original-language title in the lede - Let the Right One In (film) ( Låt den rätte komma in), The Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des loups), Tales of the Arabian Nights ( كِتَاب أَلْف لَيْلَة وَلَيْلَة‎ kitāb ʾalf layla wa-layla) etc. Even trashy stuff with vampires / werewolves / genies seems to include the foreign title in the lede, even the long Arabic title.
I suppose my point is that you might want to ask WP:JAPAN for advice on this? Maybe video games really are unique and special in having lots of people who only know them in translation and are utterly uninterested in the original language title, but it is definitely a point of explicit variance from the default house style of Wikipedia. SnowFire (talk) 22:00, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
FYI, the Tales games have something they've coined a "characteristic genre name" - something like a "thematic subtitle" they give to all their games. That's why that part was translated too in that example. Anyways, regardless, considering the content is present in either scenario, and there seems to be an agreement that there's room for editorial discretion as well, I don't really see an issue... Sergecross73 msg me 00:30, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
@SnowFire, I would argue that none of those three examples have long translated titles, save for Don Quixote. They're all a lot shorter than, say, Final Fantasy Legends: Toki no Suishō. Even the Arabic one is pretty unobtrusive: the translations in the lead all give context rather than simple translations. ~Mable (chat) 08:29, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Re cover art for arcade games

Hey so I'm going through the backlog of Category:Video_game_articles_requesting_identifying_art and a lot of these requests are for arcade games. What do you think is cover art for an arcade game? The cabinet, or the title screen? --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 17:08, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I would say, in order of preference: cabinet, title screen, some other promotional art (ad, poster, etc.). But that's just me. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:18, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Take for example Space Invaders. :) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:22, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Whatever is most recognizable, I suppose. This would probably be the title screen in many situations, as it gives a better idea of what the game is like. Can't say I have much of a preference, though. I would prefer promotional material over a badly lit photograph of an arcade cabinet, that's for sure. ~Mable (chat) 18:27, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I completely whiffed the formatting of my comment so please edit mine so it inks to the backlog I was talking about --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 18:47, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Asking for help with cover art backlog

So I'm at Category:Video game articles requesting identifying art skimming through what needs to be fixed, and it's a very long list.
If anybody with free time can help me check the articles and find articles that actually have identifying art, it would clean this up very nicely.
You do this by 1. Checking the article for a cover or logo, and 2. Removing the "cover=y" from the template on the talk page.
Do we still have to upload cover art? Sure, though finding faulty reports make that easier to deal with later.
Anyway, I did everything up to C, and I'll take care of D, too, and if you can take care of another block of letters we will be very fast with this (sad that it has to get done anyway). --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 06:23, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Did E and F. --PresN 13:24, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Indigenous video games

I stumbled upon the article Indigenous video games. I'm having some trouble with the title. The "indigenous" refers to Indigenous peoples, which starts off with: "Indigenous peoples are those groups protected in international or national legislation as having a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory, their cultural and historical distinctiveness from other populations". That itself is a bit problematic, as "indigenous" is not a single, coherent group. The article is about the involvement of indigenous people in the video game industry, but also about cultural depictions of indigenous people in video games. Would Indigenous peoples and video games be more appropriate? Because then controversies like Survival Island 3 can also be included. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 13:46, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, current title is somewhat OR. That is not really a COMMONNAME and there isn't one clear topic, so we can come up with something better here. I don't really know what similar cases did, but "Indigenous peoples and video games" seems okayish, if a bit clumsy. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:10, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
The article seems to be predominantly about specific persons/people and not peoples in the general. I also find the two mostly-separate topics of "indigenous people in video games" and "indigenous people in the VG industry" rather jarring in the article, which a simple page move cannot resolve, I think. --Izno (talk) 14:24, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree, Indigenous people in video gaming sounds best. I'll move it there. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 10:41, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Or not :) soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 10:49, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Done. :p ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:30, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Minor edit warring

I don't know what to do about this IP editor that keeps changing the name of a person, against sources, but won't give a reason as to why. I have [User talk:93.74.74.87 brought it up over at Incidents] when it started, and when I did, the IP stopped reverting. However, he just returned, and now I really have no idea what to do. Input? revision history. ~Mable (chat) 08:47, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

New articles - 27 February

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements

New articles from the past week. I also included articles from the New article announcements that have been moved into draft space and redirected (the ones I have spotted) over the past week and the number of articles from that page that have been deleted. This post has been made to help raise the visibility of new articles being created that fall under this project.

February 16

February 19

February 20

February 21

February 22

February 23

February 24

February 25

February 26

February 27

Salavat (talk) 08:18, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

If anyone is interested in discussing the video game reliable sources custom Google search, there is a discussion about its scope and areas for growth at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources#Let's talk about the WP:VG custom search engines czar 15:38, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Zotero translator training

I wrote a few months ago about Citoid, a tool that will generate a full citation based on the URL alone. (It's the future.) Citoid relies on Zotero translators, which are custom website parsers (for the citation manager Zotero) that specify where to find the byline, summary, etc. in the site's code. I've written a few for some of our major sites, but there are a few more to go (this is a bit of a longer story but many of our main sources do not use decent metadata and should just get on that train). When I first posted about all of this, translators were kind of messy (their documentation is still a mess) but they're pretty easy to make overall once you know the main structure. Anyway, one of the Zotero maintainers has offered to do a workshop on writing Zotero translators. It's scheduled for next Monday, the 29th, at 20:00 UTC (more details). I highly recommend joining in. czar 06:53, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

What does Zotero do? --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 06:57, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
It's a citation manager (collects source metadata for easy referencing later). But its website scrapers ("translators") are used independently from the Zotero software. For example, my Polygon translator will fill citations in Citoid without any connection to Zotero. The translators just tell where to look for the correct metadata for each site. czar 07:02, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
@Thibbs, I'm told it'll be here: mw:Tech_talks#Past_tech_talks czar 07:39, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Czar! -Thibbs (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Category:New Game Plus video games

Is this a defining trait? czar 00:47, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't think so. I like using new game plus to help explain the concept, but I don't think a category makes sense... Sergecross73 msg me 00:52, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
I'd say nominate it for deletion. There are a few very rare examples of games where the NG+ is a "defining" trait in that the game very strongly expects you to play through the game multiple times and a 'true' completion of the game is secretly 4-5 completions wrapped into one (999 being one such case, since people were already discussing it above), and games which have something in its NG+ experience that is more than "the same game with bigger numbers" (Chrono Trigger alternate endings most famously, I guess), but I can't imagine how "Games with significant NG+" could ever be easily distinguished from "Games with any sort of NG+ at all". Or how games like Diablo II/III with multiple difficulty modes played in succession would fit in. And there is guaranteed to be helpful editors who add the category to everything with an NG+, leading to a non-defining category. It's either a valid narrow category that's impossible to figure out clear inclusion criteria, or a clear but over-broad & non-defining category. SnowFire (talk) 01:20, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Someone might want to take a look at this editor's edits: [7] - some additions might be okay, but I'm seeing additions of NG+ information with a fan wiki as a source, or in a way that doesn't fit with the flow/scope of the article (ie minor gameplay detail that appear in some games added to the series article). And I'm really not a fan of them making a gameplay section where the only information is that the game has an NG+ feature.--IDVtalk 01:24, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, I noticed his edits on a few pages I watch too, and they all seem pretty much copypasted from one article to the next. Listing what exactly new game + does in each game is WP:GAMECRUFT in my opinion. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 01:32, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
To be fair, with that last edit, he created a section strictly about NG+ because there wasn't a gameplay section yet. I mean, I've done similar things, creating a gameplay section just to say "this game is an JRPG" or something. Its not ideal, but its valid info, and doesn't really belong in any existing sections... Sergecross73 msg me 01:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't think new game plus is relevant to most articles, and so the category should be deleted due to being too niche to matter. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 01:44, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
@Sergecross: Yeah, I'm not saying that it was actually wrong, just that I don't particularly like it. Saying a game is a JRPG is not much, but it explains what the game is. Meanwhile, this is just one single, rather insignificant, gameplay detail without any other information. Edit: Sorry, I'm being too negative. There isn't really anything actually bad about that edit, and it doesn't deserve me complaining about it.--IDVtalk 01:53, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
I have been expanding the list of games on the New Game Plus category. It started when I was reading the page for Resonance of Fate and noticed it had a New Game Plus section but was not in the category. There were about 90 entries when I started. Initially I just went to video games that already linked to the New Game Plus page, via "What links here". I read each case to make sure the context was correct (one or two video games linked to it but not in the correct sense, for example Future Tactics: The Uprising). As far as creating Gameplay sections, it seemed the existing trend was to put New Game Plus information into a Gameplay section. As far as referencing outside sources, I didn't know Wikis were not considered good sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FishLizardMan (talk • contribs) 02:37, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
I believe a list of games with a NG+ gameplay mechanic may be worth creating. In researching for the CfD on the topic, I've been heading towards deletion as a category. Instead, a list article seems to be more appropriate based on the various category vs. list pages.
Reasoning for a list:
  • I believe the New Game Plus article can be expanded upon, increasing the relevance of a NG+ list (perhaps making a list is jumping the gun then?)
  • Helps to gauge the prevalence of NG+
  • Provides a means to discover and explore other games with NG+ features
  • For research and comparison of the NG+ mechanic
Thoughts on creating a list article? FishLizardMan (talk) 19:50, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm in favor of documenting it somewhere, but I don't know whether I prefer a list article, or just cleaning up the new game plus article and making a list there... Sergecross73 msg me 20:20, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
There may be some worthwhile reasons to create such a list. There are also some issues, though. Per the notability guidelines regarding stand-alone lists, a list should be a set of topics that are 'commonly' listed by sources. I don't know of any reliable source that has "listed" New Game Plus-games, though if you can find some, feel free to share. It may also be difficult to create good inclusion criteria, per the discussion above. I can see how it could work out well with a lot of prose, though. It may be interesting to define different New Game Plus mechanics. I don't think it falls under WP:Game guide, assuming the list follows descriptions from reliable sources.
What is most important is good sources for such a list, though. I think there are quite a few on specific games, but none about multiple games. ~Mable (chat) 20:22, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Help with H1Z1

Anybody want to help make a new article for H1Z1: King of the Kill? If you aren't aware, H1Z1 was recently seperated into two games, with H1Z1: Just Survive being the game formerly known as H1Z1 (all hours on Steam were transferred to this version, so I moved the old H1Z1 article to it, but it needs to be re-written now.) ~ Dissident93 (talk) 01:03, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

  • EDIT: I just created a stub article for it, but if anybody wants to help expand it, go ahead. Both games have their own logo now too, so if somebody can get a hold of clean versions of both, that would be appreciated. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 06:17, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Is it an idea to keep H1Z1 as the article on the original game, before it was split into two? soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 07:37, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

TOCA Race Driver 3 Japan release date confusion

I have a problem concerning the Japanese PlayStation 2 release date of TOCA Race Driver 3 GameFAQs claims the game was released in Japan on September 4, 2008, but the Nintendo Everything link said the game was reviewed by Famitsu on January 16, 2008. This is so confusing. Is there any proof that the Japanese PS2 release date for TOCA Race Driver 4 was around January 16, 2008? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 19:31, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

GameFAQs is user-contributed and unreliable (and often wrong). I can't copypaste links easily on mobile, but according to IGN/MetaCritic/Jeuxvideo.com the original release dates seems to be January 21, 2006. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:37, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
But that would probably be the PC release? Anyways, unless it's a notable (i.e. subject of sigcov) datapoint, there is no need to list every release date for every platform in every region. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:41, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Famitsu says it was released in Japan on January 24, 2008, with a budget re-release on September 4. However, we generally don't include Japanese release dates in the articles unless the game is Japanese, and this seems to have been developed by a company in the UK.--IDVtalk 19:42, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I went ahead and corrected the Japanese release date info with the Famitsu link. Hope that helps. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:20, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
You still had the Japanese release date in the infobox, which as of a recent consensus, isn't allowed anymore for non Japanese games. It should still belong in prose, however. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:42, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Why? Why did you remove the Japanese PS2 release date from the infobox but keep the Famitsu score and link? If you removed the Japanese PS2 release date, you might as well remove the Famitsu score and link too! --Angeldeb82 (talk) 03:20, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Why? The review is important and notable. But listing every release date for every platform in every region is undesirable, especially listing JP releases for non-JP games. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 04:00, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I'm just going with that the infobox documentation states. And like I said above, the Japanese release/Famitsu info belongs in prose and not in the infobox. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 04:07, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I understand now. Thanks for clearing that up. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 04:18, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

From wp.fr video game project

Hello,
I'm from wp.fr; I am sorry for my bad english.
In our Wikipedia we can't use fair use screenshot, so illustrate a article is pretty much impossible. Some contributor want to try to contact some developers and are hoping that they will accept to put images under a appropriate license.
We are wondering if someone on wp.en tried to do something like that? Because honestly we don't have a clue about the procedure and we can't write english good enough, so a little help could be great :-)
Thanks! Kotovol (talk) 18:50, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks!
I note that most of the screenshots of c:Category:Video game screenshots are from self-edited games. Do you know who are the copyright owners in the case where the editor and the developer are distinct? Kotovol (talk) 10:40, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
It is always easier for indie games than for bigger studios. I don't know of any big studio game where we've managed to negotiate free-licensing of media, but maybe Czar has? ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 14:05, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I received a dev team photo from Respawn/Titanfall, but otherwise I wouldn't expect non-indie devs to even entertain free use image releases—they are more protective over intellectual property and have little incentive to contribute, while the smaller studios tend to care more about open culture, or at least have a management structure that honors their intellectual beliefs. (When you said "self-edited" do you mean games with different developers and publishers? Some of the content I've released (c:Category:Video game files uploaded by czar) has had separate devs/publishers, but the developer still had enough autonomy to license the press kits as they wished without bureaucratic interference.) czar 14:28, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I've never had luck with large studios in regards to free-use media requests, not even with large indie studios such as Insomniac Games. Other larger companies I've approached include Crytek, Double Fine, Activision. Usually their correspondence, if they acknowledge it at all, goes, "Yes, we love Wikipedia, here's our press kit", I then reiterate my request for free-use media, and when they realise what free-use actually means, they decline. If more editors are interested in approaching developers, it may be worth coordinating on Commons, so that we don't annoy our targets with duplicated approaches. It's a shame the free-use media we have is so under-utilised on foreign language Wikipedias. - hahnchen 19:52, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
OK!
Coordinating on Commons is a good idea. If someone on wp.fr eventually tries to contact a developer, I (or an other wp.fr-contributor) will contact you again.
Thanks for your time :-)
(Sorry, short answer for long explanation but writing in english is taking me a long time!) -- Kotovol (talk) 22:47, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Cover art and screenshot tool

If anyone's interested in a project... from time to time I think about how great it would be to have a user-operated WMF Tool Labs project that would pull cover art and screenshots from vetted sites for articles that are marked as needing them, vet the images with the user, and plop them into the articles. It'd be really easy to kill the backlog this way and we'd save so much time with the way we currently do uploads... especially since we operate under the assumption that every game page eventually gets two of these images. Is anyone up for this? We could help put together the spec if it would be helpful. I, for one, would love to take this on if I had more time. czar 20:51, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

It's a good idea, particularly for box art, but you might get pushback from free-use fundamentalists on hosting an tool which exclusively imports non-free material. - hahnchen 22:25, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Best-selling and Steamspy

Looking for input at Talk:List of best-selling PC games#SteamSpy regarding using SteamSpy as a source of "units sold". -- ferret (talk) 23:11, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Outside input needed

Talk:Microsoft_FreeCell#Cleanup czar 04:52, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

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