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1up.com

I was going to use an article from that site as a reference. But the site is dead. No matter, I'll just go to archive.org and use the wayback machine! Then I got the message: "Page cannot be displayed due to robots.txt.". So... what? Does that mean that all the 1up articles are just gone forever? They can't be used as references? Because using defunct websites and magazines are fine (no publication will last forever) but I need to actually read them to confirm the information on there.

This is the specific url: [1] Harizotoh9 (talk) 18:56, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, 1up is gone forever. --Izno (talk) 19:12, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
So all that information is gone too forever? Just like that? No archives? Nothing? Harizotoh9 (talk) 19:19, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
As per a month ago, the internet archive is slowly unblocking the archives they've taken of sites that have a robots.txt, so hopefully at some point archived 1up.com pages will come back- if I remember correctly, the robots.txt file was only put on the site after it was shut down, so there should be archives in existence, if not currently available. --PresN 19:25, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
@IDV: Wow, that's good to know. Thanks for sharing. sixtynine • speak up • 04:56, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
Just another awesome aspect of the Internet and Free Market! SharkD  Talk  01:00, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic, but can a publisher petition the Library of Congress to not include a book in its collection? Is there a "robots.txt" for books? SharkD  Talk  05:00, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Xbox Game Pass

Wanted to get more input from the WikiProject on this. With Xbox Game Pass about to launch officially on 1 June, some users have included the debut catalog for the service. While there is some precedent for this—see EA Access—the nature of this particular service seems to make such a list inappropriate. Games will come and go from the service from time to time, per Microsoft's own description of it, whereas Electronic Arts has stated "once in the Vault, always in the Vault" (despite including language that says they actually can remove content with notice). As we don't have a list of all the films/series on Netflix, is one appropriate for Game Pass? Please register your opinion on the article's talk page, as well as at List of Xbox Game Pass games. Thanks! --McDoobAU93 12:27, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Aside from being a different subscription service, how does List of Xbox Game Pass games differ from List of Games with Gold games, List of Instant Game Collection games (PAL region), List of Instant Game Collection games (North America), List of Instant Game Collection games (Asia), List of Instant Game Collection games (Japan), List of Instant Game Collection games (China)? Do these violate WP:NOTCATALOG? --The1337gamer (talk) 09:33, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
That's my point. And the only reason it's a list page is because McDoob didn't want the list on the main article for Game Pass Brooza (talk) 07:27, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Outpost (1981 video game)

Does it exists? Is it notable?Xx236 (talk) 07:34, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

It exists. You can even play it on archive.org!
http://www.mobygames.com/game/outpost__
https://archive.org/details/Outpost4amCrack
http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.ca/2013/01/the-ultimate-so-far-history-of.html
http://www.gutenberg.us/articles/outpost_(1981_video_game)
☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:35, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata and enwiki article links

Sometimes when an article about a specific game is missing from enwiki, the Wikidata record for that game will link to the series article instead. The problem is, when multiple Wikidata records try to link to the same enwiki article. The software will not allow this. Is there a trick to get around this restriction? SharkD  Talk  22:47, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Examples? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:56, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q790620 SharkD  Talk  23:09, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
wikidata:Help:FAQ#Editing may have the information you want. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:17, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
After reading that, it looks like creating and linking to redirects on enwiki might be the best solution. However, this will not work for the game Avernum, since the article Avernum is about the series, not the game. We could move Avernum to Avernum (series), which makes sense logically, but this is frowned upon here I think. SharkD  Talk  23:26, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I found an existing redirect Avernum (computer game), but Wikidata is ignoring it and replacing the redirect with just Avernum. SharkD  Talk  23:40, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I've long complained about it, but for some reason Wikidata is yet not a functional tool: it does not handle redirects. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 23:45, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
This is by design. --Izno (talk) 03:33, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
There is an RfC going on right now: Wikidata:Wikidata:Requests for comment/Allow the creation of links to redirects in Wikidata. SharkD  Talk  04:27, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Then it was designed not to be usable. The migration from interwiki links to Wikidata shouldn't have removed working functionality. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:16, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Anyone who was anyone working with interwikis knew the pain of managing redirects. "Working" is in the eye of the beholder in this case. --Izno (talk) 13:36, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata records about video game series

Q7889 is supposed to be about instances of video games. Do we allow items to be created in the same heading for instances of video game series as well? For instance Q6858979. SharkD  Talk  04:58, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

A solution might be to create a new class of object, "Video game series". SharkD  Talk  11:09, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Never mind. There already is one! SharkD  Talk  11:20, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, take a look at Q5114216. It is a record of not a game, but a Wikipedia article about games! Should this be in there as well? SharkD  Talk  05:40, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata's notability criteria regard every Wikimedia wiki link as requiring an item. --Izno (talk) 12:16, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
I am unable to parse this statement. Here is a link. Here is a link. Both of these require an item? SharkD  Talk  13:57, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant "Wikidata's notability criteria regard every Wikimedia article as requiring/allowing an associated item and on-item link", subject to a set of notability criteria. User pages are specifically not allowed, while the search engine Wikipedia-space page could plausibly have an item for it. --Izno (talk) 15:26, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Okay, an admin at just moved Q5114216: Chronology of tactical role-playing video games: Unreleased games from Q7889: video game to Q13406463: Wikimedia list article, which makes much more sense. SharkD  Talk  14:22, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Not an admin, just a synergistic mister. --Izno (talk) 15:28, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
For Q5867207: History of Western role-playing video games I am guessing it is an "aspect of history" and "facet of role-playing video game". Just a guess though. SharkD  Talk  14:29, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Question

Geneshift is a recently created stub, and I was hoping someone here could advise me as to any exceptions for video games WP:N before I tag it. Thanks in advance. Atsme📞📧 13:35, 3 June 2017 (UTC) .

@Atsme, it has some coverage in the video game reliable sources custom Google search, but whether it's enough for the general notability guideline is TBD czar 20:26, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
The article creator also appears to have a conflict of interest. Woodroar (talk) 20:50, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Counter Logic Gaming

Counter Logic Gaming, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Cognissonance (talk) 07:25, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Update: Sakura Wars

Hi there, everyone. I've recently finished a large amount of work related to the Sakura Wars series. While not complete, I've created extensive articles on the first Sakura Wars, and its first three sequels 2: Thou Shalt Not Die, 3: Is Paris Burning? and 4: Fall in Love, Maidens. I'm not going to be doing work on the fifth game So Long, My Love for the time being, and I've burnt myself out slightly on this project. If anyone wants to take up these articles, feel free. --ProtoDrake (talk) 21:33, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Unbelievable work, nice job. TarkusAB 01:33, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, very nice work. Amazing considering so few have been localized in any capacity. Best of luck with So Long, My Love. I did not enjoy that game at all, so I'd be hardpressed to be motivated to help much. But we've already been through the process before, ProtoDrake - you ask for help due to burnout, and then usually end up doing it yourself anyways! ;) Sergecross73 msg me 14:57, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
@Sergecross73: You didn't research four Japan-exclusive games within the space of a month to the point that you're sick of the words "Sakura" and "Wars". I'm not touching the fifth game until I've fully recovered my ability to work on it with my usual quality standards, which could be some time. ;) --ProtoDrake (talk) 21:47, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
ProtoDrake - Makes sense. It was hard enough for me just trying to improve the JP-only Another Eden from "garbage class" to "start class" a month back, I can only imagine what it would be like working on all four of those Sakura Wars articles. Sergecross73 msg me 16:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
I'll see if I can fit some time in to work on So Long, My Love. It'd definitely be a fun project, as it's one of my all-time favorite games.--Martin IIIa (talk) 19:49, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
@Martin IIIa: If you like, I can provide you with the sources needed to expand the article. I've already gathered them together. --ProtoDrake (talk) 08:39, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Archiving Iwata Asks

This came up briefly two years ago but I'd like it addressed before it becomes an issue. Iwata Asks interviews are invaluable and I don't believe they're being archived. List of Iwata Asks interviews links to the http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews version, which doesn't load a static page for archiving, though https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-Asks/Iwata-Asks-525945.html has static links that most archivers ignore: Internet Archive/Wayback won't process them (I don't know who said they would ignore robots.txt from now on, but if that's so, it's not working) and neither will WebCitation. archive.is will only process them manually, apparently, and every one I've done so far hasn't been in their system. Any ideas on automating these? czar 04:35, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

  • I've been thinking this for some time since adopting archive.is over Wayback. Is it even possible to make an automation for Archive.is? That might be very helpful. GamerPro64 04:39, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Dontnod Entertainment

Can this article eventually become a GA candidate? It is small, but well sourced and decently written. I've requested a Wikipedia:Peer review/Dontnod Entertainment/archive1 should you be interested in taking a look at it. Cognissonance (talk) 08:20, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Definitely needs more information (à la Avalanche Studios, Insomniac Games, Rare) but I'm sure it could reach GA level eventually. – Rhain ☔ 09:19, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
@Rhain: Does it have to be as long, or just cover the same topics? Expanded it to serve the latter. Cognissonance (talk) 03:55, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
Technically not as long, especially considering the amount of games Dontnod has developed compared to the studios I linked, but certainly approaching a similar length. Your additions looks great. – Rhain ☔ 09:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Review Trades?

I have four GA noms that I am eager to have reviewed. Much impatient, such bored. If you need an article reviewed either in WP:PR or WP:GA I can do that if you review one of my noms. (note, I have mostly only reviewed video game-related stuff) Cognissonance (talk) 22:23, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

This: Wikipedia:Featured list criteria. --The1337gamer (talk) 06:32, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

@ProtoDrake and Anarchyte: If you're so inclined, we can help each other out. –Cognissonance (talk) 09:00, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Cognissonance I'll take Watch Dogs 2 if you could review Kingsglaive. --ProtoDrake (talk) 10:03, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
@ProtoDrake: Will start the review later today. –Cognissonance (talk) 10:12, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
@Cognissonance: I can take a look at Remember Me (video game) if you can review Fighters Uncaged. I won't be able to start it today, but I'll get on it tomorrow. Anarchyte (work | talk) 11:26, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Why the spike in page views?

Does anyone know what caused the spike in page views for Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games? See here. SharkD  Talk  18:46, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

3 May 2016 is the precise date that daily pageviews approximately doubled: [2] --The1337gamer (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm going to guess that the project was listed prominently somewhere else on Wikipedia? I'm sure somebody else here knows the answer. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:32, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
For what it's worth, this seems to be local to WP:VG. See Main Page pageviews and WP:MILHIST pageviews. -Thibbs (talk) 21:00, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
I check page views a lot, and sometimes there are sudden massive increases that happen for no reason. I don't know if it's an error in the system, outside manipulation, or what... Sergecross73 msg me 23:16, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
The massive increase has remained steady for the last year. There must be a reason for it. SharkD  Talk  13:10, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
I would recommend filing a task in Phabricator. The only people who will know are those with access to server logs or the backside of the tool (or perhaps MusikAnimal). --Izno (talk) 15:10, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

(←) So first I tried to find out if there was an undeclared bot that skewed the stats, which is common. I did this by checking the per-city distribution during that time period, and nothing looks too off to me. No one city had significantly more traffic than the next, which is what I normally see with undeclared bots. While the cities themselves were not what I would expect, I shouldn't be too surprised because this is an internal project page. I then compared the data with dates before the elevated pageviews, and sure enough I get similar results – in the sense that they differ from the mainspace and instances where pageviews were skewed by bots. Finally, I checked referrals (which we only have recent data on), and most of it is internal – which pretty much seals my opinion that the traffic is authentic. Maybe there was something that happened in early May 2016 that attracted more people to the WikiProject? — MusikAnimal talk 16:05, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Maybe all those female editors who have been holding back for all these years have finally joined the project! -Thibbs (talk) 17:34, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
For a second, I thought maybe the release of Overwatch could have led to this, but there is no way the release of a single game could have doubled the traffic to the project (which only matters for dedicated editors, not casual editors/readers who make up the majority of Wikipedia). Pretty odd. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:17, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Setting

I am exploring how to reproduce this list using Wikidata only. I was wondering if it would be okay to add a "setting" parameter to the infoboxes or wikidata records? Right now I don't think any games have such a parameter. The "setting" parameters I used in the list include such things such as "sci-fi", "fantasy", "modern", "historical" among others. Thanks. SharkD  Talk  00:53, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Unlike books or movies, video games are not typically separated into their thematic genres, but their gameplay ones; as such, they're not considered one of the defining aspects of a game, and in fact many games would be either cross-categorical or simply defy categorization (what setting is Minecraft, for example?). I would oppose adding this to the infobox; it's not the kind of thing that can be clearly distilled into a single word or two for every game. --PresN 11:37, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Books/movies can be just as hard to classify. For instance, there are plenty of cross genres such as Science fantasy and Space Western. As for Minecraft, what makes it any different from other fantasy/steampunk games? SharkD  Talk  13:18, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
And the film project already has a hard enough time corralling genres in many films, to a point where I think they have it limited to a max of two genres with IAR applications? We'd have exactly the same problems, even more-so given how gameplay genres are often fought over. --MASEM (t) 13:41, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
And don't get me started on the genre-warring that goes on in the music world. The less we can delve into the subjective world of genre and classification, the better, in my opinion. Sergecross73 msg me 13:45, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
I don't know. I have created a few dozen of these lists, and combinations of the above four settings pretty much covers all of them. SharkD  Talk  14:49, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Why are you trying to reproduce this list in wikidata? --PresN 11:37, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
The Wikipedia list is no longer being updated by anyone. Wikidata is more likely to be current. SharkD  Talk  13:22, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Since Wikidata is such a mess, I think I will just update the Wikipedia list manually instead. For instance, there's no way to tell the country of origin just by looking at the Wikidata record. Or who published the game at what date if there are multiple dates. SharkD  Talk  06:55, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
As far as Wikidata goes, "genre" does not obey the Enwiki Infobox video game rules. That is, in Wikidata eyes, there's no issue with setting "science fiction" as the genre of a video game. Presumably, with sourcing. We need to be careful about discussing how to populate Wikidata here, and trying to base it on using our infobox rules or guidelines as a starting point. That is, if someone reads this section, then goes to Wikidata and starts deleting genres from video games, they will essentially be in the wrong. All we can really do is discuss how to utilize whats in Wikidata here on Enwiki. I.e. do we filter out genres we don't want when we pull the data. -- ferret (talk) 14:32, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Which is why I suggested a "setting" parameter. Because I think they *should* be separated. SharkD  Talk  14:48, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, but Wikidata doesn't have separate fields for this. "Genre" is both setting and 'video game type'. How do you determine if a genre is thematic or not? This has to be done within the framework of Wikidata. If enough data is available in Wikidata to make that determination, I could code for it and filter. This could possibly be done by making a new instance type, "video game genre", which is a sub-instance of "genre". Then move the video game genres down to this.... (@Izno?) Otherwise we'd have to make a hard coded list of "These are allowed video game genres" and assume all other genres to be "Thematic". But that's a separate issue from the fact that enwiki currently frowns on thematic genres for video games. -- ferret (talk) 15:23, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
My original argument against having a separate "video game genre" property (it has previously been proposed) was that the kind of genres are distinguished by their typing in Wikidata. Video game genres are either direct or indirect subclasses of video game genre (Q659563) in Wikidata. This is presently a subclass of genre (Q483394), to which so-called "literary" genres also trace their heritage. An algorithm in Wikidata can filter for items of the one without the other based on checking other types. --Izno (talk) 18:17, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
If by "thematic" you mean Theme (narrative), then no I don't think we should classify video games in that way. But I do think we can classify based on gameplay/technical differences (as we do currently) and setting (which we do not do). Also, I'm not sure "It will cause edit wars!" is a good rationale for not doing so, especially when we are free to list more than one genre in the infobox/database. SharkD  Talk  11:17, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
In response to Izno: Ok, that's what I was looking for. The video game genres already have their own class, so yes, I can filter by that. No need for any change in Wikidata structure. In response to SharkD: What you're talking about cannot possibly be solved here, in that you're basically redefining "genre". "Fantasy" for example is widely viewed as a "genre". Even if Enwiki were to decide to present "thematic" or "literary" genres as "setting" for video games, Wikidata would not follow and would even resist such an attempt to redefine it like that. However, because these items are categorized in Wikidata, it's possible to filter them differently here. They will always be "genres" in Wikidata, but if there is a consensus (Which I don't see happening at the moment), I could sort the genre field into two sets for different infobox fields. -- ferret (talk) 12:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
I guess I can understand not wanting to put them in infoboxes. But it seems weird to not be able to put the thematic genres in wikidata. I mean, we have categories for this stuff, and if it's worth putting in a category it should be worth putting in wikidata, right? SharkD  Talk  22:32, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
You can put them in Wikidata. They belong in the genre statement on Wikidata, same as "first person shooter" goes. That's all I've been saying. -- ferret (talk) 22:34, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
Okay, great. Also, what is the most convenient way to edit multiple wikidata records en masse? The default method such as https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q214232 only allows me to edit one record at a time, and is kind of clunky. (I'm still not sure I can navigate these pages using only a keyboard.) On the other hand, TABernacle only seems to let me *add* values, not edit or remove them. Also, TABernacle doesn't let me add references. SharkD  Talk  23:39, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
Take a look at d:WD:Tools. If you don't find something there, best to ask at d:WD:PC. --Izno (talk) 18:08, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
Is there a way to filter different types of genre in a query? I created this query, but it just pulls every type of genre AFAIK. Thanks. SharkD  Talk  00:04, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
That's a question for d:WD:RAQ... --Izno (talk) 00:49, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

New articles - 19 May

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

9 May

10 May

12 May

13 May

14 May

15 May

16 May

17 May

18 May

19 May

Salavat (talk) 09:28, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello Neighbor (video game) has a draft at Draft:Hello Neighbor that only exists because an AFD put it there. The new version is a better start but suffers for the same reason the other article drafted. --Izno (talk) 14:32, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
@Izno (another other editors): I gathered some sources for possible expansion of the article (commented out in the referenecs section), maybe these sources plus the Draft content could be merged to form a sup-stub article? I'm currently lacking the time to do it myself, though. Lordtobi (✉) 15:12, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

New articles - 26 May

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

13 May

19 May

20 May

21 May

22 May

23 May

24 May

25 May

26 May

On a side note I will be away on holiday from 1 June to 18 June and wont be able to go through the new articles and update New article announcements or produce this weekly summary. If anyone is interested on covering this while I'm away that would be awesome otherwise I will do a catch-up when I'm back. Salavat (talk) 02:12, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Culling video game categories

Hi everyone,

I'm browsing through the many video game-related categories out there. Before I start removing them from articles and nominate some of them for deletion, I wanted to check what the consensus is.

Thanks for the input. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 08:12, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Big Huggin looks like an AfD candidate. The article only uses primary sources from shows where the piece was exhibited. Accordingly I would consider it more of an art installation than an actual game and it should be pawned off to another WikiProject space.
  • The rest seem to need adjustment from "anything related to x" to "games with thematic content about x". A mere occurrence is not defining.
  • The Curse category in particular is probably too small to support itself and should probably be rolled into a broader category of e.g. the occult.

Ham Pastrami (talk) 13:53, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

  • I don't think any of those games for "Christmas video games" has Christmas as a defining characteristic, except for maybe Nights into Dreams...and even that is mostly the Christmas Nights separate release/add-on, not the standard game, and doesn't have its own article. I'd support nominating that one for deletion, unless people start proposing a lot of new games it could be applied towards... Sergecross73 msg me 12:31, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
  • These "setting" cats are a mess and are frequently used for non-defining traits (e.g., a game in which a single level is set in a time period or location rather than the entire game). I'd nominate these liberally if none of their contents contain the trait as a defining element. The LGBT cat needs further subcats in order to be useful (see Category:LGBT-related_films). I (apparently?) created the slavery cat, but I only see two games for which it's a defining trait, at least for now, though it's arguably a defining theme for AC3: Liberation and Freedom Cry too. I'm fine with emptying it for deletion if need be. czar 20:39, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Begs the question, what about the absolutely gigantic mess of categories under Category:Video games by country of setting? There's games tagged with DOZENS of these because they have one level or map in the given region/country. -- ferret (talk) 20:44, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
I considered nominated them all up for deletion at one point, but there are so many that I knew it would be immediately opposed and be a waste of my time. However, I've created a new shortcut to WP:CATV: Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories.. I think this rationale could be used for remove inappropriate categories like these from articles. If we remove categories that cannot be sourced or the information required for the category is not noteworthy for inclusion in the article, then a lot of them can be emptied entirely and deleted. --The1337gamer (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Unfortunately I don't think that really solves these. The argument will be made that the game itself, the primary source, sources "setting" (Just like 99% of plot sections). If there's a level named "Egypt" for a clear cut example.... However, it's clearly still not a defining trait of the game/topic for one level to be in Egypt. -- ferret (talk) 22:08, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Right, but a lot of articles do not and should not mention locations because it is insignificant. If that information isn't in the article body then the category shouldn't be present. Take FIFA 17 for example. Article body has no mention of setting/locations yet it is filled with a ridiculous number of location categories because some noobie editor adds categories for the location of every stadium in the game. We are justified in removing all those categories for this particular case. --The1337gamer (talk) 22:16, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
  • If anyone is interested in weeding out bad categories then this may be helpful: User:The1337gamer/sandbox/category_count. It is every category currently in the project along with the number of members (not recursive) in each category. They're divided alphabetically onto 12 pages because the category count function is limited to 500 counts on page. I find it useful for identifying small categories that shouldn't exist. --The1337gamer (talk) 22:36, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I generally agree with the above, but I think it's worth keeping in mind that the biggest problem here is really the lack of sources (categorization is a matter that falls outside WP:REF). Arguing whether or not the sources adequately demonstrate that a game is a "Christmas video game" or a "video game related to Islam" is obviously a potential problem here, but some of these categories might be salvageable by converting them to list articles. Since list articles do require sources and inclusion criteria spelled out in the lede, at least a meaningful discussion could be had over whether or not a game fits into the list. I haven't looked at the specifics of these categories and maybe it really wouldn't work, but I see that as a possible way forward for anyone who feels strongly about keeping the info related to the categories. -Thibbs (talk) 17:35, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I don't see why categories are harmful. SharkD  Talk  18:48, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi everyone, sorry for my late reply. When I get the time, I'll try and delete some of the clearly unnecessary categories. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 06:25, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 June 2017

The opening paragraphs states that the TriPeaks was added to Windows for the first time - this is not true, as it is contained in the Windows Entertainment Pack 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Entertainment_Pack#Microsoft_Entertainment_Pack_3, and the Best of Windows Entertainment Pack compilation. Please can the article be updated to reflect this. 94.7.204.90 (talk) 11:51, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I think you've got the wrong page. You need to put this on the talk page of the article you want to change, not on the WikiProject talk page. Cheers, Anarchyte (work | talk) 11:53, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Vice's The Complete, Untold History of Halo - a useful reference source for Halo-related articles

Vice recently published this extremely extensive oral history of Halo, covering the whole series so far. It could be a very useful information resource for articles related to Halo (series), Bungie, 343 Industries, Certain Affinity, Jason Jones (programmer), Martin O'Donnell etc.

Here's a template for citing that article:

{{cite web |url=https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/the-complete-untold-history-of-halo-an-oral-history |title=The Complete, Untold History of Halo |author=Haske, Steve |date=May 30, 2017 |website=[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]] |publisher=[[Vice Media]] |access-date= |quote=}}

--Nick RTalk 23:56, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Virtual Console on Wikidata

I am trying to add Esper Dream to Wikidata. Problem is, there is only one VC on Wikidata, yet this game was released separately for Wii, Wii U and 3DS Virtual Consoles. What do I do? Thanks. SharkD  Talk  01:18, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Just put the actual platform. Virtual Console itself is a component of each platform. -- ferret (talk) 01:30, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Okay. Will do. SharkD  Talk  02:17, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata and Japanese titles

What are we supposed to do when there is no English title, but the Japanese title is used in its place? For instance, Kimi ga Yobu, Megido no Oka de. Is it better to leave them as they are? Or, should we blank the English title and copy the text to the Japanese title? Is there a special parameter for romanized Japanese titles? SharkD  Talk  08:56, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't understand. The unofficial translation was already "forced" into Wikidata. You can read it there if you follow my link. SharkD  Talk  06:51, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
Also, is it necessary to disambiguate game titles on Wikidata using "(video game)"? For instance, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22968456. SharkD  Talk  08:24, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
I went ahead and deleted the "(video game)" bit from the game's label. I think Wikidata is smart enough to know that "Caligula" refers to this game and not something else. SharkD  Talk  10:28, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
I mean with English words, not romanized out of kanji, which is allowed. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:11, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
You still aren't being clear. Are you saying it's okay to use the romanized Japanese title as the English item label? Or should the romanized kanji only be used as the Japanese label? SharkD  Talk  00:28, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm saying that romanized Japanese is fine (and prefered over raw kanji/katakana), but an unofficial, direct English translation of the title is not. In this case, the article title is fine, so I don't really see an issue here. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:16, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. I will leave them then. SharkD  Talk  13:07, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
Specifically replying to the question about disambiguation: No, Wikidata does not use disambiguation. Names are not unique on Wikidata, so there can be multiple items with the same name (Label). The data (and description) tells them apart. Also, WP:COMMONNAME does not apply to Wikidata. Need to stress once again that WP:VG and Enwiki policies and guidelines do not apply on Wikidata. -- ferret (talk) 17:43, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
There exist a special parameter for Hepburn romanizations on Wikidata. So I think the proper thing to do would be to use this parameter, and delete the English label since it contains no English words. SharkD  Talk  02:29, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
The label should be set to the name of the Enwiki article, if nothing else. It shouldn't be left blank. -- ferret (talk) 14:48, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
There is already a separate parameter for tracking article names on enwiki and other places. SharkD  Talk  18:50, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
If you don't provide a label, then you cannot search Wikidata for that item by name. English readers know it by the romanization. Without a label it will just appear as Q###### in searches, with no context. This isn't the same as site linking. -- ferret (talk) 19:29, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
I've seen many many entries about other topics without an English label. And are you sure about the search feature not working correctly? SharkD  Talk  11:41, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Never mind. I see what you mean now. SharkD  Talk  11:54, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
I did find about 9000 video games without an English label, however. SharkD  Talk  12:00, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't use Wikidata much other than to add links between different Wikipedias, but aren't labels supposed to be "what the concept is called in [language]"? Sometimes the English name or word for something is a foreign-language word - I would expect Wikidata's English labels for concepts like kimono, sushi and karate to be those exact words, even though they're Japanese. Am I missing something?--IDVtalk 18:57, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
For new words, this might be something like an neologism. SharkD  Talk  11:56, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem seems to be using an unofficial translation of the game title. (At least I think so according to the footnote.) What should we do about it? SharkD  Talk  10:59, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
That one is interesting in that it's an official translation (see for instance this FE figurine), while the game itself is Japanese-only and uses a Japanese title. Anyway, is this even related to WP and WPVG? Wouldn't Wikidata itself be a better place to get input?--IDVtalk 11:24, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
No. I'm asking whether the WP article should be renamed. Is a figurine enough to warrant creating a name for an article about a video game? SharkD  Talk  11:32, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Oh, I thought it was about Wikidata since this thread is about Wikidata. We sometimes use unofficial titles as article names, yes - see WP:USEENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME. I wouldn't do anything about this.--IDVtalk 11:38, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Okay, just checking. SharkD  Talk  11:52, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Additional sources for Pokémon article?

Long time no speak y'all! Just published an article for Xerneas and Yveltal earlier today which is my first time making a video game character article. Did a lot of searching two years ago with the overhaul to List of Pokémon but I'm still a bit fuzzy on where to look for more in-depth information/analysis/criticism on specific characters. Anyone able to lead me to some more sources so I can continue fleshing out this article? Thanks in advance! ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 22:44, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Have you tried the video game reliable sources custom Google search? There's also a very real chance they're not independently notable, especially if they can be adequately covered in the dedicated character list and game articles, based on the extant sourcing. czar 07:20, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
@Czar: Yup, I've been looking through there using different search terms. What would be the cut-off point for independent notability if I can't find much else for these Pokémon? ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 14:37, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
There's never a firm cutoff when deciding to merge, but in context of what's written, it's mostly details about X/Y's launch and not even about the characters. When the coverage isn't specific to the characters, especially their importance as divorced from the game itself, there usually isn't a reason to cover them in an article separately from the game. This is a case where I'd build it in the existing character list (unless there is need for a separate article on legendary Pokémon?) and only split out summary style if warranted by space/sourcing. I'd also further paraphrase most of the detail for a general audience, e.g., "In an IGN poll with more than 8 million participants, Yveltal ranked as the second-best of the then 69 known new Pokémon in X and Y and Xerneas ranked fourth." >> "An IGN reader poll ranked the two among the best of the announced X and Y Pokémon." (If this is even a fact that warrants mentioning? What is the "best" in this context? Much written in this page's archives about using listicles.) czar 17:20, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Expansion of Console game

Hey all, I've just published a large rewrite/expansion of Console game because of it's top level importance to try and garner interest in the article. A reassessment of what needs improving is required and I have requested it but I thought I'd try and draw some attention to it here as well. CrimsonFox talk 22:03, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

How is this article's scope different from video game console? They look like a complete overlap: both about "console gaming". czar 20:30, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Reminds me of the old joke about the difference between a Jailer and a Jeweler: One watches cells and the other sells watches. :) The word order is significant here. The difference in scope is that one article (the one this thread is about) covers the game and the other one covers the console. -Thibbs (talk) 20:52, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
I guess it's like having articles about screw and screwdriver. SharkD  Talk  23:14, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
  • But this isn't PC game and PC—the console hardware can be discussed as its own entity, sure, but all console game has to distinguish itself is a discussion of console gaming as a genre... which should be covered in the video game console article anyway and only split if warranted by sourcing. This is the console game article in April, pre-expansion. Post-expansion, it repeats everything in the video game console article or adds things that that article should have covered. czar 17:25, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Sonic '06

I'm planning on bringing Sonic the Hedgehog to FA status, but I need to know what I'm going to need to improve upon and expand. Any suggestions? ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 11:13, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Key would be development. A 2006 game, even one developed in Japan, and with as high visibility as this, should have a great detail of development detail. My impression was there was a great number of lofty goals with the game as well as development hell-type issues that could be explored more. --MASEM (t) 14:12, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I'd recommend working on the citations as some of the links used aren't properly formatted. GamerPro64 15:27, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
@GamerPro64: Which ones? ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 17:57, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
The 1UP link was the one I noticed. Should get an archive to it too. GamerPro64 18:25, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
@TheJoebro64: I said archive the source, not remove them. You didn't need to remove the 1UP and X-Play link. GamerPro64 23:53, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
@GamerPro64: I attempted to fix them. They were permanent dead links. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 00:25, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
@Masem and GamerPro64: Also, someone just tagged a ton of links as dead, when each one wasn't. Can you look into that? ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 00:28, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Took care of 1UP but the X-Play review I couldn't find. I might toy with the review box later. GamerPro64 00:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Sorry about the dead link tags. I'm somewhat new to the IAManagement interface, which allows users to run a manual version of InternetArchiveBot. I didn't realize it had tagged all those links as dead, and I'm not sure why the interface tagged them as dead when they clearly weren't. I've removed the incorrect tags, but there is one that actually does appear to be dead. I'm also not sure what happened in this edit. All I was trying to do was re-add the brackets I had removed in a previous edit (I was going to run WP:REFILL on it, and I thought the brackets were interfering. It still wouldn't fetch the ref info after their removal, and I forgot to re-add them.), but I somehow also ended up undoing the previous editor's edit. I'm not sure how. — Gestrid (talk) 01:07, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
In regards to why iabot sometimes marks refs as dead when they clearly aren't, this happens when the url has not been archived on archive.org. For example, take a look at this version of List of songs recorded by Rise Against. There is one permanent dead link listed in the references (ref 48), and that url was published less than ten days before I ran the iabot. That url had not yet been archived in archive.org. If this happens, just use webcitation.org or archive.is manually. Famous Hobo (talk) 02:06, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
@Masem: How does the article look? I've made heavy expansions to the development (still going to dig some more material on it though), music, reception, and legacy sections. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 00:33, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Speedrun is a self-published (unreliable) book and the Reception section still needs heavy paraphrasing and re-writing to be FA-quality prose. It reads like a series of quotes right now. Also the Gameplay should be sourced to secondary sources instead of the manual (secondary sources determine what parts of the gameplay are worth mentioning). I'll leave the prose comments to someone else, but I see a lot of room for tightening. czar 20:20, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm going to say that I have to disagree on the manual being sourced, though. Most of the gameplay section is sourced to secondary sources (I only used the manual to source Shadow's combat and Sonic's "princess stages") ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 15:11, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata and cancelled games

There are several records on Wikidata for games that were cancelled. They are messing my list of games. Is there some way to indicate whether a game has been cancelled before release? SharkD  Talk  02:21, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

publication date = no value was my first take at that, but that could also imply vaporware... Hmm. That is a question for d:WD:PC probably. --Izno (talk) 02:35, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I asked already. Problem is, there is a third possibility where an item simply has no "publication date" defined yet. Getting a query to recognize all three cases in a query is very slow, as I found out on the RAQ page. I'm thinking we might need a "publication status" property with options for "published", "unreleased" and "cancelled". Thoughts? SharkD  Talk  03:05, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
I started a proposal for a new property to indicate whether a game is "released", "in development" or "cancelled". I didn't consider "vaporware", which could be added if it's useful. Also, I'm not sure what the best name for the property should be. I suggested "publication status" or "development status". SharkD  Talk  08:53, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
"Closed alpha", "closed beta", "open beta", "early access", "shut down" (online games are released, then years after are shut down); also games can have different status by platform. A game can be "released" for PC "in development" for PS4 and "cancelled" for Xbox One, or "released" for PC and Xbox One but "open beta" for PS4, all at the same time. Hell it can even vary by region; a game can be "released" in Japan and "in development" or "cancelled" in NA/EU. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 12:58, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
Yea this can get very hairy. There are games that were never finished and cancelled but released later by hobbyists (Star Fox 2), games that were 100% finished but cancelled then released later by hobbyists (Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill), games that were never intended for release but leaked anyways (Sonic Crackers), games that were released then pulled from shelves (P.T.) etc. etc. TarkusAB 22:28, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
There are also fangames where there are often initial incomplete releases, a final complete version, and shortly thereafter a takedown notice. And then there's Chrono Break, which was just a trademark filing. ;) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:43, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Technically, per-region and per-platform releases could be handled in this way, or by using "publication date = no value" as suggested by Izno. And depending on how much detail we want to put into Wikidata, eventually we will have to. That would be a lot of work though. SharkD  Talk  19:39, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata and video game remakes

What is the best way to enter "publication dates" for video game remakes? In the record for Monster Hunter Generations, I added the "title" parameter to the "publication date" for the remake called "Monster Hunter XX". Did I handle this situation properly? Or should I create a second record for the remake? SharkD  Talk  20:10, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Remakes should probably be treated as their own, separate entities, yeah.--IDVtalk 21:55, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. I created a separate item Monster Hunter XX. There currently is no "remake of" property AFAIK, so I will go ahead and propose one at Wikidata. SharkD  Talk  22:00, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Plarium COI

A significant proportion of Plarium games' articles are written by WP:COI editors. Suspicious of Special:Contributions/Mollybloomin, Special:Contributions/White_caterpillar, Special:Contributions/Nickman8, Special:Contributions/Eurogaymer. - hahnchen 12:04, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

It's that time of year again...

E3 2017 starts next week (though with this new Pokemon-related Nintendo Direct just announced, that's being grouped into the pre-E3 warmup). As always, we should be careful and avoid the urge to rush to create new articles on newly announced games if the only thing that can be said are minimal facts (like name, dev/pub, and anticipated release date). Sequels and franchise continuations that also have minimal detail should have their titles salted and redirected back to the series/franchise/previous game's page. Of course, if there is significant development info, then a start article should be made.

Keep in mind that MS has moved their presser to Sunday (June 11) ahead of Bethesda, and EA is still doing its own event outside E3 that starts about then too.

There's not expected to be any hardware surprises - MS will reveal more on Scorpio but that's expected as an Xbox One refresh and not a new console. --MASEM (t) 15:33, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm hoping someone once again has time to make presser posts here to list all the details of the conferences like the past two years. :( ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 15:39, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I always like that too. I can probably help with it, but wouldn't want to be the only one doing it, in case real life calls at the time. Sergecross73 msg me 17:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
I could do my best. I work by British Summer Time at the moment, so no guarantees I'll be able to watch them all without staying up quite late, which I'm not likely to do as I'm not as keen about the event as I might otherwise be. But I'd certainly like to help. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:02, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

EA E3

Besides the yearly refresh for Madden, Fifa, and NBA Live, EA also showed more from NFS Payback and SW Battlefront II. Two new reveals: A Way Out by Hazelight (the guy that did Brothers) and Anthem (video game) the new Density-like IP from Bioware, which will be discussed more tomorrow at MS's presser. Also not that EA has a internal outfit called Seed that is using deep learning to try to improve on video games, and that all of EA's services (origin, EA value, and the like) are all free from now through E3 week. --MASEM (t) 19:49, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Mage: The Ascension: Refuge

Mage: The Ascension: Refuge, for an android game released a few months ago, was started as an unsourced stub with a series of empty categories:[3] and so of course it is now a redirect. I searched Google News for sources and came up empty, but does anyone have anything that might be useful? 2602:304:CE74:9630:39B9:D537:2826:E7F9 (talk) 16:27, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

CPU speed on consoles

I might need help from anyone to deal with the discussion at Talk:Wii#"Unconfirmed" in info is not right. Dnywlsh is concerned that the CPU speeds should be contained in the infobox. – Hounder4 01:46, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@Hounder4: You should be able to explain your decision. It was your decision, not someone else's. I'm asking for an explanation from you. Dnywlsh (talk) 02:18, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Knuckles' Chaotix

Could I get some help on improving this page? There aren't a whole lot of new sources on the game available because of its obscurity. There are a ton of old (and reliable) magazine articles here, and the Russian version of the article has a lot of sources and info that could be used. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 21:55, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm down to assist, it's been on my list of articles to improve forever. I'll put some time into it later this week. TarkusAB 10:07, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC about the inclusion of third party values in infobox

Please be aware of Talk:Xbox One#RfC about the inclusion of third party values in infobox which potentially affects several console articles. -- ferret (talk) 18:29, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Tekken Hybrid

My merge of Tekken Hybrid to Tekken Tag Tournament#Remaster was reverted. Is it really worth an article? Seems to me that the only unique information would be the reception section. I wouldn't mind giving it an article if there is more development/release info on it. Currently there is only 1 sentence in the release section that easily fits in the remaster section of Tekken Tag Tournament --Mika1h (talk) 18:35, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

TTT is only one of the items included in the package. You may want to consider merging it into Tekken instead, with appropriate mentions in each of the other topics. Ham Pastrami (talk) 06:43, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
Well if the consensus says it should be reverted back then it will be. However, in light of this, I would suggest an area to place the relevant Tekken Hybrid information, but the thing is there doesn't seem one particular tangible area it could stick; the main Tekken article, the TTT article, TTT2 article, and even Tekken Blood Vengeance article are all arguably appropriate; seeing as how this is figuratively a hybrid product, and for that reason I think it works as its own article. Osh33m (talk) 03:53, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
How does this differ from any other bundled product, or something like a Game of the Year addition? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:14, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Because the product is meant to be both a Blu-ray disc for a film, and a video game for the Ps3. If you do not own a playstation, the disc will still function inside any Blu-ray player for the Blood Vengeance film. Most other bundled products don't have the bundled features manifested within the disc itself; it's usually extra accessories in the package. As for GOTY editions, if there is extra content on the disc, it is geared for the game on the disc; there's usually no other function other than that. Osh33m (talk) 23:51, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
That still just sounds like a bundled package of a game and film, despite the unique feature. Is this really worth its own article rather than a small sentence or two in the base articles? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:04, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
I believe so because such a bundle is unique in this regard as there is no other product exactly like it in the video game market. The format of it as an article gives better context and information about the product rather than a line or two in a different Tekken page. Osh33m (talk) 03:16, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Freeware game engines

If you are aware of any game engines that are free to use (But not free software), please move from Category:Video game engines to Category:Freeware game engines. I believe this is a useful distinction, which I stumbled into at Amazon Lumberyard. There may be some freewares lurking in Category:Free game engines as well, but I expect that to be pretty well guarded. -- ferret (talk) 13:26, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

So many of these have no secondary sourcing... Also worth distinguishing between freeware and free software in the blurbs that accompany both cats czar 02:40, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Jay Littman

This article is up for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jay Littman. It's been relisted twice and only one person has commented. I'd rather it doesn't close with no consensus due to a lack of participation. --The1337gamer (talk) 08:16, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Lego Island

Hello fine folks, I wondered if someone could take a look at and help out the Lego Island article? It is not bad but also far from god, and since its 20th birthday is coming up, I figured that we could give its article a makeover. Primary issues are writeup and sourcing, such as the Plot being vastly excessive for such a short storyline (free Brickster, chase Brickster, catch Brickster (or lose); maybe backgrounds of the five playable characters (from their respective cutscenes, found nicely in this playlist) could be added), while the Gameplay is no more than three oversimplified sentences. Development sounds very trivial and includes unexplained jargon such as "The SW developers", apart from being completely unsourced, that is. Reception and Awards are also unsourced except for the one citiation and sentence I added over a year ago. On the talk page, I added three retrospective source I found (the latest on from just a few days ago!), which I would appreciate if they could be incorporated into the article, especially into a Legacy section. Also available there is an interview with creative director Wes Jenkins, which I guess could aid the Development section well (the same website also includes photos that could be used there). Thanks! Lordtobi (✉) 14:03, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Pinging good article creators: @Cognissonance, The1337gamer, Czar, and Masem. Lordtobi (✉) 16:14, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
I'll look it over. The first step is always the sources. –Cognissonance (talk) 16:21, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
@Lordtobi: The remaining refidea, a fansite, doesn't seem reliable. Added the others. –Cognissonance (talk) 19:20, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
I was once told that interviews are reliable, regardless of the sourrounding source (if the interview is legitimate). With my personal conversation with Jenkins, I can confirm that it is accuarte, and I think I also know who is hosting the mentioned site, will check on that also. Lordtobi (✉) 19:23, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Not so much that interviews are "reliable" but that there is a precedent (unwarranted?) to use them as a self-published sources if the interview is reasonably not a hoax. It's not reliable because the leeway for its claims is limited—no one would accept an interviewee's extraordinary claim, hence why we rely on secondary, reliable sources to repeat/confirm the assertion if it is both true and worth mentioning. I wouldn't go into any depth on the game's "plot" or characters unless the reviews (secondary sources) do so as well. Other than that, yes, it needs a lot of love. Why not take a crack at it yourself? Small, specific asks tend to get more traction on this page czar 02:52, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
@Czar: I often refrain from attempting good articles as I found myself inable of producing quality enough wording to work myself into. This might in part because of me not being a native English speaker. For some pages I randomly find a lot of information on (such as, very recently, Tango Gameworks), I tend to insert into the respective article, though the result is often below average. I also found a lot on Tonic Trouble and set up a source list, which I will likely work on in the near future. I rather resort to copyediting where required, countering vandalism, and helping out newbies. As we are talking about it, maybe Tango Gameworks and Tonic Trouble could receive a glimpse (for wording, structure, sourcing, etc). I might as well try to make a good article out of either of the three above—or someone could aid me doing so—and I could gain experience in that field. Lordtobi (✉) 14:25, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

E3 Summaries

This place is for summaries of the content of E3 press conferences. Contribute, and remember to be factual. --ProtoDrake (talk) 20:26, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

EA

  • [Trailer] Madden NFL 18 got a new single-player mode Long Shot
  • [Trailer] Battlefield 1 Expansion, "In The Name of the Tsar" demonstration. Night maps announced
  • [Gameplay] FIFA 18 gameplay demonstration.
  • [Gameplay] Need for Speed Payback trailer
  • [Gameplay] A Way Out announced, a co-op action adventure. Part of EA Originals
  • [Teaser] Anthem announced from BioWare, an open world sci-fi themed game, runs on Frostbite.
  • [Gameplay] NBA Live 18 announced.
  • [Gameplay] Extensive Star Wars Battlefront II Demonstration. The game includes scenarios from all episodes, including a new scenario within the official canon, and DLC includes The Last Jedi scenarios. Extensive gameplay demonstration.

Other projects

Microsoft

Sorry I'm late everyone, yesterday was nuts. I'll be scribbling in 40 as usual. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 20:19, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

  • So Xbox seems to be pushing the 4k thing. And the first thing they show is a Latino woman. Very interesting.
  • Scorpio looks like an S.
  • It has a name! Xbox One X, Launches November 7th.
  • First Liquid Cooled Console! That's unexpected.
  • Smallest Xbox Ever, which when compared to a controller its tiny.
  • Forza Motorsport 7 announced. With an exclusive Porche reveal. 911 GT2 RS.
  • 4A games announcing another Metro! Windows 10/Xbox One exclusive it seems. Titled: Metro Exodus
  • Assassin's Creed Egypt. Origin's of the Brotherhood? Titled: Assassin's Creed Origins. This bird as a scout thing is kinda interesting. Guess you could call it Eagle Vision?! Contains some pretty thick RPG elements. Guide arrows in flight? October 27th.
  • Player Unknown's Battlegrounds coming to Xbox as console exclusive. Late 2017, it says, probably Q4.
  • Another console exclusive, Windows 10. Deep Rock Galactic.
  • State of Decay 2, play anywhere title. Spring 2018.
  • Console exclusive...something. Some sort of battle arena, looks like its a free for all. Seems Mixer (the streaming service) is involved somehow. I guess like The Hunger Games and the audience participation. Titled: The Darwin Project.
  • Minecraft Cross Play on everything! Holy shit! This fall gives a 4K update and a nicer graphics pack (Super Duper Graphics Pack) by default, I think.
  • Dragonball Fighter Z, A 2D fighter that feels much more like the animated series than a bunch of 3D characters floating around. Early 2018. Done by Arc System Works, the same guys behind Guilty Gear.
  • Black Desert, new MMORPG (exclusive? Didn't catch that part.)
  • The Last Night, seems to be MS exclusive. A sort of pixel cyberpunk...thing.
  • Console exclusive, a platformer with musical elements. The Artful Escape, "Coming when it's damn ready." BRILLIANT!
  • Code Vein, anime-esque hack and slash...thing. Coming 2018.
  • Sea of Thieves has been pushed to 2018.
  • Tacoma, August 2nd
  • New exclusive, giving me the old N64 Collect-a-thon Platformer Vibe. Super Lucky's Tale, play anywhere. November 7th.
Definitely article material, as well as first installment Lucky's Tale (Oculus-eclusive, [4], [5], [6]) either bundled or separately. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:08, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Another exclusive, Cuphead again, September 29th release.
  • Crackdown 3! FEATURING TERRY CREWS!!! Yeah I'm pumped. Can't ya tell? MS exclusive (obviously), play anywhere. November 7th.
  • Indiecade, about the only thing I noticed was a Fable card game and Hello Neighbor.
  • Console exclusive, Ashen.
  • Xbox One release for Life Is Strange: Before the Storm. Out in August. Guess this is the sequel we were teased.
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of War is shown, doesn't say much really or I just don't know the game.
  • MS Exclusive Premiere, Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
  • XBOX Backwards Compatibility to GEN ONE! YES BABY! Q4 Launch!
  • 4K Updates for 30 3rd party titles plus 5 from MS themselves.
  • Xbox One X is $499. Ouch. This sounds like it might hurt.
  • Anthem (video game) is a third-person shooter where you have exosuits/powered armor with customization. 4 Player Co-op it seems. 2018 Release.

And we're done. That was wild. Bethesda is tonight, but I'm going to be out working, so somebody's gotta take it from me. Cheers. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 22:45, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

New thing. Kotaku has suggested the abbreviation for the Xbox One X to be "XOX". Do we think this is good? Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 23:38, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
This assumes that then we have XOS for the S, but these leaves the original Xbox One without an established one (XO is not common). --MASEM (t) 00:46, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
I hate how awkward to arconymize the current Xbox generation is.... XBONE and XONE are the most common I see. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:32, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't know why XB1 never took off. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 18:18, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
I would suggest, if I don't get to them first, getting some articles up on The Last Night and The Artful Escape, which I do see have materials well-before E3 but didn't get much attention. --MASEM (t) 00:46, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
The Last Night (video game) created, as well as finally getting one for Raw Fury Games. Note, The Last Night is already embroiled in GG-related controversy. --MASEM (t) 16:12, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Also, we should start populating any games that will be enhanced on the XOX akin to Category:PlayStation 4 Pro enhanced games (Probably Category:XBox One X enhanced games). Keep in mind this is only when they have said they've patched in things like 4k, etc. etc. Just because the game works on XOX doesn't mean it is enhanced. --MASEM (t) 23:22, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Bethesda

Okay then. I apparently didn't have as much work as expected. Will handle this in an hour. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 03:01, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

They have nothing to show. I don't understand why they even't bother having a conference. AdrianGamer (talk) 05:32, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Ubisoft

PC Gaming Show

Sony

    • Yoshida confirmed Shadow is a remake - all art assets built ground up for 4k gaming, but no gameplay changes outside a new alternative control scheme. --MASEM (t) 19:22, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Nintendo

I got called away, so I couldn't update, but here's some main points since it seems no one's done it yet. Sergecross73 msg me 17:21, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Rocket League for Switch announced. Online play with PC and XboxOne users.
Was it specified which platform was the cross-play for? I only gathered "it's cross-play"... ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉
  • Super Mario Odyssey - Oct 2017 release date confirmed.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 2 reconfirmed for late 2017 release date
  • Metroid Prime 4 announced (no footage, teaser only)
  • Metroid: Samus Returns announced (3DS), remake of Metroid II
  • New Yoshi game announced, cardboard-style, can flip perspective from one side of the other of a level played on a 2D plane
  • New Kirby game announced
  • New core Pokémon RPG game announced (Switch)
  • Fire Emblem Warriors releasing Fall 2017
  • Zelda BotW DLC. If you own The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the Expansion Pass grants access to three new treasure chests, DLC Pack 1, “Master Trials,” and DLC Pack 2, “The Champions’ Ballad,” as they are released. DLC Pack 1 “Master Trials” includes: Trial of the Sword, Master Mode, Hero’s Path, Travel Medallion, Korok Mask and eight new armors. Master Trials - DLC Pack 1 will be available June 30, 2017.
Tip: check out the recent uploads of the Nintendo Youtube channel, they always publish teasers/trailers/announcements at the second they announce them in their directs and other pres things. ;) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:02, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
New Pokémon game is confirmed for Switch, and that's all we know. Probably a response to the backlash from UltraSun/UltraMoon not being on the Switch. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 19:44, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

VR arcade

Do we have an article on amusement arcades that are part of the new wave of VR sites, using virtual reality equipment, and sometimes physical environment simulacra to enhance the VR? (I suppose this would originate in those old 80's mechwarrior and flightsim cockpit arcades) -- 65.94.169.56 (talk) 05:59, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Chronicles of Elyria should be moved from draft mode to its own article.

I was surprised to learn that this game does not have a Wikipedia article yet. It has been in development for nearly two years and soulbound and others have published volumes about its gameplay, developers, etc. Gireen (talk) 07:27, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

@Gireen: Hello. If you'd like a page for a game to be made, I suggest you list it at WP:VG/R. Eventually someone will get around to it and have a look. I see you've already tried to create it and it got CSD'd, which can be frustrating. I suggest you make a draft of it and submit it through WP:AFC. Feel free to ping me with any questions you might have using {{ping|Anarchyte}}. Cheers, Anarchyte (work | talk) 12:02, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
There is already a draft at Draft:Chronicles of Elyria which can be improved. --Izno (talk) 12:38, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

New Articles (31 May to 14 June)

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

29 May

May 31

June 1

June 2

June 3

June 4

June 4

June 5

June 6

June 7

June 8

June 9

June 10

June 11

June 12

June 13

June 14

Since @Salavat: isn't around this week, I will help out by listing all the new articles here. There are some weird categories like this one being made. I didn't track the deleted articles though. Not sure where I can find that. Everyone has done a great job turning all the E3 game announcements into articles. There are quite a lot of articles that fail WP:N though. AdrianGamer (talk) 17:10, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

"Year of inception"

I'm seeing more and more of "year of inception" lines in boxes for video game series. What is the point of such a line when the "first released" line includes that same year? Adding a line is redundant, nonsensical and superfluous. Osh33m (talk) 03:17, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

I've thought about this too, and agree with you.--IDVtalk 06:08, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Agreed, we should probably remove it from the template after consensus is reached. Lordtobi (✉) 09:34, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Agree with removing it. In addition, removing it is likely the only way to stop the editor who is adding it, who has never once replied to a single talk message I've left them about infobox guidelines (And repeatedly and bot-like makes the same edits over and over). -- ferret (talk) 12:30, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
The parameter was added 8 years ago without discussion. --Izno (talk) 12:40, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Should we remove the "platform of origin" as well? I don't see where this is informative, especially with video games starting out on 3+ platforms at the same time causing it to clutter unnecessarily. Lordtobi (✉) 13:40, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree with both points. Year of inception could mean as much as the first time a developer had an idea for a game. The platform of origin is mentioned on the article about the first game or is mentioned in the article body. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 09:44, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Well platform of origin I think is a different case. When a single game turns into a series or franchise, readers may not know where it began so it is important to tell or note which platform had the original iteration of a series. Osh33m (talk) 18:35, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Non English reviews

Hi, I'm having a bit of trouble here. A IP user keeps adding non English reviews on the Tekken 7 article, his edits have been removed by myself, Dissident93 and Neverrainy but the IP keeps adding the reviews back. Should we have non English reviews or since this is a English Wikipedia should we only use reviews that are in English?. TheDeviantPro (talk) 02:09, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

As long as the reviews are reliable sources, they are permitted for use. Review the section in the verifiability policy on the subject. --Izno (talk) 02:15, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
He's been adding the Italian site of Eurogamer and 4Players, Template:Video game reviews doesn't say anything about using Eurogamer's foreign counterpart nor WP:VG/RS doesn't have 4Players listed as a reliable or unreliable source. TheDeviantPro (talk) 02:35, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Which means little other than that they have not been investigated by the video game crew. We really should do a better job making sure we capture international reaction than we do now. --Izno (talk) 03:22, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
  • We have at least one reliable French source I use a lot (JV.com), at least two German sources we use also, and I've used reviews from IGN Italy and IGN Spain before. We also often use Japanese coverage (Famitsu comes to mind). There's no restriction specifically on non-English sources, as long as they are assessed as reliable as Izno said. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 03:25, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies, it really helped. TheDeviantPro (talk) 03:32, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Totally fine to use non-English reviews, although not every single review needs to be included in a reception section, and reviews that are only added as a score to the review score table aren't too useful unless you also intend to write prose. I would probably mostly use non-English reviews in cases where the game hasn't been reviewed by a lot of English publications, and in cases where a game is from a non-English-speaking country, since it'd be valuable to show what the reception was like in the country of origin. Also, I think we can assume Italian Eurogamer is usable if English Eurogamer is, unless we have reasons to believe the Italian site operates differently.--IDVtalk 06:03, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

This reminds me. I'm trying to find reviews to the Amstrad CPC version of Throne of Fire and all I found from this German review. Can anyone translate it for me so I can use it for the article? GamerPro64 03:45, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

  • I don't see why we're using the Italian Eurogamer instead of the English one, and some random German one. How are these helpful to an English-only speaker? We have plenty of English based reviews we could use, so these are unnecessary. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:03, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Because sometimes a version of a game may be only reviewed by a publication from a different country/language. Such as my example of Throne of Fire which I would like someone to help translate if they know German. GamerPro64 20:18, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
    • The exemple I was thinking of is Mordheim: City of the Damned, which wasn't reviewed in English by IGN, but was reviewed in Italian and Spanish so these are included. It also has a review in French (JV.com) and German (GameStar). Using non-English sources is actually a net benefit in countering systemis bias (see {{Globalize}}), as long as they are RSes! ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:12, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Ubisoft studio article assessments

Good day everyone, I would like to publicly address that a few (with which I mean a lot) of articles about Ubisoft's studios around the world a lacking harshly in quality, and in cases even content. Under special focus here fall the following:

They all follow the same scheme: Quick introduction with name (if applies, former name), location, maybe a founding date, and in rare cases founders or key personell (to counter this, a lot of original research made its way into these articles, in part also be me [shame on me]). Then, either an expanded lede or a "History" section follow as "they were made", "they developed x1", "they developed2", "they developed x3..n", but not much else, and finally, a list of games they apparently had a hand in. All of these articles are only lacklusterly sourced, or not sourced at all, wherefore I would like to inquire the community to deicde on each article if they are either notable and simply require better sourcing, or if they are not notable and should just be deleted. The latter option should not be replaced by redirecting to Ubisoft, as the average reader would expect to find information on the subject at given target page, which they will not (see related #Ubisoft San Francisco discussion above). If the prior option is chosen, we should work together on gathering the required sourcing. Furthermore, there are also a few articles that are independently notable, but still lack some sourcing, which are:

Also, the Quazal article definetly needs more content (sources are there!), could somebody get onto that? Thanks! Lordtobi (✉) 15:35, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

There are/should have sources about Nadeo, Mainz, Ivory Tower, Montpellier, and Paris, given that each of them had developed some major franchises. Quebec and Toronto are considered as two of Ubisoft's future main studios, so they should have some sources as well. I think we can create an article called List of Ubisoft studios to mention the rest. They are notable, but there isn't much sources mentioning them. AdrianGamer (talk) 16:29, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
  • At minimum, studios where notability beyond being able to mention their involvement with a notable game/series but nothing else, they should be include in sections under "Studios" within Ubisoft's article, or even perhaps a separate page "List of Ubisoft studios". That allows both separately-notable (Ubisoft Montreal for example) to be listed alongside those where only a few facts can be listed. --MASEM (t) 17:09, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
Are you talking about merging all the articles into one article (List of Ubisoft studios), because that would make more sense to me. Govvy (talk) 17:44, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, and keep the originals as redirects to that since they are valid search terms, and should any of these merged studios become separately notable, they can be recreated without admin involvement. --MASEM (t) 17:50, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, a list article would be a good idea (though I would favor a title like "List of Ubisoft subsidiaries", so to also include Quazal [which also needs improvement, but is notable!] et al., which is not technically a "studio", as well). Still we should decide on what is notable enough to stay independent of (e.g. as AdrianGamer stated above, which sums it up well, though I [currently] do not see a good one on Quebec and Toronto, only time will tell). Lordtobi (✉) 20:47, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Slightly off topic, but anytime a game is fully made by one of Ubisoft's divisions (like Far Cry, Watch Dogs, The Division, etc) we should just go with "developed and published by Ubisoft" rather than "developed by Ubisoft x and published by Ubisoft". We don't go with "Developed by Square Enix Business division 1 and published by Square Enix" or "Developed by Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development and published by Nintendo" on Final Fantasy and Nintendo games, so why does Ubisoft get an exception? The exact studio belongs further down in the lead, written like The game was developed by Ubisoft's division in Montreal/Montreal division with a relevant link there.~ Dissident93 (talk) 18:07, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
    I believe the difference here is that most Ubisoft studios are highly regarded on their own basis, have their own history, and lie anywhere across the globe, and are independently credited in game, while Square Enix or Nintendo have divisions that usually lie in the same city, have no public affairs (in most cases not even a notable mention on their website), and are not credited in games independently, rather under the "Square Enix" or "Nintendo" banners (and are regareded as such in RS, AFAIK [and if I'm not wrong here]). Generally, I'm not against your stylization of things, but I think we should go for consensus first, no? Lordtobi (✉) 18:20, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
    If the specific studio is named commonly when a title is discussed (eg Ubisoft Montreal for the FC series), we should keep that approach. If a studio branch is not regularly named, we should not go out of our way to name it (but if still can be sourced, that's infobox material). --MASEM (t) 18:26, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
    True, I can't really argue against that, however this would only have applied to the lead for brevity purposes, as infoboxes have always included the exact studio name if known. I guess status quo applies here then? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:28, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
    There may be a cultural factor, too, where Japanese developers are less likely to want to put themselves in front of their parent studio. I sort of doubt it applies in this case though. SharkD  Talk  23:06, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
  • @AdrianGamer, Masem, and Govvy: Any news on the list article? Lordtobi (✉) 14:08, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

So, now that E3 is over...

I want to bring The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to good article status sometime in the future, but the task overwhelms me every time I think about it. I would appreciate any suggestions or individual improvements to the article in the meantime. –Cognissonance (talk) 18:17, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

  • I think the plot is something that is pretty easy to fix. Removing information is easier than adding information. I think every other area of the article needs expanding and rewriting. Gameplay is too short. Development is way, way too short. No marketing information. Reception sections needs expanding, better paraphrasing and needs to drop the scores from prose. --The1337gamer (talk) 09:42, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Zone of the Enders (video game)

It's been long since I worked on a video game article, but I tried to prepare Zone of the Enders (video game) once it was copyedited. Czar, a fellow user, adviced me to withdraw the GA nomination. As a result, I removed one review and added some archives the project had to reception. The plot and gameplay of the game is quite simple, so I don't know if the article is well-written now. Any ideas? Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 16:02, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Digital Antiquarian?

I've seen a personal blog called "The Digital Antiquarian" used as a source on many articles for old games, particularly for sales information. See Pool of Radiance or The Dark Queen of Krynn as examples. As far as I can tell, it's manned by someone named Jimmy Maher, who runs the site on Patreon donations. In 2011, his book about the Amiga was published by MIT Press (here), but I don't know of his credentials as a video game historian. Unlike Matt Barton of Matt Chat fame, Maher doesn't appear to rely much on his own interviews or research, and he rarely cites sources in more than a general way (see the bottom of this article). Also, unlike Barton, I can't find evidence that he's written books or articles about video game history that aren't self-published. A search of WPVG's archives brings up nothing, so I thought I should ask whether this blog was a reliable source. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:37, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Looks like both instances were added by Ylee, who got asked about it once in 2014. --PresN 04:01, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Hmmm. From what I could gather online, not much has changed since then, except that Maher's possibly gained more attention thanks to his exposure on Wikipedia. Ylee is a very good editor (an expert at adding reviews and sources to old game articles), so I think he was acting in perfectly good faith. However, I think this blog needs a second look. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:05, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
In addition to what I previously wrote as per PresN's comment, Maher does a lot of his own interviews and research; for example, visiting the Strong National Museum of Play, and personal correspondence with John Williams, Sierra On-Line executive and Ken Williams' brother. This goes above and beyond the MIT book which, by itself, would qualify his blog as a reliable source as per WP:SPS. Ylee (talk) 04:10, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the details. However, the Amiga book would only (by itself) qualify Maher as a reliable source per SPS if he was writing about the Amiga. His credentials as a video game historian haven't, as far as I can tell, been established. The original research examples you linked are more promising, but given that his credentials aren't established and his blog is not peer-reviewed, I'd only consider the interview with Williams as a usable source. This is the same criteria applied to fansites—interviews can be treated as SPS primary sources, but other content on the fansite (editorials, etc.) cannot be. His research trip at the Museum of Play would need independent verification. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:24, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
As an aside, during my recent edits of Magnetic Scrolls articles, I came across his coverage of their games. As seen here, he seems to advance a fringe theory that the company's critical and commercial success was caused in large part by their having a female executive. A few excerpts:
  • "But graphics were just one of The Pawn‘s not-so-secret weapons, the other being the potent comeliness of Ms. Anita Sinclair."
  • "So, yes, there was a lot of smoke and mirrors behind the huge success of The Pawn, born of those pretty pictures and that pretty Anita and a media, heavily influenced by both, that was all too eager to see it as an Infocom-killer."
  • "Anita treated her little coterie of admirers with the bemused tolerance of the popular girl at school who deigns to let the lower social orders sit at her lunch table from time to time."
I haven't dug deeply into his website, but this doesn't look promising to me. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:37, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Maher's coverage of the company discusses how in addition to being the only British company with a IF parser approaching Infocom's, Sinclair was important for Magnetic Scrolls because a) as an unusually attractive woman who was aware of being so, she was good at getting additional publicity from the almost entirely young male computer-gaming press, b) her personal financial resources let her provide crucial capital to the company, and c) her management skills.
I don't know how widely a) is held among historians, but is the theory so unlikely? The US's computer press was and is male-dominated, but it was the rare magazine issue without at least one woman writer, from Scorpia on down. The UK press was explicitly more gaming focused and written by and for young men—Zzap being one obvious example. No history of Sierra On-Line fails to discuss how Roberta Williams being a woman affected both her game designs and her company's ability to get press attention, even aside from the cover of Softporn Adventure.
I also disagree about the bounds to Maher as a RS. WP:SPS does not require peer review of blogs (as if there were such a thing); it lets blogs be used as a RS if the author has established his credibility in some way. Besides any history of the Amiga inherently being about video games in large part, the MIT Press book establishes Maher status as a professional author, giving him credibility on computer topics in general. I've read all of Maher's posts from the first in 2011, and they frequently use interviews he has conducted with participants in the events he discusses in them. You also inaccurately describe his use of sources; his lists of sources at the end of posts are always lengthy and specific. There is no requirement in MOS that a RS only use in-line sources or have page numbers. Ylee (talk) 15:37, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Maher's theory borders on conspiracism, to be honest. In the very magazine you mentioned, Zzap, the adventure/role-playing columnist ("Chuck Vomit") was actually a woman named Katharina Hamza. It was this "Chuck" who gave a 90% to Corruption and an 88% to Fish!. Sarah Sharkey of Sinclair User gave Corruption a 90%. In any case, it's true that the UK's game magazines in the 1980s were almost universally lad mags, and as such wrote informally and tastelessly on nearly all subjects. Their coverage of Anita Sinclair is, as I've found while researching '80s games, how they wrote about nearly every woman in their immediate vicinity. How a group of British lad mags (with their necessarily limited demographic) influenced the British, American and German public to buy Magnetic Scrolls games in droves is a mystery, particularly when the adventure genre has always drawn a huge number of middle-aged and/or female players. (Not to mention that there was essentially zero British/American VG press cross-pollination in the 1980s.) Further, his claim that Magnetic Scrolls intentionally used Sinclair's sex appeal as an underhanded marketing scheme is shades of Gamergate. They used her as a figurehead just as almost every big-name game company in the '80s and early '90s relied on a figurehead whose involvement in the games was often tangential. Consider Richard Garriott or Sid Meier, among many others. His singling out of Sinclair because of her gender is disquieting.
Regardless of all that unfortunate business, I have not seen any evidence that Maher is an expert in his field. WP:SPS specifically states: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Maher is, apparently by all accounts, an amateur hobbyist in his current role—not an established expert. His work in video game history has never, to my knowledge, been published or peer-reviewed. Even his college degrees (as he lists them on his About page) were not in video game fields. The Amiga computer is a computer—and Maher isn't making claims about computers on his blog. Just like we don't cite Stephen King's self-published Twitter account as an expert source on politics, despite his clear status as an expert source in fiction, Maher's 2011 book about the Amiga does not qualify his personal blog as a valid source for video games. If there are no further examples of Maher's expert status, I think this Digital Antiquarian blog should be removed from all articles where it appears as a source, before its presence causes more citogenesis than it already has. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:43, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Comparing Maher's discussion of Sinclair in his Magnetic Scrolls articles to Gamergate is ridiculous, as is comparing her to Lord British or Sid Meier. First, he has not yet entered the era in which Garriott and Meier became figureheads; at this time, in the early 1990s, both were still very actively participating in game development (Garriott had only stopped single-handedly writing Ultima games after Ultima V in 1988, and Meier, without the burden of being CEO, was still actively coding). Sinclair was never a developer, and neither she nor Magnetic Scrolls claimed otherwise. Second, Maher similarly discusses figureheads that did exist at the time, such as Bill Stealey of MicroProse (who, Maher points out, never flew fighter jets in the USAF despite advertisements that claimed otherwise). As for the British press's influence, given how dominant British games were across Europe (on both the C64 and, of course, the Spectrum)—France and Germany were almost nullities in gaming at this time—it's not surprising that the country's press would be influential across the continent. As for the US, Magnetic Scrolls was never a big seller; despite full-page magazine ads, the best that can be said is that it was one of several well-known non-Infocom text-adventure providers (and, thanks to its UK base, the longest-lasting), a dubious disctinction.
You are making a strained and unnecessary distinction between "computer" and "computer game". Again, any discussion of the Amiga is almost automatically a discussion of it as a game platform to some degree, especially in later years. While I have not read it, his MIT Press book has a chapter on Amiga gaming. Maher's blog has focused almost entirely on computer gaming, only discussing consoles as necessary background. He does discuss computers in general more often; for example, in the extensive discussion of the history of the PCjr as context for his Sierra posts. (Note also the presence of Bill Loguidice, a bona fide published video game historian by anyone's standard, in the comments; he treats Maher as a peer elsewhere.) Further, there is nothing in Wikipedia MOS or tradition that limits a bona fide professional author's online writings from RS status on topics clearly relevant to areas he has been published in. Your Stephen King-politics example is tenuous; conversely, any political posts on Maher's blog would of course have no credibility for Wikipedia purposes unless and until he were published elsewhere on the subject first. Let me repeat: Claiming that Maher can only be taken as a RS on the Amiga, as opposed to computers in general or computer games in general, because his book is about the Amiga is holding him to a nonexistent Wikipedia standard. Ylee (talk) 20:30, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Maher himself writes that The Pawn was a hit in the States, despite failing to explain how his theory accounts for it. In addition, Sinclair was credited as a programmer on The Pawn and Wonderland, which even Maher admits (he calls it "technical plumbing", for some reason). There is no basis for assuming that the lad mags influenced the continent at large (there was no Google Translate at the time, let alone demand for publishers to distribute English-language magazines), and there's very good reason to assume that the general British population wasn't reading Your Sinclair et al. Regardless of all that, Czar's points below are what I've been saying this entire time, and they're valid. The source needs to go unless new evidence of Maher's expertise emerges. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:13, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
There seems to be a misunderstanding here. When I read Maher's articles on Magnetic Scrolls I never got the impression that he thought that Sinclair's female wiles had single-handedly turned a dog of a game into a best seller. Rereading his coverage of The Pawn confirms my memory; the game's excellent graphics, solid parser (for a non-Infocom game), and Rainbird's distribution muscle formed the base for its sales (I know it sold well in the US; I remember the reviews. It was also the only Magnetic Scrolls game that did so). In the UK, Sinclair's persistence, media savvy, and yes, her willingness to exploit the preexisting (as you say) lad mag nature of the big gaming magazines probably helped. It's not very different from the way PR and marketing people have worked since the beginning of time, and I don't see Maher's mentioning of the last as one of the reasons why The Pawn sold well as being akin to GamerGate or WP:FRINGE or sexist/racist/________ist at all, any more than how he discusses in detail how the salacious natures of Softporn Adventure, Leisure Suit Larry, and Meretzky's Leather Goddesses and Spellcasting 101 games all (with much more impact) helped their sales with men is misogynistic. Certainly any such attributes of Sinclair, such as they are, were increasingly less effective with Magnetic Scrolls' later games as the IF market collapsed in the UK. (Although Maher doesn't explicitly mention it, given The Pawn's timing I think the fact that it was among the first games for the ST and Amiga helped, too.)
As for the broader question of Maher's RS qualifications, I hope this discussion attracts other participants for a consensus on the topic. Ylee (talk) 01:36, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Would authorship of The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga (MIT Press, 2012) qualify as a sign of expertise? How about developer of a Z-Machine interpreter for Windows? Ylee (talk) 20:41, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
It's reasonable to infer that the MIT Press book was edited, if you'd like to use that as a reference, but a person's claims do not become truth (nevertheless reliable truth) by virtue of a degree or having a book published alone—it's the career and kind of claims made. If the claims are important, they will be published in a capacity where they can be peer reviewed (that's the reliability part). I'd only use his personal blog for non-controversial comments on the publication of his book and the development of Filfre, because those are the areas in which he has expertise, not as a wider, established expert of either field. czar 20:50, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Jimmy Maher is one of the most cogent and insightful voices writing on computer game history today. I realize Wikipedia has its RS policies which do result in Jimmy being right on the cusp of what we can deem acceptable, but any expert on this subject will tell you his writing is far more accurate than Kent or Sheff or Cohen or several IGN authors that we accept because of the so-called value of editorial oversight (as if the editors of these men were closely fact checking their work). Also regardless of his value as an RS, the insulting labels applied to him here by certain editors are really beyond the pale. Most disappointing. In short, video game history is such a new field that the best info is not always found in "traditional" reliable sources and removing his blog would only leave the project poorer. Indrian (talk) 01:39, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
  • From what I've seen so far, Maher's blog is a fair distance from being even "on the cusp" of acceptability as a reliable source. Whether what he says is true (which is itself debatable) is irrelevant—verifiability is what matters. If there's real evidence of Maher's expertise, it needs to be presented. Otherwise, the sources need to be removed until further notice. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:51, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
I also don't understand the venom directed at Maher. He has posted on a weekly basis since 2011 detailed, heavily researched (based on secondary sources, primary sources, and personal interviews/correspondence/research) articles on an amazingly wide swath of computer gaming going back to prehistory, often with lengthy citations at the end. Bill Loguidice treats Maher as a peer, writing in comments things like "another excellent piece".
I've cited posts by CRPG Addict a few times. Because Chet is not a published author, should such citations be blanket challenged based on WP:SPS, I would and could not argue against doing so, despite the massive contribution his blog has made to gaming history in general and RPG history in particular. I don't get, howver, the logic that being a published author on the Amiga disqualifies Maher from serving as a RS on general gaming/non-Amiga topics. Ylee (talk) 01:52, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
There are a great many informative personal blogs that aren't reliable sources. I've frequented some myself. At their best, they offer an excellent jumping-off point for further (verifiable) Wikipedia research, which is itself an important thing. In any case, I'm not familiar with this CRPG Addict blog, but the same criteria apply to it. The author's expertise must be demonstrated before this can be considered a reliable, usable source. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:03, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Maher is published by a University Press on a topic related to this field of study. That does indeed place him on the cusp as an SPS. And he does cite his sources, so much of what he writes can be verified. Now when it comes to his criticism or interpretation of fact, I can certainly see the arguments for not including that info on Wikipedia since his credentials as a critic are not necessarily established. But if he is cited purely for factual assertions rather than assertions of opinion, then he is just as accurate as anyone writing on this topic, and far more so than some. Indrian (talk) 02:07, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
If his assertions of fact are verifiable, and he cites his sources, then we can use the sources he cites ourselves. (Although, given his rare use of footnotes, it might be hard to track down the relevant source material.) Further, while I may be wrong here given my limited exposure to his blog, it seems that most of his posts are interpretations of fact rather than plain facts themselves. Either way, I can see no situation where citing Maher's blog would be preferable to citing a reliable source. The book would place him on the cusp of reliability as an expert on the Amiga computer; the claim that it makes him a near-expert on the entirety of video game history is quite a stretch. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:22, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
The citations in the two articles you used as examples of references to his blog both pertained to factual statements as to the number of copies sold of two SSI computer games. These sales figures were gleaned from internal company documents held by the International Center for the History of Electronic Games and therefore cannot be cited to directly absent additional information that I doubt is known by anyone posting here. I see no problem citing to his blog for this information. Indrian (talk) 04:54, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
If Maher is not an expert in video game history (which seems to be the working consensus), then his blog is not a reliable source for video game history per SPS. If his blog is not a reliable source, then we cannot use it as a source for those sales figures. We have no independent verification that the figures are accurate. Even if one of us accessed the documents ourselves to verify the accuracy of his claims, that would simply be original research, and therefore invalid as well. There's no way to use these sales figures until a reliable source reports them. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 07:41, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
As a published author in a university press on a topic in video game history, he is certainly reliable as an SPS on factual issues regarding historical and technical matters related to the topic, as he has demonstrated his ability to perform historical research at a professional level. I agree that he has not established any bonafides as a critic, but your assertion that Mr. Maher is either a liar or so incompetent as to be unable to properly read an internal company document is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Such an individual would not be published in a prestigious university press. And right now I see two in favor and two against, so the idea that you as yet have a "working consensus" is equally silly. It might well go that way, but it has not yet. Indrian (talk) 11:58, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Reliability is reliability. I'm not accusing him of anything. Stephen King has demonstrated his ability to perform all sorts of duties at a professional level, and we still don't cite his Twitter for political articles—even though politics has informed several of his books. This issue is no different. No one has brought forward anything concrete in support of Maher's credentials as a video game historian, despite the frequent mentions of his Amiga book. If he does not have credentials as a video game historian, then his statements about video game history, factual or otherwise, are not considered reliable according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Like one of the better-respected NeoGAF forumgoers, he may have valuable and probably-true information to put forward (photographs of leaked documents, etc.), but that doesn't mean we can cite him as a source. WP:SPS is very clear: unless Maher is an expert in the field he's discussing, his personal blog posts about that field are not reliable for any purpose. There is no wiggle room regarding "factual statements" about video game history simply because he's demonstrated himself to be competent while writing about a computer system. If you think there's real evidence of his expertise in the field he's discussing, that's something else entirely—but you need to present it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:12, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm unsure why I have to keep going around in circles on this, but he was published by a university press on a subject within video game history. That is the indicia of reliability. And yes, reliability exists as a standard to keep out the deceitful and incompetent, so to press a claim of unreliability against a published author in the field is to tacitly assert one or the other even if that is not your primary intent. Indrian (talk) 20:23, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
The Amiga is not a video game console. In fact, looking up his book's contents on Google Books (here), at first glance I don't see even a chapter dedicated to video games. If there is one, I'm not sure which it would be. Regardless, if he'd written a book about the evolution of the IBM PC or Apple II, would that automatically make him an expert in video game history? SoundBlaster soundcards? All were used for video games, and yet we don't treat the personal blogs of those who've written books on these subjects as expert self-published sources on video game history. SPS reliability applies on a case-by-case basis—some people are experts in one field, but not another. That doesn't make them incompetent or liars; we simply can't consider them as Wikipedia-grade sources outside their area of expertise, just as your trustworthy best friend can't be cited as a source. Maher's (potential) expertise in Amiga computer history is not evidence of his expertise on the whole history of video games. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:18, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
If there are no objections, I'll begin removing Maher's personal-opinion citations from articles as we wait for the verdict on the Digital Antiquarian as a strictly factual source. There seems to be far less support for keeping his work as a critic. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:41, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm fine with that. Indrian (talk) 02:27, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
Done. Now we need to determine his reliability for facts. Czar's argument below is the first step. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:41, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
JimmyBlackwing, unlike Indrian I do not believe that this action should have been taken (three hours after the initial notification) without consensus having been formed to do such, let alone enough time to do so. That said, I do not object as part of compromise, but still fundamentally object to the claim that Maher has not demonstrated relevant expertise, and look forward to further contributions by others to form a consensus. As for Maher's book, I already pointed out to you that chapter 8 is specifically on video games; it is titled "Cinemaware and Psygnosis", for heaven's sake. (I really hope your next step is not to argue that because it is titled as such, Maher has only demonstrated his expertise with those two publishers' Amiga games and on no other video game area.) Further, chapter 7 , "The Scene", is on the demoscene community, which of course originates from video game piracy. Chapters 2 ("Boing"), 3 ("Deluxe Paint"), 4 ("SSG and Sculpt-Animate") all deal with the computer's powerful graphics and sound capabilities, and their applications (and their applications' applications, given how much Deluxe Paint was used for Amiga and non-Amiga games into the 1990s). Ylee (talk) 18:44, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
To clarify, I was fine with it as a compromise because I thought his case as a critic was weaker under Wikipedia policy than his case as a historian. I do maintain he is a subject expert on video game history, and it appears consensus is, at this writing at least, beginning to drift in that direction. Indrian (talk) 18:55, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Reiterating, since I think it got lost: Reliability rests with the publication, not the author. A source is reliable when verification from competent professionals is baked into its publishing process. You take the blog of the world's foremost video game expert and our circumstances for using that information are still very restricted. The expertise is important, sure, but reliability has more to do with the chances that report will be retracted for inadequate foresight. All writers—experts included—are susceptible to mistakes, hence why we lean so hard on editorial pedigree and process. czar 03:17, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
WP:SPS does not state that "Reliability rests with the publication, not the author". On the contrary, it was created so that someone who has demonstrated expertise via the usual means (book, journal article, news article, etc.) can then, on a self-published site, provide additional RS-qualifying content that can be cited in Wikipedia. Reliability rests with the author, as long as said author has demonstrated his RSness via RS-qualifying means elsewhere, and the subject matter is on a relevant field. Ylee (talk) 19:00, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm aware of what the guideline reads and how it's commonly interpreted—it's an executive summary on how expertise differs from reliability. "Expert" sources have narrower latitude than those with editorial process. czar 07:33, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Just stumbled across this discussion now. Maher is considered an expert within the niche field of interactive fiction. Planet IF, the main news aggregator of the IF scene, reposts his blog. Emily Short quotes him regularly in her blog. Nick Montfort quotes him regularly on his blog. The Cambridge Companion to Popular Fiction quotes him. I would place him within the top 3 of IF experts together with Emily Short and Andrew Plotkin (who regularly quotes Maher in his blog). Kind regards, Grueslayer 04:47, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

These are all blogs, and he's never published on McGaming Journalism sites like IGN. Therefore, you can't really expect this RfC to turn out differently. SharkD  Talk  06:44, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
I would just like to add I have no experience with The Digital Antiquarian. SharkD  Talk  07:13, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Like Grueslayer I just found out about this discussion after seeing a great number of edits by JimmyBlackwing popping up on my watchlist. I share Indrian's perspective. If we look over what has been said above: (1) Maher has credentials in the form of both Information Tech and Art degrees, (2) he has researched and published a book on the topic of a gaming computer (the Amiga book), and (3) from Grueslayer's links I think it is fair to say that he is regarded as a peer by authors from other sources that we regularly cite.
    I would add to Grueslayer's list of peer citations the following: Gamasutra (numerous articles where he is variously cited as "video game history buff", "Video game historian", etc.), Indiegames and Rock Paper Shotgun (where in both cases he has been assigned his own tag the better to collocate posts related to him - see Indiegames tag and RPS tag), Kotaku (cited, e.g. here), and GameSetWatch (here). His Digital Antiquarian blog has also seen citation and praise from peers including writers for PC Gamer (here), HG101 (described here as part of the "Researcher's Survival Kit"), and numerous photo credits given by Polygon. Maher has also been involved in the industry through his work designing and producing games like the well-received IF title, The King Of Shreds And Patches, and he has been a big name in IF circles since the mid-1990s as the publisher of the SPAG newsletter (discussed or otherwise cited by academic sources like GameStudies.org here and even non-gaming press like NY Times here and Wired here), so there is likely to be further print-based coverage of him and his writing in offline paper publications.
    Indrian also points out and I strongly agree that the comments impugning Maher's capabilities as a researcher or his underlying motivations (conspiracy theories and GamerGate?) should be toned down. This writer has been a well-regarded voice in the video game community (specifically the IF and Retrogaming community) since at least the mid-1990s—before retrogaming even had a name. I haven't yet had the time to examine Maher in depth, but my gut instinct is similar to Indrian's suggestion that he is "on the cusp" of RS-hood. At the very least I would say that he is on the cusp of being an expert in keeping with WP:SPS. -Thibbs (talk) 13:12, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Thanks for rounding up this information, Thibbs. Until now, there has been very little effort made to demonstrate Maher's status as an established expert on video game history. I was unaware of most of these citations you've dug up, or of his longevity in this field (the blog only began in 2011, and I've seen nothing about his '90s SPAG work until now). There may be enough here to qualify him as a source for historical facts. However, even with these, I stand by the removal of his personal opinions from articles. His personal opinion, self-published on a personal and unedited blog, should not be given the same weight as those of professional publications' critics and writers. If he was analyzing these topics in an official, published capacity, that would be one thing. However, even the personal blogs and social media of professional, respected critics are used sparingly (if at all) as opinion sources. As long as there's a consensus that Indrian's original compromise (using Maher as a source for facts, not opinions) still holds, then I'm willing to drop the rest. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
I looked through these links. The coverage is on par with calling, for instance, Jeremy Parish an expert on the Game Boy for RS mentions of his blog and podcast. I think this discussion sets the bar for "expert" far too low (and, once again, far lower than comparable for the rest of WP). If a person is renowned for their background on a subject, we should at least have sources that say as much (if not full proof of the individual's independent notability, not just asides/mentions). czar 07:50, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
The "independent notability" standard is one that applies when considering the question of whether a given topic warrants its own article. I don't believe that such a requirement is currently imposed for sources to be considered reliable (or expert), though. Obviously bare assertion by an editor (or a number of editors in this case) that an author is an expert in the relevant field is not enough to survive a good faith challenge like we see here. So I agree that reliable sources describing the author as an expert would be a helpful addition to the implicit suggestions of expertise demonstrated in the numerous RS citations. It should be noted here briefly that the terms "notable" and "expert" are terms of art with specific meaning on Wikipedia and that even if we can find sources like this article in the peer-reviewed Digital Culture & Education which speak of Maher's "expertise", a vernacular expression like "video game historian" (the label applied to Maher by sources like Kotaku in the links above and The Strong's National Museum of Play in their Museum News) would probably suffice in my view to bolster the claim that an author is regarded as an expert. Anyway although it's possible to locate sources like these that discuss the author rather than his works, I do think that it's improper to dismiss citations out of hand when they come from reliable sources like those mentioned above or like the articles in numerous peer-reviewed journals (e.g. in the case of Maher: Cultural Sociology (paywalled link), Journal of Digital Humanities (here), Masaryk University Journal of Law & Technology (paywalled link), etc.) that cite the author as if he/she were an expert (despite never explicitly saying so). I agree that we hold self-published material from expert authors to a high standard at Wikipedia, but I think a requirement of independent notability for the author may represent an over-abundance of caution. -Thibbs (talk) 21:25, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Anyway I leave it to the community, but for the record I think the compromise JimmyBlackwing and Indrian have spoken about previously sounds fine to me. -Thibbs (talk) 21:50, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I came across this topic due to the removal of content: Therefore, here my thoughts. He publishes conistently and for a long time, self-published and non-selfpublished. He get cited (!) by other accepted sources and experts. He has a academic & professional background in the broader domain. Therefore I would also tend to accept him as an expert in his field, who can be cited and used as source with care. As with all sources, transparency ("Maher said", "Maher thinks/concludes/" etc) is of uttermost importance (also to adress JimmyBlackwing's concerns), to represent a topic with due balance. If this is fullfilled I see the digital antiquarian as potential good source, in a sub-domain where not many other sources are available. Shaddim (talk) 16:50, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
I believe that in all cases I cited Maher's opinion (as opposed to a straight fact, like sales data), I indeed phrased it as "Maher said", "Maher stated", etc. Ylee (talk) 19:03, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
I've just waded into this (because of content deleted on my watchlist) but from what I can see at a glance is that Maher seems to be a fairly reliable source for a subject that has very limited reliable sources. Jimmmy you are deleting an awful lot of material from the encyclopedia without just cause in my opinion and without waiting for consensus to form and claiming in your edits that you have consensus from this project talk page which by the way isn't a proper RFC.  g@rycompugeek  talk 22:15, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

OpenCritic RFC

Please be aware of this RFC that has been started, which asks for OC to be accepted as reliable source and added to Template:Video game reviews. -- ferret (talk) 20:58, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Game Revolution relaunch - lots of broken links

Game Revolution recently relaunched/redesigned their website.[7] Some links are now 404 (such as this soundtrack review from GA Music of The Last of Us), and some just point to the wrong place (such as this game review from GA Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri).

I think this calls for an archiving bot. - hahnchen 12:57, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I think, specifically the soundtrack review, was deleted from their site (for whatever reason), check the "The Last Of Us" tag, and scroll down as far down as you can... it's just not there. The review searched for is located at this page (note though that the link you gave us, and subsequently was on the linked article, was a redirect to http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/alpha-centauri (without /pc), which is now a redirect to the above, new link.) Lordtobi (✉) 13:29, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Rather than calling for an archive ambulance, I think we would more appreciated having links updated to their redesigned live versions (maybe also by a bot?) Lordtobi (✉) 13:32, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Has anyone contacted Game Revolution about these broken links? GamerPro64 16:34, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
One bump before letting this archive - no, I have not contacted GR. I think it best that the links were archived, who knows if they change their website again? There are 2000+ links, but not all those are mainspace. - hahnchen 20:56, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
I just contacted them. It looks like it'll be taken care of. GamerPro64 00:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Sonic CD reception section

Could I get some help on re-writing this section? The only good reception section I've ever wrote was for my current GAN, which is a pretty obscure game and thus did not have as much reviews. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 00:06, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Sega Genesis - European launch

I've opened the discussion five days ago because after looking through the article, the paragraph about the European launch in the "Launch" section is not in accordance to the citation given there, and the European release date is unreferenced throughout the article. For anyone's attention, the discussion is at Talk:Sega Genesis#European launch. I might need some input for this. Thanks. – Hounder4 02:01, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Third party sales estimates in infobox

There is an RFC going on about this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Xbox_One#RfC_about_the_inclusion_of_third_party_values_in_infobox - would love more input on it. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 18:54, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Highway 61 Interactive

I need a second opinion on this article idea. This was suggested at the Requests board. Its notable enough to have its own article but I'm not sure whether or not this is a video game. I don't know if I should use Template:Infobox video game or any other template for this. Thoughts? GamerPro64 21:21, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Worth noting in Assassin's Creed: Revelations article

Assassin's Creed: Revelations - I don't see it anywhere in the article. It is worth noting that Revelations is the first game in the series that features two composers. Lorne Balfe composed the main theme, cutscenes and multiplayer while Jesper Kyd did the ambient and combat music. --Debeet (talk) 18:24, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Is it? Find reliable sources about the change, and add it to the article with citations to the sources you found.--IDVtalk 18:33, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
That is trivia. Who cares if it was the first to feature two composers? If no sources explicitly mentions that, it doesn't belong. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 04:36, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Additional comments on Sonic the Hedgehog's FAC

Could I get some additional comments on my current FAC? It's been a while since the last comment. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 10:20, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

After spending a bit of time breakout the ZeniMax v. Oculus lawsuit to its own article, I was thinking if there already existed a list of video game related lawsuits or if we should have one. Inclusion would require that there is a decent amount of discussion about the case on some page and not just pointing to court records, only so that list serves as an index to help readers find more details. So this would include things like the ZeniMax/Oculus case, Silicon Knights/Epic Games, 38 Studios, as well as Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass'c. Just looking to see if this is a good idea or not. --MASEM (t) 19:43, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

If not a list, then at least a category. -- ferret (talk) 19:52, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
I think its a good idea. There's Sega v. Accolade too. Sergecross73 msg me 20:23, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Maybe a cat that says "lawsuits" instead of "legal cases" so it can include articles that mention lawsuits but are not specifically a standalone article about a lawsuit? ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:11, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure if a cat works, only because many of the legal actions/lawsuits aren't separate pages from either the principle company or the games involved (eg the legal case against 38 Studios is all on the dev page). With a list, we can pipe links so that we can spell out the name of the case even while linking to the more relevant section. Also, –we can at least put something like "dispute type" (IP, contractual, etc.) and a brief description and outcome. A cat for standalone articles specifically on cases would be fine. --MASEM (t) 21:18, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Suitable redirects can have categories though. Also another page that might be usable for this is Edge Games. 90% of which is about legal cases. -- ferret (talk) 21:21, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
That is true too. I'm just thinking though that as more examples are brought in, the list/cat combo makes a lot of sense, if the list is formatted in a useful way. For example, a section for "case law" for any case that was resolved at a US District Court or higher, or the equivalent elsewhere, to identify pertinent cases that affect legal aspects of video games, and then sections for other dispute types that may not be setting precedence but had sufficiently deep coverage ala ZeniMax/Oculus. (At least in terms of case law, I just did a quick check to validate that I can demonstrate secondary coverage of the topic as a whole). --MASEM (t) 21:28, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Oooh, Edge Games, blimey, that was a long summer :( - X201 (talk) 08:56, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a category related to this topic, that contains many video game court cases: Category:Video game law. ~Mable (chat) 09:20, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't see why not. Plenty of sources would have reported on the more notable cases, and there are enough out there to warrant an article like this. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:16, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Threre are also article for Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. as well as Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., so there is defiantly enough cases to cover. We should also include Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass'n which ruled that video games were protected speech.--64.229.167.158 (talk) 04:13, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
I think at least a short referenced description of every case in this list would work. How would we order and organize such a list, though? I assume most are intellectual property-related, so we could make this a chronological list. For separate subjects, like cases related to sex and violence in video games, we could create separate sections. ~Mable (chat) 09:14, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Looking through this category, I almost start to wonder if we could create a separate list for video game bills, laws, and regulations, though I imagine there are technically too many to list, especially if we make it global. ~Mable (chat) 09:27, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
I've started User:Masem/List of video game related court cases in the United States which is obviously not all complete in terms of cases, but making sure that looks good. Note I'd expect to add one ref to each case for summary purposes. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Does any reliable source discuss the cases as a group for WP:LISTN? Or is this a WP:SPLIT from a related "video game related legal cases" topic? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:41, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
I came across two lawsuits in Mojang#lawsuits that have been covered by reliable sources, and may work well in the list. ~Mable (chat) 17:30, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Limiting what hardware pricing is used

There's been a few small-scale edit wars on recent consoles about which countries to include pricing for. While we are not a catalog, MSRP is generally something included with any consumer electronic that is notable, as it gives an implicit idea whom it is catered towards, and often itself is a point of discussion. But that said, we can't include the price for every country. I suggest that we limit these to only 5, assuming they are all applicable:

  • USD - Largest market for video games, and pretty much the defacto currency when describing video game commercial performance.
  • JPY - May not be largest market, but Japan has significant influence on the VG world
  • Euro - Other major market for video games in the context of en.wiki.
  • GPB - More of a legacy issue as for systems released prior to the Euro, the GPB would serve as a reasonable metric, and thus we should include for legacy.
  • AUD - Because the import tarriffs to Australia/NZ are well established and this gives an idea of how much they hit this reason.

Obviously if a console wasn't released in one of these regions, we shouldn't include that from, say, ebay costs. Or as in the case of the Switch where Nintendo has not set a MSRP for the Euro, that should be omitted.

Regions that I've seen pushed to include pricing that we should not include, unless noted, would be

  • Canada and Mexico - yes, they're pricing is different but is generally going to be proportional to the US price across different hardware
  • China/S. Korea - While Asia may boost a lot of gamers, in terms of en.wiki its largely different set of games and consoles; further, their pricing will be close to what the Yen price is.

Obviously all IAR-type exceptions should be in play, and if there are notable prices outside these 5 regions, that can be discussed in prose, but for simplicity of the infobox and comparison tables, we should limit it to these 5. --MASEM (t) 16:54, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

"Home territory" -- so, JPY but not USD for PS4? Maybe it's because we're biased westerners but that does not seem informative to me or most readers. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 23:48, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
    • This is more for infoboxes and comparison tables, where it seems defacto to include a selection of worldwide pricing at the given MSRP, rather than the converted price. It would be different in prose, where we'd only need the home pricing and the converted price if that's mentioned (for example in the case of the Switch, when Nintendo was first posing how much its online service would cost, it was given in yen, and RSes provided the approximate dollar amount). But MSRP's are different beasts. --MASEM (t) 19:47, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
We don't list the MSRP for cars in infoboxes and I think it's overkill for consoles too. The MSRP is only useful relative to cost of living and I doubt our readers/editors have memorized inflation tables: So the NES cost ¥14,800/$299 in 1984—what does that mean? Home currencies-only would be a compromise until the parameter is excised from the template:Infobox information appliance, but expanding to four/five currencies seems antithetical to the purpose of the infobox (to summarize key facts that already appear in the article). czar 21:20, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Very fair point and thus maybe it is appropriate for use to eliminate this from our infobox. (There remains the issue of the by-generation comparison tables, and which regional pricing to use, since the relative costs of consoles is a big deal to some). If the pricing elements are important, we can wrap that in prose, and as often this is the comparison of one console to another, those sources will default to some currency. However, even in prose, even where costs can be documented and made relevant, we should be wary of adding too many regions. --MASEM (t) 23:58, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I really do not see the point of including Australia in the infobox. Its only the 14th largest market in the world, which is even less impressive than it sounds on its face since the top 7 markets are larger than the rest of the world combined. There are no important publishers headquartered there and very few developers of worldwide note. Its simply not an important enough part of the video game industry to rate a mention in the infoboxes of the consoles. Indrian (talk) 20:09, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
  • We already include it as in the infobox due to it being an majority English-speaking region. It would seem inconsistent with the rest of our guidelines if we were to do this. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:12, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
  • But if that's the rationale, then why are we leaving Canada out? Its both a larger market and the home of more significant developers. Proximity and similarity to the United States is not a good enough reason if our overriding rationale is majority English speaking country. Indrian (talk) 20:20, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Whereas MSRP pricing in Canada follows with the US pricing, given conversion rates, AUS pricing is highly influenced by shipping and tarriffs. For example, $1 = 1.30 AUD right = 1.30 CAD. That means the US$300 pricetag for the Swich would be about 390 AUD or CAD. In CAD the MSRP is CA$400 (right there) but it's 470 AUD, and that's due to the logistics of shipping there. It is not so much that we're ignoring Canada as an english-speaking region, but that we are identifying one English-centric point in each region for pricing comparisons. The exception is the UK/Euro one but that's a legacy aspect only. --MASEM (t) 20:33, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Okay, as a regional comparison thing I guess I can see that. I would argue that AUS/NZ is not an important enough region of the world in video game terms to care about the pricing there on the infobox level, but I certainly have no strong opinions on what goes in the infobox and have no desire to argue over this. Indrian (talk) 20:35, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

ASTA re released

I noticed that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTA:_The_War_of_Tears_and_Winds was relaunched on steam last week even though it had shut down its original servers previously. Can someone update its page? http://store.steampowered.com/app/617720/ASTA_Online_V2_CBT/

2602:306:362C:1550:2DF6:9D63:3055:2318 (talk) 02:10, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Video game hoaxer

Hey, everyone. There's a hoaxer who I've been chasing around for several months. He generally targets biographies of voice actors to add hoax credits. For a while, it was mostly fake roles in animated films, and I lost track of him for a while when he switched to fake roles in video games. He seems to specialize in adding credits for Watch Dogs, the Grand Theft Auto series (especially Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas), and the Lego Indiana Jones series. Many of credits listed in BLPs for these games are hoaxes. His main account was Langesam1234 (talk · contribs), and most of his logged-in accounts use variations of that name. For example, Langesamwikipedia1234 (talk · contribs) and Langesam1234wiki (talk · contribs). However, most of his vandalism is spread through IP accounts. One way to recognize him is through the sporadic mention of his name in edit summaries, usually styled as variations of "edited by sam lange" or "added by sam". For the past month, he's been on 2601:601:8280:4D9F:* (talk · contribs · WHOIS), which is registered to Comcast. His geolocation seems to fluctuate between Seattle, Washington, US, and New Jersey, US. After I range blocked 2601:601:8280:4D9F::/64, he showed up on 73.109.61.77 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). If you've got video game voice actor bios on your watchlist, please watch for his hoaxes. He's been very active recently, and I missed a lot of his vandalism. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 10:09, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

OpenRCT2

Please take a moment to review the threads at Talk:OpenRCT2 and possibly to comment. --Izno (talk) 11:24, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Time for a Category:RPG Maker games?

The category has been deleted twice before, 11 years ago, but I'm gonna ask here just to be safe. Do you guys think it's time to make this category? Currently there are many articles in Category:RPG Maker that should be in this. Anarchyte (work | talk) 12:23, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Looks like a valid sub-category. -- ferret (talk) 13:31, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Given we have Category:Unity (game engine) games and Category:Unreal Engine games, I see no issue with this. However, let me suggest that we flip the naming scheme of these around to "Games made with RPG Maker/Unity/Unreal/whatever" so they don't look like a platform or genre.--MASEM (t) 13:34, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Great! I've made Category:Games made with RPG Maker‎. I'll start filling it tomorrow. Anarchyte (work | talk) 13:53, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Just a followup, Masem and Ferret, do you think it'd be a good idea to start a rename CfD for similar categories (Category:Unity (game engine) games etc) so that it's consistent (would become Category:Games made with Unity in this case)? 07:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I incorrectly formatted my signature there, pinging just in case it didn't work because of it. @Masem and Ferret:. Anarchyte (work | talk) 07:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
It'd be better had you just created Category:RPG Maker games like you originally suggested. - hahnchen 10:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
A category for RPG Maker games is valid in my eyes. Have no strong opinion on "RPG Maker games" versus "Games made with RPG Maker". -- ferret (talk) 12:24, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
We should at least standardize them. I'm not thrilled with the name "Category:Unity (game engine) games", and while I like saying "Games made with..." to differ these from platform, at least I would rename this one to be "Unity engine games" to avoid that awkward parenthetical that's not needed here. --MASEM (t) 14:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm going to guess that it was moved from Category:Unity engine games → Category:Unity (game engine) games per WP:C2D. --The1337gamer (talk) 16:48, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I prefer "Games made with..." it's clear and does exactly what it says on the tin. - X201 (talk) 15:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I feel like it's a valid category as well. In a general sense, I'm neutral in how to name it, but in the RPG Maker example, I prefer the "Games made with..." because with the alternative could be confusing as to whether it means "Games created with RPG Maker" or "Games in the RPG Maker series", since there's many iterations of the RPG Maker (series). Not the same with something like "Unity", which is not a series of video games too. Sergecross73 msg me 17:28, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

There are more categories than I originally thought (Category:Video games by game engine), many of which go along the lines of "<engine> games", meaning consistency is already there, so I'm fretful to nominate all of these articles just because there are one or two outliers but at the same time people here have suggested that "Games made with" is better. Anarchyte (work | talk)

I agree that we shouldn't change what works. I'm not a big fan of the "Unity (game engine) games" naming over "Unity engine games" but that's more minor. I do also agree though that with RPG Maker we need to distinguish careully, and that may be reason to use the exception to the naming approach there. --MASEM (t) 19:37, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't see the problem with the original naming scheme. SharkD  Talk  23:34, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

List of VeggieTales Video Games

I dunno, but is anyone interested in expanding this article? Perhaps someone who has the time or lulz might want to give this more or less the same treatment as with the Madeline. Blake Gripling (talk) 02:50, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

We ran out of lulz two months ago. We need to stock up on some more. SharkD  Talk  23:38, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

List of Space Invaders video games

I noticed that List of Space Invaders video games changed into Space Invaders (series), which is rather odd that it removes mention of it being a list. Especially since its a Featured List. Didn't see any discussion to change the title so I don't think this was a good call to make. GamerPro64 00:15, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

It's not a good change. Moving it to "Space Invaders video games" would be non-standard, but understandable, but the "Name (series)" format is reserved for articles about a series, not lists. It should be moved back. --PresN 02:45, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
It should be moved back since this is clearly a list not a series article.--64.229.167.158 (talk) 02:14, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 July 2017

Jacksepticeye said in his recent video titled "IS JACKSEPTICEYE DEAD? 2601:6C4:4001:2AF0:1C33:8058:DB29:2C4C (talk) 01:52, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) 02:00, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Please, make the request on the appropriate talk page. TheDeviantPro (talk) 07:19, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Spoiler related content

I think this is an important issue that should be raised here, although I imagine it already has before, I just thought I'd add some quick thoughts and suggestions.

Firstly the category section at the bottom of the page. Is it necessary for this section to include information about a game that is in turn a spoiler? I know this may be subjective but the category section seems like a fairly minor part of Wikipedia and not so crucial that information that is spoiler related could be avoided.

Also I'd like to gauge peoples thoughts on spoiler related information in articles overall. Is spoiler related information necessary? Should spoiler related information contain a warning before hand? Personally I think this sort of information should be avoided. The vast majority of games with comprehensive Wikipedia articles have their own separate Wiki pages that cover details of the game in far more depth than Wikipedia. These Wiki pages almost always contain spoiler warnings. The majority of video game articles I have seen do not go so depth that I would regard spoiler related information to be necessary to that description.

I think the topic of spoiler related content should really be opened and discussed further and would like to hear others thoughts. Thanks for your time. Helper201 (talk) 06:34, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I guess that would be a better place to take this discussion, thank you. Although I would ask you please be more open in the future to at least discussing these matters, rather than immediately putting down even a discussion on the matter. Helper201 (talk) 07:15, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
The1337gamer didn't say you shouldn't have a discussion, they were just stating their opinion on the question you asked. For what its worth I agree with them, the whole point of creating a comprehensive encyclopaedia is that it's comprehensive, spoilers aren't one of the things that we leave out. - X201 (talk) 07:23, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Apologies, I got the impression that this was being shut down, perhaps I misinterpreted. In that case there is another option I've thought of which I brought up on Wikipedia:Spoiler - why not use (apologies I do not know the specific name for it) blocked out text? As in where what is written is blocked out and then when highlighted the words are revealed. I think this could be a useful option when it comes to spoiler related content where both parties win. The content is still there, so Wikipedia can stay comprehensive, people can see the information if they so wish, but also most will be able to avoid being accidentally spoiled. On the other hand there could just be a simple warning in the heading of the relevant section. Helper201 (talk) 07:36, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Hiding text relies on things like CSS and Javascript, that then causes accessibility problems for users using screen readers etc, or who use a browser that doesn't support them for some reason. - X201 (talk) 08:08, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
And what of a simple spoiler indication in the subheading? Or perhaps using italic text for spoiler content? I believe there is a way around this to satisfy both those that want the content and those who want to avoid spoilers. Helper201 (talk) 08:13, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • The very existence of a heading titled "plot", "story" or "synopsis" is a spoiler warning. If you want to avoid spoilers, don't read those sections until you've played/read/watched the thing the article is about.--IDVtalk 09:15, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes IDV, a rule I already follow. Of course spoilers are not limited to those sections. I am here due to a spoiler in the category section and wanted to open up and broaden the debate, through discussions on changes. Its a shame the community seems to be quite resistant to trying to help better solve this issue. Helper201 (talk) 09:40, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
That's because this was already discussed ad nauseam ("After a series of long, contentious discussions...") over a decade ago. There's nothing left to discuss that hasn't already been discussed. So at this point, anything related to spoilers is subject to WP:DEADHORSE.--十八 09:46, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
"Over a decade ago". Wikipedia has changed quite a bit over a decade. Just because something was agreed upon then, you maintain it has to stay that way permanently? This status quo attitude seems particularly regressive. There's always room for change, whether it be of new ideas or new opinions on old ideas. Helper201 (talk) 09:53, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, this consensus was formed over a decade ago. And yes, consensus can change, even long-standing consensus. I agree with the others, though, this one is unlikely to. Wikipedia stopped having spoiler tags (though I'm not sure if categories ever got tagged? Don't think so) because at its root it's counter to the ethos of the project- spoiler tags are a form of censorship of content, not due to editorial decisions on content but on not offending some readers, which violates the spirit of freely giving out information. Wikipedia isn't spoilered because it's not wikia- a video game article is concerned with giving out information on what that video game is, in all relevant aspects, not informing people who are playing/looking to play the game.
Or to put it another way- the gameplay section spoils the gameplay up to the end, the plot spoils the plot, the development section might spoil both, the reception section spoils gameplay and biases opinions, and I guess categories spoil plot too. So... the spoiler tags would just be at the top of every game article. So we don't use them at all. --PresN 11:29, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Our target group is not the person who wants information on wjether to buy a game or not. That person has lost his way and should have checked a gaming magazine. Our target group is a person who wants solid background information on a game because he needs to, dunno, write a paper about something or wants to research on the works of a certain game designer or whatever the reason may be to look up a game in an encyclopedia. Totally different target group. It's not that I don't get the point, I once ruined me a cinema visit by reading the movie synopsis of a movie that relied heavily on the viewer not knowing the final plot twist. But again, I should have read a movie magazine, not an encyclopedia. But I guess all this has been said numerous times over the past decade... Kind regards, Grueslayer 14:11, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Another person chiming in opposition. We're an encyclopedia, not messageboard posters catering to other posters - we don't hide spoilers with text formatting. If you don't want spoilers, stay away from story/plot sections. (And yes, I practice what I preach - I even stopped maintaining Persona 5 and Final Fantasy 15 for many months for this very reason.) Sergecross73 msg me 15:11, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
My two cents. I think that while the lead doesn't need "spoilers" from what happens late in the game as it is supposed to introduce the plot, we have to post "spoilers" when it comes to important reactions from the third party sources to something like Aerith's death.Tintor2 (talk) 15:51, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
This sort of arbitrary subjective division is exactly what WP:SPOILER talks about. Who decides what is important or not? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:05, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Also, regarding the original discussion that resulted in removing spoiler tags I could see a case for reargung the spoiler issue if it had never been brought up since but a simple glance at the archive of WP:SPOILER will clearly demonstrate that the consensus to remove has been reaffirmed several times and far more recently than 10 years ago.--64.229.167.158 (talk) 17:02, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Same here. Now that I'm fairly far into Fallout 4, I finally took a look at the plot section. I don't think that reinstating a spoiler tag has any chance of succeeding, but who knows. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 20:54, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

SNES classic line-up announced

For those of you that like improving articles on older games, the line-up for the SNES classic was announced.[8] The system comes out September 29 and includes 21 games (including the previously unreleased Star Fox 2). I checked the articles and of the 21 games included: 2 are FAs, 10 are GAs, and 9 need improvement. I'm thinking of putting in some effort into the latter, and figured others may be interested as well. The 9 needing improvement are: Star Fox, Star Fox 2, Super Mario World, Street Fighter II′ Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Super Castlevania IV, Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Dream Course, Contra III: The Alien Wars, and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. TarkusAB 17:50, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Star Fox 2? That's going to be an odd one to handle, since it's the first official release of the game, so it has to belong in the infobox and such. All of the other games shouldn't mention it, since they are just emulated. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 18:01, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • I think it would be okay to mention their inclusions. Like the case with the Rare Replay games. Also I made a mock-up of the topic:
edit | discuss
SNES Classic
2 articles
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Donkey Kong Country
EarthBound
Final Fantasy VI
F-Zero
Kirby Super Star
Kirby's Dream Course
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Mega Man X
Secret of Mana
Star Fox
Star Fox 2
Street Fighter II′ Turbo: Hyper Fighting
Super Castlevania IV
Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario RPG
Super Mario World
Super Metroid
Super Punch-Out!!
Yoshi's Island

GamerPro64 18:14, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Well technically for Star Fox 2, it's still emulation right? I think the SNES and NES classic machines were just running emulation software. They probably just dug up the old SNES ROM and made some modifications. I would argue the platform should be simply Super NES and release should say 2017 (via SNES mini) but I could see it going either way. Do we list it under List of Super Nintendo Entertainment System games? Very weird case with this one. TarkusAB 18:44, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
I'd be fine with that, but we'd need a larger consensus because it's bound to be a point of controversy. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
I think the Star Fox 2 infobox and prose handles the new release fine. As for the list: I wonder if a List of canceled Super Nintendo Entertainment System games would be viable. If not... I think it can be added? I mean, it is a fully finished SNES game, even if it was never published in any region. I'm sure someone has even put the ROM on a cartridge at some point and played it on the actual device. I don't see why it wouldn't fit on the list. ~Mable (chat) 23:38, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone have any sources pertaining to the educational game series "Mango Plumo Nature and Science" Series?

I'm working a new article for a educational video game series published by QA International around 2003.

If anyone has any sources I can site or any other information (with sources), please tell me about it or discuss it on the talk of page of my sandbox

Thanks, Upsidedown Keyboard (talk) 23:46, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

@Upsidedown Keyboard, try @Coin945 and Deltasim (also see their recent interview on edutainment) czar 22:53, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi Upsidedown Keyboard! I'll scan for sources and dump them in the sandbox when I have a spare mo. I'll also start writing up the article if I have time (I think the article should be called "Mango Plumo" and in clude all entries in the series).--Coin945 (talk) 02:22, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
@Coin945: Please give Upsidedown Keyboard a chance to draft the article, they are a new editor looking to do their first article. Thanks for the help with sourcing though! -- ferret (talk) 02:27, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Ahh Ferret, you're right. I'll take a step back. But Upsidedown Keyboard, if you need guidance or get stuck, you can always come back here, or to me/Deltasim if you have questions specifically related to the edutainment space. Also as Czar mentioned, please check out the interview we did for The Signpost. --Coin945 (talk) 02:40, 4 July 2017 (UTC)t
@Upsidedown Keyboard There are quite a lot articles about this game in French, which is not a language I'm learned in. I'll analyze them the best I can and create an infobox in your sandbox to summarise the series in a nutshell. Deltasim (talk) 10:13, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Talk:List of video game emulators

Hi all, as editors who are probably rather interested in emulators, could a couple of you have a quick read through Talk:List of video game emulators (sorry, yes, there is a fair bit to read) and weigh in at the content dispute going on? -- There'sNoTime (to explain) 12:59, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Editor Inserting unreliable sources (potential COI)

For the past year editor CLSYPH3 has been inserting reviews on film and video games articles from an amateur blog called Crash Landed. It's clearly not a reliable source, seeing how the "about us, our ethics, etc." links at the bottom of the page are all broken. The editor received the standard conflict of interest warning message on their talk page, which they ignored, and have continued to persistently link to the site in various articles.

I don't normally deal with this kind of thing, so I'm not sure which of the multiple administrator noticeboards I'm supposed to post this on. Could someone please either point me to the correct one, or just deal with the editor directly, if there are any admins here? Thanks. CurlyWi (talk) 03:44, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

All the other header links (Film, Games, etc) are broken too. Strange. Anarchyte (work | talk) 11:05, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Comparing the articles cited with the dates they get added (and given the single purpose, instantly cites correctly editing), it's a pretty obvious COI/PROMO case. A warning followed by a block is probably the way. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:07, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Removal of Distributor field from Template:Infobox video game

Discussion: Template talk:Infobox video game#Distributor. --The1337gamer (talk) 13:18, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Please be aware: There appears to be a consensus to remove the Distributor field. I will begin working towards that sometime in the next month. -- ferret (talk) 13:47, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Help

A user just move the game trilogy .hack//G.U. to its first title stating all three episodes will have their own articles. Still, the user didn't even create a new article and I doubt we have development information. I tried moving it back but Wikipedia doesn't allow me. Any ideas?Tintor2 (talk) 22:40, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Reverted. Opened a talk page discussion at the article. -- ferret (talk) 23:14, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
They also made several other large changes to the page without any discussion or edit summary. I noticed because it orphaned the image that I uploaded 8 years ago and it almost got deleted. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 10:09, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

So the reason there aren't separate articles for each volume is because there isn't enough content or coverage to justify making them separate. While they were released as separate titles, they're essential a single game in three installments. And I don't see any compelling reason to split them, the article isn't exactly overly long. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 10:09, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Could I get an extra pair of eyes on this article talk page. The user has reverted my edits twice and I'd like to build a consensus. They've also created a separate article for .hack//G.U. Last Recode which seems to just be a HD remaster of the series and doesn't really seem like it needs to be a separate article. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 06:02, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Copyediting some article while on the DYK waiting list

Would anyone care to take a peek at The X-Fools and Microshaft Winblows 98 while I'm waiting for their DYK reviews to commence?--Coin945 (talk) 15:19, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Nintendo Australia

So I nominated Nintendo Australia on AfD and would appreciate project members giving their opinions. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:40, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

New Articles (13 June to 23 June)

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

13 June

14 June

15 June

16 June

17 June

18 June

19 June

20 June

21 June

22 June

23 June

Salavat (talk) 05:12, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Cover art for hack//G.U.

There is currently a discussion at Talk:.hack//G.U.#Cover Art regarding what illustration should we use in the article. Please join to reach a consensus. Cheers.Tintor2 (talk) 14:51, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

List of Windows 3.x video games

The Index of Windows games article has a lot of games listed. I am thinking about separating the Windows 3.x games from the other Windows games. First however it must be determined what makes a game oriented to that Operating System. A chat at Talk:Index of Windows games has not as yet yielded much. I have prepared a list in the new article List of Windows 3.x games in which the games listed are Windows 3.x according to Mobygames (need a more reliable source). Please share your thoughts and comments and hopefully the list can be created and updated. Deltasim (talk) 15:13, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Rouge the Bat to List of Sonic the Hedgehog characters

Just started a merger discussion at Talk:List of Sonic the Hedgehog characters#Merger proposal and would appreciate it if I could get some opinions from other project members. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 16:51, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Reviews for a bundle/compilation

Question: If the review score is for a bundle - for instance Math & Science Excelerator Grades 3-6 is a compilation of two Mango Plumo games and two non-MP games, can the review score be included in the review infobox?--Coin945 (talk) 17:25, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

A study in cruft

For my own sanity, I don't watch many pages at once, especially ones beyond help, but I make an exception for List of Mass Effect characters. If you have ever been curious about how character articles accumulate mountains of in-universe plot detail (garbage) over time, I recommend adding it to your watchlist. The edit history from the past several months is a great example of how uncited plot sections tend to accrete more uncited, in-universe plot until someone clearcuts (and/or cites) the whole pile. czar 21:08, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Should be nuked and rewritten from scratch as a proper article. I added List of MySims characters to my watchlist after it somehow survived AfD. It is still an abomination. Four experienced editors voted to keep it and not a single one bothered to improve it. It has remained unsourced for over 7 years. Previously, IP and noobie editors would see a list of stadiums, teams or leagues on a Fifa article, and then they'd assume it was okay to add it on other game articles. I did a widespread purge of that cruft content on many sports and racing game articles, which has largely prevented that it being re-added. People see garbage on Wikipedia and that encourages them to add more. --The1337gamer (talk) 21:39, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
I've redirected it. Let's see if it sticks! :D --Izno (talk) 22:00, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that article shouldn't even exist as it only encourages inexperienced editors to add more fancruft to it. I would just keep the individual character articles if the are notable. Same for Characters of Dragon Age (note that there is a sublist here called Characters of Dragon Age: Inquisition). --Niwi3 (talk) 22:26, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
The Inquisition list was actually fairly reasonable for needing a hacking. There are a good chunk of references that mostly need to be used rather than hidden in comments in each section. --Izno (talk) 23:06, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
My butcher knife stands ever at the ready. --Izno (talk) 22:28, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
Character or list of character articles should not be surrogates for our concise plot requirements. Should be enough to establish main role in a work for the other details that are expected (reception, development, etc.) --MASEM (t) 22:43, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Ah, won't be interesting to watch anymore now that it has been clearcut, but better off this way. Its history is still instructive, in any case. (I went to write more about this and realized that I already had an essay started...) As for Mass Effect in specific, there is plenty written about the minor characters of each ME game (sometimes independently of the games/series) so I don't see an urgency to kill the whole list, though I will note that ME2 is FA (and ME1, GA) without requiring volumes of character background. I tend to think these lists would be better if made a general discussion of the characters' independent notability from the series (or otherwise of whatever aspects warranted a split and extended coverage from their parent sections), e.g., Characters of Overwatch is more substantive in thematic content and less of a list than List of Overwatch characters might have been. czar 23:26, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that the series article is also a mess. Ideally, the series article should have a two- or three-paragraph section discussing the characters from a real-world perspective and sourced analysis. If there are enough sources for an independent characters article (I highly doubt it), then the section should use summary style. Note that I still think the individual character articles should stay if they are notable. The problem lies in the fact that both the series and character articles are "listicles", which encourage inexperienced editors to add more entries. --Niwi3 (talk) 10:46, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
I absolutely agree. This AfD was one of the low points in my illustrious career as Wikipedia editor. One editor voted keep, because I apparently incorrectly cited a guideline on content. Even when I opted for merging, two experienced editor would rather keep it. It was one of those moments where I could easily understand that someone else would walk away from Wikipedia. I'm happy to see it boldly being redirected. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 19:29, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
Wow, I can't believe that one turned out that way, and in 2016 no less. Sergecross73 msg me 21:04, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
I recommend everyone to check out Category:Lists of video game characters. Most of these lists are cruft magnets. TarkusAB 01:28, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

G-Police

I might need help with the G-Police page. The "Awards" section that was added by IP 80.193.22.168 (talk), and I removed it as unsourced content. The user under that IP address identified himself as a lead programmer for the game in question. He created a discussion at here, and the "Award" section was added back to the article. – Hounder4 17:50, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

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