Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 92

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

Archive 85

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Archive 90

Collapsible lists are messed up

Recently I noticed that template:collapsible lists used in infoboxes are screwed up. For examples, see Mega Man 9 or Samba de Amigo. It may have something to do with template:vgrelease being a template-within-a-template. Does anyone konw how to fix it? ~ Hibana (talk) 02:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Ew, the one on my GA at Dr. Mario (video game)'s all messed up too. Maybe technical help should be sought? Salvidrim! 02:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I note the same thing in Ninja Gaiden (Nintendo Entertainment System) and Blaster Master. My guess is, given that there are has been no recent changes in Template:Infobox video game, perhaps there may have been in one of the templates the infobox uses? --MuZemike 03:17, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I've narrowed down the problem to something with {{video game release}}. If you don't use that, it works fine. Trying to debgu. --MASEM (t) 03:28, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

yea, there's something really screwed up here in template implementations. It's not an obvious fix or solution. --MASEM (t) 04:28, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Odd. It was definitely working perfectly fine as of November, and I'm pretty sure that, assuming I'm not falling prey to some sort of misinformation effect, that it was fine as late as... sometime during winter break, probably around Christmas.Emmy Altava 07:34, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

There was a small change to Template:Collapsible list on 9 January. - X201 (talk) 10:01, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Unlikely. I think it has something on the more recent MediaWiki change, as it seems to involve template expansion/execution order. I'm working on trying to distill down the basic case before going to a technical help. --MASEM (t) 13:45, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Note that I've posted at VPT for help here. It's clearly not the infobox affecting it, nor the vgrelease template. --MASEM (t) 15:13, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

This appears to be fixed now. Please double check your problematic infoboxes to make sure. --MASEM (t) 15:31, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

GameSystem

Hello, that Dank article called GameSystem, well two years go. On speedy deletion well does anyone have any more valid information about this console/handeheld system. Or was it one of those that was never made or was this a clone system? DoctorHver (talk) 17:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page not moved. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 13:07, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games → Wikipedia:WikiProject Video Games – This project name has three words in it. I could understand WikiProject Video Games or WikiProject: Video games or WikiProject video games but the current title, WikiProject Video games, makes no sense. Why capitalize Video and not games? It seems to me that this name is a proper noun, and like all proper nouns in the English language, it should be capitalized. There are other projects with both variations; I'm simply concerned with this project at the moment, and they can sort themselves out later. Obviously this is a minor improvement, but a small step forward is still a step forward. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:12, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Weak oppose: I don't really see a compelling reason or benefit to doing this. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 06:38, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I'll oppose this, primarily because it is not a proper noun. And the reason the first letter is capitalized is to distinguish it from the word "WikiProject". As for why not "WP: VG", that's because of custom with the entirety of Wikipedia. This change is needless bureaucracy. --Izno (talk)
Sorry, but in what way is this not a proper noun? There is one WikiProject for video games, and its name is "WikiProject Video games". Even the use of CamelCase is almost exclusively for proper nouns (in English, anyway). As far as distinguishing one word from another, how does capitalization do that? Isn't that what the space in between is for? And as far as the benefit, it seems pretty straight-forward that if we are a project dedicated to the consistency and quality of video game editing throughout Wikipedia, the first thing we should do is ensure our project is capitalized properly. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 07:07, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Video game is not a proper known per se, but when used in the context of a WikiProject, it becomes a proper known, such as Salt Lake City. A salt lake city is not a proper known, but that it is the name of an actual city makes it one.∞陣内 Jinnai 07:37, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Not quite. 'Wikiproject' seems to be a proper noun, but 'Video games' or 'Military history' or 'Indigenous peoples of North America' or whatever describes the Wikiproject. You might have a Camaro, but you wouldn't have a Red Camaro, you'd have a red Camaro. Just because the Camaro is red doesn't mean 'red' is a pronoun, unless the Camaro was made out of people named Red (which would be a bit mean). Likewise, just because the Wikiproject is about video games doesn't make video games a pronoun. Emmy Altava 10:52, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
If the "video games" part of the name isn't a proper noun, then why is Video capitalized and games is not? What you are talking about are adjectives, which don't apply here. "Video games" is not an adjective in this case. It could qualify as an adjective only if used before WikiProject (as in "this is the video games WikiProject"). This is a name of a project, and just as "red" isn't a proper noun when used to describe a category of Camaros, it is a proper noun when describing a particular Camero (like Big Red Camaro), or a particular work about that category of Camaros, like Red Camaro. WikiProject Video Games is a self-identified group of editors, and like any organization, the name of the group is a proper noun. Even though U.S. National Video Game Team has adjectives in it, it is still a proper noun, as it is a name of an organization. There is no negotiating with that, that is what a proper noun is. "United" is an adjective, "states" is a noun, "United States" is a proper noun, because it is used to describe a specific entity. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 11:48, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

This is an intensely informal argument, but the people at WP:Military history do it like this, and they're certainly better at Wikipediaing than I am, so I'm just going to meekly agree to whatever they're doing. In any case, this seems to be the case for most if not all Wikiprojects, so you'd probably be better off taking this to Wikipedia instead of us. In my personal opinion, there should be a colon, but honestly, altering it would probably break too many pages to be worth doing. Emmy Altava 10:50, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, Wikipedia:WikiProject Radio Stations, Wikipedia:WikiProject Television Game Shows, etc. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS - There are plenty of examples both ways, but we're talking about this project. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 11:48, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Passively Oppose - I am not actively opposing the RM; I present no argument to directly oppose it. However, no convincing reason is presented for the suggested move. While Video Games or video games would not be worse than the current name, I don't see a reason to change.

Quite the opposite, it follows the standard in use with other projects whose name is "WikiProject {ADJECTIVE} {NOUN}" (WP:MILHIST, obviously, but also WP:CM, WP:HR, etc.) Examples of the opposite can also be found -- which, while it falls under WP:OTHERSTUFF, only supports my "either is fine, no convincing reason to change" argument; there is no established consensus. Salvidrim! 11:55, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Weak support only because when I'm in a hurry and and spelling out the wikilink to the project page i tend to capitalize Game.∞陣内 Jinnai 20:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Oppose Page titles should use sentence case, and "Video games" is not a proper noun. --MASEM (t) 20:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

- Masem, video games is not a proper noun, but "WikiProject Video Games" is just as a salt lake city is not a proper noun by itself, but Salt Lake City is.∞陣内Jinnai 20:33, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
  - OK, I didn't get that's what people were thinking before. I'd like to clarify that I am not implying that I think "video game" is a proper noun, as in "Susan, I'd like you to meet my friend Video Game", I meant that the name of the project is a proper noun, the exact phrase "WikiProject Video Games". Jinnai's salt + lake + city example is a great one here. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 22:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Oppose I just took a cursory glance at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory and there is no unanimity, but more projects seem to use our capitalization approach than others. On a personal note, I agree with this approach as I see "Video games" as the name of the project, and see "WikiProject" as more of a sub-namespace than as part of the name of the project. This treats "Video games" like we do any other article title in the mainspace. I would not be opposed to redirects in other cases if they are desired. —Ost (talk) 20:59, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Oppose per no consensus with other projects; this should be proposed globally, not just for us. I don't think there's much merit in the move for individual projects if there isn't consistency globally. I mean neither choice is grammatically correct, and given the two (discounting the one with proper grammar, as no project uses that), I would stick with sentence case starting the project name. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 09:52, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - I don't see the merit in this proposal. DarthBotto_talk•cont 11:39, 06 December 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Can we clear the 2009 backlog at the requests page?

While it's likely that backlog will never truly be cleared, we have a handful from 2009 which really are due. JohnnyMrNinja has been creating several articles from the list, is anyone else willing to take one from 2009? I'll take Edna & Harvey if you're game. Someone another 21:05, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think someone should go in and do a quick source check and remove any that will not pass the GNG. There are a several in 2009 that look questionable.∞陣内 Jinnai 22:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll try, in the past I have had to clear out several because they're the usual MMOGs with no reliable sourcing. Someone another 22:16, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Fair use and arcade cabinets

I'm currently working on an article for Abobo's Big Adventure, and there's a picture taken by one of the programmers of their arcade build for Comic-con. While I can load this as a fair-use image, could such a picture be used as free-use if I obtain permission from the person that took the photo, or not because of the copyrighted material on the side of the cabinet and screen?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 04:48, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Probably not as the copyrighted material is principle to the image.∞陣内 Jinnai 05:50, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Is this too soon for this article ?

I've noticed that recently an article titled Xbox 720 was created. I personally think it is too soon for this particular article but I would some other opinions.--70.24.206.51 (talk) 03:49, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I'd wait until it has a name before doing anything about it. I'd wait for CES to come and pass, and if it doesn't show up there, redirect it to "Xbox 360#Successor" until it does show up.

A page for the "next Xbox console" was already deleted at AfD. Different name, same topic. Salvidrim! 12:08, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I AFD'd the previous article. It's still entirely crystal ball with no information from Microsoft. We can all assume they'll release another, but they haven't said anything about it yet. I've CSD'd the article under G4. -- ferret (talk) 16:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it passes as G4 because the content has to be basically the same as last version. After all, the references given are all newer than the last AfD. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 16:58, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Wait to G3. That's when its expected MS will reveal more info and possibly the actual name.∞陣内 Jinnai 22:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean that we should wait to create the article or wait before deletion is attempted?--70.24.206.51 (talk) 03:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Create. See WP:CRYSTAL's last point.∞陣内 Jinnai 16:34, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Xbox 720 was deleted previously. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xbox 720. 76.65.128.132 (talk) 23:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

So, CES is over. Any 720 news? No? Seems that the article is wrong. 98.194.143.132 (talk) 19:53, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

This is just a stupid rumour that we all know happened a few years ago, someone just added another 360 onto 360. Also, why would X-box make a new X-box if they just brought out the 360 re-make, it would be a loss. Dontforgetthisone (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Boldly redirected it to Xbox per WP:CRYSTAL.∞陣内 Jinnai 05:33, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

And boldly reverted because WP:CRYSTAL does not appl. This is because it is neither a scheduled nor expected future event, something in a predetermined list of names, extrapolation, speculation, future history, nor is it a product announcement only page.—Ryulong (竜龙) 06:59, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Really? It seems to quite clearly violate "predetermined list of names, extrapolation, speculation, future history" and "expected future event". The article itself uses "expected" in a couple of places. All the sources say rumor, or according to "unnamed source". There's not a single confirmed announcement. It should be merged into Xbox 360 as a "possible successor" section, or into a new "Xbox (Series)" article (As proposed on the now renamed Xbox 720 talk page). -- ferret (talk) 12:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

While rumors can gain enough notability to meet Wikipedia's threshold (Sheng Long is the prime example), almost all of them don't. I have to agree that an upcoming console should be discussed in a parent article. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:13, 19 January 2012 (UTC))

Ryulong, as someone who helped write that last point on Crystal, I can assure you that I intended it to cover things like this.∞陣内 Jinnai 16:37, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Release dates are so last week

Keeping and eye on PlayStation Vita articles, I've noticed a couple of occasions where the release date of the console and its games have been changed from 22 February to 15 February. It had happened a few too many times for it to be pure vandalism so I headed to Google and found this. If you pre-order you get the console a week early, it only applies to the 3G model. So your opinions please, is the release date the 22 February or the 15 February?.

My opinion is that the 22nd is the date we should use, the advert itself states that the official launch is 22 Feb. To me, this is just a marketing promotion and so we should keep the "Official date" and mention the promotion in prose. But what about the software, it will be available on the 15th (see Amazon US), so we could end up with a console that appears to have had all of its games available in the west a week before it was launched. - X201 (talk) 09:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

IMO "early access promotions" do not change the official release date, which is the public, widespread date of release to every consumer. Salvidrim! 09:19, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree with the above: use the release date where it is available to everyone within that region. A note in a promotion section about it being out a week early fro pre-orders is fine. --MASEM (t) 14:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Oops, forgot to mention the "within a specific region" thing. Thanks! Salvidrim! 20:43, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Ditto.

We have something similar about this in WP:VG/RELEASE. The prose might need copy editing for it cover a broader range of situations. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC))

Review our old FAs

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Reviewing pre-2008 FAs is up and running. Project members are encouraged to review articles that have gone without a formal review since 2006 or articles with higher importance ratings. However, any and all help would be appreciated, so please examine the list for an article you can review. As always, the more that help out, the lighter the load it will be on each individual.

This is a good opportunity for editors that would like experience working on Featured articles (or Good articles for that matter). Articles will be reviewed against the standard criteria, but in a less formal setting without the stress that typically accompanies an FAC. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC))

Amazing work you've done fleshing out the page. I'll see if I can find time to review another old FA here soon. I could also see about shipping MGS3 off to FAR, using that issue breakdown that I did a month or two ago. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 10:47, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Street Fighter 25th Anniversary

Hello

The Street Fighter Series celebrates its 25th year in 2012. Capcom stated there will be something coming on August 30th which is the releaseday of SF 1 in 1987 for arcades in Japan

From Udon, the company which made the most part of the Super SF II Turbo HD remake i know that they are working together Capcom to release something for the 25th Anniversary.

I myself am the webmaster of game-art-hq.com http://www.game-art-hq.com since last year when i founded that site, and i am organizing a tribute project which includes 88 SF characters and around 30 more pictures drawn by over 200 Artists. This project starts on februar 12, it is as far as i know the biggest videogame related not comemrcial fanart project ever done.

My questions now are, can this tribute project be mentioned somewhere in the wikipedia once it is online, can there be a SF 25th Anniversary Article when there are facts about the official games or products Capcom and / or udon is releasing for this Anniversary?

Greets, Ray — Preceding unsigned comment added by GBK2010 (talk • contribs) 17:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Sadly it depends on whether or not reliable sources discuss it in great enough detail...such things like this tend to fly under their radars all too readily.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 19:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

awww, well i will try to promote it to as many fighting game related websites, hope capcom unity will publish an article about it, or shoryuken.com

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series

Hi. I see that this has been previously discussed. Is there any chance that someone who knows about this series could please address the chronology question? What order does {{S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series}} place the games? Am I missing something obvious somewhere with respect to the dates? Thanks very much. -- Trevj (talk) 12:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Reliability of Factually Inaccurate Articles Published by Generally Reliable Sources

Ok, since the above conversation has become laser-focused on Master System sales figures rather than on the larger issue I hoped to call attention to, I hope a different topic divorced from that specific issue (and with much less text) would be helpful for achieving consensus. The title says it all. I think it would helpful to establish a consensus as to whether an article is considered trustworthy because it is published by a reliable source even if it can be proven to have lots of bad information or to have been researched using sources wikipedia does not deem reliable.

My personal argument would be that being published by a reliable source gives an item an indicia of reliability that allows it to be used without further investigation by the editor using the source but that if the article can be proven to contain numerous inaccuracies then that article should be considered unreliable. Establishing consensus on this point would halt lengthy arguments like the one above. Indrian (talk) 18:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

First off, using sources Wikipedia does not deem reliable is a non-starter. Every source using sources Wikipedia deems not to be reliable (well okay that is an exaggeration, but not by much). Even if it comes from The Urban Dictionary, if a RS uses it, we consider it reliable because we assume they know what they are talking about. That doesn't mean we use TUD's link; we still cite them. I asked a similar question at RS/N and got that answer so its wider community consensus on that point.∞陣内 Jinnai 18:53, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

EDIT:As to your other point, I guess it would depend. It certainly wouldn't help its credibility and would at best be considered a low-quality reliable source (ie would have issues passing muster at FA which wants the highest quality available for that info).∞陣内 Jinnai 18:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that makes sense as far as it goes, but what really concerns me is that when one points out errors in, say, an IGN article, the knee-jerk reaction is "IGN is considered a reliable source so there is no need to explore further and errors do not matter." Does the wikipedia project truly support the willful addition and retention of material that is suspect or flat-out inaccurate based on the shoddy nature of an individual article just because it is published under the banner of IGN or the New York Times? And further, do wikipedians really believe that because IGN is subject to editorial oversight that it actually has the time and resources to thoroughly research and fact check every article to insure they reach a uniformly high standard of quality and accuracy? Indrian (talk) 19:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Your inability to discuss this issue without deliberately distorted others' views is disturbing.LedRush (talk) 19:31, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

What in the heck are you talking about? This is a series of hypothetical questions tied to no individual views. If you want to add your views to this discussion specifcially (separate from though initiated because of the discussion above) then I would be happy to discuss your personal views here. There was no real need to interrupt a civil discussion between two editors about wikipedia policy for this personal attack. Indrian (talk) 19:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

In general, no. That's what WP:DUE and WP:V are for. However the VnT slogan is exactly imo what gets us into this mess (that's for another talk page though). In general we don't support factual errors unless they are widely circulated by RSes. Even then, we try to put it into context. FE: School Rumble#Anime series notes that shonen is the proper genre for the title, but that it is mistaken as shojo at times. While it mentions the factual accuracy, it gives it context. We don't throw out what's her-name just because she made a factual error.∞陣内 Jinnai 23:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Once again, that is my understanding of how wikipedia works. The issue I am interested in is a gray area between these realms. If a small section of a reliable source that has dozens of contributors (a specific article on a website, not an entire monograph which will almost always have one or two problems no matter what) has several glaring inaccuracies in it, should we discount anything that section (article) says and not just the specific facts that can be proven to be errors? I don't mean a name or date typo or a mistaken background fact, but one or more major errors that undermine the central idea of the piece and appear to demonstrate sloppy research. Indrian (talk) 23:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I doubt there will be any general consensus because it will be so complicated to assess each source. Each one will likely need to be taken on a case-by-case basis depending on the types of statements that were proven inaccurate and which are known to be correct.∞陣内 Jinnai 01:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Again, that should be simple -- if a reliable surce states a fact, it is verifiable. Your claim that it is "innacurate" is OR unless supported by a conflicting reliable source, in which case that's a debate between two conflicting RS. Wikipedia requires verifiability in reliable sources, not truth or accuracy in information. Salvidrim! 01:59, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, as to the OR thing, I don't think that is a problem because I believe the OR policy only applies to material used in the article itself and does not apply to the evaluation of sources. Looking at the reliability policy though, I suppose you do have the right of it. I like to think that something inaccurate is unreliable on its face, but the policy really does not make allowance for that view. Truly when IGN or some other generally reliable site screws up, we just have to deal with it for the most part. Thanks for walking through this stuff, I found it helpful. Indrian (talk) 03:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually no. We do require truth. We require vertiability of the truth. The truth can consist of peoples beliefs that have been proven faulty though. We are not about posting items known to be false even if there is no source to contradict it.∞陣内 Jinnai 04:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Any fact not supported by reliable sources is by definition not verifiable. "Items known to be false" -- how do you "know" that? If there's a reliable source, it's verifiably false (or at least uncertain, in the case of conflicting reliable sources). Otherwise it is what you, as an editor, claims to know. Isn't that the definition of OR? :)

To quote the verifiability policy:

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think unsourced material is true. (...) To show that all material added to Wikipedia is not original research, it must be possible to attribute it to a reliable, published source appropriate for the content in question."

According to this policy, even if you (or any editor, or group of editors) believe an information to be false (untrue, innacurate), it has to be supported by a reliable source. If a RS states something and no other RS contradicts it (no matter if editors believe the information to be false) it is verifiable, and is what will be in the article. Salvidrim! 05:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

You are free to argue that, but beyond that there is something called editorial discretion and consensus and WP:IAR. That kind of logic is in part why VnT issue (along with the whole revising of the lead for V) is still being debated.∞陣内 Jinnai 05:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Reading a bit more into it, I'll have to say I can see your point and am not necessarily disagreeing...hm. Salvidrim! 05:59, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Let me toss out an example that might fit that actually occurred here on Wikipedia: A source was found which stated directly that Defense of the Ancients was a derivative of the tower defense genre. One editor attempted to add that to the article on tower defense, but I and a few others said that this was incorrect and that DotA has its history founded in the Aeon of Strife (AoS) games of Warcraft III and the much earlier StarCraft. The statement was eventually removed after some discussion.

It really does come down to the discretion of the editors. I think we're free to not include something. This is not necessarily original research because we haven't been synthetic in our use of sources; in other words, we aren't coming up with something new combined from other sources and then state that as fact. --Izno (talk) 13:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

AOE 3

A new article: List of Age of Empires III characters needs some expanding. OKelly (talk) 01:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't mean to shit on your article, but it needs a lot more than expanding. Some games have character lists, but these are usually character driven games with development, narrative and reception data. AoE 3 is not one of these games, the article is likely to be deleted because it is only of interest to those playing the game, and unlike say a Guitar Hero tracklist, is not enough to define the game. - hahnch e n 01:40, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Um... so what things does it need other than expanding? OKelly (talk) 02:15, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Basically you need some real world impact from these characters. Has anyone ever discussed them in a reliable source as AoE3 characters? Anyone ever mentioned any impact they've had on the real world? I mean, expanding out the characters is certainly necessary in the end, but if you don't have any out-of-game information, then there's nothing for it- the article will get merged/deleted. That's what separates Wikipedia from Wikia wikis- an article needs more than just in-game information in order to exist. I haven't done any looking myself, so I'll withhold judgement, but I do doubt that you're going to be able to find anything. --Pres N 03:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

"Universal acclaim"

Recently there has been a series of large-scale arguments over the use of the term "universal acclaim" in the reception sections of video game articles. The root of these arguments seems to be the fact that Metacritic employs this term as a label for some of its games with high average scores. While some editors find that the existence of one or more negative or mediocre reliable reviews should bar use of the term "universal" to describe the level of acclaim, others feel that "universal" doesn't necessarily mean "all" and that since Metacritic is a reliable source, its implied assertion of universality represents the final word on the subject. Currently there are over 500 uses of the term on Wikipedia. Not all of these are to be found in video game articles, but many of them are. If possible I'd like to have a community-wide discussion of the issue here to reach a broader consensus than the article-by-article discussions that will otherwise be necessary. Generally I'd like to know if editors think this term should be:
a)never used,
b)generally avoided unless there are a few sources that directly state "universal acclaim",
c)used per Metacritic's assessment alone (possibly with a disclaimer like "according to Metacritic's scale"),
d)used whenever it seems appropriate on a case by case basis, or
e)something else.
Thanks for your help. -Thibbs (talk) 23:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe the film project has taken steps to rid itself of the term, using less severe terms like "mostly positive" or "generally positive", etc., that allow for outliers. I think its fair to have the VG project follow that lead. --MASEM (t) 23:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe it inherently carries a too strong connotation. While it is undisputable that somes games do have universal acclaim (meaning, no negative critics at all), I believe it should be avoided whenever possible, even in cases where it would not be innacurate. That's just my personal opinion - it would avoid lengthy debates, and other less controversial terms could be substituted for an equivalent meaning. Salvidrim! 23:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

universal does tend to engender the idea of everyone. Generally or broadly are better terms. If someone wants to use it, it should be quoted and mentioned that it was according to Metacritic in the prose (not just a cite).∞陣内 Jinnai 00:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

As I said in the other arguments, I'm against using the term for two reasons. One, "universal" is too strong of a word, as it leaves room for no margin of error. Secondly, it seems redundant, much like it would seem unnecessary to write "The game was extremely very good", when "extremely good" or "very good" is sufficient. I much prefer the "mostly positive" type wording. Sergecross73 msg me 00:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the debate that prompted at the the Skyward sword talk page it seems quite clear that there is no real debate on the issue and the only decent there is a single editor that won't drop the issue.--69.159.111.241 (talk) 02:33, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The same issue has cropped up in at least two other places on my Watchlist alone. I cannot imagine it is limited to that either. Salvidrim! 02:37, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

'Universal' implies that the acclaim is across the board, no exceptions, and 'acclaim' is a word that heavily jeopardizes NPOV as it implies fantastic approval and is often used in advertisements. When a game gets perfect tens from every single critic, then we can talk about using the term. However, considering that such will almost assuredly never happen, just avoid the phrase entirely. Skyward Sword didn't get universal acclaim: Gamespot gave it a 7.5. That's not acclaim and as a result contradicts usage of the word universal. Emmy Altava 03:50, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Universal acclaim doesn't imply that every critic gave it a perfect score: it implies that every critic gave it a good score. 7.5 is a good score (literally, it says "good" right below the score), so your example is invalid.--Remurmur (talk) 23:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The fact that the reviews Metacritic collected for Skyward Sword all give acclaim doesn't imply that universal acclaim exists in the larger world of RSes (i.e. outside of Metacritic). But anyway, as Salvidrim and I have pointed out, this issue is not limited to the Skyward Sword article. If possible let's avoid relitigating the Skyward Sword issue and focus on the term's use in general. -Thibbs (talk) 01:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The problem with using the term universal acclaim is that it doesn't divide between fan and critic opinions. For example a game that gets critical acclaim from reviewers may have mixed reviews from fans. That is the core problem with universal acclaim. Cutecutecuteface2000 (Cutecuteface needs attention) 14:01, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

So it looks like, at least according to this discussion, most people are against this term. It's good that we have this to reference to, but is there somewhere/someway to get something like this into WP:VG guidelines, so we're not always having to dig up this conversation? Sergecross73 msg me 16:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

You should be able to add it under Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games/Article_guidelines#Style, or the section right under it. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Need a hand with Terra Branford

Awhile back this article got merged due to notability, but an anonymous user's been steadily reviving the article without actively been working on it. Instead each time the reason is "rv v" as if its been vandalized, and attempts to talk to him have gone nowhere fast: he's aware that I'd rather discuss it and collaborate, but instead it's becoming pretty obvious the article's coming back just for the sake of having it around.

Google's turned up next to nothing in regards to the character that I can use for reception, other than one brief bit of criticism from the Zeboyd Games's founder. Some additional eyes on the subject, or at the least help dealing with the anon, would be appreciated.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 22:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Warned him, he's past 3RR for the day but I hate blocking people without saying something to them first. Next one's a blockin', I'll keep an eye on it. --Pres N 23:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's a short description from IGN. ~ Hibana (talk) 23:23, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Taskforce article count

How can see how many articles are tagged under a specific Taskforce of WP:VG? Salvidrim! 04:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

You can't, unless the task force has it's own category - for example, /Indie is Category:Indie video game task force articles. Looking through {{WikiProject Video games}}, only /Indie and /Visual Novels have one- if you create a category and add in |TF_<number>_MAIN_CAT to the template, every tagged article will be automatically added. It's locked, though, you'll need an admin. --Pres N 05:26, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:NIN says that is had "900 articles as of August 2011", but how was that number reacjed, and how can it be updated?Surely there must be a way better than manual counting... and I dunno much about the backcode of it all, can you tell me exactly what I'd need to ask the admin? :) Salvidrim! 05:38, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Fortunately for you, I am an admin! You need to create a category to put the articles in - such as Category:Nintendo task force articles - click the "Start the Category:Nintendo task force articles page" link. Once done, just tell me or another admin what the category is, and I can add the line to the WP video games template, and all of the articles will be added to the category automatically. I have no idea how the 900+ number was arrived at, besides manually, which leads me to suspect it is wrong- I have a hell of a time accurately maintaining the number/names of articles for the Square Enix project, and it is automatically counted by a category. --Pres N 06:40, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I can click a button as well as anyone else. Created- give it a bit to add all of the articles; the number is going up each time I hit F5. --Pres N 06:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Pshah, should've checked. I was thinking of asking MuZeMike who's kind of the "resident admin" at WP:NIN. Thanks a lot, this is definitely going to come in handy. I'm assuming there is no way to generate an assessment table (like this one for that category, eh? Salvidrim! 06:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks like you can, if you break it up by quality, see Category:Visual novel articles by quality for instance. If you want to, looks like you just make Category:Nintendo articles by quality, and then make all the Category:A-Class Nintendo-related articles‎ cats, like B-class, GA-class, etc. Add these latter categories to "Nintendo articles by quality", and get me or MuZeMike to change the VG template to have "|TF_3_QUALITY=yes" and "|TF_3_ASSESSMENT_CAT=Nintendo-related articles". That will autopopulate the assessment categories- to get that fancy table, follow these instructions - there's a bot that runs over the categories and generates the table every few days. --Pres N 17:39, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

There's was some previous discussion on assessment categories being slightly overweight for the task forces, on the template talk iirc. (comment) --Izno (talk) 17:42, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Yea PresN, I use that bot to manually run the table refresh every once in a while. I make sure all articles are assessed in WP:VG, so a WP:NIN would be redundant for that purpose -- I guess I just thought it would be good information for Nintendo-centric editors like me. But I agree with Izno it is quite heavy for what little gain it gives. Salvidrim! 22:25, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Master System Sales

Have a bit of debate going on over at Talk:Sega Master System over this issue and at this point it really needs some fresh eyes and attempt at consensus. The topic over there wanders a bit and only really picked up in the last couple of days even though the start of the topic was last September, so I am going to start over here and discuss the points from scratch so that people do not have to wade through everything unless they absolutely want to. If anyone else involved over there thinks this post leaves out something important, please chime in with your own views. My apologies, but due to the complexity of the issue, this will be a bit long.

So, back in September, I decided to challenge the currently prevailing view that the Master System sold 13 million units. This attack was based on two main thrusts: the reliability of wikipedia's sourcing for the figure, and my belief that aggregating totals from surefire reliable sources would never reach that figure. The second attack is one based on OR, but only to debunk a source, not to settle on a new and certain sales figure for the article itself, which was never my intent. Suffice to say on the numbers that new evidence has come forward in the last few days thanks to some fine research by User:Jagged 85 on Google Books combined with my earlier sources that gives 9.8 million as a baseline sales figure for the system and makes a final figure between 10 and 13 million a definite possibility, though one that cannot currently be reached through source aggregation. Therefore, the second attack is no longer an issue and I concede that aggregation neither really supports nor hinders the reliability of the 13 million figure. Therefore, the outstanding issue is with the reliability of sources explicitly stating a 13 million figure, which I will expand on below.

There are several sources on the Internet that give this figure. Conversely, no print sources have yet been found. Also, there are no known primary sources that give this figure either through company information releases, interviews with knowledgeable personnel, or information made available in news accounts or through data tracking services and stock analysts. Of the Internet sources that give the figure, most of them are unreliable for not being professionally authored or subject to editorial control. I certainly cannot claim to have found every article on the Internet giving the figure, so editors are certainly free to bring others forward for consideration. For my part, I will focus on four specific sources, Eidolon's Inn, wikipedia itself, Game Tunnel, and IGN.

Eidolon's Inn (http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php) is a fansite dedicated to all things Sega. Looking over the site, there is no evidence of professional staff or editorial control. Reading some of the history articles shows that the site is incredibly biased towards Sega, which is exactly what one would expect from a fansite. There is no evidence that it meets wikipedia's requirements for reliable sources in any way. What makes the site interesting, however, is that it appears to be both the oldest source to claim the 13 million figure on the Internet and the only one that claims to have reached that figure through primary source research. As such, there is a reasonable probability that this site is ground zero for the spread of this figure across the Internet.

Specifically, the site has a history of Sega written by one Sam Pettus available at http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=SegaBase that claims to have been last revised in Januray 2007. Within that history, you have a page discussing the Sega Master System at http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=SegaBase+Master+System+and+Game+Gear&bl=y which was last modified on Januray 22, 2007 as indicated at the bottom of the page. This essay contains the following: "Taking into account the three iterations of the console, along with Sega's own figures and those of its licensees, it seems that over 13 million SMS units were sold worldwide between 1986 and 1998 - and that doesn't include the clones and knock-offs." Note that he claims primary source info but does not cite to any figures. Also note, that this article and the 13 million figure both existed by at least August 3, 2004 as seen at http://web.archive.org/web/20040803114918/http://www.eidolons-inn.net/segabase/SegaBase-MasterSystem.html

Now we flash forward to December 25, 2005 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sega_Master_System&oldid=32678934) which is when the 13 million figure first hit wikipedia unsourced. Note that this is after the Eidolon's Inn article already existed. Sourcing to Eidolon's Inn was then provided in wikipedia on November 29, 2006 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sega_Master_System&oldid=90932673) in response to a citation needed tag. I cannot be 100% certain that no reliable source used that figure before December 2005, but I have yet to see one presented. That citation stood until October 28, 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sega_Master_System&oldid=167594779), when another citation was added to the Game Tunnel article, which was from September 2005, still postdating the Eidolon's Inn article. There was some moving back and forth between figures for a bit that does not matter for the point of this debate before a talk page discussion initiated on February 5 2010 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sega_Master_System/Archive_1#number_of_sold_units) brought the 13 million figure back with new sourcing from IGN joining the Eidolon's Inn source and a German fansite that is easily dismissed. This is how the sourcing stood until the start of the current round of talks last September.

So now on to GameTunnel (http://www.gametunnel.com/). This project had a discussion about the site as a source at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources/Archive_2#Evaluation_of_sources_covering_indie_games. The site is currently not considered either reliable or unreliable, but the brief discussion focused on its reliability as a source on Indie games, which is the main thrust of the site. Looking at the site, there is no evidence that it regularly engages in coverage of non-indie subjects, and it seems unlikely that it is an expert on earlier console generations. The article sourced to for Master System sales is at http://web.archive.org/web/20061018183935/http://www.gametunnel.com/articles.php?id=263. It discusses the console wars of the 2nd through 5th generation and gives sales figures and market share data for each period. It is full of errors. It fails to list the Atari 7800 and its over three million in sales in the 2nd generation, meaning its marketshare data is wrong even if the Master System figure is right. It gives Genesis sales as 30 million, which is also wrong as proven on wikipedia itself. According to the article itself, most of the material was not professionally researched and was derived from amateur research conducted on a forum, with independent confirmation "when possible," meaning some info was included without independent confirmation. He presumably got the 13 million figure from the forum post at http://web.archive.org/web/20061126161527/http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=14306 dated Januray 17, 2005, which does not list its source, but also postdates Eidolon's Inn. Since the GameTunnel article appears to have been cobbled together using often uncited forum postings, I believe it may be dismissed.

That brings us to the final article, the IGN piece on the battle between the SNES and Genesis (http://retro.ign.com/articles/965/965032p1.html). This article gives several sales figures, all without attribution and all readily available on wikipedia at the time the article was published on March 20, 2009. It states the Genesis sold 29 million units, the number given on wikipedia at the time that has since been proven wrong using priamry sources that the IGN author would have been able to access in 2009 if he were actually doing in-depth research on his article. The article also states that Sonic the Hedgehog sold 4 million units. This was also the number reported on wikipedia at the time and has also since been proven wrong. The article also states that Sega lost substantial ground to Nintendo in 1994 in the United States. This is also quite wrong. A Sega press release at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1995_Jan_6/ai_15997617/ uses NPD data to trumpet its leading marketshare in 1994. Sega will of course be biased about its own sales and make itself look good, but the data is from a neutral source. If you still do not trust Sega to be honest, however, we have a research paper from a couple of professors (http://archive.nyu.edu/bitstream/2451/28396/2/Clements_Ohashi_04-01.pdf) that includes the same NPD data for 1994. This article gets so many facts wrong I don't see how one could trust the author to properly research Master System sales when the system was not even the focus of his article. Furthermore, it shows evidence of using other erroneous sales figures found on wikipedia at the time, meaning wikipedia was a likely source.

Well, if you are still reading after all that, you probably deserve a medal or something. As a final point I want to emphasize that I do not know what final Master System sales are and that I am not interested in the "truth" of one holy grail figure, as that is not in keeping with wikipedia policy. My argument is that no reliable sources have given a 13 million figure. My evidence for this is laid out above. If anyone else finds another source worthy of consideration, feel free to give it. Indrian (talk) 06:31, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This should actually be very simple -- is there, currently, a reliable source stating a clear sales figure? If yes, use that info and source it. If not, do not present the information, as it is not verifiable. If the reliability of the source is under question, WT:VG/S should be used to determine any given source's reliability. Salvidrim! 06:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Right, that's the point. Two sources have been presented that past editors have found reliable. My argument is that neither one is reliable. The wall of text above is to show how I find the sources not to be reliable. Consensus is needed for or against that position. Indrian (talk) 07:20, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

After reading through this, the thing that caught my eye was Useer:Jesus.Arnold's update which added a printed source claiming 10 million. I have verified the book exists, and it was updated last year. Maybe I'll buy it. Nevermind, it's $50.--SexyKick 07:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

That could be intriguing, though I find those catch-all encyclopedia style books are often riddled with errors. Still, there could be a good cite in there somewhere since there is little doubt the system sold at least ten million. Indrian (talk) 07:20, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Hm. Do I have that book? Rings a bell. Lemme look through my bookcase. Salvidrim! 07:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

To me, the issue is simple. We have reliable sources which clearly support the 13 million figure, and we have original research into sales figures which aggregate to a number of 9.8 million, recognizing that that figure must be higher based on how the other information was collected (it leaves out markets in which there were positive sales, and it under-reports markets it includes because it sources active user-base, not sales). Therefore, we have a reliable source which is supported by independent research. Case closed.LedRush (talk) 14:43, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Right, now would you please explain to me why any of the error-riddled poorly researched sources listed above are reliable? Also, the independent research is neutral on the matter. It supports the possibility that there were thirteen million in sales. It also supports the possibility there were 11 million in sales or 15 million in sales. All it shows is that the final number is somewhere above 9.8 million, not any specific number. Indrian (talk) 16:20, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

IGN is reliable because community consensus is that it is reliable (and for other resons involving editorial oversight and generally meeting the RS criteria). Seeing as the independent research does not call into question the reliability of the numbers IGN used, this is a complete non-issue.LedRush (talk) 16:53, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok, let's follow that logic for a bit. The above article from IGN states that Sega lost substantial ground to Nintendo in 1994. NPD figures prove that Sega had the leading marketshare in 1994. So because IGN is generally reliable, we should include the fact that Sega lost substantial ground to Nintendo in the fourth generation console article even though this is demonstrably false? Indrian (talk) 17:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you keep making straw man arguments (this is your third time in 12 hours). My point is that the number of 13 million is not only not demonstrably false, but seems completely reasonable based on the aggregate numbers others have researched. You yourself have conceded this point.LedRush (talk) 17:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

If you cannot see the relationship between my points and your arguments that is not my fault. Labeling something a straw man does not make it one. Your argument hinges on the article being reliable. Your argument that the article is reliable stems from the fact it was published by IGN. You claim that information from this article should be used because IGN is a reliable source. According to that position, then all information from this article should be used whether it is accurate or not. Therefore, the question I put to you is central to debating your position. Indrian (talk) 18:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I have not said that, and no, that isn't my position. Your personal attacks, uncivil tone and reluctance to engage others honestly makes exchanges of ideas with you impossible.LedRush (talk) 19:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I am trying to be patient with you, but your inability to acknowledge that we are talking about the same thing makes it very hard despite repeated attempts at doing so. You want to use the 13 million figure from this article because IGN is considered a reliable source by the project. I get that and have acknowledged that you have stated this position many times. I suppose you don't see yourself as advocating any further action beyond that point, which is why you think I am putting up straw man arguments. I am exploring the logical follow through of that basic position. If the article is reliable for the 13 million figure, does that make it reliable for all other facts in the article? If yes, how does that relate to the fact that some information can be proven inaccurate? Does some inaccurate info in an article invalidate the whole article? If not, why would we trust one sales figure when several others are wrong? These are all valid questions and concerns. Indrian (talk) 20:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you are making this much more difficult than it needs to be, but I appreciate your note above not overtly and deliberately misinterpreting my position or personally attacking me. However, I do not want to use the 13 million figure merely because IGN is a RS. I want to use it because: (1) IGN is a RS; (2) the number is supported by other data gathered in independent research; and (3) I don't see the errors in the article that you do. No one reason is dispositive. All information should be viewed on it's own merits under the specific circumstances. For example, many have argued pursuasively that the 29 million number for the Genesis is correct (I personally disagree with that point, but I'd be lying if I said that others don't strenuously disagree with me). In fact, that is a number still used by several RSs. I don't have enough data to know whether the Genesis lost market in 1994, though I must say that's what I've read in other RSs. Furthermore, your initial post incorrectly states that the article says that Sonic 1 sold 4 million, when the article says over 4 million. An undeniable fact. Furthermore, I think it's safe to say that they are counting separate sales, not pack-ins. (when discussing the correct 6 million sales for Sonic 2, it calls the game the best selling one for the Genesis and compares it to "the best-selling non-pack-in game for the Super NES".) So basically, what you are counting as 4 glaring errors I am counting as one substantiated fact (13 million), one disputed but widely accepted fact (29 million), one unclear fact (Ninty v. Sega) which seems true to me, and one facially correct fact which may have used a different counting scheme than you. I just don't see the issues that you are seeing.LedRush (talk) 21:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

If there is a discrepancy in sources - and singular sources at that - it is probably better to state a range, eg "Sales of the system are estimated between 9.8 and 13 million units." --MASEM (t) 17:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, no source says 9.8 million sales. One source gives individual active user install bases for limited geographic regions which add up to 9.8 million, meaning that the actual sales number must be higher than 9.8 million.LedRush (talk) 17:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The issue is not a source discrepancy. The issue is quite simple, though requires the thorough explanation above to get a handle on the facts. Quite simply, is an article with at least four major factual inaccuracies, one of which undermines the author's own thesis, still considered reliable just because IGN has been labelled a reliable source by the project. This is not a dispute over what figures to use. This is a dispute over whether a source can be trusted at all. Indrian (talk) 18:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

What is it about Sega articles that attracts long arguments about small things? Though at least this one isn't about the title. Every day, about 850 people come to that page and see a C-class article. They would all be much greater served by having a B-class or GA article, even one that had wrong (or "wrong") sales information, than a C-class article with that one number perfectly accurate and precise. --Pres N 18:09, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

You know what, you are exactly right. Lets just throw anything we find on the Internet into wikipedia. That way every article will be really long and that will be great. Of course, half the material will be factually inaccurate, but wikipedia is only about having really big articles with lots of sources, not providing useful and accurate information to the people. You have my personal apology for messing up your day. Furthermore, your inability to tell the difference between wanting to find "one number perfectly accurate and precise" and wanting to eliminate a figure that appears to have come into being solely through faulty research without a corresponding desire to come up with an alternative is truly mind-boggling. If you cannot tell the difference between source critique and number hunting and have nothing to add to a debate other than "wah, wah wikipedia has lots of short articles," you should stay out of debates that you cannot follow well. I really do not care how many units the console sold or in finding the "truth" of the matter. I just don't want sloppily researched articles being deemed reliable solely because they were published under the umbrella of a generally reliable news website. Indrian (talk) 18:13, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This extended uncivil personal attack should be stricken.LedRush (talk) 19:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Boy you sure are taking things awfully personally in this debate. I am sure PresN can speak for himself if he has a problem. Rather than engage in the discussion or ignore it, two perfectly viable options, PresN issued a personal attack implying that we as editors are wasting our time exploring these issues and and belittling those that deign to engage in discussion on topics he does not think are important. That's his opinion, and he has chosen to state that opinion in a public forum that invites comment. I have the right to address his opinion in kind. Indrian (talk) 19:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

On wikipedia you never have the right to engage in uncivil personal attacks.LedRush (talk) 20:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well the pot is sure having a nice conversation with the kettle, eh? Throughout this discussion I have countered policy point with policy point, debate with debate, and dismissive attacks like the one mounted by PresN above and the one mounted by you in the topic below with dismissiveness. Seems about right. PresN wants to interject a frivolous comment that has nothing to do with the discussion, he will get a frivolous comment back. Sarcasm is not a personal attack; I have made no claims regarding his character and the only statement that even comes close to an attack on him is in regards to his choice not to offer anything useful to the discussion. Anyway, he can contact me himself if he has a problem. He does not really need you and I to fight his battles by proxy. Indrian (talk) 20:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I did have a snotty reply thought up a while earlier, but decided not to submit. Let's try a non-snotty, blunt reply. This is not a "short article". This is a perfectly lengthy, mediocre article. It is an article full of accurate facts that nevertheless fails to inform readers as well as it could- or should. The worldwide sales of the system is not trivial- it matters to you, clearly, for one, and it's an importance measure of the console's impact on the world. What is trivial, however, is this argument- it's trivial this time, it was trivial the other times it was brought up, and it will be trivial the next time it comes up, as I'm sure it will.

The time you spent researching this fact, in proving that one of the sources used wasn't well-researched, was not wasted. But every minute of the countless hours you have spent arguing about it, both in this round and in previous rounds, have been utterly, pointlessly wasted, primarily because every reader that goes to that article and doesn't find a GA or FA-class article has been underinformed, mislead by word choice, led into not learning the information that's further down the page because they got bored halfway through, or a combination of all three. But here you are, pouring time and energy into a debate that's about that article but that's not going anywhere, and will never go anywhere. The same energy could have been put into fixing the article, and then the next time you bring this up, instead of the fourth time spent fixing one flaw among many without progress, it could have been the first time that you try to fix that one last flaw in an article that has better informed literally thousands and thousands of readers. But you can't see that. If you were a person that could recognize that spending 10 points of energy on getting 1 HP out of 10 (instead of spending the points to get the other possible 9 HP first so that you were better prepared) is just a horribly inefficient idea, then you would never be fighting this sad, wasteful fight.

But goddammit, someone is wrong on the internet. --Pres N 23:06, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

You are free to try to improve wikipedia in the way you want to, and I will try to improve it in the way I want to. If you think this kind of effort is not worth it, then you don't have to do it. If I decide I have nothing better to do with my time than vet sources and engaging in a round of arguments that I personally find fascinating, entertaining, and frustrating in roughly equal measure, that's my choice. It really does not affect you. I long ago decided that adding to wikipedia articles is not worth my effort due to the many headaches it involves. I focus my scholastic pursuits elsewhere. That's a personal choice, and I would never try and stop you from spending countless hours providing FA class info to every last article in the space. Thanks for keeping it (mostly) civil, but your opinion on the best way to improve wikipedia is no more the gospel than mine is. It takes all kinds. Indrian (talk) 23:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, your call in the end for what you want to spend your time on; the mini-rant was more in the hopes of convincing future combatants to re-evaluate their choice. At least it's actually about something, and not about the page title- I flinch every time I see "Sega Genesis" on this page. But I'm not adding anything here, so I'll drop out of the discussion.

Oh, but as far as the actual discussion goes- if it's agreed that the IGN author was wrong about the genesis/sonic sales numbers, then I would not trust any other sales numbers in that particular article- it has become, by definition, unreliable. This does not however, in my opinion, de facto invalidate IGN as an RS or that author as an RS in other cases. --Pres N 00:08, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm with Masem here. A range is best. Even if they, according to LeRush must be higher, that is OR to state a higher figure with such certainty.∞陣内 Jinnai 18:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Again, to be clear, there is no source that says there was 9.8 million in sales. The sources talks about active users for specific regions of the world. I believe it is inaccurate original research to use a source about limited active user install bases and proclaim that it is a source about sales figures. Consequently, in my opinion we cannot use a range because we have no source giving a lower sales number. We have reliable sources saying 13 million and independent research (yes, OR) which supports it. Of course, we can discuss active install bases in the article and use the source to list that.LedRush (talk) 19:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I am fine with a range if the project deems this article reliable. The issue, though is whether this article should be considered reliable even though it has demonstrated errors. For some reason, no one seems to want to discuss the issue of the underlying source problems. Indrian (talk) 18:20, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I guess it's because you haven't stated what kind and how many errors. The NYT makes errors all the time. That doesn't mean we throw out every NYT article.∞陣内 Jinnai 18:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I hate to say it, but this indicates that you did not actually bother to read the original post (or that I made it too long and convoluted, sometimes its the audience, and sometimes its the author). The errors contained in the article are discussed in the initial posting, second-to-last paragraph. Indrian (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, if the issue is that there's concern that a normally reliable source has factually incorrect information even internally (which does happen of course to the best of sources), but there's no other source you can use to invalidate it, the best way to state it "IGN's John Smith estimated that 13M units were sold...". Assign the "blame", to speak, so that if it is wrong, it is not WP's fault it's wrong. --MASEM (t) 20:53, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I can live with that. I think a sentence saying something like "Sega has never released official sales figures but estimates have been provided by some sources" followed by the IGN claim as well as the individual country breakdowns would be fine. That way wikipedia is making no assertion to the truth or accuracy of the figure while acknowledging that an outside source has made an estimate. If that's fine with everyone else, then that is fine with me. That still leaves the question of the infobox and the various pages that list best-selling consoles, however. Those places are, unfortunately, more concerned with "truth" than with explaining fine distinctions like this. I would be disinclined to use the 13 million figure in those places, but as always am interested in hearing other opinions. Indrian (talk) 21:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

For the infobox (where yes, I know some editors fight for accuracy), this is where I would use a range that the prose supposed, with "(est.)" clarification and re-linking the sources used in the prose. Cleanest, least combative way to show that. --MASEM (t) 21:55, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

But 9.8 million is not a sales figure, is not an estimate of a sales figure, and is 100% demonstrably not accurate. I don't see how we can support including it in the manner you suggest.LedRush (talk) 22:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I am in agreement with LedRush on this point, but I imagine we disagree on using the 13 million figure in this manner. I think it has reliability issues too, which is why I think it should be used subject to the caveat discussed above. I would personally rather leave the infobox blank on this matter, or maybe use a link or footnote of some kind. Indrian (talk) 22:11, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok, if there's agreement that you can't sussinctly sum up in an infobox line, then my suggestion there is to state "N/A (see below)", where "see below" is linked to an {{anchor}} to the section in the prose where you are talking about the sales. But make it clear at that section to lead it off that "The sales figures for the unit are unknown, but estimates from blah blah blah... ". This makes it very clear to the reader there's no source to affirm the numbers, WP is not creating OR nor biasing any reliable source over another, etc. --MASEM (t) 22:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

But we have reliable sources that say the sales figures are known. And they aren't estimates (at least, any more than any sales figures are). We don't have to treat all information equally. The infobox calls for sales figures so only sales figures should be entered. We have a RS telling us what the sales figures are, unequivically. We have no information which disputes the numbers. I know that compromise is often commendable, not all information is deserving of equal weight.LedRush (talk) 22:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

And this is where things break down between us in the discussion. We have an article on IGN riddled with errors claiming a figure. An article riddled with errors is really not all that reliable even if published under the umbrella of a reliable site. I am more than open to a compromise that includes this figure in the article in deference to IGN's general reliability, but I do have concerns over wikipedia implicitly making a value statement on the quality of this figure by including it in the infobox. The same article that gives the 13 million figure gives inaccurate numbers for both Sonic the Hedgehog and Genesis sales and misstates Sega's 1994 16-bit market position. Again I must ask, why would we trust the author of the article to get one sales figure right when he got two other sales figures dead wrong? Indrian (talk) 22:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

As I've argued above, you have not pointed to a single verifiable error in the article. To summarize: (1) You misquoted the article regarding Sonic, and it seems likely they are not including pack-in numbers; (2) other RSs agree with them regarding $29 million for the Genesis, as do many editors on WP (I think 29 million is wrong, but I can't prove it); (3) you've not provided proof of the wide belief that the Ninty gained market share on Sega in 1994.LedRush (talk) 22:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Genesis page already has the sources that show the 29 million figure is outdated and has included a larger figure based on reliable sources such as the New York Times and company press releases. I imagine you are aware of that since you are active on that page. The IGN article says the following about Sonic: "The first Sonic game sold over four million units." Your accusation of misquoting is either a deliberate personal attack intended to cast aspersions, a misreading of the article yourself, or evidence of not reading the article in the first place. The article makes no reference to whether these are standalone or pack-in sales, so your rationalization of the figure is original research. In my initial post, I have linked to two different sources that quote NPD figures that put Sega's marketshare in the US in 1994 above Nintendo's at 57%. Whatever disagreements you may with me on a personal or professional level, you should at least acknowledge when info is provided even if you disagree with the positions. Indrian (talk) 22:55, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

You stated: "The article also states that Sonic the Hedgehog sold 4 million units."

The article says "The first Sonic game sold over four million units." (emphasis mine). I made this clear in my post under your other claims. Furthermore, immediately after the Sonic 1 claim, they talk about Sonic 2: the article compares Sonic 2 to " the best-selling non-pack-in game for the Super NES". Clearly they were trying to compare best selling non-pack-ins for a fair comparison.

I believe the 29 million number is wrong, but that is a belief not held by everyone. Because many RSs use the 29 million number and almost no one uses the numbers that WP uses, it seems unfair to criticize IGN for stating the majority view on the matter.

Finally, the article states "By 1994, SEGA had lost substantial ground to Nintendo in America." If they once held 100% of the 16 bit market share (which they almost did by virtue of launching first) and then they hold 57%, they "lost substantial ground". You have provided no proof that their assertion is wrong.

Basically, that leaves us with no valid criticisms of the IGN article at all.LedRush (talk) 23:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, with responses in two different places and not checking for updates every second I did not see that you responded to some things in an earlier part of the thread before I posted the stuff directly above, so there is some disconnect for that reason. Anyway, you are misreading the article when you say it makes a claim of going down from 100%. The author specifically mentions Sega's 55% marketshare in 1992 and makes the argument that it fell from there. Going to 57% is not falling. Indrian (talk) 23:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1995_Jan_6/ai_15997617/ here is one article about 1994's sales %'s (1994's market share data, not overall, all years combined market share I should note, which means Sega's market share went UP in 1994, not down). Guys, what happened to the book source that says 10 million SMS's were sold? That gives us a surefire reliable source for 10 million. Personally I'd say "Sweet, that's good enough". Otherwise we have to write a footnote explaining Eidolonn's Inn (not IGN) vs. the book source. I'm almost certain the Inn got the sales figure from one of the user FAQ's listed as sources.--SexyKick 23:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I do agree with Indrian about IGN's article. Clearly Wikipedia is most likely the sole source for their article. If they used a book source for DKC's sales, they would hit 9 million. Not 8 million. (I need to update that info in the SNES article as well BTW, it's in Kent's book, Page 497). If you read the 16-bit Sega article at the date of IGN's article, it says Sega goes from 65% market share to 35% market share during 1994. That they "lost everything" in that year. Sonic 1 is at 4 million, DKC is at 8 million, and as Indrian says, the sources for the current sales information were readily available for any editor doing his homework. Sega still captures the dollar share win of the market in 1995 as well. So they didn't even lose everything that year either either.--SexyKick 23:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The article says that Sega reported that they had 55% "going into 1992". I don't know what happened in 1993 according to IGN. But let's say they jumped the gun on this one. This is one, soft, inaccuracy. I don't see how it undoes everything else we know about the sales. (However, if there is a book citation to 10 million, I say we use Masem's approach).LedRush (talk) 23:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

That's true actually. They had 55% at the end of 1991 (Kent's book), they got 60% in June of 1992 (Discount Store News), and they ended 1993 with 67% (Business Week), all currently sourced information in the article (well actually I think we got rid of the first one since it was getting redundant). I've not been able to find a source that comments on total market share after Sega sold 55% of all 16-bit hardware during 1994, but that leads us to believe that market share is over 67% for sure at that point. Sega won every Christmas season until 1995(Kent's book) and then Nintendo wins years 1995-1997(Business Week, Video Business, and Business Wire - a difference of only 1.5 million consoles in those three years combined as 16-bit sales were near dead) and then Majesco wins 1998-99 with the Genesis 3 (Sam Pettus).

But yeah, you should probably take the IGN source to wp:source discussion, and we should use this source for 10 million in the meantime. We can even do a 10-13 million thing if we really need to.--SexyKick 00:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I am fine with using the book citation in some form as well. The IGN article does not commit a soft inaccuracy, however. The thesis of the article is that Nintendo handily beat Sega in the 16-bit generation. A major support of that thesis is that Nintendo ended up clobbering Sega in North America. That support is inaccurate. Sega won in 1992, 1993, and 1994. The NPD data is out there on the web for those willing to search for it, and some of it has been linked to on this very page. Another pillar of that thesis is a sales differential of 20 million units. The SNES sold more, but adding up sales of the Genesis in a variety of reliable sources covering the United States, Europe, and Japan (one does not have to add Brazil figures to show the 29 million figure is wrong, which is good since there are some issues there) shows the gap was much smaller. Those two big mistakes undermine the whole article. None of this has anything to do with Master System sales, of course, but the problem is that an author who makes such mistakes on points central to his thesis cannot be trusted to have properly researched anything in the article. Therefore, I would personally discount anything the gentleman has to say.

On a related, but separate note, I think I am going to do something I have been trying to avoid because of the headache it will involve and explore whether it might be useful to bring up IGN on the RS page to try and get it labelled situationally reliable as a primary source only (ie contemporaneous reporting of news, reviews of newly released games, analysis and opinion pieces discussing current trends and issues, information gleaned from interviews, etc.) This will take a few days, however, because it is going to take a lot of digging and linking to multiple historical articles that contain easily proven inaccuracies (some far more easily proven than some of the issues in this article) and some examination of how much of IGN's historical output is lacking to see if it constitutes enough of a trend to take action against the whole site (its possible these articles are just isolated incidents). That's why I have not done it until now, but the arguments over IGN's sloppy history reporting are getting old for all of us I think. That will provide one forum to discuss all of that mess. Indrian (talk) 00:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I hate this strategy. Forum shop and go downstream until you wear out anyone who disagrees while convincing barely interested editors to get your way. Oh well.

Back on topic (almost), the 15 million number on Sonic is wrong. If you listen to the actual youtube video, Sega says that Sonic was on his way to a million sales after launching in all major markets before he became a pack in. Sonic was a pack-in for 15 million consoles. Any reference to this youtube video (for best selling lists or the Sonic articles) should be deleted and we should try to get the real total number (we already know the non-pack-in number of 4 million, as reported in numerous RSs).

This leaves us with one possibly mistaken statement in an otherwise very well researched article from a RS giving us a sales number which is supported by independent research. I really don't understand how this issue is hanging around.LedRush (talk) 01:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Forum shopping, really? You just cannot keep a conversation civil for more than a couple of posts of someone with a differing view than yours. This discussion was never about IGN as a reliable source, just one article. I have seen enough annoying stuff from IGN that I think it may be worthy of an examination. My preliminary look at reveals that the bad articles appear to be outnumbered by the well researched ones though, so it is looking less likely I will go that route. ALso, if you can remember back that far, I made the thread here at the request of another editor who figured it would be a good idea to seek broader input. Hardly qualifies as forum shopping. Also, the Sonic number is not wrong, sales are sales. I never claimed the 15 million was non-bundled copies. The IGN article makes the claim that Sonic 2 "outpaced" the original with 6 million sales. That statement is not true because that totally dismisses sales of bundled copies, assuming the 4 million number refers to unbundled specifically. Also, it does not leave one error. The Genesis sales are wrong; reliable sources show that the number is in excess of 29 million. Anyway, it really does not matter, we seem to have a solid consensus for the 10-13 range based on the two sources. The point of bringing this here was to gauge consensus, not to score a "win" for my specific position. You are the only editor I have carried on an extended argument with because you appear to be uninterested in leaving things well enough alone. If you were not so ready to try to distort everything I post, I would not keep engaging with you. Even then, its probably time I stopped feeding the troll. Its possible we are talking past each other a bit and there is some misunderstanding, but there it is. Indrian (talk) 03:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

You have repeatedly gauged in personal attacks, uncivil behavior, and deliberate distortion of others' views. While I'm not always super nice, your claim of my trolling is absurd, as is your claim that I've distorted your views. While I've repeatedly tried to steer conversation back to the merits, you merely ignore the points. While others here have disagreed with me, and I them, why is it only you that is having trouble playing nice with multiple editors? Think deeply about your motivations for this topic and whether it is worth the aggrevation...not just in terms of the time you spend, but in the effect that your methods have on others who edit the project. Because consensus seems formed around the 10-13 range (assuming a source for 10 million is found), I see no need to further engage you in discussion and further open myself up to your personal attacks.LedRush (talk) 03:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

To add my two cents, I think the best approach would probably be the suggestion above that we use 10-13 million, since we now have two RS's giving 10m and 13m. While the reliability of that IGN article may be an issue worth discussing separately, in this specific case, the article's claim of 13m is well within the realm of possibility given the independent research we've done at the Master System talk page (which indicates it could be any number above 9.8 million). Now that we have a lower-end estimate of 10m and upper-end estimate of 13 million, I think it would be best to put it down as 10-13 million for now. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 03:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a blessing that creating this topic here lead to the discovery of that 10 million source. Because IMHO all the 13 million ones have been discredited despite the number being a real possibility, it's the origin of the number being taken into consideration that destroys its credibility. No console deserves to be under represented though, and the absence of its sales information was noticed. Getting 10 million is only 3 million off. My honest !vote is to just put down the 10 million since it has been discovered, and it's a surefire source no one may question. However I am not very interested in the SMS, so if you guys really want a 10-13 million range I think that's fair and we've reached the consensus to use that.--SexyKick 06:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The thing is that 10 million is most definitely an under-estimate (since the 9.8 million figure we reached excludes Brazil and under-estimates Europe and Japan), while 13 million may possibly be an over-estimate (although I'd say the actual sales is much closer to this figure than the 10m one), hence why I think a 10m-13m range would be most accurate. Nevertheless, I think we should wait for Indrian and LedRush to give their views on the matter before we can reach consensus. Jagged 85 (talk) 22:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

My first choice would be to just use the ten million figure because of my misgivings about the IGN source. However, if the general consensus is to go with a range, I am fine with that since the 13 million figure is certainly within the realm of possibility. Indrian (talk) 23:03, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

LedRush consented to use a range I believe (he may correct me if I'm wrong), Masem proposed a range, Jin proposed a range, and Salvidrim proposed you take the IGN source to here to get that specific article checked out for reliability, and if reliable we can just use that, and if deemed not, then we just use 10 million (this was his proposal). We can try to proceed with the groups sentiment though.--SexyKick 01:27, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Since it seems the 10m-13m range is the one idea that (I assume) all of us can agree on, maybe we should go with using a range then? Jagged 85 (talk) 00:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Since everyone seems to be in agreement with using a range, I've went ahead and updated the article to list a 10m-13m range. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 00:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

10 million Book Source

If anyone still cares, here's the book source mentionned above. Cheers! Salvidrim! 14:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Resource for instruction manuals

Is there an existing resource to view these (to source gameplay elements) if I don't have a physical copy of said instruction manual (namely for older games, but not exclusively so)? Salvidrim! 13:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

We don't have one in place on Wikipedia as far as I know. You can try a website like replacementdocs.com. Which manual are you looking for? ~ Hibana (talk) 16:07, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Yea I was thinking more of an online resource. I don't know if the publishers make them available for games that are no longer commerically sold. Mostly for the games on my "To Do" list but I was asking more in general. Salvidrim! 16:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Seems the site you talked about has a healthy number of manuals, and most others can be found with a thorough Googling. Thanks. :) Salvidrim! 16:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Try worldofspectrum [1] - they have a lot of 8-bit stuff. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.211.125.130 (talk • contribs) 18:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Merging Isaac Clarke notice

I'm worried that this might not receive any attention otherwise, so I've decided to post a notice about possibly merging Isaac Clarke into Dead Space (series). Discussion here. – Harry Blue5 (talk • contribs) 00:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Dispute

Could somebody help settle this dispute on my talk page? Sarujo (talk) 17:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you explain your position a little better? I'm not trying to pick a side here one way or another, but your position seems to be "This is a stub article, so it doesn't deserve box art or game play screenshots." I can agree that unless there's a particular aspect to demonstrate, the gameplay screen shot probably should be limited to 1 at most, simply to demonstrate the graphics. But I'm not sure why box art is in question. Yes, I know "Stuff Exists", but it's pretty standard across video game articles to be included. Is there some cut off I'm unaware of for when a VG should have it's box art and/or logo and when it shouldn't? This is less about your particular dispute and more for my own knowledge going forward. -- ferret (talk) 18:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:VGSCOPE has subsections on the topic of media use. Salvidrim! 18:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Xbox dept. does not exist

Why not make an Xbox department, or a Nintendo department? After all, there is a PlayStation department. 203.11.71.124 (talk) 06:10, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you refering to a Task Force? There is a PlayStation task force and a Nintendo task force but the Xbox has its own project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Xbox. Salavat (talk) 07:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Question of whether article should be redirected or not?

Recently the game Gyakuten Saiban 5 was announced and an article was created. I redirected it to the series article since the only info currently known is that the game exists and what the logo looks like, however the original created reverted the change without any explaination. So I am now asking for a wider audience of whether the article should remain or be redirected to the series article again.--70.24.204.79 (talk) 04:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Not to pull a there-must-be-sources, but GS5 has been in limbo for a long time. Certainly, you could find a few decent (and reliable) sources involving this? Maybe a list of vaporware, or games people hope to see on the 3DS, or those pre-announcement rumors about Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney? It could really go either way, but this seems like an instance where development info (and specifically development hell info) should exist, somewhere. I'll look if it starts getting bloody, but I've got a lot of work on my plate at the moment. Emmy Altava 01:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Notability (web) criterion three

A discussion has been underway for a couple of weeks about criterion three of WP:WEB, "The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators". The debate is about whether or not this criterion is necessary, and if the guideline is changed it could affect AfD discussions on webcomics, flash games, and other online content. Editors are warmly invited to take a look and leave their opinions. The discussion thread can be found here. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 03:11, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

February 2012's TFA

Pathways into Darkness will be on Today's Featured Article on February 3rd. GamerPro64 01:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting choice, but wow there aren't many references. Regardless, thumbs up to David for getting yet another article on the main page. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:59, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone know Korean?

There's an AFD happening for Special Force (online game), the AFD page is here. Now, if you take a look at my comment in that discussion, I think the game is certainly notable. I've linked to some sources, and a Google news search for the game's Korean name. It looks like that there are plenty of sources, but they're all in Korean - here's just the articles from Gamespot Korea. It would be very useful for someone who knows the language to look through the links, stub and then verify the article - it is very difficult to do with semi-broken Google Translate results.[2][3][4] - hahnch e n 12:47, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Tweak needed

Hi, would somebody please tweak the latter list so it stacks in two columns like the former? I had a quick stab and didn't manage it, rather than faffing around with it I'd rather just get on with updating them. Thank you. Someone another 02:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Simply add {{Div col}} at the start of the list (between the "letter" header the the first item) and then {{Div col end}} after the last item on the list. Salvidrim! 02:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Did it for all of them. --Pres N 02:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Way to make me look like the lazy one. ;) Salvidrim! 02:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

No, that would be me, my brain is so kaput it's about to slide out of my backside with a white flag and a briefcase, couldn't figure it out for some reason. Thank you both! Someone another 03:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Consensus Building Discussion: Proposing a new section for relevant video game pages - Professional competition

It seems like there is an entirely different section of video game articles that isn't being represented on Wikipedia for the most part. Mainstream media is all well and good for development coverage and critical reception, but even they have limitations regarding certain games. I'd like to refer users to the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, specifically it's "professional competition" section, which details events and leagues which is beyond the scope of what content the big name gaming journalism print magazines and websites provide.

I would like to extend this to all genres of games with larger competitive followings than traditional gaming followings, be it Real Time Strategy, First Person Shooter or Fighting Games with sections of professional competition. I'm open to any questions in order to further the discussion, thanks. --FLStyle (talk) 03:53, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

What's relevant, verifiable and notable is already discussed here and here. Games where such activity is well-documented by reliable sources certainly discuss it in their articles. Details of individual events, leagues, and players in the articles about the games is not appropriate. Salvidrim! 04:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Video games set in Australia

I wasn't sure where to give this heads-up, so decided to do so here. User:Collingwood26 has recently removed Category:Video games set in Australia from a whole gaggle of video games using the edit summary "Spelling error". Here is just one example. Could someone who is familiar with these games please check this. These edits may have been made in good faith but, given the bogus edit summary, it looks unlikely. HairyWombat 16:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm reverting the articles where it is clearly mentioned at least part of the game takes place on Australia, with an appropriate edit summary. Salvidrim!

As I've posted on his page, it is near impossible to assume this was done in good faith when taking into consideration games like this one, or that one, which take place entirely of exclusively in Australia. Salvidrim! 19:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Those games takes place or also takes place in Austalia. I don't understand why that user removed it. --Hydao (talk) 19:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Given that the game's title is Odell Down Under and the first line of the article says "...takes place in the Great Barrier Reef." plus the misleading edit summary, its hard not to assume bad faith. - X201 (talk) 22:41, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Additional: ...and when you find edits like this. - X201 (talk) 22:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Well it seems my edits haven't gone unnoticed. Anyway, I "deleted" Australia from those games because they are not set in Australia, and if they are its only a reference or just a small level,etc. This is why I don't feel they should be included as games "set in Australia" because they're clearly not. Of course my edit summary was "Spelling error" which I felt was just easier to use than get into an argument on every single page about whether or not its relevant to Australia. The only article I was going to keep was the Crash Bandicoot game however, even then I wanted to delete it as it was only partially set in Australia. To date there are no games set in Australia, which is why I think its best to just delete that page as it may mislead people.--Collingwood26 (talk) 04:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid admitting openly that you used an erroneous edit summary to deceive editors and avoid having to explain your edits is not going to help you. As pointed out above and on your talk page, some of the articles you mass-removed the category from were set entirely or exclusively in Australia, which directly contradicts what you're asserting. Salvidrim! 04:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I dont have to explain myself again do I? Actually, to what you said where some of the games were set in Australia is false, none of them were set in Australia. Being set in the Great Barrier Reef does not constitute being set in Australia I'm afraid as the Great barrier reef crosses many island nations. Other games such as Crash Bandicoot weren't set in Australia either, they only use a native Australian animal and thats it. To date there are no games set in Australia, which is why I believe the category "should" be removed.--Collingwood26 (talk) 04:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to propose it for deletion, I am sure a discussion will ensue and consensus will be established solidly. For the record, the Great Barrier Reef is part of Australia. Salvidrim! 04:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I would if I knew how, however, yes the Great Barrier Reef is within Australian waters, but it also falls within Papua New Guineas waters and many smaller island nations. Therefore it cannot be set in Australia, like I said before, unfortunately Australia is shafted with every new game.--Collingwood26 (talk) 04:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

As I've said, I've no wish to engage in a discussion with you pertaining to your apparent anger at the number of games located in Australia. However, I'll say this: Australia is a continent that includes New Guinea. Also, all of the games in the category are set (at least in part) on the Australian continent. Your repeated assertion that no game is set entirely in Australian only evidences the fact you did not bother to read the articles you've removed the category from. At leats two of those, Beneath a Steel Sky and AFL Premiership 2007, are set in Australia. Salvidrim! 04:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Seems like someone needs a lesson in geography, New Guinea is not part of the continent of Australia, however, New Guinea is part of the Oceania region. I would know I live here. Secondly, no, almost none of those games are set in Australia and like before I've already provided evidence. Those two you mentioned AFL is what I would call a "sports game" (meaning its just about the sport not the location) so it doesn't count. And the second game "Beneath a Steel Sky" is obviously (just by looking at it) a flash game for the computer meaning its not a real game. I'm not expressing anger at the lack of games set in Australia because THERE ARE NO GAMES.--Collingwood26 (talk) 05:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is going nowhere. You are choosing to disregard facts that contradict your opinion that "there are no games in Australia". You are clearly feeling strongly about Australia and related topics -- I would strongly suggest you thoroughly read our policy on neutrality before you resume editing. Salvidrim! 05:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I haven't disregarded anything as I am yet to see any evidence put forth by you that there is a game set in Australia. You said 2 but I already gave you reasons for them. I'm not feeling strongly for Australia, because if i was i would want the article to stay. However, even I cannot deny there are no games set in Australia, so I have trouble understanding how an article on it could be made?--Collingwood26 (talk) 05:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Quite frankly, I've never liked these "Video games set in [location]" categories. They strike me as trivial, crufty, and of little use. I could maybe see a case for them if it was reserved for games that only take place in a given country, but instead it just ends up cluttering the category section of certain globe-trotting games. To pull up some quick examples: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has 10, Street Fighter II has 12, and F1 2011 (video game) has a whopping 17 such categories. I'm sure these aren't even the worst offenders either, those are just what I found in a minute of searching. I would not be opposed to just purging the whole series of cats.--Remurmur (talk) 05:05, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I am personally not opposed to deleting the category either -- a discussion should be opened at TfD, in that case. Salvidrim! 05:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure the whole category needs to be pulled down but I see what you mean. I won't speak for the other categories but the Australian section should be pulled down as there are technically no games that have been set there.--Collingwood26 (talk) 05:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The awful NES game that is Mad Max does, or at least it can be inferred that it does. I don't think it directly states it. Just sayin'. --Remurmur (talk) 09:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Whilst I can see the usefulness of the categories, at the same time they seem a bit pointless to me as well. One possible solution would be to change their use. Make the inclusion criteria that the game must be set wholly in the country named. Then the underpopulated categories could be removed using the criteria that is already in place for small categories. - X201 (talk) 09:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem with this is that it's too difficult to enforce inclusion guidelines. I'm sure the categories started out along those lines, but then some intrepid gnomes started adding every game that was even slightly set in said country. As the categories are named, these people are doing the right thing, but it's become apparent that these categories were a lot more useful when they were incomplete and only included major examples. I think that trying to enforce a standard will just mean a lot of petty talk page squabbles over what should and shouldn't be included, which just isn't worth it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Remurmur (talk • contribs) 09:47, 7 February 2012

We could rename the categories to "Video games set wholly in x". Secondly; Don't dis the Gnomes, this place would be a right dung heap without them. - X201 (talk) 09:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't dissing the gnomes; I am one. They just happen to be helping with useless categories. It's the categories' fault, not the gnomes.--Remurmur (talk) 18:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

So many comments because of a category. :) Well, the category is "Video games set in Australia", and this is a screenshot from a racing game: http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s60/chromossomax8/newmanhaas.jpg ... it (also) takes place in Australia, that's simple, why so much complication? cheers. --Hydao (talk) 12:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with X201, make the guidelines specify thet game must be entirely set in that country, if its anything else like a racing game or sports game set in multiple countries just put it under "Sports games" and "Racing Games" only.--Collingwood26 (talk) 23:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Article creation opinion saught

As some may know, last night Double Fine put up a Kickstarter project to fund a new adventure game, and completely cleared the bar within 9 hours (and still going up). This has prompted a lot of attention, not only to the success, but essays from journalists challenging the typical publishing model.

At this point, the only "title" we have is "Double Fine Adventure" (which I've created as a redirect to avoid issues), but the question I have is: despite this possibly falling under WP:HAMMER since there's no name, WP:CRYSTAL in the sense that we're trusted DF to actually make the game and not run off and buy fancy cars with that money, and other aspects, the project is attracting enough attention that could warrant an article. I personally am normally hestitate about a new VG article with as little as we know on the game itself, but this is a case where there's clearly going to be attention on it, is notable right now, and we're pretty confident DF will deliver a game in the future.

Would it make sense to create an article on this, or just keep it all within the bounds of Double Fine Productions? --MASEM (t) 16:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd keep it within Double Fine Productions until some kind of announcment. Salvidrim! 17:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it warrants an article, as the conditions of the KickStarter bid were, that should the target be reached, the title would be made. You could view it along the same lines as the Olympics in London. The contracts have been agreed and the event is almost certain to happen, Crystal allows for that future event, and I think we're in the same ballpark with this. Also their will be the additional benefit of the open development diary. - X201 (talk) 17:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The key, I would suggest, is sources. Are there sufficient sources to make the forthcoming game notable, and so warrant a separate article? Having said that, I would keep it within Double Fine Productions until there is an actual game to write about. HairyWombat 18:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Saying it would be made is different from it actually being made. Things do change ... ownership, publishing priorities or any other number of things might cause this game to never be released, despite the assurances. I agree with Salvidrim that this should stay a subhead in Double Fine's article for the time being. --McDoob AU 93 18:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Create the article - Already enough press coverage in reliable sources regarding the funding to sustain a stub. A separate article, particularly a stub, invites development a lot more than a redirect which may confuse wannabe-editors. - hahnch e n 20:16, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Impressive how fast things went. I believe an article could be created now. Salvidrim! 20:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm now very tempted to create it, but I would like a bit of more input.

What I can write about the game is tiny. The coverage right is more focused on the fact this actually worked beyond anyone's dream, is still going, the most successful Kickstarter project to date, a kick in the balls to the traditional publishing model. This is all good stuff but the question that lingers is, is there a better place for that besides a game article? If not, then yes, making the article and expanding it on that is right in line. --MASEM (t) 23:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

How about an article on the event, the Kickstarter success, and the buzz, media coverage surrounding it? I'm not familiar about notability guidelines pertaining to news/misc. events, though. Salvidrim! 23:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Information: Notability guidelines for events are at Wikipedia:Notability (events). HairyWombat 01:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Just start the article at Double Fine Adventure. Other editors will join in. It doesn't matter that it's tiny, it will evolve. - hahnch e n 23:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Article started, DYK submitted, can't wait till Oct now.... --MASEM (t) 00:54, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Editor changing importance of large number of articles

I don't know if this should start a move general discussion, but someone with a larger attention span than mine might want to take a look at Special:Contributions/Harizotoh9. The user is changing the importance of a large number of articles. I first noticed because The Black Onyx is on my list, and while it may not be popular, that game is pretty-much why we have Japanese RPGs. The user has lowered the importance of many other articles (like Zork from "high" to "mid"), and raised others (like Castlevania: Rondo of Blood "low" to "high"). Some of them may well be right, but some seem bizarre, and more people should be taking a look at them. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 23:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Same thing here after noticing this. There is no way Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos can be high-importance when the seminal title of the Ninja Gaiden series, the first NES game, is mid-importance at best. I think those assessments need to be reassessed. --MuZemike 23:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Of interest, this AN/I thread about User:Harizotoh9, dated from 6 days ago. Salvidrim! 23:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

(e/c)I left a note on the user's talk page. Although I'm sure some of these edits are justified, and we could probably use a good purge through the top categories. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 23:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

RS Opinion sought

Saw a site I didn't recognize used as a source today on the World of Warcraft article, geek.pikimal.com. Anyone have thoughts on whether this is a reliable source? I only see it used in about 5-6 other articles. -- ferret (talk) 05:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

You should take it to WP:VG/S. :) Salvidrim! 05:12, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Adventure games => Adventure games taskforce

Does anyone agree? --Khanassassin (talk) 20:53, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe the same should be with WP:PKMN, WP:FF, WP:XBOX (thus WP:HALO), etc., like WP:PLAYSTATION, but that's just my opinion, I know this debate has been held in the past. Salvidrim! 21:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I say go for it, the last talk page activity was a year ago, and it was inactive a year prior to that. I disagree with Salvidrim about task-forceifying all of the projects, but that might just be due to an emotional attachment to WP:SE (aka WP:FF) --Pres N 22:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a debate for the ages. I think there is agreement that, by definition, WP:SE's topic is a subset of those covered by WP:VG. It encompasses a focused portion of articles covered by a broader WikiProject.... which I think is kind of the whole "raison d'être" of a Taskforce (like WP:NIN, and others). :) Salvidrim! 22:14, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The WP:AG has now been moved to a VG task force :) --Khanassassin

16:21, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Is OnLive a Platform (again)

Relevant previous discussions Feb 2011, Jan 2011,March 2009, July 2011 and August 2011.

I only bring this up again as the outcome of the last discussion had comments such as "Not a platform, solely for the reason that reliable sources don't report it as such. Technical analysis above is original research - Wikipedia is based on verifiability, not truth. If reliable sources started calling it a platform (or for that matter, a weapon of mass destruction) then we'd call it that here, regardless of how inane the definition might be" I present to you two reliable industry sources referring to it as such. The first is Ubisoft on their Uplay serivce, image here which is accesible here and the second is the developer of FortressCraft whom has referred to it as a platform here.

If it is decided again that its not a platform, can you enlighten me to how best OnLive should be flagged within the info boxes of titles? At present it seems rather inconsistent.

Adycarter (talk) 11:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not a computing platform. I can run Windows software on a remote Linux machine using Citrix software, that doesn't make Citrix a platform. You will find places describing OnLive as a platform, but that's because the word "platform" is very liberally applied so it can apply to a sales platform, like the Mac app store. This isn't the case with the infobox. Place it in the "distribution" field in the infobox along with Steam etc. - hahnch e n 12:21, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I might be a little confused, but surely this means someone needs to go edit the Steam page?

"Steam is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform developed by Valve Corporation." 87.113.50.226 (talk) 13:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The word "platform" can mean a lot of things, and there's a difference from how "platform" is used here to classify what systems games are for, how Ubisoft refers to it, and how Steam refers to it. --MASEM (t) 13:36, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, so the issue is that there's no games available for it, that aren't also available for other platforms? Ie if there was a game exclusively for OnLive, that would elevate it to a platform? (As in "Game XYZ is only available on the OnLive platform") - I've never seen anyone argue that Steam isn't a platform (if not a "computing platform"), hence my confusion about all of this. 87.113.50.226 (talk) 14:40, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

This horse has been beaten to death. OnLive is a "cloud gaming platform". Multiple reliable sources call it a "platform". They also refer to it as "gaming" and "cloud". But that's about it; none are more specific. It is certainly not a "computing platform", not as we define it nor as sources call it. Ubisoft's site classification and another indie developer's opinion are hardly more significant that the sources already in OnLive. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 13:17, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I provided those sources because, as referenced above, the last time this was discussed the outcome seemed to be "Provide sources calling it a platform and we'll agree", so now I've done so and thats no longer the issue? OnLive runs on modified versions of the application code too, its far more than just a VNC/Citrix client. There seems to be massive disparity all over Wikipedia around the info-boxes for games. Sometimes OnLive is a platform, sometimes a distribution method, sometimes a distributor, sometimes "cloud computing" is there because someone took exception to the words "OnLive". Interestingly Steam also seems to suffer from a similar level of inconsistency. I would argue that as OnLive requires coding changes (quite substantial ones too sometimes), runs across a whole plethora of client side equipment and runs on dedicated, custom hardware at the host end its a heck of a lot more of a platform than Steam is. Adycarter (talk) 15:03, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Steam does have the same problem - the only time Steam should be mentioned as part of the platform list is it is required for the PC version (eg uses Steamworks) or is exclusive only to Steam for the PC. The problem with Onlive in the same light is that there are no exclusive Onlive titles, and of course the only way to run something on OnLive is to have it be OnLive-compat. --MASEM (t) 15:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

On that note (Steam is a platform if required for Steamworks) Red Orchestra 2 is coming to OnLive after a long delay due to the devs needing to remove Steamworks from it and integrate it with the OnLive SDK, what would happen there then? (Curious so I can edit when needed, not trying to be facetious although it may come off that way)Adycarter (talk) 15:12, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The work is to remove Steamworks integration, and replace it with another matchmaking layer (gamespy, I think), not to rewrite the engine/renderer for another target platform. - hahnch e n 18:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I was more referring to the "If it uses Steamworks exclusively, then steam is a platform" comment but nvm I doubt this debate will resolve... see my comments lower down in response to Hahnchen Adycarter (talk) 18:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

OnLive itself is ultimately just a facet of the "PC Platform". It's used on PCs, and on the backend is built of PC farms, at it's most simplest/basic form. It's simply a remote PC. I'm generalizing, of course, but that's the heart of it. Games hosted by it fall under "online distribution" from my view point. This is the same reason that (In general), we do not put Steam under distribution or platform in infoboxes. We put the appropriate OS and online distribution instead. Which, btw, lists OnLive. -- ferret (talk) 14:58, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I think part of the issue here is that the "appropriate OS" when OnLive is involved would require every title to be listed as iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, OSX, GoogleTV and so forth. OnLive may "just" be running PC games, but its running them on a ton of different OS/Hardware combinations. Adycarter (talk) 15:20, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

No, you put the platform upon which it runs, not the platform which you can access it, which is generally Windows. Maybe onLive would let you run iOS apps on Android, in which case, the platform would still be iOS and you wouldn't have to alter the platform field at all. I am fine with listing OnLive and Steam in the distribution field. - hahnch e n 18:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Cool, thats kind of what I'm looking for, as opposed to the incredibly circular platform debate it'd just be nice to know where I can list OnLive (and Steam tbh) on the infoboxes without it getting instantly reverted. If its not a platform then so far the suggestions seem to be to put it in either distribution, distributor or to simply put "on-line distribution" in lieu of naming anything. Adycarter (talk) 18:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like something solid is forming regarding OnLive, Steam, Gaikai etc. Anyone care to create a passage of text for the guidelines?, that we can vote on and point to in future. - X201 (talk) 09:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Moving Miles "Tails" Prower to Tails (Sonic the Hedgehog)

I made a discussion at here on whether to move Miles "Tails" Prowers to Tails (Sonic the Hedgehog).Lucia Black (talk) 22:22, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I modified it a bit to be a properly listed RM. Salvidrim! 02:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Outstanding A-class assessments

There are two or three of these that have been proposed for quite some time now. I don't mind doing lower assessments, but when it comes to A-Class, as someone with minimal FA experience, I'm hesitant to touch them... however, something I've noticed is that nobody else seems to be very willing either. There's one A-Class Assessment pending from September, a second from December, and depending on the template you're looking at, a third from July-August that never officially closed. The three I'm referring to are:

Silent Hill (video game) - Opened 20 July, last activity 25 August. Seems to have one fulfilled assessment. (Ironically, saying "it's still going on.")
Atari video game burial - Opened 22 September, last activity 5 October. (Counting a section below the proposal as activity.)
Dr. Mario (video game) - Opened 19 December, no activity.

Can't we get these out of the way? If nothing else, it would eliminate a section from the to-do template. Small goals and all. Emmy Altava 03:53, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I've been considering some kind of push too, but seeing as one of those was my own nomination I didn't want to give off the wrong impression. Salvidrim! 03:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I just promoted Atari video game burial. GamerPro64 21:50, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion collapsed to avoid redundancy, see the RfC in a section below for the discussion about WP:VG's usage of the A-Class. Salvidrim! 06:50, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll shamelessly copy something I posted on my own talk:

A-Class simply requires that two uninvolved editors Support a promotion to A-class. If anything, it's like a GA+ that most agree on. I'll point you to these two A-Class assessments (1, 2), for example, which are not "in-depth reviews", but simply !votes. Some take the opportunity to do a pre-FAC review, but it's not part of the current requests. Also, IMO, A-class (as opposed to GA or FA) is more about the article's completeness than its outstanding quality (good for GA & great for FA). Salvidrim! 04:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I really wish we could just do away with whole A class entirely. I understand it has a better history and importance in a handful of Wikiprojects (e.g. Military History), but for the most point, for everyone else, it's just a confusing and redundant stopgap classification that few people care about. I still don't understand what kind of article should be A-class and not a featured article (or especially A-class without being a good article). The criteria for A-class states that "[o]nly minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate." This kind of wording just makes me think "FA-quality with typos". The effort required to simply assess an A-class article seems to be far more than the effort needed to simply polish it up fully, because when it takes over half a year for some of these articles to be assessed, it's sending a strong message of our lack of interest. Frankly, I think it's because nobody wants to go through all the assessment hassle without getting a little gold star (or green plus-in-a-circle), especially with our gamer culture of achievements and trophies. Assessment for the sake of assessment is unpopular; we desire rewards, even if they are just little .png files.--Remurmur (talk) 02:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

As I see it, a GA-class is an article ONE person has assessed as being GA. An A-Class is one where multiple independant editors confirm it is of GA-like quality. In that sense, I guess most GAs could be A-Class. I'm not disagreeing with you, if anything, it's like a "GA+", and somewhat superfluous. Salvidrim! 03:01, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I more or less support the phasing out of A-class within this project. That, or we give an objective definition to A-class so that it's actually useful. Either way is fine, because, yes, when something takes six months to get done, there is a problem with the current system. I propose one of four plans:

Option 1: Gradually eliminate the A-Class designation within WP:VG. End A-Class Assessments, and slowly send the current A-Class articles to peer review and/or designate them as FACs - or otherwise just toss 'em back to GA if they don't look featured-y enough. As there are 36 A-Class articles, we could do one a week and be done by autumn.
Option 2: Redefine the A-Class to be something objective, useful, and fairly easy to grade. Like a checklist, or literally anything other than "like a FA but not". I'm not the entire project so I won't create a definite list of criteria, but I'd imagine it would basically a more pedantic Good Article assessment used to determine whether a GA has any chance of becoming an FA.
Option 3: Use it to reaffirm that an article has met Good Article standards. I believe this is what Salvidrim is referring to - essentially, convert the A-Class into a list of Good Articles that have passed the Good Article Assessment a second time under a second reviewer, to catch anything the first may have missed or potentially send a GA back to GAR if an egregiously undeserving article were to be promoted. If this were to be passed, I'd advise for some sort of project-wide drive to complete these assessments for current GA's as a sort of quality control.
Option 4: Halt A-Class assessments entirely, but keep articles that are currently listed as A-Class with their current designation. Basically, this is what we're doing now except now we won't be notified of assessments we're probably not going to do anyway.

I'd be fine with any of these and have no particular preference for any one option, but something seriously needs to be done. Emmy Altava 05:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say we might need a full-fledged RfC on this one. I'll look to see if I can find past discussions, and will probably start it up "officially". Salvidrim! 05:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Looking for opinions on SWTOR talk page

Looking for opinions on the SWTOR talk page regarding the presentation or inclusion of class names for the MMO. The game ultimately has 8 classes. The presentation is an issue however, as Bioware begins the game with 4 basic classes, each of which have two advanced classes at level 10. Bioware then also renames the classes and their abilities between the factions. While they are clones, this results in 16 advanced class names, plus 8 base class names.

Some Guy has advocated complete removal of class lists, while others have advocated a change in presentation, although no one has had a good idea on how to handle yet. An RFC was started by Some Guy (With a declaration he felt WP:VG was dead), which ended with four votes, two to remove, and two to keep (With presentation changes). When this closed, Some guy suggested a concensus had been reached to remove. I decided to ask for a WP:VG oriented view point on this, as MMOs and RPGs often include class lists in some form. -- ferret (talk) 00:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

This discussion, held at WP:VG and prompted by Some Guy (in which I took part), was the starting point of the entire debate. Salvidrim! 00:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Succession boxes

Do succession boxes like the one below have a place in Video game articles?

Preceded by Call Of Duty: Black Ops	UK all-formats number-one game November 27 - December 10, 2010	Succeeded by World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Preceded by Call Of Duty: Black Ops	Japanese all-formats number-one game November 28 - December 4, 2010	Succeeded by Monster Hunter Freedom 3

I ask because they're being added to some some VG articles again. Personally I don't think we should have them; as there are never any references attached to them to allow verification of the information, and there's a tang of bias to them, in that only a few country's charts would be covered, and tough luck to the rest of the world. Any opinions? - X201 (talk) 19:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

There's no difference between games and other media types like films or books. Anything you say here is just as valid or invalid there also. Personally, I think your point that "only a few country's charts would be covered" is unimportant. See Wannabe (song) or Thriller (album), which have multiple boxes (6 and 8 respectively), as well as number-one categories for each of 19 countries!

References, you possibly have a point, but the format over at music charts suggests we don't need this. Also, a number one game is likely popular and with a well developed article, and in that case the sales/reception references should have been provided long before the end of the article (where the boxes are customarily placed).

As a different slant on this, see the category request discussion at User talk:Armbrust — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.37.100 (talk) 20:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't say that I see the usage of succession boxes as being necessary, and I personally detest their overabundance in some articles in the TV and music realms (really, 19 different countries?!?!?!). In general, I agree with X201's concerns, and disagree that video games be necessarily treated the same as films or books. They don't need to be. --Izno (talk) 14:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

These succession boxes do not add to the article. I don't think they are good for navigation, and I would remove them from the article. The focus of the video game media/audience has never been the sales charts in comparison to how they're viewed in the music industry. Consider the various industry awards for gold/platinum status such as RIAA certification, there is no such industry equivalent within games. - hahnch e n 19:06, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Regardless of my opinion on having a dozen of these boxes on Music/Film articles (thumbs down), weekly sales charts are not used in the video game industry in the same way as they are for other media. --Pres N 04:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The only thing I've ever found them useful is historical rulers and countries. Almost anywhere else and they imo have no place.∞陣内 Jinnai 06:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

On the contrary, with the demise of the CD, the video games chart has become more important than music, especially at xmas. The revenue generated by games far outstrips music, and the focus has shifted accordingly. Videogames are now the most desired Christmas gifts (with major newspapers normally publishing lists of such) - who ever gave somebody a download under their tree?

Yes, there is an equivalent to the RIAA certification. One example is the Platinum Range.

And yes, I can vouch for the 19 different countries. In the case of the Thriller album, they are all hidden away under a blue template at the end. In fact, the number of countries in which something was a bestseller is something of a selling point statistic.

As for the navigation, yes, this helps set the content of an item. Knowing what else was number one around the same time sets the history (gaming now has a rich history going back several decades). Besides, it also shows which game/album knocked another from the top spot (eg, the lead text of the Nevermind article makes much of the fact that it replaced Michael Jackson at number one, for example) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.127.96 (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not about which one makes more money, it's about whether the industry has such a chart position oriented culture. It does not. The platinum range isn't industry certification, it's one company's budget promotional feature. The mainstream media refers to music in terms of what highest chart position they achieved, this does not happen in the video game industry. This just doesn't happen. - hahnch e n 22:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Just backing up Hahnch's statement that video games do not have a "chart position oriented culture". If video game charts mattered to publishers, January and February wouldn't be the new release wasteland that they are each year. - X201 (talk) 23:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

(ec) The fact that video games are becoming more and more popular does not in turn necessitate that the sales charts are as popularly tracked as they are for music. Platinum Range is not equivalent to RIAA certification for "going platinum"- the RIAA is a group covering the whole music industry, while Platinum Range is one company re-publishing games of theirs that sold well. Not the same thing at all.

I'd recommend instead creating a List of number-one video games or whatever (that's a bad title, though) that lists out what all the chart-toppers were- right now all we have is List of best-selling video games and it's sublists, which isn't really what you're talking about here. The sales charts may not be a useful linking device at this time, but they could certainly support a list article. --Pres N 22:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

WRONG - I think some people are underestimating the importance of charts. In the UK, dedicated games stores don't lay out the new games alphabetically. General music stores stores don't lay out the new games alphabetically. Department stores don't lay out the new games alphabetically. Newsagents don't lay out the new games alphabetically. Supermarkets don't lay out the new games alphabetically. The reason for this is that ALL of them use the numerical chart position to place them on the shelves.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.211.125.130 (talk • contribs) 18:29, 30 January 2012

They just use it because its a system that people are used to from other media. The games charts are rarely printed in non-specialist media, and when they are they're used as filler in a minuscule video games section in a magazine or newspaper. - X201 (talk) 16:00, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, at least once a week the Metro (3rd most popular paper in the UK) features an entire multipage games section, with charts, etc. The Telegraph (an upmarket newspaper) features full chart listings, plus an editorial comment on new entries, number one, etc.

Games publications websites like edge-online.com always feature the sales charts heavily - right now their front page has 3 news headlines (in the top 9 stories) that discuss chart positions (of UK charts, nordic charts and Japanese charts)

When you look at all retail websites like game.co.uk, the default sort order is always highest selling games first. That's the way people expect it to be laid out. There is even a FAQ to explain how the Amazon Sales Rank works.

Publishers want a number one, and release their games at carefully selected times. EA were very proud of getting the Christmas Number One with FIFA for 5 consecutive years in the 1990s.

Deny it if you wish, but games being a bestseller IS a big deal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.39.200 (talk) 19:04, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Also sales data tends to be more disjointed. The best company who can really say for certain that a game sold X copies, Media Create, does not chart PC game sales which other companies do. Also there sales tend to be Japanese-centric. There is no one company that comes close to them today (there were a few more for specific niches in the past) that compile the data and are RSes. What you then have usually is taking a company's word for it, something we especially don't like for things that can be skewed for promotional reasons. And yes, it can easily be skewed (while stuff being truthful in a way).∞陣内 Jinnai 23:04, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to chip in with the fact that Retro Gamer has this month published the "Top 25 Amstrad Games of all Time". This magazine publishes a similar list every couple of months, and they are not alone in doing this (see Gamespot, IGN, gamefaqs, EGM, Expert Gamer, GameDaily, Game Informer, UGO, Videogamer.com and others). More proof that numerical positions are deeply ingrained into the gaming culture.

So if we can summarise, the only person objecting is Izno, for totally wrong and invalid reasons (one of which is that only his country warrants mention, and all the others don't matter), and PresN/hahnchen, who are demonstrably mistaken in their beliefs that charts are irrelevant.

In other words, if reliable sources exist (and they do), then there is no reason why we shouldn't add these boxes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.39.200 (talk) 16:52, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you stop repeating yourself like a broken number 4 record? Let me repeat myself - "This just doesn't happen." I'm not saying that charts are not reported, I am saying that charts are a lot less important to the games industry as they are to other industries - this is a fact. Your argument for retail placement really isn't strong, given the predominance of the second hand market in games retail. Retail channels do not have consistent standards for game charts, those chart numbers don't correspond to GFK numbers. In GAME, the top of the 360 chart in their store, is UFC Undisputed 3, in ASDA, that game is at number 4, whereas Battlefield 3 is at number 1. GFK says for the week ending 2012-02-11, number 1 was Kingdoms of Amalur. Your Retro Gamer top 25 Amstrad games is a very poor choice to back up your argument, what it shows us, is that the games industry ranks things as per everyone else, but doesn't take into account sales at all. Compare that with Billboard's greatest number one hits - http://music.yahoo.com/blogs/yradish/greatest-number-one-hits.html, which only considers singles which hit the number 1 spot. Maybe when we see Retro Gamer's top 25 Amstrad Number Ones, you might have a point. - hahnch e n 17:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Gamebryo has been edited a lot because of Skyrim

Gamebryo has been edited back and forth since Skyrim was announced, usually by different editors. Bethesda has never once said that Skyrim does not use any Gamebryo code, just that they rewrote a lot of the code that the game uses. I think it would be a good thing to get a consensus, so the article can be stabilized. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 02:58, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

What are the reliable sources discussing the link between Skyrim & Gamebryo? Salvidrim! 03:07, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Todd Howard says that BGS rewrote Gamebryo and branded the rewrite as Creation Engine Adraeus (talk) 08:32, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Outstanding A-class assessments

There are two or three of these that have been proposed for quite some time now. I don't mind doing lower assessments, but when it comes to A-Class, as someone with minimal FA experience, I'm hesitant to touch them... however, something I've noticed is that nobody else seems to be very willing either. There's one A-Class Assessment pending from September, a second from December, and depending on the template you're looking at, a third from July-August that never officially closed. The three I'm referring to are:

Silent Hill (video game) - Opened 20 July, last activity 25 August. Seems to have one fulfilled assessment. (Ironically, saying "it's still going on.")
Atari video game burial - Opened 22 September, last activity 5 October. (Counting a section below the proposal as activity.)
Dr. Mario (video game) - Opened 19 December, no activity.

Can't we get these out of the way? If nothing else, it would eliminate a section from the to-do template. Small goals and all. Emmy Altava 03:53, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I've been considering some kind of push too, but seeing as one of those was my own nomination I didn't want to give off the wrong impression. Salvidrim! 03:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I just promoted Atari video game burial. GamerPro64 21:50, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion collapsed to avoid redundancy, see the RfC in a section below for the discussion about WP:VG's usage of the A-Class. Salvidrim! 06:50, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll shamelessly copy something I posted on my own talk:

A-Class simply requires that two uninvolved editors Support a promotion to A-class. If anything, it's like a GA+ that most agree on. I'll point you to these two A-Class assessments (1, 2), for example, which are not "in-depth reviews", but simply !votes. Some take the opportunity to do a pre-FAC review, but it's not part of the current requests. Also, IMO, A-class (as opposed to GA or FA) is more about the article's completeness than its outstanding quality (good for GA & great for FA). Salvidrim! 04:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I really wish we could just do away with whole A class entirely. I understand it has a better history and importance in a handful of Wikiprojects (e.g. Military History), but for the most point, for everyone else, it's just a confusing and redundant stopgap classification that few people care about. I still don't understand what kind of article should be A-class and not a featured article (or especially A-class without being a good article). The criteria for A-class states that "[o]nly minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate." This kind of wording just makes me think "FA-quality with typos". The effort required to simply assess an A-class article seems to be far more than the effort needed to simply polish it up fully, because when it takes over half a year for some of these articles to be assessed, it's sending a strong message of our lack of interest. Frankly, I think it's because nobody wants to go through all the assessment hassle without getting a little gold star (or green plus-in-a-circle), especially with our gamer culture of achievements and trophies. Assessment for the sake of assessment is unpopular; we desire rewards, even if they are just little .png files.--Remurmur (talk) 02:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

As I see it, a GA-class is an article ONE person has assessed as being GA. An A-Class is one where multiple independant editors confirm it is of GA-like quality. In that sense, I guess most GAs could be A-Class. I'm not disagreeing with you, if anything, it's like a "GA+", and somewhat superfluous. Salvidrim! 03:01, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I more or less support the phasing out of A-class within this project. That, or we give an objective definition to A-class so that it's actually useful. Either way is fine, because, yes, when something takes six months to get done, there is a problem with the current system. I propose one of four plans:

Option 1: Gradually eliminate the A-Class designation within WP:VG. End A-Class Assessments, and slowly send the current A-Class articles to peer review and/or designate them as FACs - or otherwise just toss 'em back to GA if they don't look featured-y enough. As there are 36 A-Class articles, we could do one a week and be done by autumn.
Option 2: Redefine the A-Class to be something objective, useful, and fairly easy to grade. Like a checklist, or literally anything other than "like a FA but not". I'm not the entire project so I won't create a definite list of criteria, but I'd imagine it would basically a more pedantic Good Article assessment used to determine whether a GA has any chance of becoming an FA.
Option 3: Use it to reaffirm that an article has met Good Article standards. I believe this is what Salvidrim is referring to - essentially, convert the A-Class into a list of Good Articles that have passed the Good Article Assessment a second time under a second reviewer, to catch anything the first may have missed or potentially send a GA back to GAR if an egregiously undeserving article were to be promoted. If this were to be passed, I'd advise for some sort of project-wide drive to complete these assessments for current GA's as a sort of quality control.
Option 4: Halt A-Class assessments entirely, but keep articles that are currently listed as A-Class with their current designation. Basically, this is what we're doing now except now we won't be notified of assessments we're probably not going to do anyway.

I'd be fine with any of these and have no particular preference for any one option, but something seriously needs to be done. Emmy Altava 05:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say we might need a full-fledged RfC on this one. I'll look to see if I can find past discussions, and will probably start it up "officially". Salvidrim! 05:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Moved WikiProject Adventure Games to Adventure games task force

I moved it, can anybody help with it? --Khanassassin 20:11, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you link to the page? Salvidrim! 20:47, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Here it is. --Khanassassin

14:00, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Now you need to get a admin to create a task force parameter for the Adventure games task force. Salavat (talk) 11:20, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Then we could get a bot request to change the project tags on talk pages to the taskforce parameter. :) Salvidrim! 11:23, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Assuming the project only covered video games. I know that when the Strategy project was disbanded alot of the articles weren't video game related and had to be re-project'd. Salavat (talk) 11:36, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Strategy games included board games, no? In any case, the project banner can be removed from all articles and a |adventure=yes parameter added to those with an existant WP:VG banner. From a quick lookthrough of all tagged articles, it seems to be pretty much all video games articles. Salvidrim! 11:45, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems 16 articles are tagged as Adventure games and not Video Games, but I do not know which articles. Salvidrim! 11:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I've asked PresN for assistance. Salvidrim! 11:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) [5] Talk:Inform Talk:Dunnet (game)Talk:The Return of Heracles Talk:Wintermute Engine, Talk:The Adventures of Down Under Dan, Talk:Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, Talk:1893: A World's Fair Mystery, Talk:Adventure Definition Language, Talk:Frenetic Five, Talk:Inform version history, Talk:Hugo (programming language), Talk:Spring Thing, Talk:Interactive Fiction Competition, Talk:List of Eamon Adventures, Talk:Quest for Magic — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 12:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Try this lot couple of false positives in there, but I think I've got them all. - X201 (talk) 12:27, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I've removed articles tagged with WPVG manually on the list above, correctly returns the expected 16. Pretty sure all of those need WPVG tags anyhow. Salvidrim! 12:40, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

So once the parameter is in, we'll need a botrun to remove the banner from all articles, add the |adventure=yes parameter to the list of 655 articles currently tagged by both; we can we do the remaining 16 manually. Salvidrim! 12:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

|Adventure=yes should now work (note the capitalization). --Pres N 15:08, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I lodged a request for a botrun. I have very minimal experience of how the bots work so I don't know if that's even a possible task, but hopefully someone will be able to help. Salvidrim! 15:33, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:VG/IPC will need updating too. Salvidrim! 16:33, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't the WikiProject Adventure games logo be added to the "is supported by Adventure games task force"???

My fault, didn't see it earlier. Fixed. --Pres N 03:47, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be mostly finished. I'll give it a full day, then check is all uses of the AdvenProj templates have been taken care of before TfD'ing it. I'll also drop a note to PresN about the icon being used. Thanks to Anomie and his bot for assistance! Salvidrim! 03:31, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Alright. I'll force a run of the WP1.0 bot to confirm whether some articles are still tagged. Salvidrim! 04:31, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Confirmed through WhatLinksHere, no more articles transcludes either of the three variations of the AdvenProj template. I've tagged the appropriate pages for deletion. The conversion is theoretically fully completed. Cheers to all! :) Salvidrim! 06:35, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Might also want to take a look at these three project pages to see if they are worth integrating into the new task force or adding to your deletion: Wikipedia:WikiProject Adventure games/Assessment, Wikipedia:WikiProject Adventure games/Collaboration of the week, Wikipedia:WikiProject Adventure games/Peer review. Salavat (talk) 10:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Yea, I've seen them. Personally I tried to help the merge into WP:VG but I'm not involved in AdvenProj itself, I just assumed that these would be decided upon internally among the taskforce members... but to be frank it looks like it might be best to off with them to really integrate into WP:VG. Salvidrim! 10:51, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Redirect the Assessment page to our own, tagged Collaboration for deletion. Peer Review still has some content argubaly in use, I've left it untouched, at least for now. Consider merging to our own Peer Reviews. Salvidrim! 10:56, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The video games peer reviews itself now is only historical now that the project only uses Wikipedia:Peer review. If not redirect it it should be moved so it is under the task force. Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Adventure games/Peer review or something similar. Salavat (talk) 11:02, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to delete considering its history and contents -- I've redirected to the AdvGames main page. Salvidrim! 11:11, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Looking for opinions on SWTOR talk page

Looking for opinions on the SWTOR talk page regarding the presentation or inclusion of class names for the MMO. The game ultimately has 8 classes. The presentation is an issue however, as Bioware begins the game with 4 basic classes, each of which have two advanced classes at level 10. Bioware then also renames the classes and their abilities between the factions. While they are clones, this results in 16 advanced class names, plus 8 base class names.

Some Guy has advocated complete removal of class lists, while others have advocated a change in presentation, although no one has had a good idea on how to handle yet. An RFC was started by Some Guy (With a declaration he felt WP:VG was dead), which ended with four votes, two to remove, and two to keep (With presentation changes). When this closed, Some guy suggested a concensus had been reached to remove. I decided to ask for a WP:VG oriented view point on this, as MMOs and RPGs often include class lists in some form. -- ferret (talk) 00:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

This discussion, held at WP:VG and prompted by Some Guy (in which I took part), was the starting point of the entire debate. Salvidrim! 00:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

RfC about A-Class usage at WP:VG

In short, I believe we need to form consensus about how (and if) WP:VG is to use the A-Class for its articles.

Options mostly written thanks to Altava, reworded by Salvidrim.

Option 1: Eliminate the A-Class designation within WP:VG. Cancel oustanding A-Class assessment requests, convert the current A-Class to GA (all 37 A-Class articles have been assessed GA in the past).
Option 2: Halt A-Class assessments entirely, but keep articles that are currently listed as A-Class with their current designation, as per the apparent lack of enthusiasm or motivation towards new A-class nominations.
Option 3: Continue using it to reaffirm that an article has met Good Article standards. Essentially, use A-Class to affirm a "consensus" that the article is of GA-quality (as opposed to a single-editor assessment), to catch anything the initial assessment may have missed or potentially send a GA back to GAR if an arguably undeserving article was to be promoted.
Option 4: Redefine the A-Class to be something objective, useful, and fairly easy to grade. Like a checklist, or literally anything other than "like a FA, but not". GA- & FA-standards are Wikipedia-wide, well-defined standards; C-, B- and A-Class requirements are typically project defined. Is this option is retained by the project, a subsequent discussion will evidently take place to work out exactly what the requirements need to be.

Links to a few relevant previous discussions > Dec-2008 · Feb-2009 · July-2009

Comments

Not 1, as GA is indeed a Wikipedia wide rating and not a project specific rating. I'm not sure there's a problem that A-class isn't "well-used" in general, so I would lean to option 3. --Izno (talk) 15:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
3, though I disagree with its interpretation of how A-class is used. I don't understand the problem that this RFC is attempting to fix. —Ost (talk) 18:27, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Support option 1 or 3. In the case of option 3, A-class articles simply be good articles that have passed a reassessment by a second user. Basically, every GA should be potential A-class. I think having criteria any more complicated than that will led to disuse. Oppose option 2, as it will confuse people unaware of our consensus. --Remurmur (talk) 19:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm working on a larger strategy for GA/A-class assessment for all of WP, but I support option 4 - that is, the A-class assessment should be used to 1) show the article has passed GA (site-wide expectations), and 2) the article meets all the core requirements set out by the VG project for its articles. It shouldn't just be a restartment of "it's a GA, therefore A-class". --MASEM (t) 19:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
- But an article that doesn't satisfy the core requirements of the project shouldn't be a GA.--Remurmur (talk) 20:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
  - GA does not require an article to meet a wikiproject requirements, though a reviewer keen enough may be able to check that. It is possibly make a VG article that is sufficiently complete on appearance to meet GA guidelines but would not meet the typical arrangement of information or the like for a VG article. Or, hypothetically, a GA reviewer may not understand that some sources like VGChartz should not be used as reliable ones, and thus pass it on that. Ideally, the differences between the GA and our project guidelines are close enough to make such fixes easy to add and complete within an A-class assessment project. --MASEM (t) 21:15, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
    - So maybe we should have A-class be GAs that have been checked by a member of the project (knowledgeable) and a non-member of the project (unbias)?--Remurmur (talk) 21:56, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
      - Not necessary. We should presume that the GA review was performed by an "unbiased" WP editor - that may have been a VG project member, but as long as they reviewing it at the level of a GA (in addition to any VG requirements), then that's fine. That means when that article hits A-class assessment it, it should pass in an instant. When the GA reviewer isn't a VG member, it may take a bit more work to affirm the A-class, but it shouldn't be a huge stumbling block to getting there. And of course, the other thing to consider is that if the GA reviewer passed something but clearly is far off from being a GA, and this is seen by A-class assessors, they should not be afraid to submit the article to GAR. --MASEM (t) 22:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Option 4. I like Masem's idea, and the thought of A-class being a consensus discussion with people of the project. It will help improve the article and set a plan for obtaining FA. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 00:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Option 4: I just wanted to write the same idea as MASEM wrote, but noticed that he did it already. Though my rationale was following: WikiProject Video games has its own guidelines that can't be checked against in GA review, as GA reviewers are constrained (as reviewer, I can't demand more then is explicitly stated in WP:GACR), so A-class can be used to indicate GA articles meeting project's guidelines. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 01:53, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
4, otherwise 2. Ether it's very clear so we can easily assess against it or we shouldn't use it as evident by lack of participation. Personally, I have hardly any idea what A has in between that GA lacks and FA surely has. A checklist like for GA review would be ideal. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 10:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think that a checklist might be good, but as it is for the VG project specifics, we may have several checklists for different articles: one for video games, game series, developers, people, etc. and some articles may just simply not have any appropriate checklist (eg the Brown vs ECA SCOTUS case page) so the review may need to be subjective. --MASEM (t) 17:36, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Building on option 4 : A Class guidelines/checklist

I've started Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Assessment/A Class Guidelines as a means to proceed forward on option 4 if that's accepted. I've only done the category of "video game" articles, and these are only my initial thoughts/draft so they can change, but the idea here is to provide an expected framework of requirements that build on the established GA requirements to assure A-class (with review by at least two people). I would expect to be able to write similar checklists for VG series/franchises, hardware, companies, and people. Anything else I'd leave to the "General" guidelines and other discussions.

What I would like to make sure that an article, reaching A-class, is pretty much a proper wordsmithing/copy edit away from being an FA. In other words, by A-class-listing an article, we've assured that it meets our standards from the VG Project, and while FAC may require more demand, it shouldn't be that far off (hence while sourcing is a big issue at A-class). --MASEM (t) 20:13, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Right now I believe it is divided between 3 and 4, Continue and Redefine. I would say even if people are divided between the two, proceed to redefining -- those in favor of status quo can simply make their voices be heard in the redefinition process, and we might end up redefining to pretty much the same thing we have already. Some might call it wasted time, but I think it'll at least establish a strong conensus on the topic. Salvidrim! 21:17, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Image with encyclopedic fair use

There's a files for deletion discussion that has been relisted to get wider consensus, about the use of an image for the SuperMario's SuperMushroom power-up in the newly created History and influence section. Diego (talk) 14:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Cutecutecuteface2000 (Questions, comments, complaints?) 16:08, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Last reviewed on July 14, 2006. This falls in line with the ongoing review of pre-2008 FAs. Salvidrim! 16:14, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Race War Kingdoms

FYI

– Just a new article notice.

Moved from WT:GAMES

I've created an article about a game called Race War Kingdoms. Any opinion on it would be good including AfD or editing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kagemasta (talk • contribs) 08:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 01:45, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Done, removed/reworded some near copyvio, unreliable sources, and gamecruft. Notability is still the main issue. -- ferret (talk) 02:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Modern Sega games

Can we make a list of all of the Sega games that have been released on modern consoles, like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360? It seems as though those games are scattered about on Wikipedia, and every other company has one. There are lists, but only lists for the Sega consoles, not the ones today. I wanted to put Binary Domain and Crush 3D somewhere. Thank you for reading this and taking this into consideration. Lacon432 (talk) 19:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Sega games? Salvidrim! 19:12, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Research sources

There's a few new books about the history of video games. Just thought that they could be used as sources. There's Replay: The History of Video Games, which deals with the cultural significance/evolution of video games, and Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play, which deals with the business side. Looking through Amazon, there seems to be quite a few books about video game history. Maybe there should be a list here for the researchers/editors? Adraeus (talk) 08:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

How do you nominate an VG article for A-Class

??? Because I would like to nominate Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. Best --Khanassassin ☪ 19:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Meh, just nominate it like you would for B-class, talk page & request at WP:VG/A/R. There's an open RfC about the whole A-Class business ongoing a few threads above, though, so you might want to wait a bit. Salvidrim! 19:39, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I know there was a general agreement that a subpage should be used for A-Class assessments, but nothing as to where. (i.e. A subpage of Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games or a subpage of the article's talk page.) --MuZemike 20:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

If you're going to for A-Class first, I would withdraw your current FAC. - hahnch e n 23:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Promo account?

Not sure if this is a user focusing on one developer, or the developer or an agent self-editing. The edit history revolves around Big Fish Games. Opinions? - X201 (talk) 09:05, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you ask him? :) Salvidrim! 09:19, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Something certainly fishy about their Commons contributions. Яehevkor ✉ 12:10, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll give you that; I still believe we should attempt to assume some good faith and talk to the guy. Hey, even if he's in COI, if he's explained how policy works he may yet be a good editor, dontcha think? Summarily judging him here without contacting him is poor form IMO. :) Salvidrim! 12:17, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I've left a notice and personal message on the user's talk page. Will see if it generates a response. Likely (in my eyes) copyright violations need to be dealt with independently of good faith, however. Яehevkor ✉ 12:23, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, on that point I'd agree, then; but I still believe it wasn't unlikely the uploads were done in good faith, especially is the user does represent Big Fish Games in some way. Salvidrim! 12:27, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

D-Zone

I would appreciate it if some of you from this project would take a look at D-Zone with a view to seeing if it has any merit, or should go to AfD. I proposed deletion - ((1) i question the notability of this shareware - unable to find online references except at download sites, (2) this article seems to have been written by the author of the software, (3) the references are themselves published by the author - but another editor (or is it a sock puppet?) has made a string of ridiculously minor edits and removed the prod notice. It should be noted that the only wikipedia edits ever made by the two main contributors are to this article alone, and all of the references are self published, and most of the external links are either self published, or of no consequence, the only exception being [6]. Derek Andrews (talk) 15:08, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

A game developed by a 50+yrs old Australian classical composer? Yea riiiiight. Salvidrim! 15:19, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

XLinkbot removed the only source not directly from the developer, which was a blog post by the game's author anyways, although one of the editors undid the bot's revert. I slapped an CSD A7 on it before realizing just how old the article was, but I don't think CSD has any sort of rule about how old the article is... -- ferret (talk) 15:53, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I tagged this A7 (Which still stands at this moment) but on further review I support the opinion that the current editor is a sockpuppet of the original author. The edit history claims "I wrote this article", and the recent addition of a Borders link to a "book" covering the topic claims that the book is a collection of Wikipedia articles, priced at $98, and with an odd cover mentioning several random media/games such as Half-Life and the Lion King. It appears to be self published and/or hoaxed E-book. The sockpuppet may be manufacturing sources in response to Derek's original PROD. -- ferret (talk) 17:45, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Afd - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/D-Zone -- ferret (talk) 22:15, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Note that all Wikipedians should learn- Betascript Publishing is a company that packages up generally only tangentially-related articles, sticks them in a cheap book with an odd title based on one or more of the articles within, and sells them for high prices in the hopes that some unwary person will buy them. It's a scam, in other words, but probably not related to the author of this article or the game's creator. --Pres N 22:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Help at List of Sonic the Hedgehog video game characters

I've got an anonymous IP who keeps on editing disruptively, so I was wondering if I could get some help. The situation is already pretty well written out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Sonic_the_Hedgehog_video_game_characters#Recent_changes_to_article and warnings/suggestions to the IP, given here, with no response. I even reported him at 3RR, but it's been ignored so far. (As in, no one has acknowledged it positively or negatively yet.)

Anyways, I've done all I can, and don't want to get caught up in 3RR or anything, so I was looking for help. Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 15:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Super Metroid worldwide sales

The user MathUDX has concerns on Gamesradar source on "The History of Metroid" stated that Super Metroid has sold poorly in Japan, but fared better in North America and Europe. He said that the conflict is now between two sources with questionable reliability and felt that the Gamesradar source is "less reliable". If anyone has suggestions on that, please respond to Talk:Super Metroid#"the game sold poorly in Japan, but fared better in North America and Europe". -- Hounder4 (T) (C) 16:59, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

When to merge articles into one page

Hey everyone, I just noticed that one of the stubs that I wrote when I first joined up here (a long time ago now), The Powerpuff Girls: Bad Mojo Jojo, was merged into List of The Powerpuff Girls video games. Before being merged, the article looked like this: [7]. I guess my question is, should we encourage these sorts of articles to be merged like this? Or would we rather keep these sort of articles separate in case reliable sources ever pop up for them? I'm not too particularly worried about this case in particular, I was more wondering about what sort of precedent we should look for with regards to stub series articles. Nomader (talk) 15:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be a struggle to prescribe either way, as editors have different views and local consensus could and would trump any guideline/preference laid down by the project. My own preference would be to leave the articles as they are, create a list like List of Castlevania media and make sure that all relevant entries are included, separate article or no, rather than do a 'one box' merge and fold bits and bobs of different articles into one. List of Batman video games looked like this before it was converted into a table, although the misc. game articles had been 'tidied up' into a single one it still needed a lot of work before it became readable and ultimately virtually all the games are notable in their own right. But that's just me. The only fly in the ointment is that we're now at the point where it's more difficult to argue that everything will be expanded in time. A lot of console games from the earliest era right through to the PS1/N64/Saturn era don't get touched and in a lot of cases there aren't the online magazine databases to support expansion. Someone another 18:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

These merges are generally terrible. The Powerpuff article isn't as bad as some, but take a look at List of Terminator video games which I partially unmerged back in 2009 - which has had absolutely no development and all its "excessive" fair use screenshots removed. Here is a discussion in 2009 regarding another merge that I had to right - WT:WikiProject_Video_games/Archive_72#Cleaning_up_List_of_games_based_on_the_Star_Wars_prequel_trilogy.2C_comments_on_a_.22failed_experiment.22. - hahnch e n 19:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

New source for download games

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Just dropping this off here for your perusal. Hookshot Inc. is a new website whose speciality is downloadable video games which cost less than $15 on PC, mobile and the likes of XBLA. The set up is 4 UK games journalists who have worked on the likes of PC Gamer and Edge. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's basically Rock, Paper, Shotgun for download games rather than just PC games. Mobile games seem to have happened without the project taking much notice, finding sources for the sods can be a problem but this new site looks just the ticket.

BTW, Schafer's Millions - interview may be of interest you re: Double Fine Adventure, Masem. There's an interview regarding Revolution Software being 'saved' by the app store and here's a 'making of' Infinity Blade interview. Looking very promising. Someone another 15:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Already being discussed at WT:VG/S. Try to keep things centralized in one place. :p

heh technically centralization would involve using this page for everything :P I know I've hit a few questions here that were referred to subpages. I don't have them all watched but trying to pay more attention to the subpages that exist. the issue i see is a lot of people might watch the main page, but not the subpage. -- ferret (talk) 15:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

*shrugs* I've got everything watched, so it's not an issue for me. People interested in discussing Sources have WP:VG/S watched, so asking there might net you a more experienced, competent answer, I guess. Salvidrim! 15:58, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Metal Gear characters articles

An anon redirected the articles Hal Emmerich and Liquid Snake but both of them are basically empty and only a small reception section that lacks formatting. Meryl Silverburgh is in notably better state but still looks like it needs a lot of work. I noted none of them have templates in their talk pages and are orphaned. Should they be redirected once again to List of Metal Gear characters? Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 17:44, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

New logo for adventures task force

File:WikiProject Adventure games logo.svg - please replace the old image with this one on the "supported by adventure games task force" template. All the Best, --Khanassassin ☪ 17:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Has the taskforce formed a consensus on the change? Salvidrim! 17:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Infobox Media field

A question popped up in my mind thanks to a buddy on Facebook. I'm glad to see that we've updated the Media field on the infobox to include downloads, but why are we using the term "digital download"? That comes across as redundant (like "ATM machine" or "SAT test"), or are there other forms of download that I don't know about ... analog, perhaps? Would a simple "downloadable" or "Internet download" be sufficient? --McDoob AU 93 19:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

The terms "ATM machine" or "SAT test" are examples of the RAS syndrome, a different kind of redundancy. Salvidrim! 20:21, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I thought Online distribution or Digital distribution (Redirect to the former) were being used, not digital download. Digital download is a dab that does link to online Distribution, however. -- ferret (talk) 20:25, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Ferret, I'm cool with either Online or Digital distribution. Thanks for the heads-up! --McDoob AU 93 20:37, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

This is gonna be a very odd question and a potential shitstorm.

I made the article Super Hornio Brothers for Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Did You Know. I mulled abit over whether or not the film should get a mention and wikilink in some of the Super Mario articles, but I decided to put it into the Template:Mario_franchise in the unoffical category, seeing it wasn't licensed by Nintendo and it would pointless to mention it given the other unoffical stuff has barely any mentions in the other articles. Someone edited it out with a vague reason, and I asked him what was up (as of this writing, no response). Initially, I did have mentions that the film was rumored to have been bought by Nintendo, but upon some further digging, I found this bit of info from porn star Ron Jeremy's website:

Some of you may be wondering why it is that we, Ron Jeremy’s Official Website, do not offer Super Hornio Brothers or Super Hornio Brothers 2 within our massive library of Ron Jeremy videos. The simple answer is “Nintendo”. After Super Hornio Brothers was produced, the Nintendo corporation bought the rights to the films in order to halt their distribution indefinitely. Otherwise, we would 100% offer up Super Hornio Brothers for streaming glory.

So now this is abit of a funny quandary. Technically, the film was initially an unauthorized parody, which would make it Unofficial media. If what Ron Jeremy's site says is true, then technically, it's now an official Nintendo product since Nintendo owns the films outright. How would this be handled in relation to the template and mentions in article spaces? Unofficial, Official, or special circumstances? --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 23:12, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Unofficial. I saw the addition & removal from the Template but decided not to step in. Personally I believe it should be in there, as it is notable unofficial media. Salvidrim! 23:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Unambiguously unofficial. "Official" doesn't mean "owned by", it means "authorized", which the film clearly was not.--Remurmur (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Regardless, it's not really Mario - they're clearly the Hornio brothers, and not the Mario brothers! Heh, legal stuff. But seriously, I wouldn't call it official, no matter how hilarious the fact is that they own it. Emmy Altava 06:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Reverted to reinclude Super Hornio Brothers back in Template:Mario_franchise. Whether or not the template should include unlicensed material should be the discussion, not whether we should censor it. - hahnch e n 14:46, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Are we going to include articles about porn parodies into every template about every franchise now? There's porn parodies about everything out there, after all.. --Conti|✉ 15:04, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

*cough* Rule thirty...Oh, you guys know exactly which rule that is... Seriously though, what makes this different? I...err...don't know much on the subject so I don't know how common these parodies (with more well known actors) are. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 15:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

All unlicensed media have been removed from Template:Mario franchise. I'm OK with that, even though the motive was censorship. - hahnch e n 16:02, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can see nobody has expressed any issue with the rest of the unofficial games; removing the whole category is something I object to. I reverted you and posted on the Template's talk page. Salvidrim! 17:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Reception for real people

Are Reception sections acceptable for real people? I'm thinking about Hiroyuki Ito#Reception in particular, but just the idea of rating people, even if based on their work, seems strange to me. Jonathan Hardin' (talk) 15:42, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I can only think of one case of such a section being appropriate and it's for the Second Coming of Our Saviour Lord; and then only if addressed through a well balanced NPOV. No, the section is not commenting on the person but his work; and should be renamed accordingly. Diego (talk) 16:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

There would definitely be reason to have "Legacy" or "Impact" sections for key iconic people from the industry, but a reception about the games the person's involved with seems off. --MASEM (t) 16:07, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure of that, it would be like a "reception of his paintings" for an artist. True that video games are usually a group work, but if this person is the visionary after a collection of acclaimed titles I think reviewing them is adequate. Diego (talk) 16:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Paintings are generally the work of one person, so any reception on the painting is all accreditted to the artist. Furthermore, artists tend to have many many more works than a video game developer. Video games - at least nowadays - are no longer single-person works, so the reception of a video game is very difficult to pin to one person. That said, the visionaries who's fingerprints on a game are very obvious to tell, such as Tim Schafer, Shigeru Miyamoto, Ken Levine, etc., could have sections in their respective articles about how the aspects they are known to create are received (aka Legacy or Impact). --MASEM (t) 18:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you Masem, though I think this could be applied better to video game composers than programmers, producers, etc. Some composer articles (see Felix Mendelssohn) do well describing the person's legacy with their respective contributions after before and after death. For the designers themselves, some sites (see this IGN link) rank the designers based on their industry impact. ~ Hibana (talk) 21:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

No question. Again, it depends on how easy it is to identify the fingerprints of the person involved. A VG composure, certainly, that's almost a one-to-one. I offer that for like Schafer (known for his humor and creative writing), Miyamoto (the whole Zelda storyline and gameplay) and Levine (plotting), we can track that easily. For someone like, say, CliffyB (Epic Games) where its more difficult to see where his fingerprint lay on his company's products, I doubt we could write something like that. --MASEM (t) 01:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

God of War series articles

Can anyone please deal with the God of War series articles (Category:God of War) because of the excessive sock puppetry (like semi-protect them indefinite or something)? It seems that a banned user Asgardian still continuously edit those article using IP addresses. --HOUNDER4 (TALK) (CHANGES) 17:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

If you're seeking semi-protection, a request should be lodged at WP:RFPP. Salvidrim! 17:06, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, then. Thanks for the advice. --HOUNDER4 (TALK) (CHANGES) 17:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

And if the user is ban evading, the concerns should be taken to SPI (he already has one). Since this seems to have ArbCom involvement, perhaps help should be sought that way also. Salvidrim! 17:13, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Adventure games task force add-up

Check out my official Adventure Games Magazine! :) --Khanassassin ☪ 17:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Looking good! :) Salvidrim! 21:08, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Tekken demerge discussion

An IP insists that some of the articles in the List of Tekken characters to be de-merged. However, there is absolutely no consensus for the de-merging of these pages and we still need a consensus to de-merge them as it was originally de-merged without consensus. The discussion can be found Talk:List of Tekken characters#Why to split the characters (and why I actually do it for a long time). Input from project members would be appreciated. Thanks, Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 15:03, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Sjones, you may want to read the section above about Metal Gear Solid, as the same anon IP is involved in de-merging there as well. -- ferret (talk) 15:09, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

All right, then. I just wanted to add an additional section regarding the IP's de-merging of the Tekken articles since the debates cover the articles as a whole. Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 15:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Merge them back. Split the Tekken characters into separate lists (List of characters introduced in Tekken 3 or something similar). Maybe use tables such as List of X-Men video games to bulletpoint which games they've appeared in. Top lists and snatched sentences from reviews are not good enough to establish independent notability. - hahnch e n 21:51, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Company reception

Hi! I plan to make Revolution Software, a legendary adventure game developed, a GA, and I was wondering, woukd a "Reception" section in a company (in this case, developer) appropriate. I mean, I think it would: You could write about the reception of their games (negative/positive/acclaim), if the company itself appeared on any "top developers" lists, received awards etc. I thought it would be nice, since this developed has been featured on a "top developers" list, and I would add info about their game reception (maybe add some aggregate scores), and what awards their games received. So, what do you think? --Khanassassin ☪ 13:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Most articles about video game companies don't even discuss the game in depth, focusing on the company. Salvidrim! 16:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd say right now the article looks more like it's about Games developed by Revolution Software than about the company itself... Salvidrim! 16:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll repeat a comment I made at the Article Rescue Squadron list: you should single out from the avaliable references what is said about the size of the team, interviews with authors, their methods... Those could are directly related to the notability to the company. Statistics about of the games themselves is not what shoul be covered in the company article; at most, for each game, the general positive/negative tendency of their reception should be briefly mentioned. Diego (talk) 17:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

If you can find reception on the actual company I'd definitely include it, but not, I think, on the games. I wrote Thatgamecompany (FA) without talking about the games' receptions, and I still think the article is pushing it in terms of talking about the games. --Pres N 21:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

While we're on the subject, I'm planning on working on Retro Studios soon. It looks like a generally decent article, certainly better than Revolution Software, but if anyone's got tips, feel free. Also, I think that Bungie can be useful as a general guide for these types of articles. Gary King (talk · scripts) 03:36, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning Bungie, though it still needs a lot of work. I think that there are few studios where reception of *the company* is that relevant. Focus on the games' reception. The difference might be something like Activision Blizzard, where they are well known for their profiteering ways and it's often commented on by game journos. If a company has other quirks, those should also get covered (i.e., Bungie's fierce independence and "world domination", Valve's "Valve time", etc.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 16:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Screenshot categories

Could we get Template:Non-free game screenshot working the same way as Template:Non-free game cover? The screenshot template supports only three platform categories (example: File:Baconing screenshot.png). --Mika1h (talk) 22:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Done; support up to 8 categories. --MASEM (t) 22:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Big Fish Games articles copy-pasta and affiliate links

User:Pcgame is creating hidden object game articles on titles published by Big Fish Games, which in itself is not an issue, however these articles contain text copied and pasted from the Big Fish Games blurbs. Compare the plot section of Natural Threat: Ominous Shores to the blurb on BFG. The link to the BFG blurb, http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/16450/natural-threat-ominous-shores/index.html?afcode=af5dc3355635&channel=affiliates&identifier=af5dc3355635 also contains 'affiliate' and an identifying number. The same affiliate code is used in the link to the blurb in Aaron Crane: Paintings Come Alive, which is also copy-pasta, this seems to be an ongoing pattern for this editor. This user has had a few posts to their talkpage, removed. This looks like someone hoping to earn affiliate fees rather than a direct campaign from Big Fish. What to do? Someone another 20:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Obvious copyvio is obvious, but to do with it, the process is through WP:CCI. Just make sure to notify the user after creating the case (you've notified him of the problem to start, which is of course a good thing). --MASEM (t) 20:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I haven't notified Pcgame of this post, as there's little to actually discuss, but I would have if the post had been anywhere 'official' like ANI or a main noticeboard. Xe has been notified of COI and went on to delete the message without responding (by Rehkevor, not me), so it's not like they're unaware that their editing is not ideal. What about the affiliate links though? Someone another 20:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I mean, if you pot to CCI (copyright infringe cases), make sure to notify him of that discussion *there* (not here). The fact someone had pinged him, with messages deleted and still going forward, will help quickly put an end to the case. --MASEM (t) 21:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I see, will do. Thank you for your help. Someone another 21:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Just undid blanking by the user in question on their own talk page containing a message concerning the issue, brought up on February 21. ~ Hibana (talk) 21:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I've posted on the CCI board..thing and notified Pcgame of this. Someone another 21:49, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The copyright issue has been dealt with, but the articles still need the affiliate links replacing with standard links to Big Fish Games, which I'll do shortly. Someone another 23:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Reminder: GDC and freely licensed photos

With GDC around again, it is worthwhile to re-mention that the official GDC photostream at flickr [8] remains CC-BY compatible, providing a great way to get photos of VG developers and other persons for game articles. If you do use them, make sure to upload them at commons, and make sure to categorize them under "Category:Game Developers Conference 2012" at commons. --MASEM (t) 05:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Is there a way to request pictures of specific people? Salvidrim! 05:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea how one can contact photographers there, nor how to make requests. It would be good if there were any WPians that we knew were at it to do such. --MASEM (t) 05:59, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Aye. I was just wondering. :) Salvidrim! 06:04, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Are the female characters in Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat "action heroes"?

Having a dispute at Talk:List_of_female_action_heroes#Citation_needed_tags_for_obvious_video_game_cases. More input is requested. Are the female characters listed in these two game series, "action heroes"? Does the box and/or manual for these game series refer to these characters as "heroes"? Dream Focus 17:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Everything Mafia

Can someone lend me a hand please. User:Afiq1998 has been linking Mafia related articles on, what appears to be, the basis that they have the word Mafia in the title. At first I thought it was a confused newbie, but it now looks like a deliberate attempt at misinformation and disruption. They've been busy overnight could someone lend a hand and keep an extra pair of eyes on them please. - X201 (talk) 08:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Reverted the vandalism and CSD'ed the created page as a hoax; see its talk. Salvidrim! 08:58, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Seems the editor has taken some notice and is now reacting violently and continuing the vandalism. I'll be around to monitor for a few more hours to see if it continues. Salvidrim! 09:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Mortal Kombat characters

An editor, User:TheDarkPyrano100 is attempting to spin out characters from List of Mortal Kombat characters, primarily by reverting to previously poor states of the original articles (such as [[ Kabal (Mortal Kombat)‎‎]]). I reverted just today and left a note on the editor's talk page, but was reverted back in the past hour or so without communication.

These articles fail WP:WAF/WP:NOT/WP:N. Can I get help, either with reversion or with advice on how to deal with the editor? --Izno (talk) 16:42, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Have they been AFDed before? If not, then it's fairly difficult to say they must be merged, and that they cannot stand alone, given that we have articles like Giratina, Von Kaiser and Elena (Street Fighter) seem to exist without any difficulty. I'm not a big fan of character articles, although I can't say they do any real harm - they're generally made up of very minor quotes taken from previews for their development, and minor quotes taken in reviews for the reception, and maybe a reference to a trashy "top 10 fat people in video games" style articles. No one has ever written an article dedicated to these characters, but hey, Steelix is IGN readers 80th best Pokemon! - hahnch e n 01:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Just going to point out rather quickly that many characters do have discussion on their importance and lasting impact beyond their games or origin, and their articles do explain such. Yes, there are *many* articles that fall back on the "so and so talked about it x times so it must be important", but until notability gets an overhaul, you'll have to deal with it. But saying these should stay because other crap exists is a bit much: if it can't stand on its own merits and show why its significant as a fictional character, it shouldn't have an article.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 01:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Something similar happened with three Metal Gear articles: Meryl Silverburgh, Liquid Snake and Hal Emmerich with the briefest reception sections ever and the last two articles mentioned are basically empty. Should they be merged back too?Tintor2 (talk) 02:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll post a more eloquent response and proposal for stuff regarding this when I get back home, but I'd honestly say yeah, re-merge them. They're the work of an anon editor that's been focused on character articles lately (194.145.185.229), though given his knee-jerk response to anything he doesn't like we can probably expect a tirade regarding the matter.

Regarding the proposal statement...I think we need to figure out what to do with the current standards for articles, as we can all agree the bar has been raised beyond "are people talking about X subject enough times" rather than how they're talking about it..--Kung Fu Man (talk) 11:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The user doesn't appear to have any intention of developing the articles. Speaking from a merge backlog perspective, I particularly note the user hasn't even bothered to remove the article's merge tags, causing the articles to misleadingly (and annoyingly) reappear in the backlog. Claret Ash 11:41, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Besides not responding to talk page messages, User:TheDarkPyrano100 is still redirecting articles, and is now with the Tekken articles, redirecting Raven (Tekken) (apparently using an anon account in the process). I merged it back for the same reasons.Tintor2 (talk) 17:05, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Given the non-response from the user responsible, merging is OK. But let's not pretend that characters from Mortal Kombat fail "WP:WAF/WP:NOT/WP:N" any more than Soul Calibur/Tekken/Pokemon/Whatever articles. I'd be OK with just flat out deleting swathes of these as minutiae. It's not like they're not backed up with sources, they are, in the same way that we can describe the HUDless presentation of Dead Space, or Car damage in Forza 4 by culling snippets from previews and reviews. We don't, because we think going down to that level is trivia. For some reason, we're fine when we're discussing characters though. Weirdly, what I don't consider minutiae - such as the list of tracks/planes/sports that a simulation game simulates (the most concise description of what that game actually is) is consistently deleted. - hahnch e n 22:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

You're going to have to make your point clearer than "Rawr the rest aren't notable either for cherrypicking bits from reviews!" If someone can grab a source's opinion on something from a review so be it. Then again there's a big difference between discussing why a character is notable in a fictional sense or in terms of their design, and disucssing why they're important just because they happen to be strong/weak in the particular game they're from. As it stands even on that subject there are plenty of articles that teeter on that edge I think need to be re-evaluated and dismantled accordingly, even some I've written over the years.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 22:19, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe this is pretty darn simple: if there is significant coverage in a reliable source independant of the subject, it's notable. In this case, "significant" would require the discussion to be about the character and not the game. Salvidrim! 22:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

The point I make is fairly clear, cherrypicking quotes from reviews doesn't make the subject is notable. Somehow we have lowered our standards for characters, because they are almost never the subject of RS discussion. I can't really say the articles do much harm, so I've not really done anything about it. But I spoke up really to say, "don't just pick on Mortal Kombat".

I linked to Elena (Street Fighter) above, the reception quotes articles such as "Top 50 Street Fighter Characters", "12 fighters we'd like to see in Super Street Fighter IV", "Ten Characters We Want in Street Fighter IV" and is mentioned once in passing in an article on black video game characters. This isn't the exception in character articles. The issue is not just Mortal Kombat. - hahnch e n 23:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Well I'm going to make a comparison here. While not the best in terms of reception, Elena at least still has discussion regarding the character and reactions to it. You're citing titles, but not the text involved: it has room for improvement. Are you expecting sources solely discussing the subject? Yet on the flipside Steelix...is basically a giant video game commentary. Someone reading this article will not understand what makes Steelix more noteworthy than any of the other 600+ Pokemon.

And MK isn't being singled out here, the issue is those articles were weak enough to begin with and have *no* reception.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 00:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

EDIT: Looking closer...nothing of significance is being said in the reception for Elena. Yeah it bugs me too.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 00:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I just want to say that the "Steelix is IGN readers 80th best Pokemon" bit does not make him notable by itself. The commentary supplemented with it does. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 02:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Not...really. There's nothing there other than "Steelix is strong with high defense" in the games...--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

What? I am not talking about the Pokemon Chick source. I am talking about Audrey Blake's comments on the poll page. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 03:42, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

No I mean every other source for reception. There's a brief bit in that book on dragons, but that's it, everything else describes Steelix as an element of gameplay. Also IGN didn't really name it the 80th best...that was a reader poll, though the editor comments are still valid.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 15:57, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't think we were discussing Steelix's notability as a whole. I was just talking about the use of polls as sources. Yes, it is a reader poll, so it doesn't matter for much, but the editor comments saying why they deserve that spot in the poll does help.

As for Steelix's notablity, the only reason Onix and Steelix have articles is that they were once merged, but split because their reception had nothing to do with each other, and the consensus was that merged articles must have sources that about them as a group.

As they are split, they barely stand alone, especially with the notion that sources mainly describing gameplay elements doesn't help notability, which I won't argue at the moment. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 16:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I disagree, I don't think the editorial on all these throwaway toplists confers notability. One paragraph out one hundred is not a good metric, there are not 100 notable pokemons. Just because Taven features on UGO's Top 50 Mortal Kombat Characters doesn't mean we should have an article on Taven, it just means we should have a list of those characters too. - hahnch e n 20:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Who are you disagreeing with? One appearance on a top 50+ list does not make a subject notable, I agree. But if the subject was on 5 different "top x" lists, and had coverage from some other sources as well, then that shows notability.(Daxter is an example, I guess) _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 21:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

When those "top x" lists are constrained to "top x" within a single series, that's not good enough, five of those aren't good enough. It just means that the series is notable. I agree that Daxter is notable, because not only has it been featured as lead character, but those "top x" include GDC's Original Game Character of the 2002. - hahnch e n 21:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

As the original author for the current Von Kaiser article, may I ask what you take issue with? - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 08:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Only just spotted your comment now, but it's pretty much what I've written above, and there's more discussion below. I don't think Punch Out characters, like the MK characters or Pokemon discussed here are notable. I think they're better served in a list, because while singular characters aren't notable, the cast is. Taking snippets from reviews and previews is not sufficient to establish independent notability - in the case of the Punch Out series, each character article has a "stereotyping" critique, even though the criticism is across the whole series is only really covered in two articles. I don't think splitting up the response across an entire spectrum of character articles is useful, when it would be better covered (like the sources) in a centralised location. I could write an article, using snippets from reviews on things like Chapter 1 in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (IGN praised the bombast in this level...), but that's minutiae game guide level detail which is better covered in summary in the parent article. - hahnch e n 00:51, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, for one, most of the Punch-Out!! character articles are about subjects spanning multiple games, not just a single chapter in a game. For another, I'm assuming/hoping you're not lumping in every character from the PO series in your criticism, as several of them do not fall under the criticism. Glass Joe, Soda Popinski, Bald Bull, King Hippo, Don Flamenco, and others come to mind. Not all of the article snippets are reviews, either. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 06:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think number of appearances grants them notability. Several from the PO character series do fall under the same critique. - hahnch e n 17:07, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

That's not why they're notable. While most of them do use the same citations, it isn't a problem because it's not a case of using a general statement about all characters in the series, but rather, statements specifically made about individual characters. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 07:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I mentioned above, my point was that snippets from reviews and toplists don't make the snippets notable - they make the subject notable (which is the game, or the cast). This is why I mentioned Car damage in Forza 4 as an example above, you could very easily do the same as has been done for characters - but it'd get merged (rightly) into the development and reception sections of the parent, because those standards would be enforced. - hahnch e n 14:01, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, it's not just snippets from reviews; notably, you have the Sumatra Lahiri(sp?) article, and the GamesRadar article. Just because it's discussed under the umbrella of the series does not mean that the discussion of them is not notable. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 20:47, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

They're still snippets though. Like the "UGO's Top 50 Mortal Kombat Characters" and "80th best Pokemon" linked above, they're just snatched lines, in many cases - just one sentence. You have two articles talking about racial stereotyping in the Punch Out series, that would be better summarised paragragh in the reception section rather than split out line by line across 10 articles. I just think this level of detail is outside of Wikipedia's scope, not that they're doing any real harm. I did AFD one of the characters mentioned below though, we have a massive blind spot for this stuff - This section should be absolutely brimming. - hahnch e n 23:04, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Still undoing the merges

The editor which I started this section about is continuing his actions. I'll be leaving him a message shortly, but the fact that he refuses to communicate for some reason suggests that he's not up to communication, and hence suggests escalation. --Izno (talk) 00:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Another blaring concern is the vast amount of uploaded images – all of which are not of low-resolution to begin with – of which none are used in any articles. He has likewise gone as mass-reverted each and every {{di-orphaned fair use}} tag from all of them, apparently without any intent to add them into any articles. --MuZemike 03:56, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Just a note here, I am 99.98997% sure that this user also edits under the IP 82.8.135.203. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 18:09, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

This is a matter for WP:CCI and WP:ANI, I think. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 23:51, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Weird editing style. There are good edits, like creating a template for Sanzaru Games and then adding it to relevant articles, and adding a missing category to Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. But the confusing part is that those useful edits were preceded by a page blanking. Odd behaviour. - X201 (talk) 10:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

User:TheDarkPyrano100 is also User:TheDarkPyrano (indef blocked), and I am now certain they are 82.8.135.203. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 10:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

HJ Mitchell (re)blocked him at my request, and the IP should be autoblocked. --Izno (talk) 15:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)