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New Articles (February 22 to February 28)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.5 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 04:15, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

February 22

February 23

February 24

February 25

February 26

February 27

February 28

Aw yeah, time for another "list of <type of video game>" to be unearthed! This time we get List of vaporware, which, from the 5 seconds I spent looking at it, includes a game (Commander Keen: The Universe Is Toast!) that the developer literally never developed past coming up with a name and spending a couple days noodling around ideas before deciding that Wolfenstein 3D was a way cooler idea, so. Maybe not the best inclusion criteria here. --PresN 04:15, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

The section on "found" vaporware makes no sense to me. Using DNF as the poster child here, that's been called a lot of things, not only as vaporware but in development hell, etc. It would probably be better to explain that some games may seem to be vaporware but really are just stuck in dev hell, and then link to that instead, instead of claiming them as "found" vaporware. However, outside of that, there are games that we can document as vaporware (HL Ep3 100% qualifies), but some titles like 6 Days (ignoring the recent announcement) wasn't vaporware, it was just cancelled after outrage over the title. --Masem (t) 16:48, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
Agree that the "surfaced" vaporware doesn't make sense. You're basically saying some reliable sources were wrong. It's better to describe things in plain language than to use terms like "vaporware", and I think Masem is on the right track with development hell. Ideally a better descriptor. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:40, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Pre-1989 public domain video games?

Hi. I'm a user mostly active nowadays over at Wikisource, and I recently started a WikiProject over there with the same name as this one concerning video game transcriptions, and identifying video games that happen to be in the public domain or otherwise freely licensed. I noted on that page that "[no video games] have expired copyrights, and PD-not-renewed or no-notice don't apply". Oh how wrong I think I was when I wrote that...

I recently discovered a very important legal fact, that applies in the United States, that might mean that there may be some handful of video games out there after all that fell into the public domain due to failure to comply to formalities. That legal fact is that "[works first published in the US, that were published from] 1978 through 28 February 1989 [that were] published without a copyright notice, but without subsequent registration at the copyright office within 5 years [are] in the public domain due to failure to comply with required formalities." (Source: Commons:Hirtle chart) But if this is the case, then it appears to be that my post here on this very discussion page is the first time that anyone has called any attention to this legal loophole in terms of 1970s-1980s video games.

To sum all that up, if a game was released in the US before the specific date of February 28, 1989, without a copyright notice, and was never registered with the US Copyright Office, then it should be in the public domain and free of all copyright restrictions.

So why is this important? Well, if there are any video games that happen to be in the public domain, usage of their data (i.e. screenshots of the game etc.) on wikis such as Wikipedia and Wikisource will be easier. Specifically for Wikipedia, since we won't have to comply with the fair use rules, this will allow for more complete and better quality supplements to articles.


I wanted to appeal to you guys to help me find some possible candidate games for me, so I can add them to a list of public domain video games. To reiterate, the requirements I ask for are:

  • The game must have been first published in the US before the exact date of February 28, 1989. If it was first published elsewhere, such as Japan, it doesn't count.
  • The game must lack a copyright notice within the game itself (at least), and/or on the cartridge art/box art/etc. if it was ever sold with those at all.
  • I'll accept games for any console or system, indie or otherwise. Although, please also verify that if there are other versions of the game, for example if there was one version released for Atari and another for Commodore, that there is not another version of the game that includes a copyright notice. This would in effect make the public-domain status of the one version of the game without a notice moot.

If you know of or can find any games that meet these requirements, please let me know here and I can do the rest of the research (if you hadn't already done that yourself).

But if you want to do the last part of the research for the final confirmation, a few simple searches at the Copyright Office online should usually suffice, since all their post-1978 records are located there. Here is an example (for reference) of a copyright office record for a video game that was released during the requested timespan.

Thanks! PseudoSkull (talk) 07:50, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

"Updates" section in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Currently working on Animal Crossing: New Horizons. How should I organize the "Updates" section? A list? A paragraph of "this update had this"? Simply mention "The game is updated" in a paragraph or so? Should it even be here at all? Panini🥪 12:32, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I would recommend mentioning major, noteworthy updates, and organize them into a paragraph. From what I heard from players who played past games, Animal Crossing games tends to have an exteeeeeeeeeeended period of updates, and I would predict that it would be a total mess if you organize it in a list in years to come.
Disclaimer: I have never played this game. Not my interest. Milky·Defer >Please ping me while replying to me... 14:14, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
That whole section could be summarized to something like: "Nintendo releases periodic game updates which add special items and events aligning to real world seasons and holidays." and move to the gameplay section. Maybe give a couple examples to help explain. TarkusABtalk/contrib 17:30, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, that's what I planned on doing. Panini🥪 17:31, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Dealing with the ninth gen consoles and "upgrade patches"

As we have a unique situation in this console generation that games from the Xbox One / PS4 can be played on the Xbox Series X/S / PS5 without patching, but later receive unique performance patch upgrade to these newer consoles, I'm trying to wrap my head around how to handle platforms and release dates in the infobox here. Specific case is Overwatch, which has been playable on the Xbox Series X/S from the Xbox One version since the console launch but got yesterday a patch specific to that version to take advantage of the newer console hardware (higher FPS for example). But as best I can tell, there's no new special release or anything, it's just a patch.

Now, it makes sense that we do not automatically add "Xbox Series X/S" to all Xbox One games as a platform (same with "PS5" to all PS4 games) due to the nature of backwards compatibility on these consoles. But as I think this practice may start being more common, a patch to create the new console version rather than a discrete wholly new release, should we consider that when such a patch is available as to be the date of release for the game on that platform, and thus by extension, inclusion of that platform, for infobox purposes? All this should be clearly explained in the body, of course. --Masem (t) 14:46, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

For games that have a patch, should we just create a new column in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One video games list that says "PS5 Patch" or "Xbox Series X/S Patch"? The fact that it's a patch suggests that it was intended to be previous-gen, not current-gen.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 15:15, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
It wouldn't be a new column but it would be a new "addon" descriptor that could be added. --Masem (t) 15:24, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
That could work.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 15:52, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Peer review for Namco

Hey all. Namco has passed its GAN review today, so I've decided to file a second peer review for it as part of my plan to make it an FAC by the end of the year. The GAN was conducted by an experienced editor, so hopefully there's no glaring issues with the page. Feel free to provide any comments. Namcokid47 20:59, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Namcokid47, would you do a QPQ for my PR of Rockstar San Diego? I'm currently prepping for exams so it might take me until the weekend to finish the review, though. IceWelder [✉] 16:24, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Unity (game engine) edit request

Hello, I'm Matthew and am an employee of Unity Software. I've disclosed this on my profile and at Talk:Unity (game engine), where I have proposed some article updates. Most recently, I've posted a question about adding some of the different ways Unity's engine has been used. I’m hoping another editor will take a look, and make the changes on my behalf given my COI. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! Matthewpruitt (talk) 19:04, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Would anyone here mind if i change this article from roguelike to roguelite? --Trade (talk) 22:23, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Which way do sources describe it? ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 22:43, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
The issue is that "roguelite" as a term on WP is still iffy, because it is not consistly recognized as a proper genre in larger source (not just for Binding). For those not familiar, there's a portion of the roguelike community (I don't know if Trade is one or not, just in general) that very much dislike the use of "roguelike" applied to games like Binding, FTL, Hades, etc because they significantly vere from the so called Berlin Interpretation that was established to characterize the traditional roguelikes like Nethack and Angband. The media has thrown "roguelike" mostly on these games though enough use of "roguelite" as an alternative name does exist but I would still classify it under WP:NEO - it simply doesn't have widespread use.
I have been extremely wary about using "roguelite" because I can see that leading to edit warring on games that are "far enough" from Nethack/Angband to fail the Berlin Interpretation, even if sourcing is not there for it. And there's more than enough roguelike games out there now that unless you are a darling like Hades, there won't be enough coverage to satsify the appropriate genre-naming issue. However, needless to say, it is possible to adapt "roguelite" as a genre but we'd have to start watching for edit wars on this. --Masem (t) 23:59, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Ah! Thanks for the context. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 01:38, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
How does the idea of an article (List of games that meets the Berlin Interpretation) or category (Category:Games that meets the Berlin Interpretation) sound? Trade (talk) 10:47, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

New Articles (March 1 to March 7)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.5 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 14:55, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

March 1

March 2

March 3

March 4

March 5

March 6

March 7

Hm, yes, this information has now entered my brain. Much appreciated, PresN. Panini🥪 16:16, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
BTW, Visual Novel Database was swiftly translated into Chinese yesterday by me. I originally thought that this topic had zero notability but now looks like I am wrong. In fact, visual novels are one of my video game interests, and I always wanted to see this article. Milky·Defer >Please ping me while replying to me... 14:20, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
How is Mulawin related to this wikiproject?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 13:49, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Blue Pumpkin Pie, it is not. Some random user gave it a WP:VG tag for no apparent reason. I have untagged it several days ago. enjoyer|talk 13:56, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Chinese Wikipedia's WikiProject Video games is seeking help

As a part of the move to improve the quality of the WikiProject's high and top-importance articles, some editors have been translating the featured article Satoru Iwata into Chinese.

Most of the translation is done by me, and there are some people actively checking the sources, correcting my translation and creating relevant articles. During translation I encountered some disturbing issues with the article from English Wikipedia. Looks like there is little to no activity in the article's talk page, so I put them here.

  1. Early Life
    1. Iwata purchased an HP-65, the first programmable calculator, in 1974. As most of the sources claim that it is an HP-65, this particular source from 4Gamer, a reliable source, claims HP-67. Japanese Wikipedia adopts this and says HP-67. I personally believe that 4Gamer made a mistake, but I am not 100 percent sure. I checked against the original source (book by Inoue, translated into Chinese), and I see failed verification everywhere.
    2. The several simple number games Iwata produced, such as Volleyball and Missile Attack, made use of an electronic calculator he shared with his schoolmates. This sentence cited two sources, and looks like the second one, from news.com.au, have nothing to do with this claim. Also, I would like to request someone to check the first source, from the book, on the Volleyball and Missile Attack part. (Verified by another zhwiki VG community member)
    3. Tomohiko Uematsu, an engineering professor, noted Iwata's proficiency with software programming and remarked that Iwata could write programs faster and more accurately than any of his other students. I checked on the original source in Japanese. It looks like that Tomohiko Uematsu is Mr. Iwata's classmate who later became a professor. Also, he compared Iwata's programming ability against other classmates, not his students.
  2. HAL Laboratory
    1. Nintendo initially contacted several other developers to produce Open Tournament Golf; however, all of them declined as they did not believe the large amount of data could be stored within an NES cartridge. I checked the source. It actually refers to Golf, not Open Tournament Golf. The source says that "...After that, we made F-1 Race, ...", it implies that the golf game is released before F-1 Race (1984), thus ruling out the possibility of NES Open Tournament Golf.
  3. Nintendo -> Early years (2000-2002)
    1. Iwata also promoted Miyamoto, Genyo Takeda, Yoshihiro Mori, and Shinji Hatano to representative directors on the company's board of directors, equaling his own position. Neither of the two sources support this sentence. This report from Nintendo partly supports this claim, but it showed that Iwata's becoming president and Miyamoto etc.'s becoming directors happened at the same time, so I couldn't verify that Miyamoto, etc. were promoted by Iwata.
  4. Nintendo -> Revitalization of the company (2003–2009) -> Wii
    1. Due to his success, Barron's included Iwata on their list of the 30 top CEOs worldwide from 2007 to 2009. This sentence cites two sources, one in 2007 and one in 2009. I couldn't verify that he is also included on the list in year 2008. Maybe that Barron's source also includes this information, but it requires subscription. (Resolved)
  5. Nintendo -> Financial downturn (2010–2014)
    1. The bar chart on the right looks like one-year off. For example, by saying "fiscal year 2008", the source actually links to a finacial report dated from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008. Maybe it should be called "fiscal year 2007"?
      1. No, that's correct. A "fiscal year" is how a company tracks its own accounting, and often does not line up with the calendar year if the company has significant seasonal shifts in revenue (e.g. large sales numbers in December). They're numbered based on the calendar year they end on, so if Nintendo's fiscal year is April to March, their fiscal year 2008 would end March 2008. --PresN 06:18, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
        1. That said: going to Nintendo's Investor Relations page [1], their dropdown for fiscal year seems to suggest that "FY YYYY" means the fiscal year that ends on March 31, YYYY+1. (eg FY2014 ends March 31, 2015). This is the only place that I immediately see Nintendo say "FY2014" type of shortcuts, most of their docs are clearer as to "the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2015". --Masem (t) 19:48, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
        2. So checking the sources the FY2006 ref in the table is really FY2005 as the report is as March 31, 2005. Same all the way down. --Masem (t) 20:07, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
        3. The fiscal year is represented by the calendar year in which the period begins, found in fiscal year#Japan. I'm pretty sure Nintendo follows this rule. Milky·Defer >Please ping me while replying to me... 01:20, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
  6. Nintendo -> Mobile market and Switch (2015)
    1. Although he acknowledged the practice as a viable means of promoting games in the short-term, he considered the model outdated and not a sound direction for core development. Completely failed verification. The cited Engadget source have nothing to do with "free-to-start". The Time source mentioned nothing about promoting games in the short term. Also, according to the source, Mr. Iwata did not see "free-to-start" as outdated and "a bad direction for core development". What he said was that some people believe that traditional packaging model was outdated, but he did not think so. He believed that both "free-to-start" and traditional models have their suitable scenarios. Correct me if I am wrong.
  7. Illness and Death
    1. Following Iwata's death, general directors Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda temporarily managed the company together. Miyamoto and Takeda are not general directors. They are representative directors. The CNNMoney source didn't say that they were general directors, either.
    2. Buddhist funeral services for Iwata were held in Kyoto on July 16 and 17. Despite stormy weather produced by Typhoon Nangka, an estimated 4,100 people attended to pay their respects I checked the three sources in this sentence. Excluding the WSJ source which requires a subscription, the remaining two sources made no mention to Buddhist. One of them mentioned "Japanese custom", and I didn't really understand what's the link between buddist and custom. Also to mention, the Typhoon Nangka part is not direct enough. Sources mentioned that there was a typhoon, without saying its name. I think that there was only one typhoon in Japan at that time so I believe that might be fine. (Resolved, as nearly every funeral in Japanese customs are related to Buddism)
    3. and his ashes were buried at an undisclosed place in Kyoto Source did not claim that. It only claimed that his remains were cremated, but made no mention of its burying place.

As the source checking is still ongoing, there might be more problems throwing out by our community. Please help us by clarifying the facts from the article.

With gratitude, the sincere one representing the Chinese Wikipedia WikiProject Video games community: Milky·Defer >Please ping me while replying to me... 15:08, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

  • @MilkyDefer: did you reach out to the user who wrote the article? GamerPro64 17:41, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
    • Not quite yet... Shall I ping them? @Cyclonebiskit and Masem: Milky·Defer >Please ping me while replying to me... 17:49, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
      • I didn't write most of the lines in question but I can help on the Barron's: use this reference: Fillbeck, Greg; Gorman, Raymond; Zhao, Zin (2012). "Barron's Survey: The World's Best CEOs'". Accounting and Finance Research. 1 (1): 18–37. doi:10.5430/afr.v1n1p18. which you can find via this link [2]. Iwata's on the list from 2007 through 2009 (including 2008), but off in 2010. --Masem (t) 18:07, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
      • Alternatively this should be free to read for the 2008 list (the graphic is really small but if you use the browser to zoom, he's listed there). --Masem (t) 18:15, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
    • @Masem: Seems that Cyclonebiskit isn't around. Whom can I turn to? Milky·Defer >Please ping me while replying to me...

@GamerPro64, Masem, Cyclonebiskit, and PresN: Looks like not many people is caring about this thread. Is it a good idea that I put it into a Featured Article Review? Milky·Defer >Please ping me while replying to me... 16:53, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Accolade (company) FA

The article about Accolade is under review. I've been working on this one a while, with a lot of painstaking reference fixes and edits. But it might end up being archived (default fail) due to a lack of general reviewers. There's already been a thorough review of the references, and at least one general review, so it really just needs one or two more pairs of eyes on it. I don't mind doing some QPQ to review anyone else's work, if that's acceptable. Shooterwalker (talk) 00:33, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Shooterwalker, I'll get to it for ya, I'll do a QPQ for Paper Mario. Panini🥪 00:46, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Started that! Will get to it within the week. Thanks for helping. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:01, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Shooterwalker, Yeah, it's shame stuff like this does not get enough attention. I probably would've come around to review it in due time, not only because it's hanging off a cliff while I'm swimming in GT supports. Panini🥪 01:05, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Just repeating the same offer for other folks. I've already fixed many issues raised by a number of reviewers, so the work is already spread out. I don't mind doing a little work myself in exchange. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:02, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Mario 64 FA review

I have nominated Super Mario 64 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. HumanxAnthro (talk) 18:28, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

The Nomad Soul

Hi. I've come across a new editor who claims to be professionally connected to the subject of the good article The Nomad Soul. They wanted to add their name to the infobox before contacting me on my talk page. What should we do in this situation? I would like to get your opinions. ภץאคгöร 15:35, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  • The credits attribute "Project Manager" and "Graphics Manager" (a/k/a art director) to Olivier Demangel. The latter can probably be included with ease, but I'm not sure whether "Project Manager" constitutes director or producer in this case. It should be somehow different from "Internal Producer" (as opposed to publisher-side producer), which is Anne Devouassoux's credit. Demangel is also indeed mentioned as a co-founder in this Retro Gamer piece, which could be included over at Quantic Dream. I'm seeing no reliable source that connects him to The Nomad Soul specifically. IceWelder [✉] 15:55, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
    • Who does the manual actually attribute for producer/art director? QD does have a history of bad labor practices so I'm inclined to investigate this claim rather than dismiss it outright. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:07, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
      • Here's the manual scanned. There are three credited under the "Producer" title, one from QD and two from Eidos. The QD one is Anne Devouassoux. The Eidos ones are Harve Albertazzi as the UK "Producer", and Tom Marx as the US "Shadow Producer". There's no specific "art director" credited, but the credits for "Designs and Graphics" appear to be Loic Normand and Stephane Elbaz. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:46, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
        PDF scan of the manual via the steam store page for the game It mentions Olivier Demangel under page 40 as "project manager" and also part of "lead graphics". Was WP:BOLD and added it into the article given it's verified their inclusion and wasn't initially aware of this conversation.
        Could well be better director though? I'd be inclined to stick with their preference out of the two in absence of a convincing source saying one way or the other, unless an additional field for the term was added to the template (then obviously using that term). 94.13.35.21 (talk) 00:38, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Category:Video games that support [API]

I'm not sure what to make of these two categories. They might be non-defining, especially when the functionality is baked into the commercial engine the game uses, but could be few enough to be considered non-ubiquitous like Category:Unity (game engine) games, which was deleted a few weeks ago. IceWelder [✉] 16:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Minor note, the Lists for the same were both deleted at AFD. -- ferret (talk) 16:37, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
They are non-defining, like the game engine ones in that there are far too many games to be included. They should be CSD'd. Its only when the work is limited and thus the category becomes more defining, like Category:GameMaker Studio games, where these would be appropriate. --Masem (t) 19:51, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

In regards to citing video games for production staff

This is something that caught my eye during the review process of Kirby's Dream Course that The Rambling Man brought up: Was there ever a discussion here on Wikipedia that citing video games directly to list the development staff was valid or not? Just curious to know. (P.S: The closest things i could find were these three discussions specifically: Video game manual citations: Include uncredited, but verified authors?, Using game manuals as a source, Sourcing the games, official sources, and Kotaku.) Roberth Martinez (talk) 00:03, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

If there's no other good sources for staff, it makes me wonder why it's getting mentioned at all (I've spent plenty of time reverting unsourced additions of minor creative staff into infobox fields, so I'm definitely all for making sure it's got a secondary citation.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 23:56, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, we often have names just added to the infobox field sourced to the game itself for the "smaller" credits fields (artists, writers, etc.) The only two fields really should be added if they can't be externally sourced would be lead director and lead producer (as with films and television). --Masem (t) 13:17, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
This has been my approach as well - if there hasn't been third party sourcing, it's generally not worth mentioning. Sergecross73 msg me 13:45, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

New Articles (March 8 to March 14)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.5 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 15:13, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

March 8

March 10

March 11

March 12

March 13

March 14

  • Yeah, looks like the issue is that the double redirect from Draft:Paper.io to Paper.io to Voodoo confused the script. Removed. --PresN 15:45, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I was a bit surprised to see that split, considering talk page discussion was leaning towards not splitting it. That said, the separate Bowsers Fury article did end up looking better than I thought, though I'm not sure how I feel about some of the framing that seems to suggest that it is it's own game with a port of 3D World tacked on, instead of the opposite, which is how most sourcing (and everything else) frames it. Sergecross73 msg me 13:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Accessibility in tables

As experienced editors, you all have, of course, at least skimmed through WP:ACCESS to learn about providing accessibility to readers using screen-reading software, which includes both blind and partially-sighted readers and people who find reading glowing text exhausting, because you want your articles to be read by as many people as possible. And you therefore, of course, know that whenever you make a table, you should define the column headers with !scope="col" and the first cell of each row with !scope="row", so that screen reader software can parse the nonsensical soup that is the modern wikitable, and allow readers using it to understand your table just like sighted readers instead of getting mangled garbage.

You probably don't know, but maybe you did, that you're also supposed to add captions to your tables with |+ Caption Text so that screen readers, which need clear guidance to allow the reader to "scroll to a table", can do so. And that if such a caption would be the same as a section header you can "hide" it with the {{sronly}} template like |+ {{sronly|Invisible Caption Text}}

But I guarantee that you didn't know that, just like the "|+" thing works for regular wikitables, that our video game table templates like {{Video game titles}} and {{Video game table}} also support table captions, using the handy |caption= parameter! Mainly because I added it to those templates like 30 minutes ago. But now you know, so do your non-visual readers a favor. --PresN 03:57, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Those two templates are not particularly accessible because they are using tables as layout, and in such tables it is actually advised not to set a caption (or was last I checked). :) --Izno (talk) 15:31, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
As per side conversation in discord, I've asked at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility about if the templates are parseable at all by screen readers, and for clarification on the caption issue. --PresN 16:04, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
Response is that the templates are accessible to screen readers, and that they count as data tables, so we're good to go on using captions. --PresN 13:58, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game

Sorry, I'm not a gamer. Would RuPaul's Drag Race: The Mobile Game be considered part of WikiProject Video games and would Template:Infobox video game be the most appropriate infobox for this article? ---Another Believer (Talk) 19:42, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. WPVG covers all video game-related articles, including mobile games.--AlexandraIDV 20:23, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Alexandra IDV, Thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 21:55, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
@Another Believer: (didn't do the ping correctly)--AlexandraIDV 20:24, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Although it arguably should not be an article yet. It was announced mere hours ago. IceWelder [✉] 20:32, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Not in its current state, no, but this strikes me as the type of game that would garner a lot of coverage, so it might be able to stand on its own depending on how much they revealed and if anyone takes the time to bulk it up. Sergecross73 msg me 20:45, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Sergecross73, I have no doubt members of WikiProject RuPaul's Drag Race and other fans will help expand the entry as more coverage is published. We are an active group and have been working hard to promote related articles to Good status. Expect me to return later this year with a request for project members here to make the page as video game-compliant as possible. :) Thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:08, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Wow, I had no idea there was a whole Ru Paul Wikiproject. But yes, I had no intention of pursuing deletion. It strikes me of one of those scenarios where someone sends it to AFD because the article looks rough and then it gets kept unanimously because there's a ton of sources out there. Sergecross73 msg me 23:40, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

On our history articles again

I've been spending last several days editing the History of video games article to de-emphasize its focus around console generations (though it is hard to hide that there are key points in VG history that happen on console generation end points like the crash of 83. This is by no means complete or fully sourced, but this was a key step. A second step I need to do is to deemphasize similarly on History of video game consoles (focusing more on the larger trends of the industry and technology and again, not on the hard lines of generations outside of where there is clear delination). This is not to say I'm fully removing generations: my plan is to move that to this page that I've drafted User:Masem/drafts/Home video game console generations that presented the console breakdown from that viewpoint, and the generations will still be called out where appropriate in the console history article.

Does this look like a sensible plan moving forward? --Masem (t) 20:56, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Masem, I like the look of both articles, although I would support naming Home video game console generations to History of home video game console generations in the style of the History of video games article. I would also suggest making those statistics tables at the end of each generation collapsed at first because, in my opinion, it breaks up the text in a way that it looks kinda icky scrolling through. Panini🥪 03:53, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Collapsing information is a big no-no per MOS, unless you collapse into something that summarizes it reasonably (eg the way we collapse release dates in the infobox). --Masem (t) 04:59, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Forgive me, still learning, you can never know everything about the MoS. Looks good, then. Panini🥪 17:14, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Melbourne_Queer_Games_Festival

Hi! Pinging this group at the wonderful suggestion of Irisdescent. I took on an attempt to rescue Draft:Melbourne_Queer_Games_Festival which was speedied, as I think it's an important topic. Alas, my knowledge of video games is minimal. Is anyone available to see what else could be done with this? Thanks StarM 21:04, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

@Star Mississippi: The article looks good enough for mainspace. I'd say just move it back, especially as the editor who nominated it for A7 did so 2 minutes after approving it through ACFH, which was obviously improper. (On their userpage they've apologised for their actions so I won't go into it further.) Satellizer el Bridget (Talk) 04:37, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Thank you! I think too more people likely to stumble on it there and (hopefully) improve. Have a great day. StarM 13:41, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Question regarding lists (multiple rel. dates)

Hey guys, I wanted to translate List of Ubisoft games to Czech, but I was confused by a "new" system, which I've never seen before in the English Wikipedia. It wouldn't go through the rules there (in the Czech Wikipedia), it's not standard and overcomplicated (some games are even mentioned numerous times). I know it's common to add all release dates in the infobox, but in the list? So I wanted to ask, if this kind of list is normal practice here. Thank you RiniX (talk) 16:34, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

This list is not properly split at all. We do not normally divide video game lists of this nature by year, but by alphabet. This page was split improperly, in my personal view. -- ferret (talk) 16:42, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
I understand why video game lists for consoles need to be alphabetical, but for a list of video games based on a developer, wouldn't it be beneficial for it to be chronological?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 16:45, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
@Blue Pumpkin Pie: Maybe. I personally look for alphabetical tables. Either way, these (at least the Activision one given as example below) don't even have TOCs or links between each other, which is problematic. -- ferret (talk) 18:00, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Sorry, I didn't express myself clearly. I meant tables (like in List of Activision games: 2010–2019 and so on). RiniX (talk) 16:47, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
There's a second major problem in that we are listing every game published by Ubisoft. We usually do not do that - that's better suited for a category if anything. Obviously once we get to their post-2000 period where they have dozens of operating in-house studios, and with their big titles worked on by multiple studios, we're still going to look at a long list, but for games that are based on third-party developers they did not own, we should not be included those in a list. Basically, we want only the games where Ubisoft or one of their owned studios was creatively involved, and not where they just published and marketed. This is also the same problem with the Activision list that I see as well. --Masem (t) 16:50, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
I didn't want to write here at first, but I found out that one user asked about this formatting (mentioning one game multiple times) before. If I recall correctly it was in this discussion. Normally you have, I don't know, 20 main games and 50 games from third-party developers, but now you have 100+ games with this format. For example Call of Duty Ghosts is mentioned three times in Activision list. RiniX (talk) 17:02, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, the way these lists don't group multi-platform releases when they're on different dates is also a problem- things get listed in multiple places and it's not obvious without sorting/searching what platforms a game was released for, and with the year splits you get games split across lists. I agree with the others- it would be better to have split it as "Games developed by Ubisoft" and "Games published by Ubisoft", with the second list possibly not existing. --PresN 17:28, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
And just thinking about these large publishers more and the large-ness of these lists, I do wonder if it makes sense if we split them by "Games developed by <lead studio>" so that we'd have "List of games developed by Ubisoft Montreal" for example, which we can gang up at a top-level page. That feels a more natural split for these and respects the studio boundaries (and creative facets) than by years. Note that this would not include a game that a studio may have supported in development - eg in the AssCreed games, there's only going to be one lead studio, even if 10-15 others assisted, we'd not list the game for those studios. --Masem (t) 17:53, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
I think it's a good idea to split it in developer/publisher. But if I come back, I just don't understand the trend to add multiple release dates (trend of one user to be precise). Lists were formatted by individual titles and their first (original) release date before. Now it's more about each platform and its release date. You can find first AC game in 2020 list, because Ubisoft will release it on VR. It's just... overcomplicated and confusing (dammit I didn't even know at first, how it was sorted). RiniX (talk) 18:20, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Thoughts on Characters of Halo

A longtime target for cleanup for me has been Characters of Halo, which has a long and rather torturous history of different names and going from being treated as a 'list' to an 'article'. (List of Halo characters, List of Halo series characters, Characters in the Halo series, List of Halo characters again before its present naming.) At this point, though, working on cleanup, I'm wondering if it's better off back as a list.

Even with the high inclusion threshold of "this is only for major recurring characters", there's 30+ novels and more than a dozen games. That's a ton of characters, and a lot of them don't actually have the sources for meaningful commentary (Major supporting characters like Linda and Kelly, palling around with Master Chief, I won't be able to find a non-primary source for basic info beyond "this character appears here", which makes me think a shorter list structure is a better format.) There's also not much I can write to make a cohesive reception or even development section at this point because the franchise has two major developers and we're talking about 20 years of development; I also don't have sources that talk about the characters of Halo in aggregate, so any reception section is going to boil down to "they liked these characters/they didn't like these ones" (and unnamed will be the characters who don't have any reception info about them.) My current line of thinking is to gut it down, stripping out plot details beyond simple lists of appearances and voice acting/portrayal credits for characters who don't have real coverage, and maybe stick the faction organizations into tables versus prose. Thoughts? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 15:16, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I lean towards keeping it as an article because I always like more context. But I wouldn't feel strongly, and the list approach also makes sense. It makes sense to take the characters without third party reception, and try to cover those in a condensed form. The more organized the better. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:48, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
If Characters of Halo transitions into "List of Halo characters" which covers a broader range of characters but in brief detail, may I suggest that Spartan (Halo) be split out and discussed as a concept in a standalone article which goes into more context then a list article? Most media in the series revolve around them as the protagonists, and there is a substantial amount of independent coverage from game reviews to op-eds and academic publications which discuss characters with Spartan backgrounds (besides Master Chief) in aggregate that have emerged over the years, like Halo Reach's Noble Team or the post-Halo 3 new generation of Spartans. Even Sgt Johnson was technically part of one version of the program according to the background lore built around the franchise, and I note as well that the upcoming Halo TV series will feature several Spartans as part of the supporting cast, unlike the original trilogy where Master Chief was the only Spartan depicted. Haleth (talk) 08:54, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Sorry for coming late into this discussion. I believe "Characters of Halo" should be kept. It's not just a list, it contains voice acting, concept, and design information. In my humble opinion, It might be better to add a reception section that summarizes all the available reception for all characters. That way it establishes it as a full article.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 15:09, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
The problem is that kind of reception section makes no sense to me. We're not talking about characters in a game series, we're talking about a franchise. So how do you adequately make a reception section for a topic that spans multiple forms of media and will mostly only mention three or four characters and none of the rest? I have the same issues with the development and merchandising sections. Besides saying "they made action figures of these guys", there's not much else there, and while you can (and I did) write a cogent enough explanation for the development of the game characters, that only works for the characters Bungie developed, not 343 or the dozen-plus authors who have contributed. The sources just aren't there. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 22:14, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Pretty sure that this is right: you can't make a reception section for a series of characters across a franchise. Even for something like Characters of Overwatch where a single dev studio has run the game, while the development can be broadly talked about , it still is necessary to describe the development of each character and reception on a per character level. --Masem (t) 23:10, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Anarchy Minecraft Servers Article

Hi all; I was hoping for advice on making a new article on the topic of Minecraft Anarchy Servers. I recently saw that there wasn't very much information on Minecraft anarchy servers here on Wikipedia. There's a page for Minecraft servers as a whole; and on that page they do have a list of notable servers, including one anarchy server, 2b2t. Side note: The 2b2t article is excellent; it does a really great job of covering the 2b2t server in detail. However there are other notable anarchy servers, and semi-anarchy servers, and I think having a page on the genre as a whole might be helpful.

I do have a draft article submitted for review currently, here-> Draft:Minecraft_Anarchy_Servers, but I'd like to improve it while it's pending review. Previous advice from the Teahouse forum I posted a question in indicated the sources for this draft probably wouldn't be sufficient for an article. I've since edited it with their advice in mind, adding a RockPaperShotgun article citation, and a Gamepur article citation and I removed wiki/unreliable website citations.

Overall though I think the article is still lacking good sources. If anybody has any suggestions or ideas for better sources on this topic or just suggestions in general, I'd really appreciate your input! Like I said before I originally I posted a question about this topic in the Teahouse Forum, but I was redirected to this community by another user(shoutout to User:Panini!), since that discussion page is more for general questions about being an editor. Since this forum is specific to video game topics they thought it might be better suited to this topic. This was the original post if anyone wanted to check it out: original Wikipedia-Teahouse Post Thanks for reading! Its choosday innit (talk) 18:52, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Generally speaking for an topic to warrant a standalone article it needs to meet the general notability guideline (GNG), meaning the topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. And from looking at the sources in the draft the only two reliable third party sources are the RockPaperShotgun, and a Gamepur in listicles, it seems unlikely to warrant its own article unless you can establish more notability.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 18:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
@Its choosday innit: Hey! I'm one of the editors of the 2b2t article which you mentioned. Personally, I don't think the topic of anarchy servers warrants an article. There can definitely be something about it in the Minecraft server article though. Maybe a new section that details the different types of servers (minigame servers vs anarchy servers)? That would be your best bet. There really just isn't much to write about (that's sourced) in a full article. —  Melofors  TC  00:40, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Melofors, As an old Minecraft fan, I know those aren't the two only types of servers. I think the Minecraft server article should cover popular types of server genres, and then there should be a separate list of notable Minecraft servers (List of Minecraft servers). Panini🥪 02:24, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Panini!, how many of them are notable besides the anarchy one and Hypixel? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 02:50, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

New Articles (March 15 to March 21)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.5 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 04:04, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

March 15

March 16

March 17

March 18

March 19

March 20

March 21

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 February 26#Category:Male villains

A discussion on whether villains should be categorized by gender or lumped together, if anyone has an opinion. This would cover categories for video game characters. Liz Read! Talk! 20:25, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Colours in infoboxes

See Mario, Princess Peach, Waluigi and other Mario character pages - was there consensus to add colours to the character infoboxes or was it done unilaterally? I haven't been too active on Wikipedia recently but I think I remember previous consensus being that such colours are inappropriate as they are an unnecessary distraction. Satellizer el Bridget (Talk) 03:51, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for asking, I've actually wondered that too. It's one of those things where I see people tinkering with it so much that I forget what I should even revert it back to... Sergecross73 msg me 10:55, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
It's also included in Mario (franchise) in my humble opinion, I think the colors should be removed. they don't add much, and it can be distracting. And this is just a personal thing, but I find red to be a very aggressive color that can agitate me when reading those articles.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 13:21, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
The ability to apply color to infoboxes and navboxes should be removed, in my humble opinion. Much of the time, people who are trying to match them with logo/franchise colors pay no attention at all to accessibility issues, lack of discernable borders, contrast, etc. Remove it all with extreme prejudice. -- ferret (talk) 14:46, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Get rid. I don't see how this is of benefit to us. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:50, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm all in for removal, but this should be elevated to a template-level discussion for all infoboxes. IceWelder [✉] 14:53, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Good luck with that. Izno (talk) 15:13, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
I think it's important to note that, as far as I'm aware, the colours in the aforementioned articles are actually in line with accessibility guidelines (specifically MOS:ONWHITE and MOS:COLORS). That being said, I'm not opposed to their removal; they appear to be entirely decorative, which is forbidden per MOS:INFOBOX. – Rhain ☔ 15:06, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm neutral on this, can really go either way. I don't pay attention to articles on characters, so editors constantly changing colors of the infobox hasn't been any issue with me. Would be fine with either option. Namcokid47 19:37, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
I also support removal (at least for characters and not something like a sports team) as it is decorative and doesn't really add information, which should be avoided per MOS:INFOBOX. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:46, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Agree with removal. They can interfere with legibility depending on the colors, and they are purely decorative. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:11, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Also support removal. I believe they generally give a less professional, fan-wiki vibe. Sergecross73 msg me 19:44, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks all. I completely agree, especially that it makes us looks like a Fandom website. I've gotten the ball rolling by removing colours from the Mario, Zelda, Smash, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Pokemon character pages. Satellizer el Bridget (Talk) 05:43, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Infobox color templates nominated for deletion

On a related note, I have nominated Template:Pokémon color, Template:Mario color, Template:Donkey Kong color, Template:The Legend of Zelda color and Template:Animal Crossing color for deletion as their sole purpose was to add the color of their respective franchises into infoboxes. Any input is appreciated here. Satellizer el Bridget (Talk) 05:53, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

  • I'd also propose we just remove the color parameter from the infobox as well, unless there's an actual valid use for it. I can't see how any other Wikiproject can excuse the use of it being purely decorative. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:37, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Inquisition DLC merge discussion

Hi! I have started a merge/redirect discussion for List of Dragon Age: Inquisition downloadable content here. All opinions are welcome. OceanHok (talk) 13:52, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion for updating the History navbox template

Currently we have the template {{History of video games}}. We also, separately, have {{Video games by country}} which appears duplicative of this, though as I noted when this latter template was nominated for deletion, most of the country articles are more than just history or omit it all together.

That said, I'd like to suggest making the History template a containerized navbox, to include three sub navboxes:

For everyone, they would not have to do anything, but I'd want to make sure this makes sense before doing it, or if there are other possible "history" series that could be added. --Masem (t) 20:48, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I have made this change, I do not expect it to impact any pages but just making sure people are aware it has happened. --Masem (t) 19:34, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

AM2R and where it belongs in Metroid

After a couple of reverts (one by me and another by anonymous editor), by TheJoebro64 and Popcornfud both believe the fan remake AM2R should be included in Metroid as part of the series' history. The MOS doesn't cover how fan remakes should be covered or where they belong, but based on my experience fan remakes or fan content that is notable falls under the legacy section.

AM2R is noteworthy and definitely does deserve mention, but it's influence or impact on the series itself isn't confirmed, its more legacy content. According to the creators of Metroid, AM2R did not influence the creation of the official remake [3]. I however do think that certain fan remakes should be included in the history if confirmed that they influenced the main series.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 21:55, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I commented on the talk page there, but I suggest making a Legacy section that wraps in the "Metroidvania" section to talk about games known to be influenced by Metroid like Axiom Verge and Shadow Complex, of which then adding notable fan makes could be discussed. --Masem (t) 21:59, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Resident Evil 4 article updates/split needed

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Talk:Resident Evil 4#Updates needed: platforms, and remake. Short version: The infobox is wrong; and we need a Resident Evil 4 (2014 video game) to go along with other such remake articles in this franchise.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:02, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

General-topic article badly needed: Virtual-reality game

It's high time we had an actual article at Virtual-reality game. It used to redirect to Virtual reality#Video games but there is no such section (I've fixed it for now to just go to the top of that article). But it shouldn't redirect there anyway. I've tagged that redir with {{R with possibilities}}. We have an entire Category:Virtual reality games but not {{Catmain}} article for it. We should have that separate article on the game type/genre/style/platform, whatever you want to call it, since it is not the same topic as the hardware, and we have other articles on every other type of video game, and VR game design is significantly different from traditional 2D, 2.5D, and 3D game dev, both technologically and as to game mechanics. However, I don't have a background in this (I don't have a system capable of doing modern VR, and I don't have a headset), so someone who knows what they're writing about should take this on. PS: Other redirects should point to the eventual final article (or section, if it starts as a section again): Virtual-reality games, Virtual-reality gaming, Virtual reality game, Virtual reality games, Virtual reality gaming, VR game, VR games, VR gaming, maybe also "... development" redirs too, if there's eventually a section specifically about that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:31, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I've started a workable page at Virtual reality game (I don't think you need the dash as I don't believe there is confusion on the term (eg "Virtual-reality" game compared to Virtual "reality-game" - there's no such common thing as a reality game. --Masem (t) 16:37, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Which no one knows other than people steeped in video games, a field that generates new genres all the time. MOS:DASH exists for a reason, and instructs us to hyphenate compound modifiers. The claim is dubious anyway. It's highly likely that various TV series have resulted in video game spinoffs, and given the term for the TV genre, the game genre's name would be pretty obvious. If it hasn't happened yet it will (and the fact that it's misnomer, since this stuff bears little resemblance to reality, won't matter).

Anyway, that's a fantastic off-the-cuff new article, already twice as good I would have expected so soon!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:18, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

The way I've seen a discussion at MOS:HYPHEN is related to the specific advice "A hyphen can help to disambiguate (some short-story writers are quite tall; a government-monitoring program is a program that monitors the government, whereas a government monitoring program is a government program that monitors)." If we were talking "Virtual reality television sets" there's a need to hyphenate since that could be 'virtual reality' television sets or virtual 'reality television' sets, which both have possible logical meanings. But as there's a lack of a term "reality game", so in this case "virtual reality game" has only one possible meaning that can be read into it. That said, perhaps there needs to be a RFC specifically in the area of virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality technology apps and games whether we should broadly used the dashed form or not for these types of articles. --Masem (t) 01:59, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Ok, everyone take a deep breath, and say it with me: "what do reliable sources call it?" (answer: no hyphen). --PresN 02:17, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
As to keep the issue of hyphenation at one place, there's a move discussion at Talk:Virtual reality headset (which this article was also added). --Masem (t) 02:25, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
As noted over there, the above argument is an obvious WP:Specialized-style fallacy. When Encyclopaedia Britannica hyphenates "virtual-reality" as a compound adjective, that is a much, much more reliable source for how to write English in an encyclop[a]edic register than what gamer websites are doing, which are written by gamers for gamers, without much regard to formality level of English. You'll also note they over-capitalize like mad, drop commas that should be there, and have other bad habits of low-end news writing. If WP wrote articles about subject X (whatever X might be, video games in this case) in the style of specialty publications devoted to X, then WP would have no style guide at all, because it would never come into play. If you were writing about sports, you would use the style of sports journalism. If you were writing about reptiles and amphibians you would use the style of herpetology journals. But WP clearly does not do that, and has its own style guide for good reasons.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:09, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I added a little bit in there and might do more in the future. After Paper Mario was promoted to GT I've been having an identity crisis and have been jumping from project to project. Panini🥪 02:22, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Is this notable?

I found that the PC mod of a Yakuza game revealed that the player could use the face of Takayuki Yagami from Judgment (video game) in Yakuza 2 Kiwami but I couldn't find anything about Sega's staff commenting on the news in response.Tintor2 (talk) 14:17, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks.Tintor2 (talk) 21:28, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Current Devil May Cry logo needs to be replaced because it's not an official one from Capcom

I've notified at the Devil May Cry template talk, but I wasn't sure if it'll get noticed. Per the uploader's description of in File:DMC-logo.png used as the logo in the info box, it's a fan creation, not an official one from Capcom. Recommending that it should be replaced with namely this version. -23.241.11.196 (talk) 04:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Yeah the former is obviously fan creation. About the logo you're proposing, it's the same as File:Devil-may-cry.png, right? enjoyer|talk 05:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Ah, the former is actually intended to replicate the Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening logo. enjoyer|talk 05:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Oh, there we go! Good catch! Would I be stepping out off my bounds on replacing the previous fan-created one on both the main page and template with the one you found? -23.241.11.196 (talk) 06:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
My concern is that even though it's supposed to mimic DMC3's, I think Capcom tends to default to the first game, although they've probably switched over to 5's logo since it's a more recent release. -23.241.11.196 (talk) 06:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Much appreciated. -23.241.11.196 (talk) 08:31, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The need for Category:Single-platform video games

I am questioning the need for the Category:Single-platform video games tree. It is poorly defined, does the Virtual Console or other similar services count as grounds for the category's removal? Does a game getting remade count? What is the purpose of Category:Wii and Wii U-only games? (Oinkers42) (talk) 18:22, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I have personally used these categories extensively in locating particular pages; they have been massively useful for that purpose for me. I refer to the WP:USEFUL principle that "There are some pages within Wikipedia that are supposed to be useful navigation tools and nothing more—disambiguation pages, categories, and redirects, for instance—so usefulness is the basis of their inclusion; for these types of pages, usefulness is a valid argument." On that basis alone, these categories have their place. As for re-releases, the standard practice is that VC releases count as releases, so any such games should have the single-platform category removed. Conversely, any remake different enough from the original to have its own WP entry does not count as a re-release; this logic appears to be consistently applied throughout the categories. I agree the "Wii and Wii U-only" category is unnecessary, though. Phediuk (talk) 22:29, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I find these categories useful. You can learn a lot about a system by looking at the games that weren't ported. Inclusion in emulated collections (Capcom Classics, etc.), and the emulated version being sold through one of Microsoft or Nintendo's stores doesn't change single-platform-ness for me. Dgpop (talk) 15:38, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Personally, I find the "-only" distinguishing of any category to be very arbitrary. Like, why not "Single-player-only video games" or "Puzzle-only video games" or "Isometric-only video games" or any other category that isn't mutually exclusive? But platform-exclusivity is apparently important and useful enough, which is enough for allowed categorization guidelines. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 15:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Gameplay needs no sources?

According to @Dgpop, "Basic gameplay descriptions don't need citations, per project VG".[4] I reckon that a lack of sources is only excusable for plot sections as the information is easily obtained in the game while being rarely covered in-depth by secondary sources (as opposed to gameplay). However, neither that nor Dgpop's claim appear to be written down anywhere (as far as I can tell). Seeking some clarity/consensus and a definite, citable guideline for this. IceWelder [✉] 15:47, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

IceWelder, In my stance, "of course it does!" I've been told in a variety of reviews of mine that the section needs more citations. However, now that I'm thinking about it I've never seen this set-in-stone. Panini🥪 15:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Gameplay absolutely needs sources, but 90% of the time you should be able to get that from reviews if there haven't been sources added yet. That's because there can be OR around gameplay (eg how certain systems actually behave that are not written in a manual, how systems interact, etc.) so we should only describe gameplay to the level that RSes give (and not go to GAMEGUIDE level) Plot is different - the game is assumed to be the source itself (as we do for a film or a book), but that's because anyone can "watch" the game and come up with the plot without interpretation or original research. --Masem (t) 16:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Looking at MOS:VG, the only thing that may be an inference issue is that we specifically state that the plot does not need sources (WP:VG/PLOT) but do not state anything about sources for other sections. It would be implied that coupled with policy WP:V that sources are thus otherwise required if we don't say otherwise. --Masem (t) 16:21, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
I had sources removed from Gameplay sections in several articles, because basic gameplay is visible in the game and manual. That sounded reasonable, and I thought there was a supporting link. After searching through the MOS I see that it says the opposite (though the quote I found 15 minutes ago I can no longer locate). In the meantime, I've been going lighter on gameplay citations. Sorry for the confusion IceWelder. Dgpop (talk) 16:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Gameplay still requires citation, even if there is a manual out there. I consider the manuals to be separate documents that can be used in articles, but we shouldn't be removing valid sources that explain gameplay.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 16:41, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
No problem at all! I've heard this from multiple editors but now we have a definite guideline for future reference. IceWelder [✉] 20:31, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
  • MOS:PLOTSOURCE applies to video games as works of fiction. To quote the relevant portion: "The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary. However, editors are encouraged to add sourcing if possible, as this helps discourage original research." -- Calidum 16:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
And as I mentioned, MOS:VG references this specifically for the plot section. We do not assume the same for gameplay, however; that needs some degree of sourcing. We do allow this sourcing to come from game manuals and guide books, but better sourcing is usually from reviews and other articles about the game. But because this is not part of the game itself, they need the separate sorucing --Masem (t) 16:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
My bad, I was conflating the two sections. I would agree game play aspects can likely be sourced to reviews and other similar coverage. -- Calidum 17:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
  • As Masem has said, that is our stance on plot summaries, not gameplay sections. And even that only applies to general objective, non-contentious type stuff. Sergecross73 msg me 17:16, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Is it worth clarifying this (gameplay needs to be sourced) in the MOS? (I'd specifically note that this is where primary sources like manuals may be used to a limited degree but we'd prefer secondary sources whenever possible) --Masem (t) 17:24, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I believe there should be a mention of printed manuals being acceptable if there's no other source that covers the content but always relies on second and third-party sources. I've seen it where manual-based sources have been removed in the past.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Thank you very much! IceWelder [✉] 20:31, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Mario is a dirty man, in a "he needs cleanup" kind of way

Despite me juggling three different projects, I've considered doing a cleanup on Mario. One of the issues brought up on the talk page mentioned that it needs to be cut of prose about the series he stars in. So, to what extent should I bring up his series? Panini🥪 15:47, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Side note, it appears my post attracted a wild (Oinkers42) to add categories to my draft. Thanks, Oinkers. Panini🥪 16:04, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, the header really caught my attention. (Oinkers42) (talk) 16:21, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Definitely agree it needs work. I keep an eye on it, and will continue to, but mostly in a "keeping it from getting even worse" capacity. Sergecross73 msg me 16:28, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Question about fair use images

Mario has a lot different appearances and has a variety of different looks throughout. I added an image of Paper Mario in there and looking at the Mickey Mouse article there are a lot of fair use images showing his different roles there. Would it be fine if I did something similar at this article, just a set of images showing Mario in his notable appearances? Panini🥪 10:29, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

You need sourced critical commentary that discusses the change in Mario's appearance (such as why changes were made) that necessitate the need to show different versions; you can't just add them because there were variations that you can document. --Masem (t) 12:55, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Well, of course. I might add an image or two about powerups, but that's mainly it. Panini🥪 12:57, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
When you say "an image or two", I hope you mean "an image", not "two". There's no reason to have multiple images of powerups unless, like Masem said, there is sourced critical commentary that discusses both of the images/appearances. Honestly, as the article currently stands, I struggle to see how the two images in "RPG games" are justifiable; neither the individual rationales nor the image caption seems to provide a reason for their inclusion. Compare that to, say, the image in the "Power-ups" section, which provides a visual representation of one of Mario's suits derived from a real animal, or the Super Mario 64 image in "Main appearances", which demonstrates Mario's physical appearance in his first 3D rendering—both of these effectively meet the non-free content criteria (particularly #8). Currently, the two images in "RPG games" fail to do the same, and ultimately just feel like decoration. – Rhain ☔ 13:39, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
I just said "screw it" and removed them both. I'll listen to you on images for the time being, so forgive me for adding unnecessary images, but I will make this article good. Or at the least better. Or just good in general... Panini🥪 13:47, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't think we want to discourage you from thinking of good ways to illustrate articles, but we do need editors to keep in mind that our non-free use policy is stricter than fair use allows, by design, and we need a bit more forethought into using commercial images. If you can find sources that get into detail of the distinction of Mario's appearance (ideally, why they had to draw/design Mario that way for those games), then the images could easily be used. You should keep this in mind as you are doing the work to improve the article as you may find this in sources that you weren't looking for it to start. --Masem (t) 14:00, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Masem, I'm not discouraged, just as an image enthusiast I wish we could pull a Super Mario Wiki and use all the images we want. One of the main problems I'm having with this article is talking about the character Mario himself and not the entire franchise. Panini🥪 14:05, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Other mini questions that demand too much brainpower so I'm asking them here

I might come up with a lot of questions about this kinda messy article, so if you don't mind I'll post them here in bulleted form. I know this getting kinda lengthy but Mario is one of our only top-rated articles and is considered a level 4 vital article.

  • I bet I can find a lot about the history of the audition and other info about Charles Martinet voicing Mario. Should this be brought up?
  • Should the article bring up the individual plot of each game in the Super Mario series he stars in? Or is it not really that important? Panini🥪 15:27, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
    Sourced info on how Nintendo selected Martinet would be very much appropriate to include. As to the second question, I think the Main Appearances section sufficiently covers that facet, though a higher-level statement something like "Across most games, Mario, with the help of his brother Luigi and the residents of the Mushroom Kingdom, rescues Princess Peach from Bowser and his minions." in the "Appearance and profession" section. --Masem (t) 18:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
    Masem, Would you say to apply the plot for the "other games" section, such as the RPGs, sports, puzzle, and education games (the latter two I'm making in the near future)? Panini🥪 19:41, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
    As Dissident says, it doesn't make sense to detail any game's plot in any depth. You can possibly mention in very broad strokes that Mario's adventures have taken him to other kingdoms/areas or faced other baddies beyond Bowser, but we're talking at most a sentence or two for that. Because of the complex history of the Super Mario Bros. series with all the spin-off series, this is not the article to try to collapse Mario's "biography" across all games. I just think it makes sense to touch on the common elements that come up in any Mario game (Luigi, Peach, Toad, and Bowser). --Masem (t) 20:05, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
    That's what I planned on doing. Panini🥪 20:08, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
    I'd omit basically anything to do with plot outside of a generic "Mario saves Peach who was kidnapped by Bowser", which is pretty much the entire series anyway. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 18:50, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
    I made a similar edit over at Bowser (character) that removes details on every single appearance. The same approach can be used at Mario, too. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 22:13, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
    I'm drafting up a way this section could be formatted in a sandbox. I'll ping you guys when I'm done for thoughts. Panini🥪 00:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    Masem, Dissident93, ThomasO1989, I got the draft for a sample concept here. Would this be a good plan going forth? With citation and the actual info, obviously. Panini🥪 01:13, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    It looks about right.~ ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:40, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    Maybe add a section on spinoffs, crossovers, and non-gaming media? (Oinkers42) (talk) 20:39, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
    (Oinkers42), No worries, Oinkers; everything from the "Other Mario games" down is staying, and I've been improving them directly. You can see I revamped the RPG and sports game series, added an educational games section, and am working on a puzzle games section at User:Panini!/sandbox6. Panini🥪 22:12, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm writing the "puzzle games" section and I'm really struggling, actually. Surely there must be more to say about Mario in the entire Dr. Mario series than there is to say about Hotel Mario, right? If anyone finds anything, please let me know. Meanwhile, working on the "2D games" section and since most of the Mario-2D articles are of such good quality most of the work has already been done for me. Panini🥪 14:18, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I've also begun to fill out the "2D games" section on User:Panini!/sandbox5. However, I've only tackled four games and it's getting decently long already. Surely this isn't that much of an issue though, considering its replacing the cruft that's currently there? Panini🥪 18:56, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
    You may want to consider asking these "mini questions" on the #wpvg channel on WP:DISCORD. Its a more appropriate forum for stuff like this and lots of the regulars are there. If you continue posting here regularly, it will prevent the thread from being archived. TarkusABtalk/contrib 19:27, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
    TarkusAB, *Inhale*, Tarkus, why must you be too smart. I'll get discord soon. Panini🥪 21:10, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I saw this over at the MOS talk pages WT:MOS#Use of "Gameography" vs "Ludography" in headings for biographies which our project likely has interest in helping to address. --Masem (t) 18:36, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Life is Strange vs Life Is Strange

It seems like Square Enix has revised their name to "Life is Strange" (the grammatically correct) to the previous "Life Is Strange" according to their website. I'm wondering if we should revise all the titles back. The Majority of sources address the series and games with the lower case "is". What do you think?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 20:16, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Always capitalized: (...) Every verb, including forms of to be (Be, Am, Is, Are, Being, Was, Were, Been)

Emphasis theirs. Life Is Strange is correct. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 20:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
i understand. sorry for the topic.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 00:03, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
That is exactly what I had pointed out on the talk page. A relevant question would be if it qualifies for "stylized as" as I have argued there. IgelRM (talk) 19:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
We avoid using "stylized as" for simple case differences, like this. We try to keep it for the less obvious cases like at F.E.A.R. 3 (or F.3.A.R.) --Masem (t) 19:15, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I understand that. But I am arguing that this is an edge case because of its consistent use by reliable sources and the retroactive change of the original product title, which I think gives this more relevance. I realize this is still not a strong reason, but the topic has consistently come up with each article in the series, either on the talk page or edit history. IgelRM (talk) 19:56, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
The reason we try to avoid minor capitalization-as-stylization issues is that clearly someone coming along is not going to confuse the game's cover that may be "Life is Strange" and think our article "Life Is Strange" is any different. On the other hand, the example of "F.3.A.R." is one where a person may see that as "F.E.A.R." and not realize its "F.E.A.R. 3". Basically to call this out is pointing out WP's MOS being different from other style guides and that's something we tend to avoid unless there's a practical reason for it. (eg we push on "Xbox Series X/S" rather than "Xbox Series X|S" as the latter, if used in piped links would break WP markup). --Masem (t) 20:28, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Edit request for Unity (game engine)

Hello, I'm Matthew. I'm here on behalf of my employer, Unity Software. I've disclosed my conflict of interest on my profile and at Talk:Unity (game engine), where I am proposing updates to the article. My most recent request suggests adding information about the game engine's usage statistics and efforts to expand the game engine's use beyond gaming. Because of my COI, I don't make direct edits. I did add my request to the edit request queue, and because it's quite backlogged, I thought I'd post here as well. Thanks! Matthewpruitt (talk) 22:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Retro games

I took a lengthy break in January from working my way through Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Reference library/Computer Gaming World, going through the first several years of the run from 1981 and finishing up through 1988. While on this break, I used the time that I would normally have set aside for going through the magazines to instead go back through the articles that I created to find more reviews for them. I found quite a few more sources that way, and I figured I would share my findings here. I will start adding content from these sources as I find the time, but for now I added links to them in the "External links" section. If you would like to also help me work on them, that would of course be appreciated. I would like to thank some of the users who have already worked on some of these, including such users as Archrogue, Bilby, Dgpop, DocFreeman24, FOARP, Griggorio2, JimmyBlackwing, and users like Waxworker and Ylee who have helped out in the past on similar articles from this era.

While going through that magazine from last summer up through earlier this year, I started (or restored, in a few cases) many articles which have at least three or four WP:RS sources, and may well have more:

Plenty of games

Mind Thrust, Reversal, Napoleon's Campaigns: 1813 & 1815, Galactic Chase, Operation Apocalypse, Genetic Drift, Cartels & Cutthroat$, Southern Command, Bug Attack, Creature Venture, Lunar Lander, Computer Stocks & Bonds, Conglomerates Collide, Pursuit of the Graf Spee, Horse Racing Classic, Dnieper River Line, The Road to Gettysburg, The Demon's Forge, Hockey, Soccer, Crazy Mazey, Lazer Maze, S. E. U. I. S., Armor Assault, Claim Jumper, Tax Dodge, Mad Mines, Babel Terror, Demon Seed, Flockland Island Crisis, PlatterMania, Monster Maze, Championship Blackjack, Call to Arms, Close Assault, Twerps, Sherwood Forest, Computer Facts in Five, Hi-Res Computer Golf 2, Clipper, Delta Squadron, Fortress, Secret Agent: Mission One, Fall Gelb: The Fall of France, Ringside Seat, Tournament Golf, Professional Tour Golf, Parthian Kings, Conquering Worlds, Planetmaster, Road to Moscow, Dreadnoughts, Breakthrough in the Ardennes, Competition Karate, Clear for Action, 3 in 1 College & Pro Football, How About A Nice Game of Chess?, The Battle of Chickamauga, Final Four College Basketball, Basketball: The Pro Game, Berserker Raids, Napoleon at Waterloo, Operation Market Garden, The Railroad Works, Speculator, Computer Title Bout, Black Belt, Battle Group, Golf's Best: St. Andrews - The Home of Golf, Countdown to Shutdown, Make Millions, American Dream: The Business Management Simulation, APBA Major League Players Baseball, Warship, Space M+A+X, Blue Powder Grey Smoke, The Official America's Cup Sailing Simulation, Dolphin Sailing System, Pursue the Pennant, Russia: The Great War in the East 1941-1945, Guderian, Napoleon in Russia: Borodino 1812, Mac Pro Football, Shiloh: Grant's Trial in the West, Ralph Bosson's High Seas, Darkhorn: Realm of the Warlords, Inside Trader: The Authentic Stock Trading Game, Sierra's 3-D Helicopter Simulator, Star Rank Boxing II, Top Fuel Eliminator, Zaxxon 3D, President Elect: 1988 Edition, Campaign Promises, Rommel: Battles for North Africa, Decisive Battles of the American Civil War, Vol. 2

Along with those, I was also able to start articles for a number of games which exceed the minimums of the WP:GNG, and have lots of potential for improvement, including: The Battle of Shiloh, Star Blazer, Guadalcanal Campaign, Galactic Gladiators, Seafox, Protector II, Time Runner, Millionaire: The Stock Market Simulation, Microbe: The Anatomical Adventure, Battle for Normandy, Computer Ambush, Chess 7.0, Old Ironsides, The Blade of Blackpoole, Combat Leader, Operation Whirlwind, Geopolitique 1990, Starbowl Football, Carrier Force, Tycoon: The Commodity Market Simulation, Baron: The Real Estate Simulation, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Fighter Command: The Battle of Britain, Spare Change, Rails West!, Lordlings of Yore, Panzer-Jagd, Gulf Strike, Imperium Galactum, Reforger '88, Squire: The Financial Planning Simulation, Six-Gun Shootout, Crusade in Europe, Decision in the Desert, Golden Oldies: Volume 1 - Computer Software Classics, U.S.A.A.F. - United States Army Air Force, Battle of Antietam, Paul Whitehead Teaches Chess, Transylvania, Nam, Mech Brigade, Oribter, Grand Slam: World Class Tennis, Major Motion, Pure-Stat Baseball, World Class Leader Board, Hoops, Rebel Charge at Chickamauga, Street Sports Baseball, GFL Championship Football, Gridiron!, Super Bowl Sunday, Computer Quarterback, BlackJack Academy, Infiltrator II, Tomahawk, Thunderchopper, Super Huey UH-IX, Apollo 18: Mission to the Moon, Magnetron, Super Cycle, Superbike Challenge, Shirley Muldowney's Top Fuel Challenge, Sons of Liberty, Echelon, Ports of Call, Return to Atlantis, Twilight's Ransom, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Knight Games, Paladin, Steel Thunder, Stealth Mission.


Also up through January, I had spent quite a bit of time building up parts of the Reference Library, in particular adding game reviews from several different computing magazines, mostly from the 1980s. While searching for additional sources on my creations on my lengthy break from CGW, I also spent my time building a list of retro game articles for which I had found at least three reviews from my work on the Reference Library. I may eventually start articles for some of these at some point, but for the foreseeable future I have no intentions on doing so in case anyone may wish to have a go at starting any of them. I included links to the Mobygames page (anything without a Mobygames page is marked with an asterisk instead), as well as a link to each review that I found (there are undoubtedly additional reviews out there for most of these):

Numerous redlinks with potential

Hopefully something you see here inspires you! BOZ (talk) 03:55, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Request at Jam City (company)

Hello, WikiProject Video games editors are welcome to review this request to update the History section of Jam City. I have a financial conflict of interest, as I offer these updates on behalf of Jam City as part of my work with Beutler Ink, so I'm looking for other editors to review. Thanks for considering, Danilo Two (talk) 13:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Update: An editor is reviewing this request. Danilo Two (talk) 13:43, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

New Articles (March 22 to March 28)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.6 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 03:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

March 22

March 23

March 24

March 25

March 26

March 27

March 28

Most of that long list of categories is years old, but tagged this week in a big spree by Thibbs. --PresN 03:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Good god, that is a huge list of categories. Props to Thibbs. Phediuk (talk) 04:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

RTGame was recreated after the an AfD delete result from December 2020. I'll let others decide if it needs to renominating for deletion.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 21:40, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Moved back to draft, "Two short sources about the same video he did with no indepth coverage of *him specifically* do not overturn an AFD. The article creator should not be unilaterally using draftication to bring this back. Go through AFC." -- ferret (talk) 15:22, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Short Description standards

I'm talking about WP:SHORTDESCRIPTION.

Do we have, or can we create, standards on how short is defined in these things? Articles on my watchlist are constantly in a state of flux between "video game" to "2021 video game" to "2021 Nintendo video game" to "2021 Nintendo platforming video game" to "2021 Nintendo action adventure platforming video game" and I never quite know where to interject. Sergecross73 msg me 15:56, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

My usual go-to is (XXXX Y video game by Z), X being year, Y being genre, and Z being the developer or publisher. Like this:
Paper Mario: The Origami King (2020 cross-genre video game by Intelligent Systems)
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020 simulation video game by Nintendo)
Something along those lines. Panini!🥪 16:19, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
I would even eliminate the company name unless there are two games of the same name that the dev number + year would help with defining release. For example, the original Prey (2006 video game) probably should read "2006 shooter video game by Human Head Studios" while Prey (2017 video game) should be "2017 shooter video game by Arkane Studios", so that both the year and studio will help to disambiguate the two. --Masem (t) 17:48, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Is the year necessary in the short description when it's already in the title to disambiguation? --TorsodogTalk 18:09, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
I'd also get rid of the company names. Just stating the genre when needed for disambiguation is enough, otherwise "[YEAR] video game" is all that's needed. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:22, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
My two cents are that most short descriptions should just be "[YEAR] video game".
I used to include genre information but then I realized that (1) people rarely seem to agree on genre categorizations and (2) that games typically fall into multiple genres (e.g., action & horror) such that they make the "short" description more than 40 characters.
I typically don't include developer or publisher information because, again, it can make the short description too long and also which one do you include if they had separate developers or publishers.
But the short description guidelines are pretty thin, so it doesn't seem like we're ever going to reach uniformity on this. DocFreeman24 (talk) 18:17, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, short descriptions should be a short message to say what the article is about. "Video game" is fine, I prefer "2005 video game" to be honest. We aren't disambiguating at this stage, it's just a message that appears to denote vaguely what the article is about. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:30, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
If we are just trying to designate a video game separate from a different term, then year, "YYYY video game" is more than sufficient. It is when we have to disambiguate against any other "video game" with the same or similar name, the year is not quite sufficient as that's the less common way to attach identity to a game, hence using either the genre or the devs, depending on which one is likely more useful (eg the Prey example). --Masem (t) 18:42, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Ah, I'm glad to know my style has been validated :) DocFreeman24 (talk) 02:43, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is no consensus to use OpenCritic at this time. While in raw count, supports slightly outnumber opposes, the consensus appears to be that there are some existing issues and concerns that make it insufficiently reliable for use at Wikipedia, even if some aspects are useful. In time, this may change, and it can be revisited at that time. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 10:56, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I wanted to revive this discussion, as I feel that it didn't receive enough attention at the time, and those who opposed it don't appear to have read it correctly. Basically, the proposal was that we add OpenCritic's percentage recommended score to Reception sections alongside Metacritic's weighted average, similar to how film articles list the Rotten Tomatoes approval rating alongside Metacritic's score (see here and here for some film examples). An example of this change would be:

Hades received "universal acclaim", according to review aggregator Metacritic.[1] On OpenCritic, it received an approval rating of 100% based on 111 reviews.[2]

  1. ^ Hades on Metacritic
  2. ^ Hades on OpenCritic

Of course, this all depends on whether or not OpenCritic can be considered reliable. Previous discussions—though ultimately inconclusive—appear (at least to me) to lean towards yes or maybe, with most concerns stemming instead from the redundancy of using both Metacritic and OpenCritic scores. However, with this proposal, redundancy should not be a concern; we can use Metacritic for scores, and OpenCritic for percentages. This also reduces the risk of relying too heavily on Metacritic.

Personally, I support this proposal, though I mostly just wanted to revive it to give it the proper discussion it deserves. I'd love to hear your thoughts. – Rhain ☔ 02:12, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I do not think it has been an issue of reliability (OC publishes its method of how it gets aggregate scores), but instead if its duplicate of MC scores, and that its database is still lagging from MC's. --Masem (t) 02:23, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
That's not what this proposal is though. It's for the approval rating, which is separate information. It's like Rotten Tomatoes for films; it's separate from the MC score. JOEBRO64 02:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Support per my previous comments on the matter. JOEBRO64 02:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Let's talk about something current and topical: Cyberpunk 2077. How do we address that unlike Metacritic, OpenCritic squishes everything together, all systems? While MC certainly has issues where some platforms have more registered reviews than others, often time the differing scores highlight platform discrepancies. OC has lost this entirely. Really, only 61% recommend a game that continues to hold a 90 universal acclaim MC score on PC? Is there no nuance to the fact that it has, relatively, few issues on PC, but tons on consoles? They have a notice up, of course, but that is lost in quoting the bare score or recommendation. -- ferret (talk) 03:00, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
To be fair, a single game should not derail this entire proposal. OpenCritic can be omitted from that specific page, or it can be included with an explanatory footnote (OpenCritic released a statement with more information, and several reliable sources reported on the situation, so it would be easy enough to write and cite). There's already precedent to omit regular practice if deemed necessary—The Last of Us Part II omits Metacritic's qualitative summary, for example—so if this proposal is ultimately approved, Cyberpunk 2077 can and should be discussed separately. – Rhain ☔ 03:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Rhain, if we have to be cautious of what games we should and shouldn't use this with, then why bother? Metacritic is universal and still the industry standard. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:22, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
That's blowing it out of proportion a little. It's one game that we need to be cautious with. With that logic, we might as well stop using Metacritic because of the issues with The Last of Us Part II. – Rhain ☔ 21:49, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
While I love OpenCritic's lovely design, I don't think I agree with the WP:DUE argument. Neutrality is specifically about viewpoints. Metacritic does not present a viewpoint; it is an aggregator. As ferret notes, as an aggregator, it differentiates in a contextually useful way that OpenCritic doesn't offer (right now). Argument 1 is that OpenCritic is used by the press, and I agree with that... but if you look up OpenCritic on Google News right now, outlets all writing about the banner than OpenCritic has concerning Cyberpunk 2077. I'm most interested in Argument 2. Is their process for determining reputability public, yeah? Could be useful for WP:VG/RS discussions. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 03:17, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose, quite frankly, I believe this would be a violation of WP:DUE. Opencritic is far, far less relevant than Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, and this proposal would give them a level of prominence that they do not deserve based on the secondary coverage they themselves have received. Devonian Wombat (talk) 07:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. I don't think prominence is that important. For example, IGN is given as much weight as Shacknews, even though one is obviously more well-known than the other. It should be based on whether the source is reliable or not, and given that it is serving a different function from Metacritic, it has value. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 09:33, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Ferrets concern, and generally not needing any more aggregate data anyways. Sergecross73 msg me 11:55, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There's simply no comparing MC and OC right now in terms of impact. We got rid of GameRankings for similar reasons, and adding another aggregator where it may just add a misleading metric is not all that helpful. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:06, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose per opposing comments above and the other several past discussions on this. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. They're not redundant measures. The Cyberpunk situation is extraordinary and not a good exception to build a case around. The 90 on Metacritic for PC has already been criticized because of the PR team's selective distribution of review codes to favorable outlets (since dropped to 86). I don't think it's useful to bring up Cyberpunk because both sites had issues with the way they handled it. As for OC considered on its own, the % recommended metric is a useful measure of consensus among reviews about a game in a way that MC's "average" obscures (*not really an average but a weighted average that is hidden from the reader about what the weights are). Games with so-called "mixed" or "polarized" reviews (i.e. lots of very high AND very low scores) as opposed to "average/middling" reviews are completely indistinguishable to Metacritic but obvious when looking at % recommended. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:21, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Here we go again... Put me down for team OC. My arguments have been made previously, I'm pretty sure. --Izno (talk) 22:41, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    Since I was asked offwiki, here is some clarification. Previous opinion can be found at WT:VG/RS/Archive 18#OpenCritic
    Brief summary of current opinion: I don't find the "it's just another aggregator" argument remotely persuasive and instead find the "we shouldn't let Metacritic monopolize our summaries" persuasive. One thing different regarding Gamerankings versus OC is that Gamerankings was owned by CBS for a significant chunk of time before shutdown (CBS is also the owner of MC). OC is clearly different in this regard.
    While "they duplicate the overall summary %" might be a reasonable position, OC has other metrics that MC does not; the plots for polarity of reviewers for example (at least when I looked last). And, as I noted before, they are overall more transparent about their summaries and statistics.
    Overall, we should allow any and all use, wherever any editor sees fit, rather than this more-limited proposal under discussion. --Izno (talk) 05:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. Repeating what I said on Discord... in a vacuum, if we had to choose between Metacritic and OpenCritic, just knowing about them on paper... we would never go with Metacritic. I think that great long-term move would be if OpenCritic started providing the percentage recommended separately by platform. That'd be great! — ImaginesTigers (talk) 04:43, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Support upon reading your original linked arguments, Rhain. In response to "it's duplicative": the % recommended metric is different from a score average and provides more color, especially in cases of "mixed or average" reviews. In response to "it's not recognized enough as Metacritic": I get it but it's not intended to replace or duplicate Metacritic. It adds a metric that Metacritic does not provide, and it's certainly recognized enough where we would consider it an RS. TarkusABtalk/contrib 15:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Sounds good on paper, but per ferret's concerns about the scores across all platforms being squished together, not terribly helpful or useful. Unless OC manage to come up with a score for a certain title which it somehow lacks in aggregate on any single platform for Metacritic? Haleth (talk) 22:10, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • @Haleth: OpenCritic had a big banner on the site that could easily be reproduced in the article. Cyberpunk 2077's article currently reads: The PC release of Cyberpunk 2077 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to Metacritic. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game received "mixed or average reviews". We could just add: On review aggregator OpenCritic, the game received a critical recommendation score of 62%, with a banner stating that the developer "intentionally sought to hide the true state of the game on Xbox One and PS4". A percentage of critics who recommend the site is an absolutely valid addition to what MC offers. Using one (basically unprecedented) edge-case doesn't even seem like an exception to that. It only takes a sentence to give the additional information, and (I think) contextualises it better than MC's three percentages. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 00:48, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Metacritic's numbers don't indicate whether a game has actually been recommended, either. Both can co-exist, providing meaningfully different things. Nobody is advocating to remove Metacritic. The numbers aren't going to mislead people; the rest of the Reception section will remain there, and the aggregators have never been a suitable substitute for the rest of a review section. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 01:25, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Has nothing to do with my argument. I'm calling out a deficiency in OpenCritic, nothing more. Never once have I suggested or felt that somehow we'd replace or remove Metacritic, and that has zero to do with my issues with OC's methods. -- ferret (talk) 01:52, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • My point is that they both have deficiencies, and work better together than either would apart. There's a lot to like about OpenCritic; its transparency, namely, but '% recommendation' is a also measurable good for informing readers. Many people come to us over the aggregators looking for a well-defined summary overview of criticism. Providing both does just that (imo). — ImaginesTigers (talk) 02:13, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't want to speak for everyone. But I think it's, at best, redundant to Metacritic. At worst, I already have some problems with aggregators in general that are outside the scope of this discussion, and I'm in a minority of editors who would support removing Metacritic rankings too. For OpenCritic specifically, I do see problems with combining multiple platforms into the same aggregated ranking, and I'd like to see it rise in acceptance in other reliable sources before we consider it reliable. I'm mindful that Wikipedia is one of the biggest sites in the world and I'm very hesitant to give them the privilege of representing what all sources are saying, per WP:DUE. Shooterwalker (talk) 00:17, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't understand the redundancy argument, as Metacritic's score and OpenCritic's percentage provide wholly separate (but equally useful) information. They work alongside each other, instead of providing the exact same information (as GameRankings did). Your other concerns are understandable, though. – Rhain ☔ 01:15, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • To be open minded, I think "% recommended" is an interesting metric, and provides something Metacritic doesn't have. But I wouldn't be confident that the metric or the source are more reliable than Metacritic (which already has problems). I'm not sure how much it is because I'm seeing games on there that are "100% recommended", but that doesn't small fact doesn't give me a lot of confidence at the moment. If it's helpful, I think we should be open to revisiting this conversation in 6 months to a year. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:37, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • If you're interested, OpenCritic does disclose how it gets its numbers. Publications have the ability to tell them what number and above is a recommendation, and which aren't: For numeric reviews written by top critics, publications may elect to set their own threshhold for what is and isn't recommended. OpenCritic can also assess written articles based on whether the critic outright recommends the game: A critic specified they would recommend the game to general gamers over other games releasing at a similar time when uploading their review metadata to OpenCritic's content management system. The more I think about this system, the more I like it. Their transparency really works for me; their %Rec is so much improved over Metacritic's numbers (which still, I think, don't really mean anything to readers other than either 1) comparing it to other games they like, or 2) "how close to 100 is it/far away from 50 is it? — ImaginesTigers (talk) 05:12, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth, RE: "rise in acceptance in other RS", it seems to have a decent amount of support already. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:33, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Support for the % recommended only. It seems objective and non-controversial for their role as an aggregator, and a quick short hand to see which way the sources were generally pointing. It's fulfilling a different role from Metacritic. Jontesta (talk) 19:50, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose: OpenCritic (right now) should not be included. This is because OpenCritic only has scores for games released since 2014 (or so). The proposed formula would not see usage on the vast amount of articles on games released prior to 2014. Rotten Tomatoes works for movies because it has scores dating back decades, as does MetaCritic (GameRankings had gone even further back). Maybe in another few decades, once OpenCritic has a larger database of scores to be historically significant, then it should be included. As it stands, it would only benefit the newest games, which is a small timeframe compared to the overall content on Wikipedia; thus, if there's gonna be a drastic universal change (like adding OpenCritic), then the change needs to somehow benefit the majority of the articles. Xanarki (talk) 08:37, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
  • @Xanarki: This argument seems incredibly weak to me. Even if this proposal was suggesting a "drastic universal change" (I don't think it is), why does it need to "benefit the majority of ... articles"? Even if it only benefited a handful of articles, it's still worth implementing—we don't need to improve every article on Wikipedia before writing new ones, for example. To me, that's like saying that we shouldn't consider reviews from, say, USgamer in {{Video game reviews}} since they've only been around since 2013. If it improves the site, it's worth including, whether it's 20 articles or 20,000. – Rhain ☔ 08:53, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Your example of a USgamer would be a lesser secondary publication, as opposed to the more significant primary publication like MetaCritic and OpenCritic, so that's why the fluidity would be acceptable for that.
This view is more opinionated on my part, but, I'm looking at the broader scope historically. If OpenCritic is only benefiting a certain small portion of the articles (2014-present), then it is also simultaneously hurting the articles it's not on. If something is gonna be hand-in-hand with MetaCritic (for games) as you've mentioned, then it should at least follow MetaCritic into the majority of its existence. Eventually, one may question the necessity of one or the other. I understand wanting to flesh out the 2014-present games' reception by supplementing MetaCritic, but I personally wish the supplement's measuring stick was at least half as long historically. I apologize if I didn't elaborate correctly. Xanarki (talk) 09:18, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
This is a fairly short-sighted position to stake out. You're essentially saying that Metacritic is the only aggregator for video games for the rest of all time because it has the longest history and no new aggregators can compare because their history doesn't reach as far back as Metacritic. No one is suggesting replace Metacritic. OC is being offered as a useful supplement where applicable. Also, for what it's worth, there's evidence that the vast majority of all video games ever released have been released in the past 5-6 years. Axem Titanium (talk) 10:10, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Exceedingly Weak Support I still have concerns. I'm not at all happy with the history of these discussions, dating back over 5 years now, which have repeatedly been pushed by SPAs or owners of the site itself. This is probably first discussion we've had where an experienced project member has made arguments for inclusion without any evidence of communication with COI editors. I don't like that they don't differentiate between platforms, especially. But I do believe, five years in, we're at a critical mass where OC is unlikely to disappear overnight (Barring some undisclosed financial straits). Some of our reliable sources, such as siliconera.com, outright link OpenCritic on every game detail page. EGS has integrated it. However... Our Reliable Source search, once you filter out Metacritic and Siliconera, has exceedingly few hits that mention OpenCritic. These primarily deal with it's launch, it's early accusation that Metacritic was consuming some of its data, and it's response to lootboxes a few years ago. There's a bare handful of sources about EGS integration, recent issues around Cyberpunk and one mentioning the terrible WWE 2K20 as well, but there's only two pages of results in total. Going outside the custom searches, which does miss sometimes, I found that PCGamesN sometimes does "score round ups" that mention both OC and MC together. Of course, several unreliable sources mention it, but we wouldn't use them for evaluation. I really wish there was more evidence that sources are regularly caring about OpenCritic's actions or impact on the industry. For example, we regularly hear of developer bonuses being tied to MC scores, but I've never heard of anything similar tied to OC. -- ferret (talk) 14:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
I don't like that they don't differentiate between platforms This argument has been made a few times and I'm not sure I understand. Most sources don't score games differently per platform anymore, so it makes sense that review aggregators don't either. The only sources that give platform independent scores are platform-specific sources in the first place. I'm actually surprised that MC still splits scores by platform. TarkusABtalk/contrib 15:07, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
so it makes sense that review aggregators don't either Except.... MC does and GR did. And often times there's quite a difference in the scores, especially with dealing with ports to handhelds or last generation systems. In particular we still see quite a bit of swing between PC and consoles (even "current gen"), depending on whether the consoles are suffering extra issues or the console port to PC was handled poorly. -- ferret (talk) 15:11, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
To be honest, I've always been a bit suspect about the way Metacritic categorizes its platform specific reviews. I just opened up the page for Hitman 3 because it's on the front page of Metacritic Games and it lists IGN's review (which specifically mentions they reviewed the PS4/5 version) under PC reviews for example. I don't know what their error rate is on this stuff. Axem Titanium (talk) 10:10, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Whether Metacritic is always getting it right, or publications submit their reviews for the right platforms or not, is another topic. I personally prefer to see platform distinction where such reviews exist. -- ferret (talk) 15:47, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I have requested this discussion for closure. Axem Titanium (talk) 06:59, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Weak Support primarily to cite an alternative aggregator score to Metacritic's 1-100. Both aggregators have its issues, perhaps OC more more as highlighted by the recent questionable editorial opinion on that one game's aggregator page. It appears OC has managed to keep their aggregator relevant over the past 5 years, so it doesn't look like comments about WP inclusion are going away. Regarding separate scores per platform, with multi-platform they should generally be very similar, although there could be exceptions where citing separate scores is useful. (Unsure if I am eligible to vote since I am not a member of the project and I might be too late) IgelRM (talk) 15:14, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Awaiting closure. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:20, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
  • With ten supports and seven opposed, I think this is the closest we've come to adding OpenCritic, and, regardless of the outcome, I believe there have been good points raised on both sides. I think there's a pretty strong consensus that OpenCritic's percentage recommended score is a better statistic than its weighted average (which is usually identical to Metacritic), though not everyone is convinced that it's worth including as of yet. I definitely think that, if a discussion about OpenCritic ever comes up again, this is the way to go; its percentage is a companion to Metacritic's score, just as Rotten Tomatoes is on film and television articles. – Rhain ☔ 00:02, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose, we really don't need another aggregator that is much less known than Metacritic but essentially does the same thing. However, I wouldn't mind adding OpenCritic as a situational source that can only be used when its score for a game is substantially different (>10%) from Metacritic. Satellizer el Bridget (Talk) 06:37, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Requested admin closure at WP:RFCLOSE. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose at this time. Too much of the above is cause for concern. I do agree with the central proposition that more forms of review aggregation would be better. However, failure to differentiate by platform is a major problem with OC, and I'm not comfortable with theie "over-aggregation" being actually encyclopedically meaningful (and often likely to be downright misleading). Not only are game performance, reliability, graphics capabilities, etc., highly variable by platform, sometimes the game content is quite significantly different as well; i.e., they are really two "titles", in the published-work sense, that share the same title, in the string-of-letters-forming-a-name sense.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:44, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Close undone?

Why was this restored from the archives and the closing comment deleted? Sergecross73 msg me 10:45, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Digging through the edit history, it looks like the close was removed because Axem objected Spycycle's close due to their lack of transparency because Spycycle was against OC's use over a year ago. So to recap, Axem felt Spycycle violated WP:INVOLVED and wasn't transparent, and felt the proper response was to revert the close of a discussion he himself was INVOLVED in, and not providing any transparency or explanation on what he had done outside a vague edit summary that sunk into the page history. Really? That's not acceptable for a long term experienced editor. Sergecross73 msg me 14:38, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Sorry, I did it late last night after being frustrated for almost a week since Spy-cicle hasn't edited at all after closing this discussion five days ago. I left them a message on their talk page shortly after their close but got no response. To briefly sum up, Spy-cicle has participated in multiple discussions of OC in the past (yes, one was "over a year ago", but also happens to be the most recent discussion of OC). I haven't had much time to edit these past few weeks aside from occasionally checking on this discussion and seeing that it still hadn't gotten an admin closure. I should have left a note about what I did but it slipped my mind due to carelessness/tiredness and for that I apologize. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:26, 17 March 2021 (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.

New Articles (March 29 to April 4)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.6 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 13:39, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

March 29

March 30

March 31

April 1

April 2

April 3

April 4

Light week! --PresN 13:39, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

  • Not usually, there's at least a few every week; for some reason the 1.0 log has it as "Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 renamed to Japan Pro Golf Tour 64", so that's a bug there since that makes no sense. I've added the article! --PresN 15:06, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
  • It appears that there's a bug- sometimes draft->mainspace moves are correct, but the bot is changing them to be main->main moves the next day. Manually added a couple more. --PresN 15:22, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Review needed for Soma Games

Hello! A while back I created a page for the indie company Soma Games. Red Phoenix suggested that I should bring the article up here on the Project to have people look at it and give feedback so that it's not all written by one person and to ensure we clean up any traces of inccorect tone or Peacock words. I highly recommend reading through the article's Talk page before reading the article so you can get an understanding for the context that the article was written in and not accidentally assume bad faith :)

About eight months have passed without anyone organically finding the article to read it over (nor responding to my previous request to review it), so that is why I'm bringing attention to it here on the Project page again to make sure the article can be totally shaped up to align with all of Wikipedia's standards! I just want to emphasize one more time not to mistake accidental ignorance for intentional promotion or to interpret it as intentional disregard for article rules but rather to assume good faith about everything that was written.

Thanks so much everyone! Emitewiki2 (talk) 17:39, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

  • @Emitewiki2: I was going to perform some copyediting on the article but I quickly encountered issues that go deeper than just wording. For example, in the first section, there is this sentence:

The two other founding members of Soma Games, Rande Bruhn and John Bergquist, began mentoring and helping Skaggs in 2005 after meeting him at a Christian retreat event called Bootcamp NW. It was during this time that Soma developed the ideas for its first games, GRoG, Dark Glass, and The Race.

However, the associated source makes no mention of John Bergquist, the year 2005, mentoring activities, Bootcamp NW, or any of the games mentioned. Only Rande Bruhn is cited as a "business partner". I did not check all sources but will have to assume that this could occur multiple times. Some sentences are not sourced at all. Furthermore, the article way too heavily relies on primary sources: There are 20+ uses of the firm's Facebook, YouTube, and website, which is about 35% of all sources. The article more likely needs a comprehensive cleanup/rewrite so that the content reflects the sources, and where possible should reduce the number of primary sources. After that, I'd still be available for some copyediting. IceWelder [✉] 11:54, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
@IceWelder: Thanks for the look! The year 2005, the mentoring activitiy, and John Bergquist were all located in the sources for the next two sentences, in references numbers five, six, and seven. I believe I put those references after the second to last sentence of the paragraph because the content from all of the preceding sentences (i.e. the ones you quoted plus the next two after it) were all mentioned in references five and six, so I didn't want to over-burden the paragraph with duplicate citations after every single sentence. The Clash interview you linked only mentioned Rande Bruhn, as the other sources did, but unlike the other sources it did not also contain the info found in the next two sentences. Hence, I put the Clash interview at the end of the sentence that it had relevance to, while the other references were put at the end of the group of sentences they were relevant to.
I totally apologise if this was not the correct way to place the citations. I would love to learn the correct way to place them so that I don't make that same mistake in the future. If a citation corraborates facts listed in a series of sentences, and a second citation corraborates only part of those facts halfway through the series of sentences, should the first citation just be duplicated so that it can sit alongside the second citation and then again sit at the end of the series of sentences? I.e. like so:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque et ornare mauris.[1][2] Sed rutrum tempor nisi, eu efficitur mi accumsan vel.[1] Nulla est ipsum, pulvinar ac commodo sit amet, facilisis sit amet velit.[1]
Hopefully that question makes sense. Thank you for the help!
Regarding the second part of your message, in retrospect I completely agree that the article relies far too heavily on primary sources. At first I was extremely judicious in including any primary sources unless absolutely necessary, but as time went on in writing the article I most definitely went a bit overboard and began relying on primary sources as a crutch to find information because it was easy to comb through old blog posts to learn the company's history. I would absolutely love to go back through the article and remove the irrelevant sentences and the vast majority of the primary sources, however, Red Phoenix thought it would be best if I didn't touch the article directly anymore but let others do the editing:
if I were you, I wouldn't touch it at all except for minor typos and things of that nature, because even if they are no longer paying you, you have still disclosed a paid relationship and a conflict of interest in that they have paid you. And even if that relationship no longer exists, it's not really possible for anyone else to know that for sure. You seem to have the right idea, though, that you most certainly can continue work on the subject; you only need to use the talk page and follow the protocols at WP:COI and WP:PAID.
If you feel that the past year of inactivity on the page calls for a slightly different approach because no one else is doing the work to rewrite the page, I would be happy to go make those changes under supervision and then have you copywrite it afterwards. If not, I totally understand and am fully content to continue standing by and promoting it to others to edit instead. (And to be clear, this is no longer a project I am being paid for. I just want to see the quality of the article improve to make a better encyclopedia at this point.)
Thanks for your time, IceWelder! Emitewiki2 (talk) 01:32, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Several free ebooks mostly on early computer systems/games

From Fusion Retro Books. --Masem (t) 01:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

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