Talk:Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America Inc./GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Rjjiii (talk · contribs) 22:49, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Opening Comments

I'll go through this article and leave a talk page message once I'm done with the initial review.

Well Written
Prose

The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:


 * The sentence with At this time, a Japanese company named Nintendo reads really weird.
 * The bootleg problem seen in Asia could be mentioned earlier with the Famicom. Then there will be a logical flow from the issues to Nintendo's solution.
 * Closing quote is missing from "reverse engineering, untainted by.
 * The likewise suing Atari language seems wrong. Would counter-suing be a better way to say this? Likewise doesn't really fit.
 * If the article refers to Atari Games as Atari, then that Atari used in the caption should be Atari, Inc. or it will read like shorthand for Atari Games.
 * The phrase including the Atari. should likely be omitted as confusing. Maybe mention Atari's failure to stop 3rd party games at the beginning of the section.

Manual of Style

It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:


 * 2nd paragraph in the lead is confusing without reading the article. It should be clearer that the court still found against Atari but only due to the "purloined copy" because the way it is now can be read as the appeals court ruled what Atari had done was fair use.

Verifiable with no original research
 List of all references 

It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:


 * Looks good.

 Inline citations are from reliable sources 

All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons&mdash;science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:


 * The quote in the lead needs a citation.
 * This source appears to be self-published: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/intellectual-property-law/reverse_engineering.htm
 * The Vice article's author is Ernie Smith. This should be in the citation too.

 No original research 

It contains no original research:

Looks good:
 * Cunningham verifies Nintendo's policies for the NES.
 * Coats verifies the false pretenses.
 * Dallas verifies the Rabbit.
 * Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America Inc. verifies the protected expression statement.
 * Arsenault looks good.
 * O’Donnell too.

Needs work:
 * Velasco says "Con la idea de controlar el mercado" which contradicts the "this led" language. Velasco says it was another way to control the video game market. "This led" implies causation.
 * Computer Gaming World verifies 30% but the page number is 28. The article begins on 26 and continues to 28.
 * and hastening the decline of Tengen into its eventual bankruptcy. is not verified by Oxford. The phrase also doesn't make sense in the context of the article. The article says Tengen is a Subsidiary of Atari which continued to exist in the 90s.
 * Atari also sued Nintendo for seeking to monopolize the game business, but Nintendo was exonerated of any unfair business practices. This is not exactly backed up by the source. "Atari" is used as shorthand for Atari Games throughout the article. Atari Corp mentioned in the source is not Atari Games. After the North American Videogame Crash, Warner sold the unprofitable parts of Atari to Jack Tramiel and that was Atari Corp. Atari Games made arcade games, computer games, and console games. Atari Corp made 8-bit computers, 16-bit computers, home consoles, and the handheld Atari Lynx plus software for all of those platforms.

 No copyright violations or plagiarism 

It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:


 * The United States District Court for the Northern District of California consolidated the two cases. This is a direct quote. It needs to be rephrased rather than quoted.
 * Take a look at the first paragraph in the Appeal section. Some of that needs to be rephrased so that it doesn't mirror the sources so closely. In particular this The court further determined that Nintendo had proven a likelihood of success in their copyright infringement claim, because Atari made unauthorized verbatim copies of the 10NES code from the Copyright Office, and that Atari's Rabbit program was also substantially similar to Nintendo's 10NES. seems too close to this Atari made unauthorized verbatim copies from the Copyright Office. In addition, the court ruled that Nintendo showed a likelihood of success in proving that Atari infringed the 1ONES copyright by copying the source code from the Copyright Office, and that the Rabbit program was substantially similar to the 1ONES.

Broad in its coverage
 Addresses the main aspects of the topic 

It addresses the main aspects of the topic:


 * The beginning of the background feels like it's missing a few details. Atari had not planned for third party developers and they attempted and failed to block Activision from making games for the Atari.
 * The crash was a North American event and did not affect Nintendo who was selling the Famicom in Japan.

 Focused on the topic 

It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):


 * Everything ties back to the court case. This looks good.

Neutral
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each (WP:NPOV):


 * Looks good; all conflicts and opinions are cited to those involved.

Stable
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:


 * It's stable.

Illustrated
 Copyright

Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:


 * Copyright tags all look fine.

 Relevant 

Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:


 * The Gameboy playing Tetris seems a bit odd as that was not the Tengen game Nintendo objected to in court. Maybe this would work better to illustrate that section: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Game_Genie.jpg
 * The Sega console image also feels out of place.
 * Other images are excellent.

Overall

 * 1) Well Written
 * 2) Verifiable with no original research
 * 3) Broad in its coverage
 * 4) Neutral
 * 5) Stable
 * 6) Illustrated

Discussion

There's a lot of small problems with this but they all look very fixable. I'll likely put this on hold. Feel free to message me if you have questions about any of the issues that I noted.Rjjiii (talk) 22:49, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for all of your comments and I believe that the article is better for all of these. The only thing that I could not really fix was the Sega Genesis picture which is the best / only illustration of the Sega v. Accolade case. It was another important case that covers the exact same issue and should be highlighted and this was the only way I could reasonably see how to do that. Jorahm (talk) 19:49, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You're welcome and I'm glad it helped. Thanks for explaining the Sega Genesis image. In retrospect, it illustrates the section which is the Good Article Criteria. If I personally feel weird about it is not GAC, so that's my bad. I looked over your most recent edit and it looked good except for one link. I changed one Atari, Inc. wikilink to point to Atari Corporation. I believe that matches the source's time period and language (1992); let me know if I'm in error there. The article passes GA and I'll adjust the template soon. Rjjiii (talk) 02:18, 19 January 2023 (UTC)