Talk:Sandbox game

ambiguity
The ambiguity here suggests that maybe this article is being approached all wrong (despite the good effort on research). Maybe it needs to be a disambiguation page to open worlds vs software toys. Or maybe it needs to be described as a game mode, what happens when you can enjoy a game without defined goals. Just trying to point things in the right direction, because the first substantive part of the article is four paragraphs arguing about what this even is. Jontesta (talk) 22:33, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * However, we have numerous games called "sandbox games" which include The Sims, GTA3 and Minecraft in the sources, which obvious don't fit the idea of playing a game without goals. There is certainly the idea of a "sandbox mode" in games which is related to idea of a sandbox game, which is about creativity, whereas to compare to open world is about freedom. (The mnemonic I found best to distinguish the two). And key is not all open world games are sandbox games. --M asem (t) 23:07, 9 May 2020 (UTC)


 * That's what I'm getting at here. There's really multiple things being described in this article, and it's hard to get a handle on it -- as a reader, and as an editor. It just doesn't seem to be a discriminate type of game, because you see different groupings depending on what the sources are talking about. Not to make this any harder, but I'm even seeing games like Crusader Kings described as a sandbox. I've just never seen a game article lead with sentences like "the exact definition of X is vague" or "at the turn of the 20th century redefine the notion of what X is". I think the article is getting lost in semantics, with game after game arguing for what is or isn't a sandbox, when a re-frame could ditch all the ambiguity and just explain what the concept is. (What you described -- games that offer players a lot of creativity, which is related to freedom but also separate from it.)
 * Looking at the article for "open world", I think there's some lessons to be taken from there. It doesn't get too lost in trying to define and counter-define a category of games. It just says that open worlds are a type of level design, and you see all variations of open worlds in all sorts of games. I wouldn't deny that people often say "open world game". But it's in the same sense that you have "multiplayer games" or "crafting games" or "story-rich games" -- it's a short-hand for the many different features you might see in games, including multiplayer, or crafting, or rich stories.
 * This gamasutra article heavily refers to sandbox as a concept -- sandbox design, sandbox play, sandbox style, sandbox mode. You also see glossaries like this or this (and many others) just refer to sandboxes more broadly. I just think the article could just skip passed the ambiguity in categorization. Maybe we try to disambiguate by just re-focusing the article, and diving in on what it means for a game to have that sandbox experience. I'd be happy to help with a rewrite, if that makes this less daunting. Jontesta (talk) 00:17, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * If you want to have a shot, go ahead. I do feel that there's a stronger support out there for both "sandbox games" as both a concept and as a genre, more so than trying to apply that to "open world" (in that "open world games" really aren't at all scene as a genre but games that have open worlds). --M asem (t) 01:56, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Working on this, I do think this could use a different article title. I'm seeing sandbox design, and under that, sandbox storytelling, sandbox world, sandbox play, (of course) sandbox game, and even sandbox development. I think that would help make it clear that this is a lot of different things and not just a specific type of game. Jontesta (talk) 21:36, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I see what you're getting at, but the way we've generally done most of our video article genre or gameplay concept articles is from the player's perspective first (what that means to them on that side of the controller), and then, as necessary, how that's designed and developed for them by the programmers and the motivations for doing so, within the article body. I can fully see where you're coming from here with sandbox on development side, but I do consider that the framing of the concept was more set by The Sims and GTA3, and neither game was planned to be sandbox design. That's sorta why I would not try to flip this to be from the design POV as the arching theme, though we can definitely add design concepts that are to be considered in designing sandbox games. We can always create redirects for potential searchable terms that are frequent enough like "sandbox design". --M asem (t) 21:54, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Just noting that that "Design" section we can redirect terms to it as needed if you feel any are good searchable terms, but that's exactly what I was thinking of what needs to be done. --M asem (t) 22:16, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Let's think on it some more. One thing that's good about the design sources is that they finally try to approach the definition in a broad systematic way, instead of individual game reviews that throw the term at a game without defining what it is. The design sources do point to the idea that this is more of a design philosophy or a type of gameplay than a specific type of game. There's even a few who pedantically say that true sandbox gameplay isn't a game at all, but I bring that up more for the larger point that "sandbox game" might be a misnomer. Going to take a break and come back to it later, with more sources that I've found. Thanks for working on this. Jontesta (talk) 22:53, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's a problem to define what a sandbox game is from the standpoint of design, but we're still stuck on the aspect that from a naming scheme "sandbox game" is the common name here. It's just a matter of making sure that, as I think you've set up the sections on the concept and design, we say "sandbox games are those generally based on sandbox design principles." (though not clunky obviously). Or something like "Common elements in the design of sandbox games are..." There is still the flip side that we can talk from gameplay features with "sandbox mode" counter to "campaign mode" --M asem (t) 23:12, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I went in and added a few more references. There's lots of good stuff, and a lot of it doesn't refer to "sandbox games". I've found that "sandbox design" is equally as common. There's also lots of variants of "sandbox features", "sandbox elements", and even "sandbox worlds". In earnest, the most common word you'll see in game scholarship is just sandbox. The problem is that "sandbox" also has its more conventional meaning of sand in a box, which is unsurprising because that's exactly the metaphor that people are going for. Just a look at the guideline on Article_titles. If we know that "sandbox" is a term used by game designers, we might say "Sandbox (game design)" or "Sandbox in video games". But admittedly that starts to sound pedantic.

The only reason I'm pushing for a name change is because the title is a little misleading, since you see sandboxes show up in lots of games that aren't strictly sandbox games. Lots of non-sandbox games have sandbox modes, sandbox levels, or other sandbox elements, without going taking on that label for the game itself. I also think there's a real problem with the template at the bottom, which is for video game genres, but you now have dozens of non-genre or cross-genre articles that are added to it because editors see that they have "game" in the title. I very much respect the work you're doing here and if most editors were like you, people would be intelligent enough to write good articles regardless of the title. But I want to note my strong objection, because I think the current title is creating a host of editorial problems that will only get worse. Jontesta (talk) 01:06, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Replace Minetest reference image
Minetest is a well-known Minecraft clone, which copied early public development features from Minecraft and released before Minecraft in attempt to claim Minecraft's success. Using a videogame clone as a reference is very irresponsible. Minecraft itself might not be the best example for a sandbox game, but it's very offensive to have a Minecraft clone be set as the example instead. Please find a better reference image. CelesteTheArtist (talk) 06:34, 13 December 2023 (UTC)


 * This particular image is being used in this article because Minetest is freely licenced while Minecraft is copyrighted.
 * Non-free content allows Wikipedia to use copyrighted screenshots where necessary, but only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose. For the Minecraft article itself a free equivalent wouldn't be much use, but a clone seems close enough when writing about the wider genre. Belbury (talk) 09:05, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I apologize for my misunderstanding. I believed that Minecraft images could be used anywhere, and I also hold a bias against videogame clones. I realize that these factors do not play a role in this decision because the purpose of this article is sandbox games, not relevance or videogame cloning. Thank you for the feedback. CelesteTheArtist (talk) 09:38, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, Minecraft, just like Minetest, claimed Infiniminer's success. However, there are two differences:
 * Minecraft was much more successful;
 * Minecraft is worse in a way I consider important, and Minetest is better in this Also, Minetest is, since some point, a game engine, but I don't know about Infiniminer in this regard. Orisphera2 (talk) 23:30, 12 May 2024 (UTC)way.

Update Section on Minecraft
Please update the sells metric and date for the section of this article that mentions Minecraft. Use this article for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft CelesteTheArtist (talk) 06:41, 13 December 2023 (UTC)