Talk:Stamper brothers

Article title
I imagine some might feel an urge to move the article to "Tim and Chris (or Chris and Tim) Stamper" or to separate the two, but I found that they were more often than not referenced as the "Stamper brothers" (a duo). The activities of one were not covered independently of the other, even as industry figures. czar 05:29, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Early life
I haven't found a definitive source for early life info on the Stampers. RG appears to confuse Tim and Chris (or at least have a major typo). Kent gets details wrong in his book (also mentioned in peer review). And that leaves the Crash interview (in which the Stampers speak about themselves) and Bloomberg Businessweek. It doesn't help that the press is so starved for information that there isn't much room for fact-checking the Stampers' sometimes extraordinary claims... Unless some other source appears, they've written most of their own history through spoon-fed interviews, and even though WP is more concerned with verifiability than truth, it would be wise to be wary towards some of the more extravagant claims. czar 19:33, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Retro Gamer
Have you checked any other issues of Retro Gamer for info on Stampers? Issue 20 has a feature: "Developer Lookback Rare: A Rare Breed" which covers the Stampers, Ultimate and Rare. There may be other issues with additional info as Rare and Ultimate are covered quite frequently in RG. --The1337gamer (talk) 18:37, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * , I am actually looking through this one right now. (I have some extra source research to post on the talk page later.) I've checked all the other features so if there's anything else, it's short blurbs. czar  18:40, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Maher sources
My notes from the bibliography of Jimmy Maher's The Legend of Ultimate Play the Game—more about Ultimate than the Stampers:

All in all, a few details added to the article, but overall, I'd consider those details trivial. czar 20:39, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Your Computer of June 1983: brief; mentions four directors, general experience in arcade business, nothing specific
 * Home Computing Weekly of August 9 1983: pagelong profile, more about company than brothers; worked in arcade field for 2.5 years, sold games to U.S. and Japan, used proceeds from selling arcade games to open Ultimate, Tim claims that their dev system is faster than that of the largest arcade company in the U.S., Carole Ward has a degree in graphic design, that John Lathbury and Chris are software engineers, "Ultimate never uses freelance programmers" [yeah, how many months will that last?], choice of Spectrum was economic—to finance dev system & make revenue fast, hq in cottage at The Green, "Timothy reckons that the company's turnover will be 'into the millions' by the end of its first years. Take off a proportion for poetic license [n.b. see above section on this talk page], and that's still a healthy figure."
 * Popular Computing Weekly of
 * August 18 1983: pagelong profile almost identical to the prev one above; "They began working as the design team of a major US arcade machine manufacturer—either Sega or Atari, Tim would not say which—over three years ago." "Ultimate became the first independent company to make the cross-over from coin-ops to micros." "Ultimate do not use freelance programmers." "Chris reckons the 32-bit multi-user system they use is as good as any of the custom-made systems in use by the big software dev companies in the US." some info on Ultimate's dev process (work as a group of four, multi-month plan, "variety" [really?] in their gameplay types
 * November 10 1983: reader comment?
 * Personal Computer Games of
 * Summer 1983: quarter-page retread of previous refs, reads like repackaged PR for Jet Pac, Psst, & Cookie
 * January 1985: short blurb on charts, comment from "Louise Stamper", so they're married by now? [Commodore User said otherwise?]
 * Computer and Video Games of March 1986: ?; perhaps this was supposed to be used for chart rankings or something?
 * The Games Machine of March 1988: 10-page interview on how Ultimate disappeared (typed up), biggest claims are repeated in other sources (Kean did this interview and the major Crash piece): Gunfright as their last game, Chris's preference for rural workplace, Chris regrets not doing Atic Atic II, room contents at Rare, "In many respects, in Britain Nintendo is still better known for its coin-op profile" (this is in 1988), "The Play Choice-10 Video System has been proving very successful in many pub sites around London",
 * Retro Gamer #20: "A Rare Breed"—I've used this one before but forgot about it; mostly company history, little on the stampers apart from the kit Chris used to build his first PC
 * Edge of September 1994: issue 12, not digitized?
 * Commodore User of July 1985: two-page spread, photo of office facade, physical description of facade, here's some juice: some history with Associated Leisure & Zilec
 * Next Generation of November 1995: blurb on 75 influential game devs; first western dev for Nintendo, otherwise more on Rare games than bio

DOB
WP:DOB states that "Wikipedia includes ... dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object". While I understand that some journalistic articles have been published with their approximate year of birth (as discussed here), and as such certainly stating "b. 1961" would be suitable, I don't think that it can be inferred that the subject/s do not object to the source Companies House—while reliable, it is an official government website that discusses the information of private citizens, and as such doesn't really have a place on Wikipedia as a written source. However, I could be incorrect in my judgement, and am happy to be convinced otherwise. Thanks in advance. – Rhain  ☔ 07:51, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with how I originally had it ("b. c. 1959", age inferred from year of reliable, secondary source minus stated age), so I imagine others might have stronger opinions than I, but isn't the point of Companies House to make public records on finances and ownership stake? Would it be preferable to use it to clarify/supplement the secondary source that provided the "circa" date? czar  15:31, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I see your point that Companies House makes public records on finances and such, and I was initially hesitant to comment in the first place because of this. Some public records can certainly be seen as an invasion of privacy, however—I've seen some editors use FamilySearch to cite birth dates, a site that uses public records to collate full names, birth dates, and often even addresses, which is the ultimate invasion of privacy. In saying that, Companies House only lists the month of birth, and uses the information to relate the individuals to the company they own/ed or founded, so it's not entirely invasive, and I certainly see the argument for its inclusion on Wikipedia. Thanks for getting back to me. – Rhain  ☔ 08:05, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * On the same page you linked, different section, WP:BLPPRIMARY is even more explicit about not using public records as a source. As the ages but not years are reported in other sources, I'm going to pare down the DOB mention to just the year (rather than month+year) to (1) avoid the ambiguity from providing a year range (based on age at time of publication) while (2) respecting the privacy of the full dates not being public. Open to feedback czar  02:39, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:56, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Tim and Chris Stamper outside the FortuneFish offices.jpg

Dingo arcade game
Tim Stamper worked on Dingo, an arcade game from 1983 by Jaleco. Source: https://twitter.com/intimsworld/status/619431674091302912 Archived link: --Mika1h (talk) 12:32, 23 November 2019 (UTC)