Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Game of the Year


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was KEEP non-admin closure conditional on the improvements suggested here being undertaken. Bold move to List of Game of the Year awards. Cabe 6403  (Talk•Sign) 09:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Game of the Year

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I believe this article fails WP:NOT as well as trying to conflate too many "game of the year" type ideas just to document them.

If we use films as the counter example, there are as many (if not more) sources that provide awards including Film of the Year but these include both sources like the Oscars and BAFTAs and Golden Globes (highly respected awards), and simply a notable reviewer's (like Roger Ebert)'s top films. We would track both in individual films, but the only ones that document the winners year by year on a single page are the articles on the awards themselves (eg Academy Award for Best Picture). The non-award type mentions do not have such articles.

The same would be true for video games. There's about 6-8 awards listed that are truely notable awards (eg BAFTA's VG, Spike VGA, etc.) and the rest are picked from gaming sites and user polls. As with films, we would document both on individual game articles, but the only ones that should be documented in the present manner should be the notable awards. If the Game of the Year aspect is important for a gaming journalism website (I don't believe this ever is) these can be listed on the website's page, ala what is done for Roger Ebert and his top film per year.

Moreso, the problem of making a mass page like this is that if we presume this would be kept, within a few years it would be far too long. Further, it conflates video and board games (the two board game lists are those that can be put onto separate pages); and the inclusion of user polls leaves much to be desired.

I don't see a way this page can be saved (redone, or merged or whatever) where the key information is not already repeated on appropriate pages. M ASEM (t) 14:41, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete At the end of the day this article is really just defining the expression "Game of the Year." The fact that many publications and groups  award the "Game of the Year"  award (and the extensive listing of them) does not change that. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:30, 26 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep WP:NOT is irrelevant because that is directed at "Directories, directory entries, electronic program guide, or a resource for conducting business." This is more like a dab page for the general concept, assisting readers in either finding a particular award or browsing a list of them.  The equivalent for movies would be Film awards.  Moreover, the page has over two hundred sources and so represents a lot of work.  To casually delete this would be contrary to editing policy and be quite disruptive.  Warden (talk) 12:50, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:NOT#DIR is not a fully inclusive list of what is not appropriate as a directory - it provides only certain examples, so it does still apply here. A list of video game awards like Film awards would be appropriate, but like that page, it would only list the awards, and would not be limited to GotY-type ones. The argument about # of sources and effort is an argument to avoid. --M ASEM (t) 13:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * No, WP:NOT#DIR is not a catch-all excuse to delete any list that you don't happen to like. A directory is a compendium of phone numbers, addresses and the like and what is meant by that policy is that we're not a phone book, yellow-pages or commercial index of businesses or people.  That's mainly style-guide advice because we do, of course, have many lists of people, businesses and other things which people want to look up.  We also have numerous lists of awards — so many that we have a category for them.  The only issue here is getting the material well-organised and that's not a matter of deletion.  Warden (talk) 14:10, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, WP:NOT#DIR is a catch-all (all of WP:NOT technically is - just that the farther a case is from one that is exactly listed, the less likely you'll get consensus on it); it doesn't mean all directors are necessarily not allowed and certain cases are explicitly spelled out, but when and where is determined by consensus (read: AFD). And I'm not saying that individual pages - like the Spike Video Game Awards - are bad, simply that this page that groups these all together is not appropriate - I have yet to find an equivalent one that does this for films, books, and other published media. We definitely should be listing the winners on the individual award pages for the notable awards, which I know we do already, just not here. --M ASEM  (t) 14:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:NOT#DIR lists 7 specific cases such as sales catalogs but this page doesn't resemble any of them. We have plenty of lists and categories for other types of media including film awards, book awards, media awards, &c.  The claim that we don't cover such material is therefore false. Warden (talk) 17:34, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * And those aren't the only 7 specific cases of NOT#DIR that can be considered - just that you have to be able to justify why a new case (like this one) doesn't meet the general advice of NOT#DIR. Again, I'm not says awards in general are a problems (notable ones should of course be listed on those pages, and mentioned on games that won them), it is this grouping the multiple of different ones together from an awkward array of sources that makes this a problem against NOT#DIR. --M ASEM  (t) 17:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep on condition of changes. - It seems to be a valuable information source, but has problems. I think the following changes should be made and the AfD issue revisited in light of the changes or lack of these changes:
 * 1. Rename to Lists of Game of the Year awards or List of games receiving Game of the Year awards.
 * 2. For the "Video games – Critic and editor awards (Game of the Year)" section, create a "Critic and Editor" column in each table and then put all the tables into one connected table. By allowing multiple Critic and Editor listed for a single entry, that will shrink the long article. Also, readers of the list are no so interested in who gave the award. Rather, they first are interested in the "Game", then the Year, then interested in which Game of the Year awards it received. After all, the article is called "Game" of the "Year". The other sections can be similarly changed so that the page only has five tables.
 * 3. Create a Notes column for each table. Each entry needs to be sourced and the Notes column is where that reference can be placed.
 * 4. The references used need to be independent of the organization giving the award and need to be published by a reliable source. This will help focus the article.
 * 5 Selection criteria - The lack of selection criteria is where this article fails:
 * Who: If I create a website and list my Game of the Year awards, will my website be listed in this Wikipedia article? That certainly would help publicize my website! Should this list be limited to awards from publications that are printed with ink on paper on a regular or periodic schedule? We could have separate Lists of Game of the Year awards from print publications and Lists of Game of the Year awards from websites to have better control over the website entries.
 * When: Should the Lists of Game of the Year awards entries be from the very first game invented (e.g., by cavemen) or is it limited to games that came into existence after the 19th century? Is it limited to awards focused on the first year a game is published?
 * What: What about board games like mancala or is it awards for only electronic games? Should new versions of Kick the Can game or other play type game that receive Game of the Year awards be included?
 * Where: Should the Lists of Game of the Year awards entries be from any Game of the Year award given anywhere in the world? Should the list be limited to awards list originally published in the English language?
 * I'm skeptical that a selection criteria can be made that is unambiguous and objective. However, I'm willing to give editors a chance to address the above issues to then judge at AfD in two months from the close of this AfD as to whether the product resulting from those changes should be kept or deleted. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:11, 27 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep Seeing what magazines gave games that title, is notable. Perhaps list just the important game review sites/magazines together, and have just the category of year and name of the game.  Be easier to compare things.  See who voted for the same ones at times, and who said something else.  If people were curious about the game they could click a link to it and see its genre, Platform(s) released on, and what company developed it, etc.   D r e a m Focus  14:56, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 16:12, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:12, 27 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Split: What should be at this title is the board game "Game of the Year". Each of the notable lists should get its own article.  The non-notable lists should be deleted.  There's no need to group these lists together; the article is very large and the entries don't have much in common with each other  p  b  p  17:34, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The entries have a lot in common with each other because, in many cases, they are the same. The page might be efficiently reduced in size by listing the winners for a given year and the source.  For example, in 2007 Bioshock was game of the year for BAFTA, Game Informer, Spike, X-Play, &c.  Super Mario Galaxy was game of the year for IGN, Edge, GameSpot, &c.  If we get rid of all the developer and platform stuff then we could perhaps achieve a much tighter table. Warden (talk) 18:25, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * They are often the same within the same year (given how GOTY works). This strongly suggests that we should be putting summary tables like this in our articles of the form 2012 in video gaming (we don't currently) as cross-categorizing the GOTY for a specific year there, as well as listing the GOTY on the page either discussing the awards specifically (ala Spike Video Game Awards) or the page describing the journalistic site (eg IGN, Game Informer), as another means of cross-categorization to see what those source chose over time.  But this current article is an extreme odd and awkward means of cross comparison. It is critical to point out that video games do not really have a strong set of key award metrics (unlike films) such that many games latch onto GOTY award mentions from questionable sites, some which are listed here, hence why comparing them in this fashion is like trying to equate the content of the New York Times and the National Inquirer within the same article. --M ASEM  (t) 14:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep, but... rename as a list article and weed ruthlessly - The topic is a notable one. The concept of the "Game of the Year" is an important one in gaming culture and it is one that is shared across many video game journalism sources. Frankly I'd be surprised if there was no coverage of the concept as a stand-alone topic. But with that said, I sympathize strongly with the nom's points here. The length of lists like this alone make them hard to navigate and when large sections of them are unsupported by refs they set a poor tone and become a magnet for unsourceable trivia and cruft. I do agree that the board games section should be split off and perhaps we could add php's linked award to this list as well. The number of board game GotYs are small enough that a list of all List of board game Games of the Year would be well within the bounds of WP:SIZESPLIT. I also think that the reader polls should be either split or deleted. I fully support Uzma Gamal's points #1, 2, and 3, and I largely agree with point #5 as well. Point 4 is the equivalent of requiring notability for the award itself, though, and since this is not a list of awards, but rather a list of GotY-winning games, I think that would change the article's scope. -Thibbs (talk) 21:54, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * If the main topic of the article is who is giving the award, the reliable source needs to be independent of the organization giving the award. If the main topic of the article is what game receives the award, then the reliable source needs to be independent of the game itself. I think the main topic is, or at least should be, the game itself since that is what readers will first be interested in and there is overlap in a game receiving multiple GoY awards whereas there is no overlap between one GoY award to the next or one GoY organization to the next. If the main topic of the article is what game receives the award, so long as the organization giving the award is independent of the game itself, then the writings (e.g. awards list) of the organization giving the award is OK for use in the article. Since there is no one dominate Game of the Year awards organization (unlike the academy awards for films, for example), yes, we need a list like this. If three different organizations give one game a Game of the Year award, that would be valuable to know. Wikipedia's Game of the Year award list likely would be the only place people could find such information. That's all fine, but if this list is not improved by AfD2, I agree with the nom that there would be no reason to not delete it to start anew. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:14, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a good explanation of the sourcing requirements in my view. I fully agree with that. -Thibbs (talk) 15:39, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Deleting it and starting a new is ridiculous. No one ever bothers starting a new once an article is deleted.  Many people won't bother editing an article that might end up being deleted, they waiting until the AFD closes.  And the point of an AFD is to determine if the subject of the article is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, not to judge it in its current state.   D r e a m Focus  14:21, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Um, that's not entirely true, Dream. GNG is hardly the only relevant policy at work in this or many other AfDs.  NOT is perhaps even more relevant, since NOT is policy and GNG is a guideline  p  b  p  16:55, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't mention the GNG, I mentioned Notability, which says "A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy." If the article is notable, then there is no reason to delete it and hope someone recreates it differently, just let it be, and work with what you have.   D r e a m Focus  00:13, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Notability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a topic to have a standalone article. Per WP:N, other policies may make a standalone article on a topic inappropriate. That is what I'm arguing (I'd have no doubt that one might be able to create such an article on the concept of a 'game of the year' on notability alone, but that seems unnecessary). Notability has nothing to do with my reasons to delete. --M ASEM (t) 00:26, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.