Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Computer Games Evidence

This is a page of evidence of problems found with Jagged_85's edits since the original RFC and since he started concentrating on computer games editing. The intention is to show that despite the RFC and change of editing topic, the same problems still exist with Jagged_85 making strong claims ("first", "significant", "unique", etc.) and using references which simply do not support those claims. Similarly he has made precise claims in areas such as number of units sold and cited references which do not support those claims; in some cases the source directly contradicts the numbers Jagged_85 has added to Wikipedia. Jagged_85 is also still using unreliable sources to support his claims, even when it is pointed out that the source is unreliable and that there are better sources.

Although some of these diffs are over a year old, many have only been corrected recently, and it is only recently that editors in the computer game editing community have become aware of the previous issues with Jagged's edits, and started to realise that there is a systemic problem with the edits which Jagged_85 is making to computer games topics. Some of the errors highlighted have only been noticed because of this investigation.

Please note that some of these problematic claims have been added to multiple articles on Wikipedia.

This is not an exhaustive list of Jagged_85's bad edits in this topic area. This is what three editors were able to investigate and write up over the course of a week.

Xanadu, Temple of Apshai, and the best-selling computer game of all time in 1985
— 12:12, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that "This [selling 400,000 units] made Xanadu the best-selling computer game released up until that time [1985]; in comparison, the best-selling computer game in the Western world at the time [1985], Temple of Apshai, had sold 40,000 copies."

The source cited for this was:

But here is what the source actually says regarding Xanadu and Temple of Apshai: "Xanadu was a massive success, racking up over 400 000 units in sales. It’s possible that you can’t comprehend that number without a little context: in 1982, just three years prior, the best selling game in the West was Temple of Asphai, at 40 000 units, one tenth of Xanadu’s sales figures."

So in this article, the author states no opinion as to whether Xanadu was the best-selling computer game of all time in 1985, that is WP:OR from Jagged. Furthermore, the article claims that Temple of Apshai was the best-selling game in the West in 1982, not at the time of Xanadu's release (1985) as Jagged stated in the Wikipedia article.

Note: This claim has also been included by the user in:
 * Temple of Apshai: 13:30 25 December 2011

GORF Sales and Revenue
— 13:19, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

This edit added an entry for the arcade game GORF to a table entitled "List of Highest Grossing Arcade Games." In the column labelled "Hardware Units Sold," Jagged listed GORF's sales as an estimated 40,000 units in 1981. In the column labelled "Gross Revenue (Without Inflation)," Jagged listed GORF's revenue as an estimated $400 million in 1981.

The source cited for this was:

But the source in question does not actually make these claims at all. The problem lies in two parts. First, here are the actual sales estimates for GORF at the time, as stated in the article Jagged used as a reference: ""Now a run for something like Space Invaders would be 60,000," said Nutting, adding that Pac-Man had a run of 45,000 and that there were orders for 20,000 of the new GORF games." Second, here is where 40,000 and $400 million enter the article: ""A game like GORF sells for $2,500 to the arcade operator who will earn about four times his investment. Multiply that times 40,000 machines and you have $400 million," [Nutting] said."

So, there are two important pieces of information in this article. First, as of its publication, Midway had received 20,000 orders for GORF, a far cry from the 40,000 claimed by Jagged. Second, in the article Dave Nutting gave the reporter some typical arcade revenue figures. During this process, he stated that if a game like GORF sold 40,000 units then, based on the typical return on investment, arcade operators would earn a total of $400 million on the game. Jagged completely misread the source and thought that the 40,000 units and $400 million were actual sales estimates.

Note: The claim has also been included by the user in
 * List of Best-selling video games: 13:53, 4 March 2012

Speed Race and Collision Detection
— 02:46, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that "[Speed Race] introduced collision detection"

The source cited for this was:

But here is what the source actually says: "[Speed Race's] key claims to fame were vertical scrolling and great collision detection." There is no claim that Speed Race incorporated collision detection first. Furthermore, making this claim at all appears to reveal a basic misunderstanding of how video games work. As the Wikipedia article on the topic states, collision detection is the ability of a program or hardware system to detect the intersection of two or more objects. Without collision detection, the first video arcade game, Computer Space, would not have been able to allow the player to destroy flying saucers, while the first popular video arcade game, Pong, could not have allowed the ball to bounce off the paddles. Collision detection dates even further back: one of the key components of Ralph Baer's video game patents from the late 1960s was the capability of his brown box to detect the collision of two objects and send one of them off on a different vector. Citing to a source for information not contained within the source is disturbing on its own, but making edits on a subject without a basic understanding of the underlying claim being made is almost more worrisome.

Note: This claim has also been included by the user in
 * Tomohiro Nishikado: 14:52, 22 March 2011 After this edit was reverted, Jagged attempted to restore the information in a slightly different form in this edit. Instead of stating that Speed Race "introduced" collision detection, however, he claimed the "great collision detection" as "innovative."  Once again, the source makes no reference to innovation and merely states that the collision detection was "great."

The Nintendo Entertainment System and Hardware Scrolling
— 10:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that "While scrolling had been present in various arcade games in the early 1980s, it was not introduced to consoles until the third generation, with the 1983 release of the NES, the first console to feature hardware scrolling."

The source cited for this was:

But here is what the source actually says about hardware scrolling: "Nintendo's system had multicolored sprites and, more importantly, hardware scrolling, which opened gamers up to vast new worlds that made the single-screen arcade games of the early '80s seem quaint. While many didn't realize it at the time, the move to scrolling graphics would prove nearly as pivotal as the leap to 3D many years later."

Nowhere does the article claim that the NES was the first console with hardware scrolling. This is a good thing, because that claim is also untrue. The NES (or rather its original Japanese incarnation, the Famicom) was released in 1983. The Atari 5200, released in 1982, was also capable of hardware scrolling.

Furthermore, the way Jagged constructed the sentence implies that scrolling (hardware or otherwise) did not happen on consoles period before the NES. This would also not be true, as the VCS (1977), Intellivision (1979), and ColecoVision (1982) all featured multiple scrolling games as well, though this was not done in hardware (except for vertical scrolling on the VCS, which was actually accomplished in hardware).

King & Balloon and Multi-Core Processing
— 05:57, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

This edit claims that King & Balloon, a 1980 arcade game "was an early example of dual-core processing, running on Namco Galaxian hardware, based on the Z80 microprocessor, with an extra Z80 microprocessor to drive a DAC for speech."

The source cited for this was:

But the source does not make this claim. All it says is "The game uses two Z80 microprocessors. The first Z80 runs hardware which is essentially the same as Galaxian but without the starfield generator. The second Z80 drives a DAC to produce simple digitized speech ("Help", "Thank You", "Bye Bye")."

Furthermore, in making this edit, Jagged has shown a complete lack of understanding regarding what dual-core processing means. Multi-core processing is an approach to building computers designed to overcome limits which had been hit with increasing clock speeds for single processors. It is a relatively recent development; without wishing to get sidetracked as to which was the first, IBM claims "the world’s first multicore processor" for POWER4 in 2001:, and multi-core processors have only become widely used in the last decade.

A dual-core processor is a single computing component with two CPUs, which are called cores. When speaking of a microprocessor, this means multiple CPUs on a single computer chip. Adding another Z80 microprocessor to an arcade board therefore does not constitute using multiple cores because they are not on the same integrated circuit or sharing the same socket. In addition, the second Z80 microprocessor is not even serving as a CPU, as its only purpose is to run a digital-to-analog converter to create some of the sounds in the game. Therefore it is not even a dual-CPU setup of the type used on the Sega Saturn in which two processors are dividing CPU functions between them. Jagged's claim that a 1980 game with two processors is an early example of Multi-core processor is therefore incorrect and grossly misleading to the reader.

Note: A similar claim has been included by the user in
 * Scramble (video game): 06:37 2 April 2011 also using a KLOV page as a source. In this case, the two Z80 processors may be sharing CPU duties, but they are still two separate microprocessors and not two cores sharing the same integrated circuit or socket.
 * Frogger: 05:37, 2 April 2011 again with KLOV as a source and again confusing two Z80 processors for one dual-core processor.

Buck Rogers and Scaling Graphics
— 05:57, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

This edit claims that the 1983 Sega game Buck Rogers "introduced fast pseudo-3D scaling."

The source cited for this was:

But here is what the source actually says: "Turbo became the first racing game to use sprite scaling with full-color graphics. Zaxxon delivered scrolling graphics with an isometric view and 3D gameplay. Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom trumped both with its fast 3D scaling and detailed sprites." Note that the source does not claim Buck Rogers "introduced" fast scaling graphics, only that the author considered its fast 3D scaling and detailed sprites to be superior to two earlier Sega games.

Galaxian and Boss Encounters
— 19:18, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

This edit claimed Galaxian as a game "featuring early boss encounters."

The source cited for this was:

But the source makes no mention of "boss encounters." Here is what it actually says: "You must shoot the aliens and their boss. Here are some tips for shooting the aliens: kill the boss and his two escorts, then shoot them when they are doing a somersault." A bit of explanation is in order here. In Galaxian, the player fights a group of 46 ships arranged in six rows. The two ships in the back row, which KLOV is referring to as "the boss" (sic) are the only ships that always dive with other ships instead of moving individually, and they can carryover to a limited degree from wave to wave.

Wikipedia's article on boss fights contains the following basic definition: "A boss is an enemy-based challenge (and a computer-controlled opponent in such a challenge) which is found in video games. A fight with a boss character is commonly referred to as a boss battle or boss fight. Boss battles are generally seen at the climax of a particular section of the game, usually at the end of a stage or level, or guarding a specific objective, and the boss enemy is generally far stronger than the opponents the player has faced up to that point." All of this is sourced, with the most useful and authoritative source coming from this Wired Magazine article.

The enemies in the back row in Galaxian do not satisfy any of these criteria. Furthermore, from the context of the quoted passage in the source, it appears more than likely that a reference to "the boss" in this case is based on the standard definition of the word as some form of "leader" as opposed to the video game concept of "a distinct and more powerful opponent encountered during a section climax." Jagged demonstrated poor judgment with this edit and made an exceptional claim that appears both dubious on its face and unsupported by any other reliable sources.

Note: This claim has also been included by the user in:
 * Boss (video gaming), 19:21, 4 January 2011
 * Galaxian, 03:06, January 26, 2011

He also attempted to re-add the information to the original article after it was reverted in this edit with the comment "featured bosses according to source."

Star Cruiser
Between January and March 2011 Jagged_85 added and then elaborated on Star Cruiser as an early first-person shooter at First-person shooter in these edits:   

When the Star Cruiser text was deleted Jagged_85 reinstated in full in this diff from 3rd September 2012: 

"Arsys Software's Star Cruiser, an early first-person shooter released for the NEC PC-8801 computer in 1988 and ported to the Sega Mega Drive console in 1990, was an innovative game that introduced the use of fully 3D polygonal graphics, action RPG elements, and free-roaming open space exploration allowing six degrees of freedom."

There are a number of serious problems with this text.


 * Poor quality sources

Jagged cites two sources, one after the claim "an early first-person shooter", and two references (to the same 4gamer article) for the rest of the claims in the sentence. The first source is an infobox from allgame. allgame is a database of information about computer games, but is not considered definitive, especially for something as subjective as "genre" and "style". To date Jagged has been unable to provide any other sources which suggest that Star Cruiser is a First-person shooter, let alone that it's a WP:notable early example worth including in the relevant part of the FPS article in Wikipedia.

His other source is a short "twenty years on" description of the game in Japanese. He does at least provide a google English translation, but by its nature this will be a harder to verify source, as English editors will be cautious about marking something as "not in source" in case the problem is the translation rather than the use of the source. The google translation is near gibberish: "In addition, the story betrayed in the sense not only depiction polygon, said games and unique system that combines elements of RPG and 3D action, the imagination of the players, and turning serif affectation of character, now that it was 20 years since the launch enjoy what has become a faded but without." After all the criticism that Jagged previously received for using poor quality and hard to verify sources, it is worrying that he is using sources like this.


 * Claims made in Wikipedia that are not in references

Neither source says that it is an early first-person shooter. Even allowing for the translation, Japanese source does not mention "first-person shooter"; the style is described as "action RPG", or "RPG and 3D action".

Neither source uses the word "innovative". Neither source uses "introduced" in relation to "fully 3D polygonal graphics". It's extremely hard to be sure given that the translated source says: "Technological capabilities in the polygon era has not yet penetrated into the game industry, I drew a space by employing the polygon, had a great impact to the user at the time", but there does seem to be some suggestion that it impressed users of the time with its use of polygon graphics. There is nothing however to suggest that it introduced polygon graphics.

There is also nothing to support: "free-roaming open space exploration allowing six degrees of freedom". Six degrees of freedom is a very specific claim regarding how an object can move. There is nothing in the cited sources to suggest Star Cruiser was a game which supported this. Star Cruiser is listed in the Six degrees of freedom article as an example; however the text was added by Jagged in this March 2011 diff:. The same previously described translation of a short Japanese article which does not mention anything about six degrees of freedom is also used as the supporting reference for the edit to the Six degrees of freedom article.

Note: In Arsys Software, an article which Jagged_85 is the only contributor to, further claims are made for Star Cruiser: "All the backgrounds, objects and opponents in the game were rendered in 3D polygons, many years before they were widely adopted by the video game industry. The game also emphasized storytelling, with plot twists and extensive character dialogues". Exactly the same short Japanese article as referenced as a source. That source does not support any of these additional claims.

Once again, this also shows Jagged's complete lack of understanding of the subject he is covering. Well-known computer games that featured polygonal backgrounds, objects, and opponents between 1987 and 1989 include Falcon by Spectrum Holobyte (1987), F-15 Strike Eagle II by Microprose (1989), Flight Simulator 3.0 by Microsoft (1988), Starglider 2 by Argonaut Games (1988),, F-19 Stealth Fighter by Microprose (1988), Driller by Incentive Software (1987), and Carrier Command by Realtime Games (1988). Therefore, Star Cruiser was not using polygons "many years before they were widely adopted."

"Early" Electro-Mechanical Arcade Games
This one requires a little background. Arcades have existed in the United States since the late Ninteenth Century, providing entertainments ranging from recorded music, to peep shows, to novelty attractions, to games. Most of the earliest arcade games were purely mechanical, but by the 1930s, arcade operators had fully embraced games that were also powered by electricity. These were called "electro-mechanical" or "EM" games. While there are isolated examples of EM games before this, EM games began appearing generally in the 1920s with products like William Gent's Electric Rifle, and Exhibit Supply's Automatic Pistol Range. Pinball went electro-mechanical for good after the 1933 release of Contact, while sports games were electro-mechanical from at least the release of All American Baseball in 1929.  The first EM game to use a light gun was Ray-O-Lite in 1936,, while the first EM driving game was Drive Mobile in 1941.  EM games remained a primary arcade attraction until the middle of the 1970s, when video games displaced most of the novelty categories (driving, shooting, sports, etc.) and pinball made the transition to solid-state design.

That brings us to the edits:
 * In this edit, 22:46, 15 February 2012, Jagged refers to the 1966 Sega game Periscope, the 1967 Taito game Crown Soccer Special, and the 1969 Sega game Grand Prix as "early electro-mechanical arcade games."
 * In this edit, 18:44 9 January 2011, Jagged refers to Periscope once again as an "early electro-mechanical gun game."
 * In this edit, 11:57 1 February 2011, Jagged refers to Grand Prix once again as an "early electro-mechanical arcade racing game."
 * In this edit, 11:55, 1 February 2011, Jagged refers to Crown Soccer Special once again as an "early electro-mechanical sports arcade game."
 * In this edit, 04:15 30 January 2011, Jagged once again referred to Periscope as an "early electro-mechanical game."
 * In this edit, 08:52 1 February 2011, Jagged once again refers to Grand Prix as an "early electro-mechanical racing game.

All of these edits are sourced, but the sources are used for the game name, company, release year, and basic gameplay info, not for the claim that they were "early" examples of electro-mechanical games. As has been demonstrated above, EM games have a long history going much further back than 1966.

Gun Fight
January 2011 to March 2012

This is an interesting example of a game which has a lot of historical significance, however Jagged_85 seems to be determined (as always) to make it seem even more significant to later games than it actually was, using hard-to-check sources. When they are checked, the sources frequently do not support the statements made. He has also tended to emphasise Japanese achievements over (for example) the American adapters who turned it into the first microprocessor game.

The number of bad edits is alarming:


 * This edit: 00:43, January 28, 2011 changes the statement "first Japanese arcade game to be exported to North America" to "first Japanese arcade video game export to become a mainstream success in North America", implying (without a source) that there were previous Japanese video game exports to North America that were not mainstream successes. Jagged_85's edit obscures the point that Japanese games were not exported to North America before about 1974.

The source therefore does not support the exceptional claim "first known video game to feature game characters", in fact specifically making the point that the gunmen do not have personalities.
 * This edit: 06:38, March 27, 2011 makes the exceptional claims "It was the first known video game to feature game characters and fragments of story through its visual presentation" using hard-to-verify sources. Here is what the source actually says: "And although Gunfight had no story sequences, nor its gunmen any personalities, besides yelling "GOT ME!" when they were shot, it at least drew upon the existing store of American 'western' films and cowboy stories. And its characters, should the player choose, could easily be given personalities, because people know what cowboys look like, act like, and the reasons for which they might start shooting at each other."


 * This edit: 08:45, April 2, 2011 introduced the following text and references:

"Western Gun was an early run & gun, multi-directional shooter, that could be played in single-player or two-player. It also introduced video game violence, being the first video game to depict human-to-human combat, and the first to depict a gun on screen. The game introduced dual-stick controls, using two distinct joystick controls per player, with one eight-way joystick for moving the computerized cowboy around on the screen and the other for changing the shooting direction."

"Early run and gun" was later removed by Indrian with the comment "Western Gun was in no way a run & gun, which by its very definition requires scrolling". In this edit: Jagged then changed the text to "Western Gun was an early, on-foot"..." where "on-foot" is a link to Run and gun. The source given:  does not support the claim that Gun Fight was an early "run and gun" or an early "multi-directional shooter". All the source says is that Gun Fight/ Western Gun was the first game to show a gun on screen. Allgamer describes the game's style as "fixed screen shooter":, i.e. one which is played on a single screen. Jagged_85's references to "run and gun" and "multidirectional shooter" are not supported by any source, and certainly not the one which is cited to support those statements.

"It also introduced video game violence" is a bad edit not supported by the source and contradicted by other sources. The source actually says: "Violence and aggression found their way into the industry with the second-generation games, such as Gun Fight", i.e. Gun Fight was one among many. This source:, cited in the article, contradicts the claim anyway, noting that Spacewar! and Tank were earlier violent games.

The exceptional claim that "The game introduced dual-stick controls" is referenced to a book without a page number. It is also wrong; for example, Tank (video game) is an earlier game which had two joysticks per player.


 * This edit: 05:42, May 25, 2011 introduced the text and reference:

"In contrast to previous arcade video games such as Pong that produced blip sounds, Gun Fight introduced the use of a one-channel amplifier to provide mono gunshot sounds."

This was immediately reverted by Wgungfu with the comment: 'Reference does not support that it introduced one-channel audio, all it states is "A one-channel amplifier provides mono gunshot sounds." One channel (mono) audio was common at that time.' One-channel audio pre-dates video games in the arcade, with many electro-mechanical shooting and driving games of the late 1960s and early 1970s making use of audio. Jagged_85's edit therefore turned what was a simple statement in the source into an exceptional claim to have introduced a technology which had in fact been around for years.


 * This edit: 01:24, January 28, 2011 claimed that the game was programmed in Japan by Tomohiro Nishikado and in the United States by Dave Nutting with no references provided.

This is wrong on both counts. Nutting led the redesign of Western Gun that turned it into Gun Fight, but he was an industrial designer and engineer, not a programmer. A man named Tom McHugh actually coded the game with a little input from Jay (now Jamie) Fenton. The really bad mistake, however, is saying that Nishikado "programmed" Western Gun. The earliest arcade video games were created using transistor-to-transitor logic, or TTL, hardware systems. In other words, they were created entirely through hardware, with individual integrated circuits providing the functionality for each gameplay element. Gun Fight (the American version of Nishikado's Western Gun) was the first game to use a microprocessor, which did not become standard in the industry until 1978. Games created on a microprocessor-based hardware system are primarily created in software, meaning a programmer provides functionality through code. Since Western Gun was created entirely in hardware, there is literally nothing for Nishikado to program. It would be more correct to say he "engineered" the game. By making this edit, Jagged demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the difference between hardware and software, which is a crucial distinction for anyone attempting to edit articles on early video game history. Remarkably, after this edit was reverted with the comment 'The original Western Gun was discrete logic, hence there was no programming,' Jagged attempted to add the claim back in again in this edit.


 * This edit: 16:06, March 4, 2012 added numerous problematic claims.

"Taito employee Tomohiro Nishikado designed Western Gun as a character-based game with fragments of story."

The source says that "Nishikado at Taito was creating character-based games," so that part is fine, but here is what the source says about "fragments of story": "Taito was adding characters and fragments of story. This is not to say that Western Gun had story sequences or fleshed-out character designs, but it had artwork of wild west cowboys on the cabinet, and the in-game graphics, with cacti, covered wagons, rocks, and player-characters that identifiably human, matched the out-of-game artwork."

The source is arguing that by tying together real-world objects within the game with real-world objects on the cabinet art and flyer, Taito (i.e. the games company) was creating an identifiable setting for a wild-west shootout as opposed to the more abstract characters and/or setting of earlier ball-and-paddle and driving games. This is an interesting thesis, but it does not support the claim that Nishikado, the game designer and engineer, designed the game to contain fragments of story. Nishikado the game designer would not have even been giving input on cabinet or flyer art, that is a completely different company department.

"Western Gun featured cartoon-like human characters, influenced by Japanese manga"

The source actually says "The original Japanese advertisement flyers for Western Gun showed that these were video game versions of Japanese manga characters." So it was the flyer not the game that featured cartoon-like characters based on manga. Again, the source is advancing the thesis that Taito as a company used promotional materials to create a non-abstract motif that would be recognizable and identifiable to Japanese players. This is not the claim Jagged is advancing.

"It was also the first known video game to feature game characters and fragments of story through its visual presentation, marking the beginning of cinematic elements in video games"

The first part of the quote has already been discussed but is reproduced for context. The portion in bold is a new, exceptional claim that the game was the beginning of cinematic elements in video games. This exceptional claim is not advanced by the source in any way; the source in fact never discusses Gun Fight in terms of "cinematic elements" at all.

This is not a complete list of Jagged_85's bad edits to this article. Other edits were reverted for "way too long" quote of copyrighted material and use of a "ridiculous source that only tangnetially touches on video games".

Silpheed
February 2011 to August 2011

In this edit: 03:25, 22 February 2011 Jagged_85 added the claim that:

Silpheed, a forward-scrolling third-person space combat game by Game Arts, was the first fully 3D polygonal shooter.

The source: doesn't make this claim at all. What it says is it was: a fast-paced 2D shooter done almost entirely with polygonal graphics and a 3D perspective.

Jagged_85 toned down this exceptional claim somewhat in this edit: 02:08, 16 March 2011, where he said it "was an early example of a fully 3D polygonal shooter". However there is still no support at all for "early example" in the source, or even for "fully 3D"; if anything the source contradicts this in its closing paragraph: 'It is one of the original pioneers of "2.5D" gaming'.

This edit: 11:53, 3 August 2011 similarly added the exceptional claim "The game was notable for its early use of real-time 3D polygonal graphics and a tilted third-person perspective", based on the same source. This sentence (which as of 16th September 2012 was still present in the article) actually provoked a direct response in this recent hardcoregame101 review: : 'Even today, Wikipedia, that bastion of poor research, triumphantly declares Silpheed was "notable for its early use of real-time 3D polygonal graphics." No, Wikipedia, it really was not.'

The point is that Silpheed, while graphically and technologically impressive, "cheated", by having player controlled ships on top of backgrounds which had been pre-rendered; as hardcoregamer says: "presumably on enormously powerful computer workstations". There was not enough computer power available in mass market machines of the time to draw the whole screen in "real-time 3d polygonal graphics", which is why Jagged_85's claim is rubbished by hardcoregamer.

Early "experimental shooting games"
This edit: 02:47, 27 Jan 2011 makes the exceptional claims that various pre-Space Invaders games had real-life colour images, three-dimensional colour background scenery, and early side scrolling:

"Prior to Space Invaders, Taito developed several earlier experimental shooting games. In 1976, they released Interceptor, an early flight simulator that involved controlling a jet fighter while moving a crosshair to aim and shoot at enemy aircraft that move in formations of two. In 1977, they released Missile-X, a simulator that featured real-life colour images as background scenery and involved the player launching missiles to destroy enemy tanks, and Sub Hunter, an early submarine simulator that featured three-dimensional colour background scenery and involved controlling a destroyer that fires depth charges at submarines while having to avoid their mines. That same year, Sega released an early side-scrolling video game for the arcades, Bomber, which involved controlling a bomber plane that drops bombs on moving targets, which include a scrolling pattern of buildings, while shooting at oncoming fighter jets that also move in a scrolling pattern across the screen."

The sources were the respective KLOV/Arcade Museum entries: Interceptor:, Missile-X:, Sub Hunter: and Bomber:.

The "early flight simulator" is a ridiculous claim not supported by the source. It's neither an early flight simulator (which have been around since at least the 1920s), nor an early computer game flight simulator, which is the sense presumably meant by Jagged_85; the first example of the latter, in the sense of a game which tries to give a realistic sense of what it is like to fly a plane, dates from around 1979. The source does not make any claim at all about Interceptor being any sort of a flight simulator.

All the source says about color in Missile-X is: "Black and White with a Color Overlay". There is no support at all for "real-life colour images as background".

The Sub Hunter part of Jagged_85's edit doesn't even make sense; a submarine simulator (which is not a claim made by the source) would be expected to simulate what it would be like to be in control of a submarine, whereas clearly in the game you are actually in control of a destroyer, a surface ship. Again, the suggestion that the player has to avoid the submarines' naval mines is not in the source, and does not make a great deal of sense; Jagged_85 presumably means torpedoes. Finally, the source does not even mention color, let alone support the claim: "featured three-dimensional colour background scenery".

About Bomber, all the source says is: "Bomber is a side-scrolling game". early side-scrolling video game is an addition of Jagged_85.

Donkey Kong Sales on Famicom
— 22:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that "The Famicom version of [Donkey Kong] sold one million units in Japan"

The source cited for this was:

But if one consults the charts at this source, the Famicom version sold 840,000 copies. My guess is that Jagged included the 160,000 units the re-release of the game sold on the Game Boy Advance, but as this is a different platform, even if it is a faithful recreation of the Famicom game it still counts as a different version of the game. The source itself does not claim that the GBA version is the same version as the Famicom version, hence the separate table entries.

Donkey Kong Sales on ColecoVision
— 17:39, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that Donkey Kong sold 6 million copies on ColecoVision.

The source cited for this was:

But here is what the source actually says: "[MCA] received from Coleco an agreement that they would pay [MCA] three percent of the net sales price [of all the Donkey Kong cartridges Coleco sold]. It turned out to be an impressive number of cartridges, 6 million, which translated into $4.6 million." So yes, Coleco did sell 6 million cartridges. However, they released the game for three systems, ColecoVision, the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), and the Intellivision. So those 6 million in sales were not all on the ColecoVision, nor did the source attempt to advance that claim.

Donkey Kong Arcade Revenue
— 21:27, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

This edit added claims for several arcade games as to how many quarters they took in at the arcade, including Donkey Kong (1.12 billion).

The source cited for this was:

But here is what the source actually says:"Donkey Kong was Nintendo's first international smash hit and the main reason behind the company's breakthrough in the Northern American market. In the first year of its publication, it earned Nintendo 180 million US dollars, continuing with a return of 100 million dollars in the second year." So, in other words, Jagged has derived his figures for the number of quarters spent playing the game by taking the total revenue earned by the game and multiplying it by four. This in itself is not a problem since one can break down dollar amounts into quarter amounts just fine, but it is a problem in this particular case.

To understand the problem here, some context is needed. Video arcade games are produced by coin-op manufacturers, who assemble and sell the cabinets to distributors. Distributors are the sales organizations that approach the people who will actually install and maintain the games, called operators, and sell the cabinets to them with a mark up over the manufacturer's price. Operators then place the games in locations, which could be places they own or places in which they have an agreement with the owner, and make their money from coin drop, ie the money that patrons put in the coin slot to play the game. If the operator places the game in a location he does not own, this revenue might be split with the location owner. So to summarize, manufacturers and distributors earn their money from cabinet sales, while operators (and sometimes location owners) earn their money from coin drop.

Now, in regards to Donkey Kong, Nintendo is the manufacturer. This means that any revenue it derives from the game comes from cabinet sales. In the quoted source, the author is discussing Nintendo's earnings on Donkey Kong. Therefore, this does not in any way represent quarters spent playing the arcade game. So Jagged not only gets this wrong, but once again appears to have no understanding of the way the industry he is attempting to chronicle works.

Arcade Revenues in 1985
— 19:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that "The arcade video game industry would continue to generate an annual revenue of $5 billion in quarters until 1985."

The source cited for this was:

But while this book was published in 1985, the Google Books summary states that it collects articles written between 1981 and 1985. The article from which Jagged has quoted is discussing the Pac-Man craze and dates from well before 1985. Therefore, that quote is not referring to 1985.

Pac-Man Sales in the United States
— 18:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that "Over 350,000 [Pac-Man] arcade cabinets were sold in the United States alone during the 1980s."

The sources cited for this were:

But here is what the first source actually says: "Released in 1980, Pac-Man was an immediate success. It sold over 350,000 units, and probably would of sold more if not for the numerous illegal pirate and bootleg machines that were also sold."

And here is what the second source actually says: "Pac-Man was one of the first video games offered for personal computers. The round yellow characters with moving mouths arrived from Japan in 1980 and were quickly converted into a game for PCs. The simple game flew off store shelves. Eighteen months after the game's introduction, more than 350,000 games had been sold for one billion dollars in the United States alone."

So the first source makes no mention of the United States, while the second source clearly refers to a PC port of the game and not the original arcade version. A claim of 350,000 U.S. sales would be inaccurate anyway. In sworn testimony before a Federal court, Midway employees testified in 1983 that the game sold 96,000 units in the United States.

Note: This claim has also been included by the user in
 * List of best-selling video games: 18:35, 29 January 2012

Sega Master System Sales in Brazil
— 16:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

This edit added an entry for the Sega Master System to a table entitled "Sales Standings." In the column labelled "Americas," Jagged listed the Sega Master System's sales in Brazil as 2 million.

The source cited for this was:

But here is what the source actually says: "In 1996 we reached the mark of 2M consoles sold and our hotline was receiving 50 thousand calls per month."

By 1996, Tec Toy had served as the official Sega distributor for the Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, and Sega Saturn, as the source in question explains. Therefore, those 2 million sales are spread among all three of those systems.

Lineage II Sales
— 17:53, 09 April 2011 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that "To date, [Lineage II] has sold 14 million copies."

The source cited for this was:

But here is what the source actually says: "So what exactly is it about Lineage II, which has kept some 14 million gamers worldwide coming back for more with each new expansion to the game?"

Note the article does not use a term that explicitly refers to sales. This is important, because in Mainland East Asia, where many of the gamers playing this Korean game are located, MMOs like Lineage II are not sold based on a retail model. Rather than a player buying these games, an Internet cafe or similar establishment makes them available and then charges the user a membership fee or an hourly rate to access them. Therefore, many of these 14 million gamers never actually bought the game, and that 14 million figure cannot be extrapolated as sales.

Note: This claim has also been included by the user in:
 * List of best-selling PC video games, 17:53, 09 April 2011
 * List of best-selling video games, 22:17, 09 April 2011

Best-Selling Role-Playing Games in 1982
— 00:02, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that "By 30 June 1982, Temple of Apshai had sold 30,000 copies, making it the best-selling computer RPG in North America up until that time, followed by Wizardry and then Ultima."

The source cited for this was:

But here is what is actually going on with that source: In the September/October 1982 issue of Computer Gaming World (CGW), the editors of the magazine published the results of a voluntary survey they conducted with 150 computer software manufacturers, not all of whom chose to respond, about what their best-selling titles were. Because these sales figures are straight from the publishers and printed in a reliable source, this provides a fascinating glimpse into the economics of the computer game industry in 1982. Jagged, however, goes a step too far when he claims this list provides an absolute ranking of all games sold up to that point. First, as previously indicated, not every company chose to respond. Among the non-responders were several large companies including Atari and Avalon Hill. Also, not every company shared the sales of its entire catalog. For example, Infocom only shared the sales data for Zork I even though Zork II and Deadline had also been published in advance of the 30 June 1982 reporting date, while On-Line Systems only shared data for The Wizard and the Princess despite having released several other games by that point as well. Therefore, this list is useless for determining what the best-selling games up to that time were due to major gaps in the data. This did not stop Jagged from trying, however.

Note: This edit took some back and forth to finally remove. After I reverted the original version on 27 January 2012 with the edit summary "Sales info derived from CGW voluntary company survey, so it does not represent complete sales data for all games at that time and a ranking cannot be assumed," he returned to the same chart with a slightly different absolute ranking claim in this edit with the summary "Its called the "List of Top Sellers", therefore it is making that claim. Explained it exactly as how CGW listed it." Of course, what he represented is not what CGW claimed at all.

Asteroids VCS Sales
— 14:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

This edit added the claim that the game Asteroids sold one million copies on the Atari VCS.

The source cited for this was:

But here is what the source actually says: "Sales of video game cartridges with names like "Missile Command" and "Asteroids" rapidly ran into the millions."

Look at that sentence: "with names like Missile Command and Asteroids" is a prepositional phrase. The subject is "video game cartridges." Therefore, if you remove the prepositional phrase, the sentence states that sales of video game cartridges rapidly ran into the millions. It is not making specific sales claims for Missile Command or Asteroids and merely uses these as example names of video game cartridges.

Out Run Sales on UK Computer Platforms
— 11:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

This edit updated a table entry for Out Run to indicate that the game sold 450,000 copies in the UK.

The sources cited for this were:

But here is what the sources actually say: "The biggest game of the pre-Christmas period? Out Run, of course, which in about two minutes sold over 200,000 copies on all formats."

"Out Run is believed to have sold over 250,000 copies at Christmas."

So these are saying the same thing in different ways. The first source states that during the "pre-Christmas period," ie during the period before Christmas 1987 in which games were being sold, Out Run sold over 200,000 copies. The second source says "at Christmas," ie during the period before Christmas 1987 in which games were being sold, the game sold over 250,000 copies. Note that both sources date from mid-1988, so one does not likely have any additional sales info over the other regarding the Christmas 1987 period. Apparently, Jagged thought that "at Christmas" meant a completely non-overlapping span of time vis-a-vis the "pre-Christmas period" and therefore aggregated the sales from these two sources to reach the figure of 450,000 units. While the reporting period is conceivably slightly different for these two magazines, there is going to be some, and probably a significant amount of, overlap.