Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20201004/Feature

Feature: About templates in gaming articles
 Submitted by - ias postb□x+ 

Video game-themed articles on Wikipedia have used templates widely and frequently, we can say. They have provided readers brief, convenient information inside boxes that are much smaller than the article in general. If you want to know what's going on in this situation, let's put it simply: you're at the right place. In this occasion we'll tell you about all those templates you see in gaming articles.

In case you're wondering "why do articles have templates?", it's because during the early years of this website, articles were primitive and old-school: basically, in the early years before templates came into being, many pages consisted of nothing but text, external links, and CamelCase links; some users inserted images and audio files to articles, then they were making these tables and other unusual code that looked quite simple. If they wanted to go further, then it would be difficult, and it would require something new. So to make it easier for people to do put such idea into pratice, the Template system was created, and Wikitext was expanded upon to support the new system. Those who had expected fancy code from other websites now had the chance to put a decent box of colors, headers, information, etcetera; some of the earliest templates such as Infobox and Navbox fulfilled this purpose. Of course the video game articles had to experience this embracement of templates, as they felt compact and explanatory to users and readers alike for providing information about video games. As the encyclopedia got bigger, more unprecedented experiments happened, and people found out ways to incorporate templates in ways no one ever heard of before. And that brings us to today, where we have so many things to do in articles that the possibilities keep on growing, so now have stuff to show to you in this feature.

Infobox video game
Perhaps the most common template seen in video game articles is Infobox video game, a video game-themed variant of the Infobox template. Used in individual video game articles, it provides the reader with essential information about the game in a box. What's with all these "Insert subject here" texts? I inserted that and a free image I didn't create, merely to give you an idea of "placeholder". The full syntax includes 22 parameters, most of them being who made the game, what the game is, how it is played, and whatever it's made of, the whole thing. What's shown here is the title, the image (can be cover art, logo, or else applicable like a screenshot), the alt text, the caption, the developers, the publishers, the platforms, the release date, the genres, and the modes, as well as italic title (I set it to "italic title = null", de-italicizing the page name, without the italic title parameter the title is automatically italicized, if the parameter is set to "italic title = yes" then the name is in italics).

Infobox video game was created by Grunt on June 15, 2004, 18:20 UTC. The first version is very different from the current one seen here, featuring a table layout instead of a light grey box, and both feature rows and columns for parameters. The top part is just one cell, succeeded by two cells representing two cover art images, and the rest (except for the bottom part, which is permament text) is just divided into two halves, the left providing names for the components of the game (example: "Producer"), the right containing the descriptors (example: "Youmu Konpaku"). All the left-side cells end with a colon, which is absent from this infobox's current version.

At the top, the generally known title of the game is in a dark red background, followed by spaces for images of the front cover art and back cover art, the full title of the game, and other titles associated with it; in the template's current version, the title is simply the full title sometimes assisted with alternative names for the game, and you only get one image (generally front cover, could otherwise be screenshot, logo, or else applicable like poster or photo) that is optionally accompanied by a caption and/or alt text. The developer, producer, and publisher credits are present in both versions, the new one incorporated links to Video game developer, Video game producer, and Video game publisher, the old one doesn't have it. The "Systems" parameter present in the original version became the platforms parameter you see here in this template's most recent iteration. The "Genre(s)" portion remains the same in most revisions, except in some revisions where the "(s)" doesn't appear. Speaking of the presence of "(s)" in these names like "Genre(s)", all the other left cells' names didn't have "(s)", but several such as "Publisher" and "Developer" earned the "(s)" to become "Publisher(s)" and "Developer(s)" later on. "Multiplayer" tells readers whether or not the game had multiplayer functionality. This ended up turning to the Mode(s) parameter that simply lists the modes present in the game, as in single-player and multiplayer modes. System requirements and Recommended system spec were useful for games playable on personal computers (PCs). The bottom part is a single cell reading "This infobox is part of WikiProject VideoGames". WikiProject VideoGames became merged with WikiProject Computer games to become WikiProject Computer and video games, also know as WikiProject Cavg (hence why in early 2005, that part read "This infobox is part of WikiProject Computer and video games"), and was renamed to WikiProject Video games.

After its creation in 2004 it was overhauled frequently. The first change to the template was made by Mrwojo accompanied by this edit summary: "hijacking: format like WikiProject Cavg infobox (which is not a template)". He was implementing the features of the WikiProject Cavg infobox: light blue and light grey colors, a one-image parameter, half of the parameters' background color became light blue, and the rest light grey, things like "", etcetera. The two images part became one image only, and there was also "Rating(s)". Yes really. "Rating(s)" isn't in later versions of the infobox. "Media" (storage medium like cartridge or disc or download) came into existence, and "Systems" was renamed to "Platforms". In his later edits to the template, he added "(s)" to the parameter display names, as well as other things such as making all the left-half of the parameters have a light blue background, removing the bottom part with permanent text in it, and making the template gain a minimalistic table look. Several edits by other users followed. In one edit, the Input parameter was created. Like "Media", "Input" (controllers used for playing the game) was also part of the template, and then removed/deprecated. "Distributor(s)" was even added to the infobox, but later it was merged with "Publisher(s)". At one point in early 2006, most of the left portion of the infobox were covered in light blue; later in the same year, all the left portion's covered in that color. We go further into early 2007 and find out that the whole box had a light grey background; later in the same year the background color switched to a slightly darker grey, which is normal grey. Collapsible, state, and italic title parameters were inserted into the template. Ultimately new parameters like "Writer(s)", "Composer(s)", and "Artist(s)" were put into the template, several parameters received Wikipedia article links, arcade-themed parameters were added, and the whole box lost its "multiple cells" look in favor of another simplistic light grey box look. For a few years, the parameters were redesigned so that some parameters were regular grey and some others were light grey. Later, the whole box again became light grey.

Video game release table
Next up is Video game release table. It was created by an IP on August 13, 2016, 02:47 UTC. The template tells the reader when a game's released, and what platforms it's released for. Region names are abbreviated, and you can modify the regionC parameter to make it say something like "AUS" or something. The leftmost cells are parameters naming the platforms the game's released for, all other ones are release dates. If you see "N/A" it's because there's no release for that. Again, I made up the examples.

Video game reviews
Video game reviews, invented by  Cr im so nF ox  on October 14, 2007, 12:43 UTC, is a template where you can list the game's reviewers, their review scores, the aggregates and their ratings, the platforms, the awards, and the publications who give out their awards. What you see here is random crazy examples I made up just for the sake of placeholders.

Crimsonfox's initial iteration of the Video game reviews template was similar to the late 2006 version of Infobox video game I talked about earlier ago, but now we have a light blue color for the Publication and Compiler parameters. Awards was made out of copying that Infobox VG template, so he changed it into something that didn't resemble the infobox. He added many variables for the critics, the ratings, the platforms/systems, and the awards, and he italicized many reviewer names too. He tidied the code just to polish the template by October 22, 2007, and subsequently several editors improved on his conceptual basis. The aesthetic went through a similar history like Infobox video games, and more people added parameters for more publications, systems/platforms, scores, and awards/nominations. What it ended up with was including a mixture of light-greyish shades of green and blue, as well as the color grey itself. The title and subtitle parameters, among other features like custom aggregate parameters and custom publication parameters, were inserted into the template to create a comprehensive, very handy tool for the Wikipedian.

Infobox video game series
Infobox video game series is similar to Infobox video game, the difference is that everything applies to a video game series, which is more than one video game. The full syntax includes 19 parameters, most are used for conveying information. Shown here is the title, the image (can be logo, or else applicable like a cover art, or even a screenshot), the caption, the platforms, the developers, the publishers, the genres, and the first and last release versions and release dates, as well as italic title (I set it to "italic title = null" again). The template was created by ViperSnake151 as a fork of Infobox video game on November 19, 2008, 15:31 UTC. It went through a history similar to Infobox video game.

Video game series reviews
Last on the list is Video game series reviews, first made by LOL on April 20, 2009, 18:24 UTC. The template tells readers about the sales and critical reception of a game series, plus the years of the games' releases, their names, and when all of this was updated. You can use QID to earn data from WikiData and the template instantly receives and delivers what could've otherwise took a lot a searching to do properly. There's even icons that say you can "edit this on WikiData"! You can also use references to make something that would've otherwise took lengthy incursions into the wild for usage in articles, like put in a reference from an aggregate in the place where you specify an aggregate's review score and suddenly the score appears.

Conclusion
Templates are important for video game articles. They answer questions very well in decent volume. They tell readers and editors alike everything within so small a space, and so short a time.

I think I'm interested in templates because they're amusing, like you can do stuff with it. There's unexplored potential in them. Feel free to improve templates.