Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 86

Final Fantasy character template Tfd
the Final Fantasy character template has been TfD here and has yet to have a clear consensus. So if anyone wishes to participate, please do so we can have consensus.Bread Ninja (talk) 22:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Corrected. It's a template, not an article. 陣 内 Jinnai 00:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Elite COTW
Seeing as Elite (video game) is our Collaboration of the Week, I'm wondering if anyone is interested in working on it. It's honestly one of the most important games ever released—more influential than all but maybe a half-dozen other titles—but our article on it is pitiful. It's been covered so heavily over the years that finding sources would be a breeze; all we lack is the drive. It's always been too daunting for me to do alone, even though I've considered working on it several times in the past. If we collaborated, however, I think we could do some good work. Anyone interested? JimmyBlackwing (talk) 10:34, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Jimmy- I'm surprised we haven't done a full blown collaboration before. We both very much have a desire to work on important retro games. Just as test, do you find the ratings at WikiProject Video games/Essential articles somewhat sad?
 * I got the urge to work on this article a while ago after seeing it pop up in issues of Retro Gamer. But I typically lack the time to dedicate to the article writing I'd like to see done. Perhaps we could work out a time line of projects to do together considering that we already have two articles we're both interested in. (Guyinblack25 talk 21:43, 24 January 2011 (UTC))
 * I am, indeed, very unhappy about the ratings at Essential articles. I've looked at them over the last few years, and they've been a constant source of disappointment for me. I'd definitely be interested in collaborating with you to improve a few. PoP '89, Elite, Fallout, Populous, King's Quest I—these games and their histories fascinate me, and I believe that they deserve better articles. Those aren't the only ones, though; a large amount of the Essential articles interest me enough to get me motivated. Whenever you have the time, we'll figure out what to work on first. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 00:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series
I was wondering if we were considering the improvement of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. articles, eventually prepare them for the PediaPress. Considering S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is mid-importance, it should be improved above "starter class." Halofanatic333 (talk) 12:45, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Reminder : as a GSC Game World game, STALKER screenshots are freely available. Means you can take those you want as much as you want and use as many as you want in as many articles as you want. Yeah, I am kinda repeating myself here, but I am always amazed to notice how few GSC screenshots we have and how little these are used (especially on en.wp).
 * Jean-Fred (talk) 14:41, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Soooo, I can take my own?Halofanatic333 (talk) 16:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * They would have to be uploaded to commons:Category:Images from GSC Game World - not Wikipedia itself - and would have to contain all the same licensing info as the other screenshots, but yes. --Teancum (talk) 19:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * In light of that earlier discussion about using free images in genre- and gameplay-related articles, perhaps a STALKER image (like this one) could be used to replace this lead image. And this could be used to provide Real-time strategy with an image. Any thoughts? JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * RTS sure! However, Doom is iconic with FPS and should stay there.Halofanatic333 (talk) 01:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can. As Teancum indicates, please use the relevant template {Attribution-GSC Game World} when uploading files to Commons. Jean-Fred (talk) 15:38, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Right now, I think the structure of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat's gameplay section needs a major rehaul before we start worrying about screenshots.Halofanatic333 (talk) 12:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As an incentive to jumpstart this, I added both S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky to the reassessment page, as they are both beyond start class (in my opinion at least).Halofanatic333 (talk) 20:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Merge opinions
Because of the above discussion, I looked at Who Framed Roger Rabbit (computer game) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Nintendo Entertainment System). Both articles are stubs, and they even state in the NES article that these are different versions of the same game released on different systems. Is there a good reason not to merge these?LedRush (talk) 21:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the NES game was made by a separate company (Rare, published by LJN) and features different gameplay from the home computer versions. The same would apply to the Kemco game that would be changed from Roger Rabbit in Japan to Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle in America. –MuZemike 21:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * How about Who Framed Roger Rabbit (video games) (note the "s")? We could add the Gameboy version.  It's just that these are sad stub articles that will probably never be anything more than that, and are borderline notable as it stands.LedRush (talk) 21:18, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Another possibility may be Video Games based Who Framed Roger Rabbit.--76.66.180.54 (talk) 22:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * See above. I thought it was a different game. 陣 内 Jinnai 00:49, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Numbering the Zelda games.
Hi, I would like your input at Talk:The Legend of Zelda. Thanks, Blake (Talk·Edits) 03:21, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Heads up for classic game articles
They just announced an 11-lecture series of postmortems from various games, given by their key developers, will be at the GDC, with the information put up online after the event. 

Games include:
 * Prince of Persia
 * Pac-Man
 * Elite
 * Another World/Out of this World
 * Marble Madness
 * Doom
 * Pitfall!
 * Bejeweled
 * Populous
 * Raid on Bungling Bay
 * Maniac Mansion

Clearly going to be a good source of dev information for these game articles. --M ASEM (t) 15:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sweet. I've wanted to work on about half of those games (just need the time to do so). Thanks for the heads up. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC))
 * I have some paper sources from various magazines about Maniac Mansion if anyone wishes to work on that; I would just have to dig for them. The same applies to Prince of Persia (which I am assuming is referring to the original Prince of Persia (1989 video game)). –MuZemike 21:28, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm absolutely interested in working on those. I have print sources as well. Though I'm sure we have some overlap, I'd imagine that combined we'd have a good bunch of sources for the articles. (Guyinblack25 talk 23:48, 20 January 2011 (UTC))
 * Given the status that these games enjoy, I'm sure a lot of this has been covered already. What we really need are postmortems of games no one has ever played or cares about.  Remember to keep an eye out at the GDC Flickr Feed for free images too. - hahnch e n 00:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd definitely be up for a Prince of Persia '89 collaboration, if anyone else is interested. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm about to work on a list of Pac-Man games with Nomader. I can work on the article after that. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:23, 21 January 2011 (UTC))
 * Sounds good. I don't have any print sources, but I do have knowledge of the online print archive at my disposal. Plus, I know about a few interviews with Mechner that you and MuZemike might not have; I should be able to keep up on the research front. I've always thought that PoP 89's low quality article was a shame, so it'll be great to help improve it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I've commented on Talk:Maniac Mansion. I can provide sources, but I don't know how good I'll be on actually building the article as I have never really played the game. –MuZemike 18:52, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

"Development" and "Reception" sections in a stub article
Over on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (computer game), there's a bit of a dispute brewing between someone who insists that without sections on "development" and "reception", an article fails WP:N and should be redirected to a "list of games by [publisher]" (User:Sarujo), and someone (User:Badger Drink) who insists (using crude, borderline incivil edit summaries that he should probably be warned about) that aforementioned sections are only required for an article to reach Good or Featured status, and a stub without these particular sections is just that - a stub, but not an ipso facto violation of WP:N. The game in question is an officially-licensed product, released by a then-major game publishing studio, so it seems to this particular crude, borderline incivil jerk that the game is practically guaranteed to meet some standard of notability - but since this particular crude, borderline incivil jerk doesn't have much access to contemporary computer gaming magazines, he is at a bit of a frustrating loss when it comes to adding a couple sources himself. Because I've more than met my quota of frustration and annoyance for the day, I'm posting this message here in the hopes that someone more prepared and informed than I can inform Sarujo of his misunderstanding of the Wikipedia notability guidelines, and perhaps - as a bonus - get involved in the article as well. Badger Drink (talk) 19:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I would point those who doubt the game's notability to the Amiga Magazine Rack for plenty of reliable sources. –MuZemike 21:22, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well it doesn't automatically fail, but without reception or other similar real-world impact, yes it does and if its brought up to AfD will likely get redirected or merged. The development info is not nessasary for this game though. 陣 内 Jinnai 00:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't the article be merged into the NES one?LedRush (talk) 21:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a remake? I thought it was a new game. If so, then yes, even if it passes notability, it shouldn't have its own article without a good development section. 陣 内 Jinnai 00:48, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * None of these games are remakes, but are based on the film of the same name. However, I would agree that a merge per the discussion below would be best.  No need to separate the articles since they will likely be never more than stubs. --Teancum (talk) 21:46, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Nehrim: At Fate's Edge
I recently found this gem of a game (Total conversion of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), and I was appalled that there was no article on it. So I created it and gave it my best shot. However, I'm not really used to write VG articles, so I thought I'd drop you people a line and ask for help. The universe section could use some expanding, which I can't do right now because I'm about 20 hours in the game and have yet to discover much about the universe and of the story. Mainstream coverage (IGN, Gamespot, etc...) of this is surprisingly low considering how big this is in the modding community, and it won Mod DB's mod of the year award for singleplayer.

So yeah, any help you can give would be much appreciated. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Usually, it's fairly difficult writing about mods, due to lack of sourcing. But the PC PowerPlay and PC Gamer sources are good.  The article's decent already. - hahnch e n 20:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Working on the Development section of StarCraft II
I'm currently working on StarCraft II, specifically its Development section first. I haven't touched the actual article; I'm sandboxing my work here. None of the content there comes from the article, either, which means that when I merge the new content with the existing article, the article will be about 60 kb. I feel that that might be a bit too big of an article, so let me know if it is.

Anyway, this is my first real work on an article since The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, which was promoted to FA over two years ago, so I'd like to get working on something again. So, I'm looking for thoughts on what I have so far in the sandbox. I feel that there's a lot of stuff that is repetitive and can therefore be cut; the text could probably also use a copyedit.

I'm heading out right now, so please let me know what you think so far. Thanks! Gary King ( talk  ·  scripts )  22:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Flight simulator genre
While working on Flight Unlimited, I couldn't help but notice that we don't actually have an article on flight simulators. Our genre template links to the article about real-life flight simulation, which isn't particularly helpful. We've got an article about combat flight simulators, but not an all-encompassing one for general aviation, PilotWings-esque arcade sims, aerobatics and the rest. Even a one-paragraph stub would be better than nothing, in my opinion. Does anyone else think we could use one? JimmyBlackwing (talk) 08:24, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There's also Amateur flight simulation. - hahnch e n 15:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Still, half of that page is taken up by real-world examples. We need a more tightly defined article, which would specifically cover the video game genre. Compare space simulator to space flight simulator game, for example. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:34, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There was a discussion about sim articles a while back and multiple articles were merged. We do still have the all-encompassing vehicle simulation game. Personally, I think the Combat flight simulator article should be rewritten as a general FS game article; for starters, the title and context of the article seems to be based on the Microsoft game series in particular, and besides that I think they're part of the same overall genre and the "Combat" distinction is really just blending in the action genre. Of course games within a genre can have different themes or variations of gameplay, as with any other genre, as well as blending with other genres such as action. Ham Pastrami (talk) 21:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the game-related material from amateur flight simulation could be merged with the combat flight simulator article; then, the latter could be retitled "Flight simulator game", or something. I'm not that familiar with genre articles and their naming conventions, so I don't know if that would be correct. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:26, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Possible ref link problems
I've noted that has recently been adding several reference links to old gaming mags on older game articles - which of course is generally a good thing, but the user is also linking to the PDFs of these articles at Mean Machines Archive. These scans don't appear to be authorized by the original magazines, which unless I'm missing something, makes the linking to these illegal. That's not to say that the ref to the original article is bad, but we cannot link the URL to these PDFs, I believe. Does anyone know if there's anything otherwise special about that site that allows for that? --M ASEM (t) 00:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Request: Vsync
Vsync presently redirects to Analog television, which does not answer my questions. I seek information on what the so-named setting I see in numerous PC games does, and what are the (dis)advantages of enabling it. I hope the experts here can do something to ensure that people who go to Vsync with the same purpose will find something useful.--69.110.0.210 (talk) 01:39, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've adjusted the redirect to go to the relevant section of the article (Analog television). The connection with computer graphics is explained in the second half of that section; in short, it trades a small loss in performance for avoiding screen tearing. Anomie⚔ 02:48, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

IGN just took down its "Top 100 NES games" list
This probably will affect quite a bit of NES-related articles, but IGN took down its "Top 100 NES games" list, as all its pages are now 404 errors. A good part of them are also not found on web.archive.org, and I don't know how long Google cache keeps old versions of the pages. –MuZemike 01:24, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't a site like archive.org work.--76.66.180.54 (talk) 02:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * They just said that most of them aren't found on there. Blake (Talk·Edits) 02:10, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I read that too fast. I only saw the Google cache part and missed the archive.org part.--76.66.180.54 (talk) 02:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Not sure if this will hold up, but I archived google's cache of it. So yea, its an archive of an archive. 陣 内 Jinnai 08:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Can I just remind everyone, that this is a good opportunity to push the Wikimedia Foundation to adopt User:WebCiteBOT. I can't see why they can't use a few thousand (at most) of their $16 million dollar budget to fix a solved problem.  See this VP thread for some background.  I made a thread at StrategyWiki here, I don't know how active that wiki is now, but add a comment and it'll bump it to the top again. - hahnch e n 14:08, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * With WebCite, though, you need to archive each page of an article separately. For example, every entry in that NES list would have to be WebCite'd one by one. I don't think a bot can do that. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't have archived the entire domain. But it would have archived every single link used as a reference. - hahnch e n 20:35, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * But let's say I referenced Gamasutra's recent feature, Onloaded Shadows: Moving Shadow Map Generation from the GPU to the CPU. Using the standard "cite web" template, I only enter one URL in the "url" category. However, the Gamasutra feature contains three pages; WebCiteBot would only archive one of them. If the bot were to be implemented, a way of archiving the other pages would need to be put into place. Perhaps an invisible "multipage" category, or something, could be inserted into the citation template; it would require that every necessary URL be included, but would allow WebCiteBot to actually do its job. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Almost every site that multi-pages articles also adds a print friendly feature (eg for Gamasutra, there's a button on the left, or appending "?print=1" to the URL, eg ). For each site, as long as the bot knew what the URL trick is to get the print version, multipage issues aren't a problem. --M ASEM  (t) 21:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've considered that, but print options aren't widespread enough to be a reasonable fix. Don't get me wrong; I archive every URL I can, and I think WebCiteBot would be hugely helpful. However, there are key issues that would need to be addressed before it's adopted. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Even if its flawed, its better than the status quo. Whats more, if its adopted it will likely have more done with it to fix the flaws. 陣 内 Jinnai 18:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Found it!. That still doesn't change the my opinion as its time consuming to go through web archive and it very well might not have picked it up. I only considered it possible because for popular pages they'll go in 1-2 link levels down, but they are archived in weird places.
 * Also archive won't hit cites that disallow bots and it retroactively hides sites that disallow them which for sites that go dead can be a pain impossible to get a hold of the holder and ask them to change their bot policies for that particular page (knows this from personal experience). 陣 内 Jinnai 23:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Awards
So I recently came across Japan Media Arts Plaza, (which I am confident easily passes RS criteria) and wondered if we should start some more formal way of defining awards and how to decide what to use. I know there's been discussion in the past, but it has always stalled out. Meanwhile people just slap awards on VG Reviews with no concern about whether they should be there. Since I'd like to go through and do an overhaul of our GL anyway, what do you think? 陣 内 Jinnai 18:43, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Dragon Age II images
I'm not really satisfied that the images used in Dragon Age II have adequate fair-use rationales. File:Kicking-ass-in-dragon-age-2-20100817080847944_640w.jpg and File:Thedasmap wallpaper 1600x1200.jpg. Anybody else agree? -- Tærkast  ( Communicate ) 18:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah i don't think so either.Bread Ninja (talk) 18:58, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I guess we should tag them.-- Tærkast  ( Communicate ) 19:06, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Music of DJ Max and List of DJ Max media merge dispute
new contributor who is new to the englsih wiki wants to merge the two articles together. Although i originally wanted to do the same.I couldn't as the two were completely different. one is media that happens to have tracklist, the other is a list of songs of the game, simialr to the rockband and dance dance revolution have. regardless, the contributor believes they are the same no matter waht. Although yes, i do believe the media article needs merging, i don't believe it should be merged into the music article as it's not meant for media. Can someone please join in and end the duspute?Bread Ninja (talk) 19:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Is editorially created (i.e., not user created) content on gamefaqs.com a reliable source?
I just wanted to point out the following discussion on what, if any, content on gamefaqs would be considered coming from a reliable source. I asked there first because I wanted the discussion to be separate from any current discussions (to think purely of policy and not the effect on a specific article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Is_editorially_created_.28i.e..2C_not_user_created.29_content_on_gamefaqs.com_a_reliable_source LedRush (talk) 15:40, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Feature articles and what they can be used for
So you may remember that some time ago I asked for clarrification on how to use these after a dispute arose in their use with LttP+FS and other articles. I finally got some feedback at RS/N essentially saying that those are okay so long as they are attributed to whomever says it. They want to make it clear that its not a fact, but merely an educated opinion. 陣 内 Jinnai 16:24, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Nothing earth-shattering :P Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 17:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, but it does change things a bit. 陣 内 Jinnai 17:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So does the LTTP article merge with LTTP+FS??--BeastSystem (talk) 18:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It still has the problem of most of its "development" being release info that isn't connected with development. 陣 内 Jinnai 18:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * To my knowledge, this was already more-or-less standard practice; as David Fuchs said, it won't be particularly earth-shattering. I hope it cements the concept within WPVG, though, because I was surprised to find that not everyone was doing it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think some were taking it as "fact" and not attributing it. 陣 内 Jinnai 02:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Kingdom Hearts TFA
Kingdom Hearts (video game) is scheduled to be the TFA for February 7, 2011. While I'm happy that is was chosen, I know that the quality is not up to snuff due to several issues. Of course the obvious answer is to fix them, but my editing time is rather erratic and I'm certain I can't improve the article in a week. In fact, I've been debating whether or not to take it to FAR. Any thoughts on the matter? Should I request it not be the TFA, and is that even a possible request? (Guyinblack25 talk 21:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC))
 * Well, I say just try your best to fix the issues that are most important, and then make sure it doesn't get too worse on that day. Then you can FAR afterwards. Blake (Talk·Edits) 21:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * One of the issues is the use of sources that do not meet our criteria for reliability. Fixing that would require more than a week for me to research proper sources. (About the only I have readily available is a Japanese book, which would take me a long time to translate.) And without the content in the unreliable sources, the article would fail the comprehensiveness criteria for FA. If the TFA is meant to showcase Wikipedia's best, then the KH article is not a good choice. I know video game articles use to draw excessive criticism for being on the main page. That has largely diminished, but I don't want to give naysayers more ammo. (Guyinblack25 talk 21:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC))
 * If you're actually planning on taking it to FAR, you need to read this from the intructions:

Raise issues at article Talk: Speaking of FAR, anyone want to check-out/improve Devil May Cry 2? It was denied TFA for reasons listed here  « ₣M₣ »  00:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In this step, concerned editors attempt to directly resolve issues with the existing community of article editors, and to informally improve the article. Articles in this step are not listed on this page. GamerPro64 (talk) 23:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Warcraft II does not match talk page
As the result of a series of mergers, the article is Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and the talk page is Warcraft II. As the article now contains all things Warcraft II, I'd lean towards the simpler title, though one of them needs to chosen over the other. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  04:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Assuming that these merges are stable and not being contested, I would agree moving the article to Warcraft II since the article is used to cover more than the base game. Ham Pastrami (talk) 05:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Automate stock information through RSS feeds
Village pump (proposals) - please see this proposal and voice your opinion. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  07:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

WikiProjects to VG Task Forces
I have to argue that a few of the VG-related projects should be converted for task forces. Age of Empires hasn't had a discussion thread on its talk page that wasn't related to many other pages as well in two years. Adventure games hasn't had one since March 2010. Music Video Games has had one unique discussion thread period. Koei Warriors games hasn't had a discussion for more than a year. And as for the Xbox and PS ones, they aren't particularly inactive, but they don't seem to have anywhere near the constant stream of activity that warrants being separate. I'm not necessarily calling for all of these task forces to be merged, but some of them don't really need to be separate. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 02:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Convert all - in a hierarchical sense the project should be "video games". Platforms, genres, franchises, etc should fall under it as task forces, but even then only with active support behind them. --Teancum (talk) 02:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Status Quo - Converting these to task forces changes nothing about their effectiveness or lack thereof. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 02:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I merely proposed Task Forcication for the sake of being amicable with anyone who might be attached to them. But I'm not opposed to marking a project as historical and shuttin' it down. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 02:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Even if they are marked historical, old VG wikiprojects should be made historical task forces (instead of just lying around WP). This way they are subpages, and their talk pages can be searched along with our archives. Though it won't hurt to move them and wait to see if the move and consolidation of resources helps to reinvigorate. But move for sure. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  02:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we should convert music video games; that's an extremely new WikiProject that really never took off the ground. The others should stay as task forces for at least historical purposes. Nomader  ( Talk ) 05:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Per an old discussion I moved the Strategy game wiki to WikiProject Video games/Strategy. There are some articles that need to be untagged now, but I'm waiting for an edit to Template:WPVG. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  06:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Edit done. -- Pres N  22:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Video games/Inactive project cleanup has not been in use for over a year now, but it was a fairly useful administrative task force to gauge activity in some project and determine which ones were needed and no longer needed. –MuZemike 06:31, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * WikiProject Video games/Insomniac and WikiProject Video games/PlayStation have been added to the fold. Hopefully we can get them revitalized! ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  09:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Just so that you know, 8 Projects were proposed for a move to Task Force status last year, but an admin disagreed with the fact that they were all nominated as a block and closed each discussion as a No Consensus (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Koei_Warriors_Games) - X201 (talk) 09:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, the admin opposed that they weren't being discussed at once. The initial proposer made them separately, because each project is obviously different. The thing was part of a re-organization drive, and the editor closed it for no reason. I moved the above projects because I had been personally involved in discussions about making them TFs at one point or another. The others I had not, though I think if the Halo project went anywhere it should be under XBOX. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  09:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Rambling time- I believe most every one has different opinions on this subject. More often than not though, proposals like this lose steam because members are more interested in things they deem more important. However, I strongly suggest members (new and old) to collaborate in establishing member, structure, and participation guidelines (or at least general recommendations) for our task forces and sub-projects. Many might argue that this is a bad approach that needlessly imposes control on the community and its members. But a well designed process can aid those involved reach a quality outcome. Some ideas to consider: Our current model for task forces and sub-projects as rather hit and miss in my opinion. We some good success stories, but a number of inactive project pages. We can let things continue as they are or try to improve things to benefit every one. My two cents. (Guyinblack25 talk 21:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC))
 * 1) Redundancy and consolidation are a double-edged swords
 * 2) * While it makes sense for sub-projects to mirror the structure and resource assignment of a parent project, it can be impractical. Some things need to be kept separate, like main talk pages. However, others are better left consolidated, like assessments and peer reviews. The latter typically are stretched thin where ever you look. Eliminating that redundancy should help both parties.
 * 3) * Consolidation has its limits. If the work load is too large, then merging things could backfire. Also, some groups can function well enough by themselves and merging could prove to be fruitless.
 * 4) * Finding which resources to consolidate streamlines a process to the benefit of those that use it.
 * 5) Project structures are really just in our head
 * 6) * One of the main oppositions I noticed in our project consolidation was that many people simply wanted to be part of a separate project rather than task force of a more generalize project. While I can empathize, I believe that a project that struggles to accomplish its goals needs some type of restructuring.
 * 7) * Same thing with task forces, just because a task force scope is set for one thing, does not mean that members must focus exactly on that scope. Operating within it is completely fine. Our project scope is every video game topic, but some editors deal primarily with stand alone games, others with characters, others with genres, and others still with history. I believe that this same paradigm should be applied to task forces and sub-projects. A larger scope just means that you have a better chance of meeting a fellow editor with editing interests similar to yours.
 * 8) * A scope doesn't define editors' decision. It simply provides boundaries to work in. Decision within those boundaries are fair game.
 * 9) The end goal of projects should be to foster collaboration to help generate quality articles.
 * 10) * You can collaborate with anyone so long as there is mutual respect. Editors with similar interests should have a place to meet and collaborate, whether it be a task force or sub-project talk page. The structure and existence of pages should aid in reaching this goal.

WP:Square Enix and Dragon Quest
So, it looks like the Square Enix project has abandoned Dragon Quest, and now we have a Dragon Quest task force. For those of you who don't know your history, we had a Final Fantasy WikiProject. Then somebody made a Square Enix WikiProject. When we were doing inactive project cleanup, FF merged with SE (see here). Even though FF was more active and had been around longer, SE was a broader topic that encompassed the other, so it seemed logical to proceed that way. We also had a whole Dragon Quest project, but that was inactive and went through MfD.

So now there is this project that covers all of Square Enix. Except of course for Taito, because there are so many games from before they were purchased. And except for Eidos, for similar reasons. And except for the Battle Ogre games... and Dragon Quest... So we pretty much have a Square Enix project that only covers Final Fantasy games. Neat! WTF is going on?

Ok, so does WikiProject Video games/Dragon Quest only exist so that people won't bother WikiProject Square Enix? Because that's how it looks at the top of SE's page. Maybe the project should go back to just FF? Or are there interested editors who would like to work in a project that covers all of SE, not just the current scope (whatever that is). I personally got frustrated with the focus issue when I was trying to work on Taito articles, although with that one it made sense (at the time). DQ doesn't make any sense. Ogre Battle doesn't make any sense. Or am I mistaken? ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  10:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I found the conversations that ruled-out Taito and later Eidos (note that both are now fully published by SE, and are little more than development houses, with with SE often providing assets like FMVs). I cannot find any discussion for DQ. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  12:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Wait....I haven't heard of this....seems odd to have a dragon quest article. Not too long ago, we were discussing something about dragon quest. Was the creation even discussed before?Bread Ninja (talk) 10:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I just stumbled across it myself. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  10:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't believe we're trying to steal members from anybody... maybe WP:SE could rename themselves "WikiProject Current Square Enix Properties series"? I think this is more a matter of them needing to define the scope of the series which they'll be covering. Oh, also, don't forget Kingdom Hearts. They should be covering that too. Nomader  ( Talk ) 11:12, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think the problem lies within the scope of SE. there are more than one series that havne't gotten attention that are within the Square enix-scope. Not to mention the Square enix wikiproject isn't as active as it use to be, so it's perfectly fine to merge the two. i really don't see any need to keep them separate.Bread Ninja (talk) 11:28, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Actually, they are covering Kingdom Hearts and Mana games (or at least some). And I don't think anyone is trying to steal from anyone, and I'm pretty sure that most SE members are VG members. Rather, it seems like they are deflecting editors. Is it possibly based on how many Good/Featured articles there are in a group of games? What is the scope? Why is DQ here and not there? One of the reasons given that SE couldn't become a VG task force was that there are too many non-VG products from SE. This made sense at the time, but now... I mean DQ has several non-VG articles (like Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibōken), but we're still covering it because it is VG-related. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  11:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I dont think it should be based of the number of Good/featureed articles. the scope is right there in WP:SE, and i can't answer why it's been split up. I'm not even sure this was done without the proper procedures considering i haven't seen a mention of DQ split in the square enix wikiproject. And i dont see why it has to be mainly VG and not SE. That and i've learned this the hard way that wikiprojects can cover more than one article, so really this should still be in SE while VG covering the articles relating to VG. it's not that hard.Bread Ninja (talk) 12:04, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I mean it falls under our purview too but DQ should definitely fall under the auspices of SE. Nomader  ( Talk ) 12:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge it?
Should we consider merging the Dragon Quest task force with the Square Enix WikiProject if it is possible? Darth Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 12:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks like that's where consensus is heading. I have no objections, and I doubt SE will but it looks like this is something that should be brought up to them as well as a merge possibility. Nomader  ( Talk ) 12:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well the point is, it was. Something happened to split it out, and the split seems arbitrary. I'm hoping that someone that knows what's going on will wake up and read this. And as none of the members of either group have been involved in this discussion yet. If you imply there's a consensus this early, objections will appear en masse to prove you wrong. They have been notified about this thread. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  12:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I support the merge, it seems a little odd to see a wikiproject come up without any mention of it. Not much keeping it from keeping it split from WP:SE.Bread Ninja (talk) 13:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow, you came to consensus in 3 hours, between 2AM and 5AM west coast America time! That has to be some kind of record. Anyways...

So, you wanted to know why Dragon Quest isn't under Square Enix. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Square Enix/archive/4 has your answer. WP:Final Fantasy was upmerged into WP:Square Enix in March 2009, as WPSE was basically inactive and we'd always planned to do that someday anyway. 1 month later, in April 2009, someone raised a complaint that WPSE had some strange articles listed in its scope- like Riven and Tomb Raider III. It didn't make any sense to us to have those there- and the reason they were listed was because they were published in Japan by Square Enix. As editors of WPSE, we didn't feel like that was a strong enough connection- it would mean that half of the projects articles were ones that no one cared about. So, we changed the scope. Instead of all games/related that were developed or published by SE, we made it just developed. This cut out those extraneous articles, and also cut out Dragon Quest- Enix published DQ, but they were developed by Chunsoft. Incidentally, that's why you never heard about the cut, Bread- your first comment on the talk page was October '09, 6 months later.

I don't really see why you want to merge the DQ task force with the SE project. Even leaving aside that it doesn't fit in the scope, what benefit would there be? If the task force is dead, it's because no one is working on those articles. How will tacking it onto a wikiproject change that? If the WP:SE editors (all of whom are WP:VG editors as well) weren't interested in them before, we're not going to magically get interested now that it's on our index page.

Also, you guys are making some weird assumptions. The hatnote on WP:SE about the dragon quest project is because the dragon quest guys wanted the publicity, not because WPSE didn't want to be bothered. WP:SE didn't "arbitrarily" cut DQ out of our scope- we defined the scope to "games developed by", and they weren't. We do cover things that aren't Final Fantasy- you mention Kingdom Hearts, which even has a section on the front page, not to mention the index. If you're not going to take the time to look up what WP:SE covers or why, then please don't make decisions for them. -- Pres N  19:10, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I do think that special exception could be made for this rule, considering how significant the franchise is for Square Enix. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 20:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's basically why there is a seperate TF. And no, its not dead. It doesn't have many members, but we haven't judged many of our older projects on how many members they have, but how well they try to improve articles under their scope. There are other TFs with less activity and similar membership (if you consider active members only) as that TF.
 * While I think the reasoning behind shoving DQ and other ones is somewhat arbitrary since it primarily considers only the Square historical side of Square-Enix, I wasn't going to argue. The history of Enix does center from outsourcing part of its development and DQ was its flagship title therefore while I believe the division of what was in the scope and what wasn't was not intentionally done to remove DQ, it was done in a way to essentially make it cover mostly the Square titles of Square-Enix. 陣 内 Jinnai 20:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * To be clear, it was not my intention to imply that there should be any forced merge or move or whatever. There have been dozens of failed VG taskforces and projects, and FF is one of the few (if not the only) that has maintained a steady editor base, and shown great results with article quality. What I am hoping for here is clarity. It does not make sense to me that if a DQ project is created under a WP that it would be VG and not SE. But to be honest, it is 100% the member's decision what goes on in a WP or TF. I get that items are eliminated from the scope because they do not interest the members of the members of the project. What I am specifically asking is, what is the scope? Because it does seem arbitrary, and that is incredibly frustrating. Walking into that project I have no idea what you guys are covering, so I can see a ton of work and discussion undone because Taito games aren't really SE games. Not making your scope explicit creates a sense of elitism, because you know what's going on there and other people don't. I'm not saying that is intentional, but that is the case. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  21:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I personally don't think that's the problem with Dragon Quest, as the connection between the series and the square enix company was more than simple publisher. Yuji Horii (video game designer and scenario writer) has an exclusive production contract to Square-Enix. Not only that but the main dragon quest article mentions a significant amount of Square enix. So it would be odd to keep this out of Square Enix, even if they were merely the publisher and not to mention Enix's involvement with related media. The series had affected north American and European places, with the name change and releases. I would argue square enix isn't just a publisher, but i suppose that's original research. despite that square enix had affected dragon quest more than. Or maybe we can just changed the scope to be things that were exclusive published by square enix so Square enix can be a lil more involved with the enix side.Bread Ninja (talk) 21:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * TBH I would prefer it be under SE because I have gotten this "why isn't DQ under SE project" before. I just didn't want to make an issue out of it at the time. However, I would also like it to be embraced by the SE wikiproject and not feel like they were grudgingly forced to accept it as it would just make things worse. That WP is the natural place people have gone in the past to ask about DQ and indeed the old DQ Wikiproject redirected to that site before I changed the redirect. 陣 内 Jinnai 21:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not really opposed to merging, I just didn't like the way it was brought up. The scope will be wonky, but that's not the end of the world. Sjones and Bread seem to be in favor of it, so if no one else shows up to complain we can go for it. What would be the scope then? Right now on the main WP:SE page it's

"Specifically, the project supports all articles that cover anything that Square, Enix, or Square Enix designed or produced. It does not cover articles covering items only published by Square, Enix, or Square Enix, and it does not cover articles related to Square Enix's wholly owned subsidiaries Taito and Eidos, which were bought in 2005 and 2009, respectively, as their domains are too large and distinctive to be included in this project's scope."


 * How should we add Dragon Quest onto that? Just, "It does not cover articles covering items only published by Square, Enix, or Square Enix with the exception of the Dragon Quest series"? -- Pres N  22:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I personally just found it really odd that there wasn't a discussion about the project and there was a discussion about DQ not that long ago in the SE project. We could make it so X-factors are allowed. such as Dragon Quest that has had a history with Enix and further more with Square Enix. Or maybe instead of "only being published by square enix" be more like "square enix serving as one of multiple publishers" i really don't know how to write it. but basically make it so that if square enix is only one of the many publishers of the given article, then it doesn't belong in the wikiproject. But these are merely options, i'm sure a better solution can come up.Bread Ninja (talk) 22:28, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The thing with Enix is the current statement, unless exceptions are made, excludes all of its Enix titles as they all were developed in conjuction with other studios. 陣 内 Jinnai 22:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Bread- what discussion are you referring to? The last one I could find was here, and that's from March- 11 months ago. -- Pres N  22:43, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

WHHAAAT!?!? Holy crap, I am a giant JackAss. I don't know why it never occurred to me that DQ wasn't developed by Enix. Now it makes some sense. Sorry for my rude comments above. DQ is so integral to the image of Enix that it never occurred to me. Wow, that really is a specific scope. So you cover Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, but not Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen. You cover FF, but not DQ. What about Star Ocean: Second Evolution? What about Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which is co-developed (SEJapan did all the FMVs and probably a lot of other assets as well)? Where does the scope end in those cases? ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  22:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, we're not so good at the gray edges. The scope really is mainly an excuse to just focus on the series that we were interested in. I'd say the star ocean remake counts since we're including the Tactics Ogre remake, but that the Deus Ex game doesn't. That's a bit outside the scope of this debate though- I'll bring it up at WT:SE, and see what they think. -- Pres N  23:04, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Fictional characters
I would just like to address that there's a new Wikiproject, WikiProject Fictional characters, about fictious characters, since some of our articles fall into their project as well. GamerPro64 (talk) 01:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, created it, and I have some faith in it, and would like to see where it could go. The project could use some help with tagging. If anybody knows of a bot that could tag all the articles in WikiProject Fictional characters/Categories, that would be really helpful. Also, see WikiProject Fictional characters/Quality content for all FA/GA character articles. Blake (Talk·Edits) 01:43, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Project statistics charts
WikiProject Video games/Project statistics charts - Does anyone see an actual need for this page? This is transcluded at the bottom of the main project page, and it is all out-of-whack. I was going to edit it to make it look better, but I realized that the images haven't been updated for two years. I get the idea, but do we really need graphical representation of articles by class, afds by vote, etc., on the main project page? Even if someone kept them updated, surely their usage is anecdotal at best? The Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Video game articles by quality statistics bit should stay for sure, as that is automatically updated and serves as a directory of sorts. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  22:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks cool, but I suppose that you're right about it being unnecessary. Also, if we need a graphical representation of project status, it'd probably be better to use MILHIST-style progress bars, anyway. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think maybe it looks different to me than it does to others, so I've included a screenshot. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  22:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I really like the graph version, and think it should be updated. Blake (Talk·Edits) 22:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The statistics box should be centered. Hm... While the graphs are pretty, there's no use in having them if no one wants to take the time out to update them. I really like the idea of having bars showing progress towards certain targets. I often feel the project could use some direction; something we can focus our collective efforts on. -- Dorsal  Axe  14:47, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note that it's possible to have a bot update the graphs and such (e.g. as done here), if consensus is for it. Anomie⚔ 14:57, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If the progress bar idea does indeed take hold, might I suggest a target of 250 featured articles? I don't think that's unreasonable, seeing as MILHIST just passed their 500th FA. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 06:40, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Is any chart really nessasary? No, but it makes sorting though data much easier. That said, if its not updated with a bot there's no need. 陣 内 Jinnai 07:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The current graphs are also undesirable in that they are "stacked", which is non-standard. Okay, how do we get progress bars? What sort of goals do we set? ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  11:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Since no one else is stepping up to the plate: I don't know how to create progress bars. The MILHIST guys are probably the ones to ask. If we were going to set goals, though, 250 FAs, 1000 GAs and 500 pieces of Featured content overall might be good. 100 Good or Featured Topics, too, perhaps. Anyone have any other ideas? JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:08, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Progress bars are super-easy. Just do this - which makes


 * -- Pres N  21:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Can we have both? Maybe the graph could be a yearly thing. Every new years it gets updated and replaces the old one. Blake (Talk·Edits) 21:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, sorry, this is better -


 * This one does it automatically; no manual updates needed. -- Pres N  21:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Both would be preferable. Everyone responds differently to things. 陣 内 Jinnai 21:35, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If there are graphs please make them more easy to understand (i.e. not the stacked kind we have now). Either regular line graphs or bar graphs, just not the kind we have. My feeling is that at least half of the people that look at those charts are thinking they are seeing something they are not. Also, those charts should be linked to from the main project page, not plastered across it. Lets do the automatically-updating table and progress bars FTW. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  23:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I got rid of the table and put two bars up, those graphs just don't fit with the rest of the page. It's like finding a puddle of melted Crayolas. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  23:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The progress bars look good. One thing, though: the GA goal seems kind of low. Maybe 750 would be better, as a compromise between our two numbers. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:20, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

List of PlayStation Store PC Engine games
Is it normal for the List of PlayStation Store PC Engine games to be exclusively about Japan? 

I've tried to get other areas' info, but it wasn't easily forthcoming (I'm sure you guys know it)? So, should we rename this or add the NA/EU info? Or ignore it?LedRush (talk) 22:21, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I wish it weren't true as the PC Engine had some great games, but I don't think we'll see it outside Japan. 陣 内 Jinnai 22:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * But they've already announced the release of some games in the US (like Neutopia). Unfortunately, according to that article, they were supposed to release it in January.  Which brings me to another question...how do I add a little tag behing a statement that is out-of-date?LedRush (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Update after is the closest they have. 陣 内 Jinnai 01:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, gotta go do some tagging...LedRush (talk) 12:49, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Onlive and COI
I've had a problem with an IP trying to add Onlive to the list of platforms that Braid (video game) is on. While true that Braid is available through Online, I don't believe that Onlive qualifies as a "platform" - much like the discussion about Steam recently, it's nothing special in terms of unique hardware or the like. With that, I've been removing Online from the platform in the infobox.

Now we have who's name and current editors (of today online) clearly suggest a COI problem. It's not an issue of writing about Onlive (if he is a person associated with the company, that would be an issue), but that he's returned back to add in the Onlive as a platform.

So there's two questions:
 * 1) Is "Onlive" a platform? My sense is no, just as much as Steam or Impulse or the like is a platform.  There's nothing special about the "system" it runs on (they seem to be PC versions of games run on a dumb terminal, effectively), so it's not like a console or that. And as there are no unique or exclusive OnLive titles, it's simply a storefront - a unique one, yes, but still a storefront.
 * 2) Is there a COI issue here? --M ASEM  (t) 07:00, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * GameFAQs are a pretty good site for listing every platform available, . Onlive isnt listed just as steam isnt. So maybe not a platform. Salavat (talk) 07:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)


 * This is new territory. Unlike digital distribution, it isn't just an app running on top of a host PC. It can be used without a computer, via a proprietary console device. There are also indications that the games it runs contain unique code to support it. I think it is potentially a unique platform, but this should hinge on the perception in the press and whether they start listing OnLive as a category (for example, most review sites have sections for PC and every major console). Until then I would use a conservative approach and not treat it as a separate platform just yet. The COI is an issue as it is promotional in nature. There are other cloud services on the horizon and we don't want all of them being added until their status as a platform gains some legitimacy in public perception, and we cannot favor OnLive over the others. Ham Pastrami (talk) 08:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I did find that there was a thread at the OnLive users forum that clearly is the basis on these additions. Given that it reads that Warrenonlive is simply a fan and not an employee, there's really no major COI problems here - though of course edit warring to get one's point across isn't good either. --M ASEM (t) 05:21, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think it should be listed as a platform on its own. It should be treated the same as Steam, Gametap and GoG. OnLive and all similar platforms should be grouped together as streamed services. If we list OnLive as a single platform, then we have to do the same for Gaikai, StreamMyGame etc. - X201 (talk) 09:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know a whole lot about OnLive, but I do know that it is more than just like what Steam is, it does have a physical system that is purchased and used to stream games and whatnot from the OnLive service. It is a new type of thing, so it's a little hard to say whether it should be classified as a new platform on its own or not. GameSlayerGS (talk) 16:27, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I would say that "Cloud computing" counts as a new platform. What Onlive do is to run the game on their own server - all that your computer does is read the mouse/keyboard/joystick - send that data to Onlive and receive in return a streaming video.  To put it in simple terms, you are playing a game that's running on their computer - and watching a live video of what's happening.  OTOH, Steam stores the game on their server - but download it into your computer for the game to run.  That's just "digital distribution" - what Onlive are doing is really very different and certainly deserves it's own article. There is no comparison between the two services...none whatever.  Because the game is running on their server, it's a definite "new platform" because the game isn't running on any of the 'standard' platforms (ie a game console, a PC, a phone or a hand-held).  So I think it's perfectly correct to add "Cloud server" as a new platform.  SteveBaker (talk) 17:06, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Until we have games that are specifically developed to only work on OnLive, it is simply a modified service and not a platform akin to 360 or PS3. It doesn't matter that it is a piece of hardware and based on cloud computing: at the CPU where the game is being run, the program is no different from the PC version and thus essentially just like Steam or other storefronts.  Once there are games that can only be played on OnLive can we start talking about it as a platform. --M ASEM  (t) 17:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As per Masem. OnLive is merely a layer, not the platform.  I can run games remotely using Citrix software for example, they're still PC (Windows in this case) games. - hahnch e n 17:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Be aware another reg user (clearly from the aforementioned thread) has been adding OnLive to the game articles again. The thread is a bit worrisome again because those users are pushing on trivalities and the like to try to convince us (WP editors) that OnLive is a unique platform. To me, Hahnchen has the best argument here: it is like claiming a game platform is the MacOS X just because the game (a Windows title) can run in the emulator there. It is effectively a giant emulator, possibly modifying the code to make the game work effectively, but no different from what Steamworks adds or what Good Old Games does to older games to update them for modern systems. --M ASEM (t) 06:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This clearly needs to be taken to WP:RFC at this point. A definitive word beyond our own will put this to bed one way or another.  --Teancum (talk) 15:31, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Question about naming the games in the Ace Attorney series
I noticed there appears to a discrepancy in the naming of two of the game of that series. The article for the second game uses. Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Justice for All with third being at Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. The main question here is whether the comma or the colon is correct because unless Capcom decided to change the grammar for the two games one of them is at the wrong title and needs to be corrected.--76.66.180.54 (talk) 04:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It should be a colon, this is consistent with the rest of the series and Capcom's own marketing. The offending page has been moved. --M ASEM (t) 04:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, Capcom does not use the first colon at all when "stacking" trademarks. "Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney" becomes one clause when used in front of specific titles. The colon is only used for the original game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I happen to agree with this usage on the grounds that A) these words are only here as brand identification and not a meaningful part of the title, and B) it eliminates the awkward use of multiple colons in English, which I personally would support as a general guideline. Ham Pastrami (talk) 05:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I feel we should go off what most reliable sources refer to the game as, and it looks as though IGN and GameSpot both list it as "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" (IGN and GameSpot). Nomader  ( Talk ) 05:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not different from what I said, your links are to the original game. Ham Pastrami (talk) 22:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Heads up at Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo (series)
Joystiq is reporting Halo HD will be out this November. No other confirmations have been made, and even they seem to say between the lines that it's still a rumor. The Halo-based pages might get flooded. --Teancum (talk) 15:48, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I stand ever-vigilant (there's been a lot of that in the past few months, I guess this will just mean more of it.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 21:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Halo pages have always been a vandalism nightmare. I remember the time I had working on Combat Evolved; I'd have edit conflicts with vandals, or even accidentally make a huge change to a vandalized version, so that it couldn't be cleanly reverted. It's been nice working on old game articles; the vandals more-or-less ignore them. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:17, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've generally taken to just throwing out liberal semi-protection; when there aren't that many meaningful edits anons can make to a stable, developed and high-quality article the chances are it's going to be a junk addition. Luckily the worst of it has died down; back in '07 before and after Halo 3 all my watchlist pages were constantly exploding. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 16:27, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Kowloon's Gate
This is a Japanese game but in the main text of the article, the Japanese title is not given (クーロンズゲート, or KOWLOON'S GATE -九龍風水傳-) Per guideline the Japanese title should be given. The problem is the 九龍風水傳 part - it is intentionally given in Traditional Chinese (lit. The Legend of Kowloon [Wall City] Fung Shui) Hence it might not be appropriate to use nihongo template since there is no romanji to translate to.

For that matter, in Japanese Wikipedia Kowloon is kept as in Chinese name, 九龍, and not written as 九竜. SYSS Mouse (talk) 23:35, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If I understand correctly: the original title contains Chinese characters which are not used as Japanese kanji. If that is the case, it should suffice to use nihongo to the extent possible; omit the romanization and provide only the Japanese title, or romanize only the Japanese portion and leave the Chinese portion as-is. You might also inquire at WP:China and see if someone there can provide pinyin or another appropriate romanization. It may be possible to nest or otherwise make use of zh if you don't feel comfortable using only nihongo. It might also be worth looking at CJKV. Ham Pastrami (talk) 04:27, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Misty
There was a recent change of moving Misty (Pokemon) to Misty (Pokemon character) with the reasoning that she isn't a Pokemon. I did not immediately revert this as although it violates our naming conventions, it seems like it might be a reasonable exception. Thoughts? 陣 内 Jinnai 18:08, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In most ares of disambiguation, the (X) refers to the franchise itself; in that respect treating the (Pokemon) as the creatures goes against conventions. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 18:15, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Technically, even a proper Pokemon is still a "Pokemon character" if Pokemon is used as the franchise identifier, i.e. they are all characters in Pokemon. So this doesn't really disambiguate, it just lessens the expectation of Misty to be a Pokemon while not eliminating the possibility. It would be more useful to use, if anything, the phrase (Pokemon gym leader) or some such, which differentiates from an actual Pokemon. Ultimately though it doesn't matter, as there is only one subject by the name of Pokemon and only one character named Misty associated with it. Ham Pastrami (talk) 23:24, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Is anybody really going to mistake "Misty" for a species of Pokemon? Blake (Talk·Edits) 03:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There are over 600 species of pokémon. At this point, you could make up pokémon names and people would believe you. :P Reach Out to the Truth 03:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have no doubt about that, in general, but I think people would question a pokemon named Misty, Ash, Gary, Brock, etc. 陣 内 Jinnai 03:44, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Pokémon should italicized. Problem solved. Jonathan Hardin&#39; (talk) 16:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added italics to Misty's page. Brock's page already had italics when it was moved though, so it seems that's not going to "solve" the issue completely. Reach Out to the Truth 16:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Anyone want a GA under their belt?
In preparation for the 3DS, I did a little work on WonderSwan (cut-and-paste merged the three articles) and Virtual Boy (found and cleaned-up images). Virtual Boy could be made into a GA (currently at B), with all the coverage that thing has received. WonderSwan could too; the article is a bit of a mess right now, but it could be made GA if someone is well-stocked in elbow grease. I also made an article for Famicom 3D System, but I don't think it could ever get past Start-class, unless it shares some of 3DS's spotlight in the press coming up. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  09:53, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I had to demote Virtual Boy to C-Class. 2/3 of the article is completely unsourced, including the entirety of the overview section and it's subsections.  That with the current maintenance tags and inline external links and I couldn't keep it B-Class.  Could probably get back to B with some work, though. --Teancum (talk) 13:04, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So... Anybody want a B-class article under their belt? ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  13:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * While we're on the subject of GAs, could one of you guys look at Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and tell me if it's ready for a GAN, or what else needs to be done? I've never done a GAN, so I'd like some input.  Nolelover  It's football season!  13:44, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Glancing at the article, I can suggest that you convert the bulleted lists into prose. They don't go over well at GAN or FAC. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 14:18, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That was done a couple months back by an uninvolved editor who made a lot a changes in one edit. I've undone that, and other then some ce-ing, which I believe GiB25 will do, are there any other major problems?  Nolelover  It's football season!  14:29, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd give it a more in-depth review, but my time is pretty tied-up at the moment. I suggest nominating it for GAN and seeing what happens; if problems arise, it's not that hard to deal with them. If you're worried that it won't pass, you might try nominating it for peer review first. I didn't notice any quick-fail worthy problems, though, so I doubt there's too much to be concerned about. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 15:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll nominate it sometime this week.  Nolelover  It's football season!  16:36, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The second cover may have issues with people wanting to know how there is critical commentary on the cover specifically. 陣 内 Jinnai 23:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Commons:WikiProject Video Games
I've created a Commons:WikiProject Video Games to help organize efforts on Commons, as well as organize the images themselves. It's not much to look at now, but hopefully if there are like-minded editors then this will help towards progress. Or maybe it will disappear into the void, time will tell. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  03:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Neverwinter and Daggerdale
Does anyone have anything to improve the articles for these upcoming games, Neverwinter (video game)/Neverwinter (Cryptic Studios), and Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale? 108.69.80.49 (talk) 05:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Opinions sought for gameplay article
As we have no featured content that is based on a gameplay element, I'm looking to get advice of what should go into such an article. After a nice summary article of the history of the (dreaded) quick time event that appeared yesterday, I've been able to expand that article far from a stub, but am unsure if it can be expanded further or the like. Sure I could take it to GA and see how it fairs, but I'd like to see if there's anything I really really need in it to progress forward. --M ASEM (t) 20:28, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Heads up
I may need a few extra eyes to help on Guitar Hero, as this article : suggests the series has been official killed, but more details will come in Activision's financial hearings tonight. Nothing may happen, but given history of this, this could lead to vandalizing. --M ASEM (t) 21:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ouch. Well, it is good that you addressed the rumor in the article, because then people have nothing to add. It is already there. Blake (Talk·Edits) 21:22, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Good riddance to the series. It was driven into the ground, what did they expect.  Stinks for the developers though.  I'll watch the article too. --Teancum (talk) 21:38, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Kotaku (a newly promoted reliable source) confirms it straight from Activision with a direct quote. --Teancum (talk) 21:45, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Going to add now. Eyes still appreciative for the next few days. --M ASEM  (t) 21:53, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The statement provided from Activision is disband Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011. Neither the disbanding of the business unit nor the cancellation of one game directly implies that the franchise is dead/officially killed. There's definitely big cuts being made from the franchise and its future is bleak, but just be careful not to overstate it. If I had known Kotaku was being considered for RS, I would have objected. This is hardly the first time that they've posted exaggerated headlines. Ham Pastrami (talk) 03:37, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Many many more sources have broken their own stories since; many of them use the word "axe". Certainly we can't say it's done completely, but we can say obvious things like the closure of the business unit and the like. --M ASEM (t) 04:37, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

This sounds similar to Hudson Soft's very recent decision to close down its publishing arm Hudson Entertainment at the end of the month and cancel all projects within. Doesn't mean all of its projects and franchises are officially dead. –MuZemike 03:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

DJ Hero has bitten the dust too - X201 (talk) 12:59, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Is/was applied to series?
I'm having problems with IPs changing "the GH series is ..." to "the GH series was...". Based on how we derived the current language in our guidelines for tenses, they're more aimed at specific games or units, so its difficult to apply to series. Now, for one, Activision has not said the equivalent "we will never made a GH game"; they likely will not be making any in the appreciable future and shuttered the studios, so we don't have a final point on a timeline, so "is" is still appropriate. But if the assumption was that Activision fully killed GH, gave up its trademarks/copyrights, etc. etc., the series still exists, so "is" is still appropriate as well.

Am I wrong here? --M ASEM (t) 20:58, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So Who's on First?. Is, not was. It always exists so its is. - X201 (talk) 21:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's "is". Guitar Hero 1 "is" a video game, the Guitar Hero series "is" a series of video games- just because they're not still published doesn't make them past tense. -- Pres N  21:06, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What everyone else said. The GH series did not cease to exist, so it is a video game series. I would only use past tense for the production: it was developed and was published. (Guyinblack25 talk 22:26, 10 February 2011 (UTC))

Very minor POV push
A IP user has recently been going through and expanding/promotion for Tri0viz 3D glasses to articles. So far the edits seem to be in good faith, but also seem to have a bit of a promo push to them. Tri0viz are located in France, and the IP is from the also French. I don't necessarily know that the two are connected as they're at opposite ends of the country according to the IP trace, but the WP:SPA nature leads me to believe they are. Again, nothing of concern just yet, but it might be something to watch. --Teancum (talk) 12:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Article currently proded
The 1989 Commodore 64 and DOS gameFace Off! has been proded has non-notable. Does anyone know of any reviews that may save it? Salavat (talk) 16:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Amiga Magazine Rack. –MuZemike 21:02, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Kool thanks. But do you think that would be enough to de-prod it? Salavat (talk) 05:26, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I added a couple of reviews and removed the PROD. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 18:10, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks alot. Salavat (talk) 04:01, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Baldur's Gate series
Please feel free to join in on this conversation, and/or here. 108.69.80.49 (talk) 00:39, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Progress bars
In a recent discussion above, it was decided that progress bars would be included on our main page. However, I'd like to discuss one more element about them: placement. Currently, they're under "Statistics", which is very low on the page. Wouldn't they be better off under "Goals", or some variant thereof, as with WP MILHIST? It'd be a pretty drastic visual alteration to a page that most of us see so regularly, so I thought bringing it up here would be better than being bold. Any thoughts? JimmyBlackwing 16:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with moving them up to goals. -- Pres N  22:03, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yep, I'd have no objection to moving them up there. Nomader  ( Talk ) 23:22, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've moved them up, but I think they could use a little bit of introduction. Perhaps something like "Article quality progress" centered above them and in bold—better worded than that, preferably. I have no idea how that code works, though, so someone else would have to handle it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Scratch that—I attempted to move them up, but they seem to have disappeared. It looked fine in the preview. I guess someone will have to figure out what I've done, because, again, I have basically no idea how this works. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:49, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, seems to look ok for me. I don't see any problem there. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  00:40, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You need to purge the page- it's there but since it's inside a template or something it got cached in your browser. -- Pres N  00:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see; thanks. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * They look good. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC))

I don't understand the current progress bars. 71.2% of all articles in the project are Featured? That doesn't seem correct :/ Jonathan Hardin&#39; (talk) 13:54, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No. We are have achieved 71.2% of our goal towards 250 articles. Or: ('136 FA' + '42 FL') / 250 = 0.712. Salavat (talk) 13:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Request for reviewers
Hey all, Final Fantasy XIII is getting close to being dropped from FAC due to lack of reviews. Can anyone take the time to check out the FAC and give it a review? Thanks! -- Pres N  19:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also as an add-on, List of songs in DJ Hero 2's FLC needs more reviewers as well. GamerPro64 (talk) 04:06, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * TBH i don't think it'll pass with the one oppose and only 2 support, especially as there are some unresolved issues, most notably the lack of translation for Ultimania source(s). I think that'll plague you until you get it fully translated because it'll continue to be brought back up (if you properly notify those who had issues in previous FACs). FACs are suppose to be comprehensive and if there's a known RS, even in another language, out there you haven't fully exploited then it does not pass 1b and 1c as mentioned. 陣 内 Jinnai 18:21, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone own the April 1993 issue of EGM
I've been looking for the issue on the internet for ages, but now that EGM's back as a publisher, I doubt i'll ever find scans. So if anyone owns that issue could someone please post the information about Nimbus Terrafaux (a hoax Mortal Kombat character created by EGM in that issue) on here or my talk page. Sincerely Subzerosmokerain (talk) 22:50, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There's scans on this page: http://www.retromags.com/forums/files/category/9-electronic-gaming-monthly/ --Mika1h (talk) 02:05, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also: http://www.mortalkombatonline.com/content/forum/showmessage.cds?id=129397 --Mika1h (talk) 02:06, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Dragon Quest
Since the rationing thing came up, I thought this was as good of time to mention this. I wanted to see since I have PRs for Dragon Quest and Dragon Warrior if some people could take a look at them as I'd like to get to FA quality before the 25th release anniversary in May. DQ has some sources tagged atm I'm checking for replacements or asking about the reliability of the sources (mainly just The Magicbox). 陣 内 Jinnai 19:05, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Soundtrack guidelines
I removed a soundtrack list from an article yesterday, under the same guidelines that I have used before and that I've seen other users state. The guideline being Only add soundtrack listings if the game's soundtrack has been released on a separate CD that has in itself received separate coverage. Another editor asked me to state where in the guidelines this was listed as they couldn't see it listed there, and, after some searching, it turns out that they were right, its not. I found a couple of discussions about it but no actual move to add it to the guidelines. Its obviously become one of the unwritten guidelines in the way we deal with articles, so should we formally add it to the guidelines page? - X201 (talk) 08:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Review of a review
How do we do with reviews of a review when they are by a RS - in this case, the same RS? 陣 内 Jinnai 03:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm lost as to what you're trying to use that source for. It's just a short summary of the review- why don't you just use the review itself? -- Pres N  19:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Avatar usage under discussion again
See Talk:Avatar_(Hinduism) where it is requested that the move done by 2010 move request be undone, moving the Hindu concept to primary in place of the disambiguation page. 64.229.101.183 (talk) 03:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.17
Heads up. MediaWiki 1.17 has just been turned on. Looks like there are a couple of bugs floating about. Keep your eyes open for wonky templates etc. - X201 13:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Reflist tag formats in a bigger font now. It's annoying.  Infoboxes are also screwed up.  See MediaWiki, Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 (no border), Dave Grohl, Iron Man 2.  Twinkle is also turned off/not working.  Is there a specific reason why we upgraded?  I know I'm just one of many web developers in the world, but I never upgrade a site unless it's absolutely necessary or provides significant advantages to the end-user. *EDIT*  Wow, talk pages are really messed up too.  See Wikipedia talk:Twinkle, Talk:Iron Man 2. --Teancum 13:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * All editing gadgets appear to have stopped working as well. - X201 14:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Infoboxes/template boxes/maintenance boxes seem to be fixed. That was quick.  I really hope they don't keep the current reflist font size though. --Teancum 14:17, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Reflist fixed. - X201 (talk) 14:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

It's been reverted back to 1.16wmf4 for now, but due to caching certain things aren't going to be fixed immediately. It seems to be working fine now here, but my gadgets still aren't loading on mw.org. Reach Out to the Truth 15:11, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yah, I noticed that when comparing two versions, the changes were not highlighted, but underlined, which made it hard to track. There were a few others problems too, but I can't remember specifics. It is good that they reverted it back. Blake (Talk·Edits) 02:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like they've switched it back on :D - X201 (talk) 10:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ugh - now there's formatting issues in infoboxes again. Maybe it's just the font used, but things look... weird.  Not a big fan of the toolbar in the edit screen, but I don't really use it and I'm sure others will find it useful.  Just wish we could stick to one font between releases.  It's disorienting to go back and forth. Is there a talk page somewhere to address these issues? --Teancum (talk) 14:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * WP:PUMPTECH is the best place. - X201 (talk) 14:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Videogame FA's on the front page.
It seems that the rate of Featured Articles across all of Wikipedia is by far exceeding 365 per year. What that means is that (sadly) the long standing tradition of every FA getting onto the front page has ended.

It is evident that the front-page FA committee are trying to preserve variety by 'rationing' the number of articles of particular categories...notably, VideoGames. If you look back over the past year, you'll see an almost suspiciously exact rate of one VideoGame article per month...which I take to be an effort to do that.

Sep: Elder scrolls Oct: NinjaGarden Nov: Golden Sun Dec: The Simpsons Game Jan: Sacrifice Feb: Kingdom Hearts

While it would be tempting to demand justice and more representation of our WikiProject on the front page, I actually believe that variety matters for the reputation of Wikipedia - and that one video game article per month is pretty generous. After all, there are 3,000,000 articles out there - and there aren't 100,000 video game articles - so we're doing pretty good! Also, it would be tough to argue that information about video games constitutes more than 1/30'th of all human knowledge. Those of us who recall the tsunami of Pokemon-related FA's and the pressure to get every single Pokemon character's page up to FA quality will realize the need for this kind of rationing!

So rather than complain about insufficient front page space, I think we should make an effort to ensure that those Videogame FA's that DO make it to the front page are the best (although, with FA's it can be hard to choose!) - and perhaps discuss whether we want articles of greater "importance" to make it. In essence, provide some support to the front-page FA folks by recommending certain video game FA's be presented in preference to others...perhaps have this group push forward a single FA to that committee every month - and do our best to limit the expectations of other video game FA authors.

Perhaps we could monitor the front page FA proposal page - and when the time comes to !vote on a videogame FA, we could drop into the discussion something that says "WikiProject Videogames endorses this article as being of great importance" - or "WikiProject Videogames recognises this FA as being of sufficient standard to be displayed on the front page, there are other articles of more importance - so in the interests of preserving variety, we reluctantly do not recommend this article for the front page"...arranging to use the former statement for just one article each month.

This is harsh for editors of new FA's - but numerically, we have little choice - and I'd rather we got to make the decision than a bunch of people who are not experts in the subject matter here.

Comments please. SteveBaker (talk) 13:59, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * First off, I don't consider Ravenloft (module) a video game selection, nor is it a WP:VG article; it is a traditional D&D RPG i.e. pen and paper.
 * With that out of the way, we have over 130 VG-related FAs, which is more than most other projects out there. As far as mainpage selection is concerned, we don't play much a role in it, so we don't know if an older FA (which may not be of good quality) will be selected, or if a newer one (which should be of better quality due to having passed under higher FAC standards) gets selected. We also certainly don't want to run out of VG-related FAs to feature on the Main Page, and we've been a little slow as of late on getting a few new FAs up there.
 * Anyways (since I have to leave in about 2min), that's my $.02. –MuZemike 14:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Er, yeah. My bad on Ravenloft (I fixed my post, above BTW)...which just reinforces my point about one game per month. SteveBaker (talk) 18:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Be aware: the reason that VG FAs are proportioned as it seems is that we have overrepresentation at FA relative to other topics (not a bad thing, just the facts). It is very difficult for us to actually suggest a VG as an TFA directly (we're dinged on the overrrepresentation, and that we're not a standard grade-school topic), so the only ones that we'll likely get through in this manner is by major anniversary dates (10 yrs).  But Raul otherwise picks articles at random, and as you noticed, at about one VG per month at most.
 * If we are really worried about VG FAs at front page, then the best solution is to have a quick quality check of earlier noms (say, anything promoted before 2008, about when FA standards were pushed up a lot) and fix or FAR those that are weaker. I would suspect most of them wouldn't be a FAR problem unless they have been vandalized or allowed to stagnant when new information has become known. --M ASEM (t) 14:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I would definitely agree with reviewing our older FAs. Just look at BioShock: it contains numerous references to forum posts, among other major flaws. Even if it means losing a few FAs, a purge needs to be done. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Apparently when you compare the percentage of FAs VG articles to the percentage of video game FAs that go onto the main page, they are are actually pretty close in number, something like less than 2% difference (I think it was mentioned on the main page talk page a couple weeks ago). I'd say that's pretty a good ratio. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:57, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I know I'm happy Halo 2 hasn't been featured because it still needs a lot more work... as it is I think the balance is fairly good considering the ratio of FAs. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 15:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Do they limit other types of articles to once a month? Seems to be a bias against video games.  The current debate for what goes on the main page, has several voting against a video game FA based on their personal dislike of them.    D r e a m Focus  16:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There's two ways for articles to get to TFA: either they are requested at WP:TFA/R for a specific day, or Raul selects them. In the latter case, Raul is usually good about pulling article from various fields, weighting more heavily in favor of grade-school educational topics than more contemporary ones.  At TFA/R, a general criteria for all articles is that an article from the same field hasn't been featured in a month, otherwise there are points against it.  In addition to not being eligible for the added points for a grade-school educational topic, that means the only way we can usually request a TFA for video games is due to a significant anniversary and/or it being someone's first FA to be TFA. (read: I will likely never be able to request a TFA).  There's a small bias against VG in that sense, but not because they are video games, only that they are not core topics. --M ASEM  (t) 16:19, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Core topics? Why not give people something they want to read.  Find a list of whichever articles have gotten the most page hits recently, and toss them on the main page?  Does being featured on the main page significantly increase the number of page hits of every article listed, or just certain ones?  If some topics are always ignored anyway, no sense having them there.  Anyone ever do a comparison?  Perhaps make a bot for that, reading the article's traffic before and after it got on the main page?   D r e a m Focus  16:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Because WP first and foremost is an educational tool. Contemporary topics like video games, while included, are not as relevant to that core mission as history, science, world events, and the like. If WP ran itself to cater to the actual statistics of pageviews, we'd be fanguides for every possible show and no one would even care about the historical/educational articles.  --M ASEM  (t) 16:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You learn more of the world through study of what interest the majority of its people. Learning about a video game that millions of people bought, is more educational than learning about some species of bird in a country you'll never go to that has no possible influence on any aspect of human society.  The mission is to compile all of human knowledge, not just censor things out that the common folk like, but the elitists think its beneath them.   D r e a m Focus  16:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:NPOV needs to be followed everywhere, though. Having tons of VG articles on the front page can look out of balance to everyday viewers, so I can see that it needs to be "policed" for lack of a better word.  And while TFAs are great I'm of the mind that we have tons of articles that need actual attention from experienced editors to reach our goals.  So in a round about way I agree with them, just not for the same reasons. --Teancum (talk) 16:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

My point is not so much that we're being "limited" to one per month (and with such precision that it can hardly be just luck). I don't even want to change that...it seems a perfectly reasonable rate. What I'm attempting to suggest is that if we ARE being limited, then this WikiProject ought to inform the decision-makers as to which of the available VG FA's we consider to be the ones that most need/deserve to be up there. We can do better by far than an essentially random process. We can be topical - we can even avoid over-representation by a particular genre or game manufacturer. SteveBaker (talk) 18:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We'd have to change how Raul picks the articles, and that doesn't really work. His process is semi-random in that he finds ones that have yet to be featured and that would be interesting. --M ASEM  (t) 19:17, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

First off, I'll say that I agree with Dream Focus in that there certainly is an anti-video game bias out there, and I think I have mentioned it a couple of times here and there (and I even got nearly laughted out of T:TDYK or a video game-related DYK nom once). However, I'm fine with keeping at about one or so a month on the Main Page for two reasons: first, to appease some of those that do not like seeing such a big video game presence on the Main Page; secondly, we only got so many video game FAs to go around. If we featured 3-4 on the Main Page per month, we'd run out of FAs to show quite quickly. –MuZemike 21:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * As Melodia references above, someone on the main page worked out that VG FAs make up 4.3% of the total FAs, but over the past year have appeared on only 3.6% of the days. We'd need 15.7 VG FAs on the main page/year to be completely equitable, not 13. I agree with Muzemike, though, 1/month is pretty good. -- Pres N  21:57, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Besides, Video Game article are cirticized everytime they are up at THA. Why add more articles when its basically like adding gasoline to a burning fire? GamerPro64 (talk) 22:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Video games aren't alone. Tokyo Mew Mew was brought up as the first ever anime TFA request and there was someone who criticized as being we don't need to promote anime. 陣 内 Jinnai 22:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Hey guys. I have to say, I didn't believe that when I put Voyage: Inspired by Jules Verne up as a candidate for main page, that I would be walking into such a 'political firestorm' ! I have to say I was rather shocked by the immediate negativity against it, which was quite a bit discouraging. This issue about choosing the more "important" games to put on the main page - well I guess the game I have written an article about is not the most important game out there, but I did spend a long time on it and I believe I did my best work, and isn't wikipedia about the quality of the writing, more so than what the article's subject matter is? I'm trying to address the non-free use issue by deleting two images to leave only two, as I cannot find any "free-use images" for the game on the web. Thank you so much everyone for contributing to the discussion! I hope my addressing the non-free use issue will encourage some more to support, but even those who opposed, to have taken the time to look at the article and discuss it was very kind of you :) Thanks everyone.--Paaerduag (talk) 22:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * We all know you did a spectacular job on the article - no question about that. If you're the principle editor on an article that makes it through the FAC process - then you're amongst the top 0.1% of editors on Wikipedia - and that deserves a certain measure of respect!  I'm sure I speak for everyone who has been through that horrendous process when I say that we have nothing but admiration for anyone who makes it out the other side of FAC with their sanity intact!   Doing it for an obscure topic makes it ten times harder because references are scant and getting the article to an acceptable length becomes tricky.


 * It's unfortunate that all you get is that little gold star and not your moment in the spotlight...but there are only so many days in the year and nowadays, not every FA will make it. I guess you can take solace in the fact that it wasn't your fault that it didn't make it - and there was literally nothing you could have done to get it there.  This wasn't about the quality of the article - FA is as good as it gets!


 * I guess you're going to have to start work on an article about some obscure Renaissance prince - or maybe a variety of Amazonian beetle - those kinds of things are a sure-fire hit for the front page!


 * For my second FA effort Mini Moke, I picked the most obscure kind of car from the 1960's that I could think of - and ended up buying (literally) every single book and magazine article that had ever been written about it. For a while I was the world's leading expert on the damned thing!  But once it was through FAC, getting it on the front page was a breeze!  SteveBaker (talk) 00:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

While we're talking about FAs right now, I should note that we haven't had a VG article promoted to FA in over 4 months now, the last one being Killer7. I don't know if it's the FAC process, the lack of FAC reviews (which I can blame myself for that personally), or something else, but I mention that because it's been a long while since the last successful FAC here. –MuZemike 05:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Tales of Monkey Island just passed last week. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 06:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

NYtimes article mentions WP:VG
Hey, this is really random, but I figured I'd drop it in here. I was reading the New York Times when I ran across this article which tells people to look at WP:VG/FA, praises the article Halo, and pretty much says that Wikipedia is the Bernard Berenson of technology articles, including video games. Thought you'd all enjoy the pat on the back. Nomader ( Talk ) 20:16, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, not trying to be a buzzkiller but we already discussed this article. GamerPro64 (talk) 20:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh. Well... um, that's depressing. Nomader  ( Talk ) 21:04, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * News to me, Nomader, so thanks! - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 21:08, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah. No worries. Classic Gamefaqs user here can't take repeat compliments. I hadn't heard about it, and positive remarks are positive remarks.--BeastSystem (talk) 21:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should have a section dedicated to what news sources say about us just to show how "notable" we are. Isn't that what you call ironic?  « ₣M₣ »  21:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia in culture - I think the MUD issue is at the very least worthy of mention here among others. I think there's enough out there for an entire video game section. 陣 内 Jinnai 21:52, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Glad to post it, guys. It was weird to see our stuff up in the New York Times, I just sort of did a double-take-- sometimes I forget that people actually visit Wikipedia and read it. The MUD issue doesn't have a note? Huh, I remember there was a lot of Signpost coverage about it. Nomader  ( Talk ) 22:54, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I had the same response Nomander. And her quote of "Hundreds of thousands of unnamed Wikipedia editors have made a hobby of perfecting the descriptions of objects whose sales don’t enrich them." made me laugh to myself as I thought about it, since to my knowledge none of us are being paid by the video game companies to create such detailed summaries on their works. Personally, I edit on Wikipedia simply because I like the subjects of the articles I work on (with some borderline "obsessions" with some of the topics). It never really dawned on me that we as editors are marketing the games for free, and taking pleasure in doing so until she said so. And i'll keep working for free as long as Wikipedia is public domain. Sincerely Subzerosmokerain (talk) 23:41, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll keep it short myself, but I came here in May 2008 after years of reading and always stumbling upon WP and months of contemplating editing. I found some articles on some of my favorite video games which I thought really needed some improvement in prose and structure; after having just finished my undergraduate study in college, stuff like citing material with reliable sources, verifiability, etc. came more natural to me (as with others who would normally spend their time writing many papers), so I figured I'd give WP a shot. Well, I really haven't looked back since. –MuZemike 05:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I was blown away by the NYT article when it was first posted. The quoted lines from Halo: Combat Evolved were largely unchanged from the version that User:TKD and I concocted several years ago. I remember stealing that line about the "character's eye view" from a brilliant old version of Geuiwogbil's once-incredible The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind FA. I'd never seen an introductory gameplay description so clear and helpful. I've used similar gameplay introductions in basically every article I've worked on since then. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

GA nomination of Maniac Mansion
Since User:GA bot insists on placing (and moving) the latest GA nomination under "Miscellaneous" instead of "Video games", I will instead spam the project here since people will obviously miss the nomination on the WP:GAN page. Anyways, Maniac Mansion has been nominated for Good article, and if anyone is interested in reviewing, please see the top of Talk:Maniac Mansion for instructions; if anybody else wishes to further improve on it, feel free to do so, as I think this has a decent shot at FA someday. Also, keep in mind that this is more of a "tri-nomination" among User:JimmyBlackwing, User:Guyinblack25, and myself, as this was a collaboration effort among the three of us. –MuZemike 05:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to review this if someone would do the GAN review of Trials HD for me. Any takers? --Teancum (talk) 13:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like User:Jappalang fixed the problem, in that the Template:GAN doesn't like that one parameter one bit. Removing that caused the article to properly classify under "Video games". Disregard the above message, or at least get the older nominations, first. –MuZemike 13:52, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Neverwinter (2011 game)
Does anyone have an answer for me at Talk:Neverwinter (video game) - I'm trying to halt a potential edit war. BOZ (talk) 12:45, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Use of Italic title for creative works incl. video games
There's a discussion at WT:COMP which may be of interest. Thanks. --trevj (talk) 15:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Smithsonian VG Art exhibit
Many of you have probably heard that the Smithsonian is going to have a display for the art of video games next year. Presently they are running a poll for which games they will actually show ; there are 76 categories based on eras, platforms, and type of game, each with 3 games that users can vote from. But, clearly, there's been some pre-vetting to the initial 3 choices.

I am considering making an article about this (the display clearly has gotten attention for notability purposes) but including the games that have been selected as part of a list, eg about 220 games roughly. Once they actually say which games will be shown that can be marked in the short list, but it seems as I read it this is not disparaging the other games as non-art, simply that there's little room to show 220 games in the exhibit.

Any comments on this before I proceed? --M ASEM (t) 16:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I was actually going to create this article myself in the next few days, but looks like you're going to beat me to it. I have no objection to its creation, there definitely seems to have been sufficient coverage about it. Nomader  ( Talk ) 16:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's probably a valid article considering others like Game On (exhibition) exist. ~ Hibana (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Article is up The Art of Video Games, working my way through the eras for the games. --M ASEM (t) 21:55, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Any suggestions to find out what game this is?
I'm trying to find a little more real-world content for Kronos Digital Entertainment aside from what's contained in this interview, so the article can survive AfD. At one point in the interview, Stan Lui mentioned that they were developing a fighting game for Sony based on a comic book character, and "we were asked to come up with some game concepts based on that license. We worked feverishly and came up with the idea of a fighting game (the rage back then), to which the characters can learn new moves, change physically and raise their attributes through time. Eventually, for political reasons (at least that’s what we were told), the local Sony division we were dealing with had to give up the license to one of their European subsidiaries." They then used what they had already developed to make Criticom, which was first released on November 29, 1995. So, what game was released for the PlayStation in 1995 or 1996, based on a comic book character, possibly a fighting game, and developed by Sony in Europe? I realize that correctly guessing is OR, but I can hopefully track down some reliable source if I can just figure out what game it was. And ideas? ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  09:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My first reaction was "A Sony Europe fighting game!!!!!?". But upon re-reading the text I noticed that it might not be a fighting game that you're looking for. It says that Kronos were developing the comic book license as a fighting game, the Sony Europe game may have been developed as a different genre. - X201 (talk) 10:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no implication that the license was actually used for another game (that's what I assume was meant by "political reasons", as in, there was no business reason for it). All it says from that interview is that the license was transferred. Even if there was a game, there's no assurance that it came out in the same time frame as Criticom. Ham Pastrami (talk) 10:26, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Characters in Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective copyedit help
I was hoping that someone could help give it a good copyediting, so that I could get that oh-so-necessary second set of eyes on it. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 00:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There should be some sort of deligation of what character is what. IE: protagonist/antagonist/other, main/secondary/other or player characters/various non-player character divisions. 陣 内 Jinnai 00:32, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It would be really helpful if that characters article was more integrated in the main game page. I'm not seeing a lot that talks anything beyond the character aspect for development, and if you trim down on reiteration of plots and summarize the reception better, there's only one article there (As I see at least two separate character articles for the lead characters, that's even more indication to me that it would be better in this manner.) Should there be a sequel and that sequel should follow all or some of the same characters (how I don't know, but let's not worry about that) then maybe larger character article is warranted to start. --M ASEM  (t) 00:47, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I see your point, Masem. I wouldn't object to a merge/summarisation of the content. Even without a future for the series, however, I feel that a split could be warranted if the article were to come to a sufficient size where it can become featured without the characters section. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 05:48, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Notability for video games
Input is needed for WP:Notability (video games) as we are trying to streamline and update our guideline and items off of it that really wouldn't be appropriate for a MOS-style guideline (its not one atm, but its been proposed to be moved to one by others). The notability of video games has been contentious and the GNG doesn't really give enough advice when dealing with some specific circumstances surrounding video games. 陣 内 Jinnai 20:35, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Project-wide issue with the term 3D
We have an issue that is bound to become more prevalent as stereoscopic games become more popular. We use the terms 3D and 2D too sparingly. Depending on the article, a 3D game can mean: Maybe there are other uses I'm not thinking about. So far it's been unchecked because nobody thought that stereoscopic games would come back, but we should really hammer out terms. The big problem is that Nintendo, Sony, etc. are making no attempt to differentiate. This is a 3D game, a 3D system, etc. Obviously we can refer to 3DS as stereoscopic, and isometric games should never be referred to as "3D" (right? because they often are), but what about Street Fighter EX's 2.5D graphics? What about the "pseudo-3D" of Battlezone and Wolfenstein 3D? Star Fox? The term 3D is tossed around like appleseeds, and to new gamers it's not going to make a ton of sense. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  23:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Isometric
 * 3D modeling (vs sprites or whatever)
 * X, Y, and Z-axis movement
 * Stereoscopic
 * Make a disambig page 3D video gamess and be certain to make certain nothing takes that. 陣 内 Jinnai 23:51, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Start by quickly scanning Video game graphics. Maybe it's covered there. SharkD   Talk  03:22, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Minor point but I believe that Star Fox actually was in 3d although in a very rudimentary form due to the Super FX Microchip. At least one source, ironically enough IGN XOBX 360 [] explicitly states the the game was legitamely 3D (and is currently used in the article). In short, If we do change how we use the term 3d Star Fox should not be changed to pseudo 3d unless we can find evidence to conterdict the existing sources.--76.66.180.54 (talk) 03:33, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I also have another related question. For some time there is an unsourced section of the 2.5D article mentioning that the term is also used for 3d polygonal games that are restricted to a 2d plain. Games such a Donkey Kong Country Returns and Kirby 64 and many more are mentioned. I am not sure if this is an accurate assessment (ie do reliable sources use the term in that way). Either way the section could use some attention since at the very least it needs so sourcing if not outright removal.--76.66.180.54 (talk) 03:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't believe those games are 3D. 3D requires a camera that is not fixed in one location and can move around the models. Games like Donkey Kong Country use 2D sprites. The sprites just happen to have been created with 3D modeling software. At any result that Xbox 360 Magazine article is an editorial and does not cite any sources for where the information that Star Fox is a true 3D game is coming from. Unless you can find a quote from one of the designers or reliable Nintendo rep (not a marketing person; in the 90s lots of games were marketed as having features they actually didn't have; "blast processing" anyone?) who can explain why the game is 3D then it's not reliable. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 05:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * @76.66.180.54 - The games you listed would definitely be considered 2.5D. It's a very common term for both developers and journalists to use when 3D engines run a game with movement restricted to two dimensions.  I'm not really feeling like digging up sources for the article, but the sources are out there.  Caution should be used, obviously.  While Donkey Kong Country Returns and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards are 2.5D, being rendered in a 3D engine, Donkey Kong Country and Kirby games prior to Kirby 64 are not, being sprite-based as Therpgfanatic pointed out.  It definitely needs sourced, but it's not a focus of mine, so I'll leave it to someone else as it doesn't bother me, being a common term. --Teancum (talk) 12:49, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "For some time there is an unsourced section of the 2.5D article mentioning that the term is also used for 3d polygonal games that are restricted to a 2d plain." This particular passage refers to 3D games whose movement is restricted to a 2D plane. For instance, a game that doesn't allow you to move vertically or along the z-axis. Don't know, however, whether there are sources to verify it. SharkD   Talk  23:02, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The 3D of the 3Ds and peddled by the movie industry are stereoscopic; the current use of 3D here as it relates to graphics makes much more sense. In other words, when talking about the graphics link to the present ones. When talking about the 3D effect use stereoscopic.  Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 22:39, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The industry is pretty clear on this. I've been a 3D graphics programming specialist for close to 30 years and seen most of these techniques come and go.  While we might have come up with better terminology if we'd known the way things are going - we're really stuck with what we have:


 * 3D games are computed and rendered in three dimensions although they are typically presented on 2D display surface. The occlusion, lighting and motion is all performed in three dimensions inside the game - it's only the limitations of the display medium (ie the GPU and the screen) that prevents them from 'popping out of the screen'.


 * Games that may appear to be 3D - whilst in reality are rendered in 2D are usually called "two-and-a-half-D" - 2.5D for short. It's quite possible that the sprites and other game elements may have been created as 3D models by the artist - and rendered offline into a 2D sprite - but that doesn't change the terminology.  Sometimes it can be tough to tell the difference between a really well done 2.5D game and a 3D game - but under the hood, the distinction is very clear.


 * Games that are either 3D or 2.5D but which do not use the trick of rendering more distant objects at a smaller size to simulate the effects of perspective are "orthographic" - it's rare to find a 2.5D game that's not orthographic - but there have been a few.


 * Games that seem to "pop out of the screen" are "stereoscopic" - or possibly "stereoscopic 3D" if both 3D and stereoscopic. You can make 2.5D (and even 2D!) games that are stereoscopic too - so it's important to keep a distinction.


 * 2D games that scroll sideways sometimes use the trick of rendering multiple layers of images and scrolling the distant clouds and mountains more slowly than the nearby stuff. This is called "parallax" rendering - and it's neither 2.5D nor 3D.


 * There are of course grey areas. The original Mario64 and MarioKart64 on the Nintendo 64 were a mixture of 3D rendered buildings and scenery with 2.5D sprites for Mario himself and many of the enemy characters.  The games on the VirtualBoy system were stereographic...but always in either 2D or 2.5D.


 * Note though that some 3D games that were never intended to be stereographic have been made to work that way by the graphics card vendors. The device driver intercepts each object on the way to the graphics card - renders it twice - once with the eyepoint a little to the left of where the game told the driver to put it - and again with it a little to the right.  That doesn't always work - but it works often enough and well enough for several graphics cards to ship with that capability.  This is a powerful reason to call the game "3D" - the graphics card couldn't by any means take a 2D or 2.5D game and make it work stereographically.  In that sense, it's not necessarily the game itself that's "stereographic"...so one should be careful to distinguish between games that were specifically written with stereography in mind and those that weren't.


 * Within the realms of stereographic systems, there are many ways to produce the effect:
 * The Red/Cyan or Green/Magenta glasses. These cost about $1 and it's very simple to add support for them into most 3D games (it takes precisely 5 lines of code to do it in my Bar fight Indie game).  The fact that so few games do it is a reflection on the fact that it sucks!  Mostly, you have to be very careful with your color palettes and use desaturated colors.  In my game, we have some bright green card tables that look very odd in stereoscopic mode.
 * LCD shutter-glasses. These are also pretty simple to deal with - if the graphics hardware supports "quad-buffering" and has a way to flash an infrared LED at the glasses somehow. From a software perspective, it's very simple - and the hardware is getting more common with the rise of 3D televisions that use this technology.
 * Virtual reality headsets. With a separate screen for each eye.  Very hard and expensive to do well because you need fancy optics to allow your eyes to focus out to a comfortable distance instead of three inches away.  That's why the VirtualBoy was an unmitigated disaster!  Doing this "right" so as to avoid people getting headaches or worse is horribly costly.  Military flight simulators do this - and the helmet displays cost between $30,000 and $70,000 each!
 * Prismatic displays. You render the left and right eye views in alternating vertical stripes and stick a bunch of triangular prisms in front of the display - this works tolerably well for hand-held games - but it only works well when you're sitting in just the right position relative to the display - so more or less a bust for televisions and computer monitors.


 * Personally, I think the stereographic thing is a fad. There are many physiological reasons why it doesn't (nor can ever) work well - and the dismal sales of "3D televisions" reflects that.  In the real world, your brain only uses the "stereo" nature of having two eyes for objects that are between about 1 meter and 10 meters away.  Closer than that, depth-of-field becomes dominant (and none of the available techniques can simulate that) - further than that, conventional 3D graphics on a 2D display are as realistically "3D" as stereography.  Even over that range, we still try to focus our eyes at the "correct" distance - and that results in things being out of focus or inappropriately in focus most of the time...which is why 3D television gives people headaches too.


 * The logic behind this nomenclature is often flawed - but that's how it is. We can't change the nomenclature for the convenience of Wikipedia editors.  It is what it is.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 00:05, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Couple of points:
 * "Games that are either 3D or 2.5D but which do not use the trick of rendering more distant objects at a smaller size to simulate the effects of perspective are "orthographic" - it's rare to find a 2.5D game that's not orthographic - but there have been a few." "Orthographic projection" is a sub-type of "parallel projection". And, "parallel" projection can also include other projection sub-types such as "oblique projection", which can be found in such games as Ultima Online or Paper Boy for the NES. Further, there is confusion as to which sub-type of orthographic projection applies to video games. Popular misconception is that "isometric" is the correct label; however true "isometric projection" is almost never used in video games (I can't name a single example). Rather, "dimetric projection" is. See Isometric graphics in video games.
 * The first generation of FPSs commonly used sprites for characters. Think Doom, Doom II, Dark Forces, etc.
 * "2D games that scroll sideways sometimes use the trick of rendering multiple layers of images and scrolling the distant clouds and mountains more slowly than the nearby stuff. This is called "parallax" rendering - and it's neither 2.5D nor 3D." I agree that it's weird to call parallax scrolling "2.5D". This also goes for things like bump-mapping and normal-mapping. Yet they are all covered for some reason in 2.5D.
 * I added the image at right to help clarify all the different projections. SharkD   Talk  01:07, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What about cases like several of the Dragon Quest games which have 3D environment for dungeons, 2D for overworld maps and character sprites? It's not really 2D, but it's not really 3D nor does it seem "2.5D"?
 * Also what about games like Rune Factory which use overhead 2D world, but all the characters and monsters are rendered in 3D? 陣 内 Jinnai 05:49, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Some of the Dragon Quest games you're talking about (like 7) are more difficult to classify, but the engine they use is definitely a 3D one. They are using the same technique as Ragnarok Online and Xenogear's engine, where the levels may be created with 3D models but the sprites themselves are 2D, and the camera swaps the 2D images based on the position of the camera.


 * The way 3D is used in films is different than how it is used in games; for the most part games with 3D are talking about how the engine animates the graphics (the same way 3D animation is used), whereas film 3D is referring to a very particular kind of processing the film goes through to cause a visual trick. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 17:08, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I think we can break down "3D" use into 3 specific uses:
 * Gameplay: if the game's world (regardless of how its rendered) is based on three-dimensional concepts (this would include numerous Tactics games like Disgaea, FF Tactics, etc., even sprite based games like Xevious could qualify here).
 * Graphics Generation: if the game's engine generates the game in 3D, regardless if it plays out in three dimensions: even old games like Battletank would be this.
 * Display: if the game is capable of stereoscopic graphics at the display side (eg 3DS games, even Virtual Boy games) --M ASEM (t) 17:16, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it'd be really nice if we could hammer out an editing practice from this. I agree that we cannot change the fact that 3D means rendered, but what about a standard practice of saying 3D rendered, stereoscopic 3D, 2D raster, 2D vector, etc. (BTW, is stereoscopic even exactly right? What about similar effects with holograms, like Time Traveler?) ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  22:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Trust me, I fully understand the subtle distinctions between isometric, orthographic and other terms - that's what I do for a living! However, I was explaining how (rightly or wrongly) these terms are used in the computer games business.  In all likelyhood, the culprit is the fact that common graphics API's have functions to set up the "camera transform" that are called "ortho" and "perspective" - even though that may not strictly be the case.  Many graphics people pick up on that terminology - (rightly or wrongly) and it sticks.  At any rate, common usage is that any rendering that doesn't make things smaller in the distance is called "ortho".


 * As for these complicated mixed cases, I think we just have to explain that in more detail in the body of the article and go with the overall impression that the game gives. Certainly everyone describes Mario64 as a "3D platformer" - even though Mario is drawn as a 2D sprite.  It does get MUCH more complicated if you really, really insist on a perfect description.  For example - look at Microsoft Flight Sim 2000 - it has clouds that look incredibly 3D - but they are really "imposters" - they are 2D sprites, just like Mario in Mario64 - except that they are not rendered offline in some art program - but in realtime in the actual game.  So the game uses full 3D techniques to re-render a 2D sprite for (maybe) one cloud every frame - and then displays that 2D sprite for the next few seconds until it's time to re-render the cloud because its orientation to the camera has change in the meantime.  So is that "2D" or "3D"?


 * Frankly, nobody gives a damn about the precise language - in the business, we'd just say that the clouds are "impostered" and that's that - and unless you know how it's done behind the scenes - it might as well just be "3D". In other cases (like the trees in MarioKart64) the 3D-rendered-into-2D is called a "billboard" because it rotates to face the camera...but Mario himself (who is also 3D-rendered-into-2D) is more likely to be described as a "sprite".  The language we use is complex and often hard to pin down because it depends on the context.  There are also cultural differences - what I call a "sprite", some of my artists call a "card".  They come from a different corporate culture with different dialects of the same vocabulary.


 * When I look at a competitor's game, I'm much more interested in whether it does post-effect lighting or whether it has procedural terrain. SteveBaker (talk) 00:57, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * "I think we can break down "3D" use into 3 specific uses: (...)" I like how this narrows things down to three categories, with each category being judged independently. Definitely makes things much clearer than what we have now. SharkD   Talk  01:19, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "However, I was explaining how (rightly or wrongly) these terms are used in the computer games business." Yeah, I know. I was just pointing out that "industry" terms don't necessarily reflect the terminology used and adopted within/by academia. This needs to at least be clarified within whatever article we write. SharkD   Talk  01:27, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "What about similar effects with holograms, like Time Traveler?" This would fall under the "display device" category, AFAIK. As far as "graphics creation" goes, it's just a mix of various different motion picture techniques, isn't it? SharkD   Talk  01:31, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "I agree that we cannot change the fact that 3D means rendered, but what about a standard practice of saying 3D rendered, stereoscopic 3D, 2D raster, 2D vector, etc." Accurate, two-or-less-word terms for all the possible cases/combinations just don't exist. We have to start dealing with things like lists and bullet points unless we want to start inventing our own terminology. SharkD   Talk  01:46, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't this be a case of Wikipedia attempting to define terminology, something that has just recently opened a can of worms with regard to console generations? Strange as it is, all of the types of games mentioned are legitimately "3D" in the context that they were using to differentiate themselves from "2D" games. Old RPG dungeon crawls were "3D" because they had (fixed tile-based) first-person views. Wolfenstein was 3D because it had real-time 3D rendering. Doom was "more" 3D because it actually had different floor and ceiling heights, and Duke was more 3D because it could stack one room on top of another. Quake was still more 3D because it had 3D models instead of sprites, and so on. 3D is a relative term that is synonymous with "graphic realism". I don't think there is really a problem with the way the term is commonly used, with an implicit context, as long as there is a qualifier that states what that context is. Ham Pastrami (talk) 07:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not this - what I think this comes down to is recognizing that when one mentions "3D" in relation to a game, there's several possible and indistinguishing meanings for that. If we break it down to 3D-ness of the game world (regardless of rendering), 3D-ness of rendering, and 3D-ness of display (see my points above), we should make sure that we have core articles for each of these 3 areas, as well as any lower dimensions of importances (eg, while there's a 2.5D article that's more about display with a brief section on 2.5D gameplay, which should be brought out to its own article; and of course by default all games are display devices of 2D and thus not really necessary to have a dedicated article like there would be for 3D display (stereoscopic) games)). No terms are being made up, simply making sure that when an article mentions "3D" it is linking and using the right intent of that term. --M ASEM  (t) 13:55, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this is a problem, but I think it's something that's a problem well beyond wikipedia. I notice these types of things when reading about video games from all sorts of sources. I kind of hope the "world of video games" comes up with something, and then wikipedia could follow suit... Sergecross73  msg me   19:51, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Gran Turismo Wii
Gran Turismo Wii. >_> Obviously fake. I'm not real familiar with the AFD process, I usually only explain my stance in them, not get them started...and I'm short on time at the moment. But I'm just pointing out that this obviously needs to be deleted... Sergecross73  msg me   19:53, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Obvious hoax, qualifies for Speedy Deletion which I have done. --M ASEM (t) 20:06, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Even better, thanks. I cleaned up a lot of the other messes that user made (like renamed the NGP, or adding things like "xbox 370" to a Microsoft template), but I needed help with that one. Sergecross73   msg me   21:07, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Videogame Magazines Should Not Automatically Be Regarded as a Reliable Source
''There are two issues here.  Firstly, should consumer game magazines and blogs with strong financial ties to the subjects they are reporting on be regarded as reliable sources of information?'' Secondly, should entire subsections consist of opinion piece editorials from these types of magazines when they do not cite any evidence for the statements; basically, should original research that does not follow the scientific method be used as a source on Wikipedia? --Therpgfanatic (talk) 00:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

- There is too much nonsense in the various videogame related articles that stems from videogame review magazines, which are NOT credible sources! Videogame magazines should not automatically be considered reliable because they are NOT held to the same journalistic standards as those of other journalism industries.

For example, it is well known that videogame reviewers accept bribes from videogame developers http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/09/scared-to-open-the-package-adventures-in-game-writer-bribery.ars

A lot of the sources, such as those used in the Computer RPG article for "cultural differences" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_video_game#Reception_of_cultural_differences ) stems entirely from opinion pieces written by game reviewers who simply make statements and don't actually back them up with evidence (on the contrary, even a little bit of research into computer rpgs shows there are just as many American created computer rpgs with religious references and deities as there are Japanese ones, just look at the Ultima and D&D related games).

Secondly, many major videogame magazines have direct financial ties to game developers and publishers (example: Nintendo Power, Official Playstation Magazine) and game retailers (example: Game Informer). IGN once fired an editor for giving a bad review to a game being heavily promoted on the website http://www.gamezone.com/editorials/item/the_fallout_of_the_kane_lynch_debacle/ and later tried to cover the fiasco up through press releases http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/05/gamespot-addresses-gerstmann-gate-concerns-in-depth/

Thirdly, many game journalists acknowledge that the industry doesn't follow the journalism standards that other industries hold themselves to:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/01/11/the-soapbox-game-journalism-is-not-journalism-yet

http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/82886/how-broken-is-game-journalism-an-analysis-of-three-gaming-sites/

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=6228583

http://nukezilla.com/2008/12/19/game-reviewers-journalist-or-slave-to-the-hype/

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ethics/1049994303.php

Fourthly, very few of the sources used in the videogame Wikipedia articles stem from interviews or books written by actual game designers which can actually be considered credible sources. Game reviewers are not established industry experts on anything but writing PR articles about videogames and perhaps how the game journalism industry works. Unless they have backed up their claims with proof they should not be used as sources for articles pertaining to what defines a game genre or "cultural differences" of different cultures, or anything that basically extends outside their realm of knowledge. Because of the notoriously poor journalism standards rampant in this industry we cannot automatically assume they have actually researched the articles they have written.

I move for every single addition to a page that comes from a game review magazine, especially a blog, to be re-reviewed for credibility. If the article was not written to comply with ethical journalism standards the information should be removed. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 08:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * But of course, we'd have to consider all of the websites you posted links to as being instantly reliable in order to prove your point that magazines are unreliable. Are you connected to the website The RPG Fanatic? as it is common practice here to alert others to any allegiances to a particular site/company during a discussion.- X201 (talk) 09:07, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I linked to instances where the game journalists themselves acknowledged they received bribes (example: Jim Sterling posting up that picture of himself accepting the Darksiders sword, of which there was only two made). I also linked to articles written by game journalists about how their industry should not be considered journalism, citing that they do not follow the ethical standards of journalism. When the people who have been working in that industry for 10+ years admit they shouldn't be considered true journalism then yes, they are reliable sources for proving a case that game journalists should not automatically be considered reliable sources for information about videogames. And yes, I am the creator and host of the Youtube Partner show The Rpg Fanatic and associated with a gaming press site, Original-Gamer.com. I've attended gaming events with a game press pass (the last one I did was GDC Online 2010 and I have videos on my channel where I conducted interviews at GDC Online 2010, so you can verify my claim). I don't think that should change my point; I'm not requesting that my game journalism or my videos to be used as a source. I'm asking for game journalism magazines to not automatically be regarded as reliable sources like they currently are. I have no sinister motivations behind this; I'm just tired of Wikipedia constantly citing editorials in game journalism magazines as facts when they often aren't anything more than the personal opinions of the particular reviewer despite them having done little research into the topic or were written to help promote a game. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 10:44, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If you have a contention with the process of choosing which video game-specific journalism is reliable or not, you should take it up with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources. I'm certain that they can explain to you what is wrong with your points.
 * Also, IGN was not involved in the firing of Jeff Gerstmann, GameSpot was. And they are a web site, not a magazine. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 11:10, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I made a typo concerning IGN. The point still stands. Gamespot is still a magazine, even if it's an online one. And it and many other online magazines have opinion piece editorials cited in numerous articles concerning videogamess. The point stands that they are not reliable sources as specified by Wikipedia's policy on questionable sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Questionable_sources --Therpgfanatic (talk) 11:18, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You're describing issues with all video game publications, not just magazines. We use the best sources we can find; we certainly can't create more reliable sources out of whole cloth. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 12:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not an acceptable excuse for using unreliable sources. Would you quote Star magazine for biographical details about Britney Spears just because nobody else is reporting it? --Therpgfanatic (talk) 12:43, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm just going to point out that the VGChartz article is a blatant attack on Kotaku, Joystiq, and Destructoid, all of which point out that they are gaming blogs, and thus make additional posts aside from "common journalism". On top of that it talks itself around in circles.  I understand the point that's trying to be conveyed here, but the sources listed to back that statement are strong enough to do so. In regards to bribe-takers, how in the world are we supposed to police something like that?  Destructoid already is considered a situational source, but we can't follow every journalist's Twitter and Facebook, watching for signs of dastardly deeds.  If you'd like to, be our guest. We're a group of volunteers that do the best we can with what we have.  Besides, I guarantee the same problems you describe here exist in other areas of journalism.  It's just a fact of life.  We do scrutinize our sources.  If we missed something, you need to tell us rather than overgeneralizing everything.  There's no way we're going to quadruple check every source.  What do we have to check against besides other sites in the end (which we already do)?  This seems more like a generalization that stems from specific criticisms somewhere. --Teancum (talk) 12:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, Rpgfanatic, you do realize the irony of linking to an article written by VGChartz, don't you? Namely that their sales numbers on their site are often completely made up with no indication this is so. It's the reason they aren't allowed as a reliable source. So Teancum has pretty much said all we need to, I think. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 12:57, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * David Fuchs, you are missing the point. You are also associating one flawed article as being representative of another article. This same flawed kind of thinking is why you guys are using other game magazines as "reliable sources".


 * I can see from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources#Promoting_Kotaku page there is some ridiculous logic being used to determine whether a source is reliable. For example, Kotaku was determined to be reliable because Brian Ashcraft wrote a book about arcades that was published by Kodansha International. However that does NOT make Kotaku more reliable; Kodansha International does not edit Kotaku, so how can that establish Kotaku as being more credible in news reporting or editorial pieces? The same goes for the rest of the reasons given; someone appearing as a guest panelist in a reality series like The Tester doesn't make them an expert, it makes them a reality TV star. And like Brian Ashcraft's case, just because they have written articles for more credible journalism magazines doesn't mean the standards of Kotaku are identical to those other magazines. Kotaku doesn't automatically become as credible as The New York Times just because one of their writers wrote an article for NYT. Playstation Blog is another example of poor justification; it was pointed out that it was owned by Sony but that was reasoned to not be a problem. But the problem is Playstation Blog is owned by Sony who has a vested interest in pushing their products; they aren't running game magazines because they want to publish news, but because they want to inform their consumers of upcoming products they are selling. Unless you're only talking about things like release dates, you might as well use the Sears catalog as a reliable source. Then you have the case of VG247 which is found reliable because the site has won several awards. Never-mind that the site's articles are not peer reviewed and the majority of their news feeds are just links to other larger websites like IGN; they are clearly a reliable source because other people said so, even those people didn't explain how they settled on those decisions. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 13:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You seem to be tilting your sources to lean towards the view you want. You list only Ashcraft in the above statement, but nothing of Crecente or Tolito's long list of credentials.  Well we're not going to sit here and argue with you about opinions.  Reliable sources are chosen by a consensus of editors, just like everything else is.  You are welcome (and encouraged) to sit in on future discussions on reliable sources.  It's not worth our energy to go back and forth on this.  If you want to nominate a site as reliable or seek to deem it as unreliable, you can do so at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources - just be aware that we run by consensus, and not spirited opinion.  So if a site is promoted (or demoted) we all have to live with it.  --Teancum (talk) 13:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * To add to the above, by your own reasoning we shouldn't listen to one more wit from you, since as a contributor to http://original-gamer.com/ you are clearly a partial source trying to discredit others. Give it a rest. I'm done arguing with you. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 13:19, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, you are "done with me"? You are trying to divert attention away from facts; first of all, simply being associated to another gaming source of news does not in any way reduce the validity of my statements. I am not trying to supplant one game magazine for another. I am pointing out that articles in game magazines should not automatically be considered reliable sources. The "consensus of editors" for deciding whether these magazines are reliable sources comes down to three people, including both of you. It seems to me we are having a conflict of interest as established by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest. You do not seem interested in producing neutral, reliably sourced articles. I have pointed out why they aren't reliable and rather than prove how they are you have simply focused on my own occupation (which is irrelevant because I'm not trying to advance any outside interest; again, I am NOT trying to replace existing sources with my own, I am trying to have unreliable sources no longer used as reliable ones!) and you have also shrugged your shoulders, saying you're just a volunteer so it doesn't really matter. If you are unwilling to be mature about this I will take it to the next level. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 13:45, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't appreciate the accusation. Consensus comes from anyone who wishes to participate, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/Archive_85#Requesting_commentary_on_new_potential_reliable_sources. we try] to get everyone possible involved. If you feel going up the chain necessary, please do so at WP:RFC, however I would submit that we have not dismissed your arguments any more than you have dismissed ours.. --Teancum (talk) 14:09, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Any source, not just ones in the video game industry, that takes advertising dollars would have to be immediately tagged as biased, under this scheme. Which would include works like Time, Wired, New York Times, CNN, BBC, etc. That's not going to fly.

And I think we're well aware that these sources are driven by advertising dollars. As long as those dollars aren't going towards discrediting other games or developers by factually lying about games, we just have to be aware that games with major financial advertising backing are going to get considerably more attention and positive reception. Which is why our review sections are written from the standpoint "Here's what the gaming scores say, and here's what reviewers said. You figure out the answer", thus avoiding any promotion ourselves of a source that may have been influenced by promotion. --M ASEM (t) 14:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

And I'm going to echo the sentiments of the other editors who have posted before me; we do the best that we can to get comments on all new sources brought up for comment. You're more than free to participate in any future discussions or bring up sources for new discussions. I'm probably opening a Pandora's box, but I really don't feel any of the articles you link to discredit the sources. All of the sources that we have deemed reliable have been done based on the reliability of the websites and their editorial standards. Should media sources be discredited because Michael Gerson of the Washington Post states that traditional sources have become more partisan, and thus, we shouldn't trust them anymore? Your logic seems rather flawed, but I invite you to actively participate at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources. Nomader ( Talk ) 23:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * As Masem said, the argument would basically destroy most of journalism because they have to get funding from somewhere and that funding can always be viewed as being a bit wary of criticizes that hand that feeds too much. If there are specific cases where an actual bribe is thought to have influenced a review or someone just made stuff up, that can be handled on a case-by-case basis. 陣 内 Jinnai 23:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You're just making excuses. You don't HAVE to include the statements from the magazines in the articles. You are too focused on trying to find a source for everything even if the source isn't entirely reliable. The fact of the matter is game journalism is not held to the same standards as more respectable news agencies like The New York Times. The fact of the matter is game journalists openly acknowledge that companies bribe them-- not with advertising dollars, but with gifts like flight lessons, expensive prop weaponry, food, hotel rooms and such. And I'm not talking about review scores; I'm talking about using them as sources for statements they are not reliable sources for. For an example of what I mean, as I pointed out before the entire "cultural differences" section of roleplaying videogames articles comes from videogame magazine reviewers who wrote editorials. They simply stated their opinions. They have not produced any actual sources for their statements; for example, they have not produced any case study of all the Japanese and non-Japanese made computer RPGs to compare them to one another to see what the differences are. So you are listing them as reliable sources when they actually aren't entirely reliable. As an example of what a reliable source is, I point to Designing Virtual Worlds by Dr. Richard Bartle. It's a PEER REVIEWED book that cites other studies and books. There is no reason in the world that consumer magazines whose primary purpose is to write marketing pieces for game publishers should be considered reliable sources when there are indeed other more reliable sources out there. And if you can't find a reliable source commenting on something (for example, the cultural differences between Japanese and American computer rpgs) then the entire section should not be included, period, because it cannot be proven to be based on factual information. As it stands right now many of the videogame articles are simply re-regurgitating press releases and that is NOT what an encyclopedia is supposed to be doing. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 04:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You are absolutely wrong and making gross assumptions. Look at some of our featured content. It is based on interviews with developers, commentary by (what we have come to consider as) experts in the field, and review and critical commentary from major sources.  If you take these out, our coverage of video games would basically be nil because there's very few other sources beyond these sites.  That's why we've reviewed them carefully for editorial controls and expertise to assure they are good sites. --M ASEM  (t) 04:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Peer reviewed studies are a perspective coming from an academic point of view, while editorials from reliable sources can show more mainstream opinion about a game. Both are useful in their own right, much as editorials can be useful to color an encyclopedia article about a political event. I have yet to see where a game journalist has openly acknowledged that a company has bribed them, only accusations from a couple blog posts that this has occurred, and if this has happened to one review of a game, the source can be challenged on a case by case basis. Therpgfanatic, I'm beginning to question exactly where you see a problem in our articles. You continue to talk in general brushstrokes without providing concrete areas where our articles could improve. Could you show us an example from a well-written article of ours that you claim "regurgitate press releases" so we can correct the issue? And maybe also explain what an encyclopedia is actually supposed to be doing (in response to your last statement)? Nomader  ( Talk ) 04:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have already made it clear that my opinion of what an encyclopedia should be is identical to that of Wikipedia's policy. I am not going to continually repeat myself as you attempt to misdirect. I have also pointed out one section of an article that is composed entirely of unreliable sources but I will point out another version of this article appearing on a different page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_differences_in_role-playing_video_games#cite_note-barton_evw-3 this citation comes from Armchair Arcade and is written by Matt Barton. Matt Barton has written a book called Dungeons and Desktops, which uses websites like GameSpot as a source even though these websites who DO NOT CITE THEIR SOURCES. At the very bottom of every edit page is a line of text that says "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.". The text includes a link to what Wikipedia considers verifiable information to be. The page states very clearly that any information that might be challenged needs to be reliable and just because it was published doesn't automatically make it reliable; Gamespot is not known to cite their sources, making their editorials original research. I suggest that, rather than circle the wagons to defend your decisions you correct the mistakes you guys have been making in editing these pages. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 05:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:V requires that information must be verifiable by the reader. That means if it is factual, either the reader can verify it for themselves, or they can refer to the reliable sources to review. I see nothing that that source is being used for that doesn't meet WP:V.  If the reliable source is actually flat out wrong, then we need to figure out how to fix that, but in that article, there's clearly nothing going on. This sounds more like a personal vendetta than any specific complaint at this point. --M ASEM  (t) 05:30, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It says very clearly that "encyclopedic content must be verifiable". It does not say "add whatever content you want, reader beware!", which is what you are trying to suggest. It also does not say Wikipedia is a democracy; quite the opposite, in fact, so the argument that sources were decided as reliable by consensus means nothing. They are not reliable under Wikipedia's policies, period. You cannot justify their inclusion just because you can't find reliable sources to back up statements made by unreliable sources. I would also appreciate if you could stop accusing me of having ulterior motive for drawing attention to the fact the sources are not reliable and should not be included in articles as facts.--Therpgfanatic (talk) 07:28, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If you could explain how we could determine verifiability without using our best judgment and consensus, I'm sure that we would welcome them. Until then, consensus is a vital process in figuring out what web sites are usable as reliable sources, just like how consensus is almost always used when determining what is to be done with every aspect of the site. No one has argued that Wikipedia is a democracy, and no one has argued that it was determined on the basis of a vote. If it is your contention that a consensus is a vote, then that is an unpopular opinion to have. Consensus indicates that those involved are making a decision based on a verifiable certain number of people agreeing on something based on sound reasoning. Like has been said, you are using examples of unreliability in the industry that can be found in many other industries. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 07:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * These articles are actually all based on something-- the products they're talking about, the ideas that they're bringing up. Peer reviewed histories rely on primary sources in order to provide a glimpse at what the time showed; so do we, as our reviews give a picture to the reader of the reception a game has received at the time it was released from critics. To make a point, I'd like to point you to peer reviewed articles which you've been aching for. Here's an article from Game Studies, a peer reviewed journal which is, "the international journal of computer game research". Yet, a copious amount of articles in the journal site a website which you would consider unreliable because it is "based on nothing", GameSpot . But if peer reviewed journals are based on sources which are based on "nothing", they can't be reliable either, can they? This is a really silly logic string, rpgfanatic... honestly, the only answer I can come up with is that you want every article on Wikipedia about video games to be deleted. Or every article on Wikipedia for that matter. Nomader  ( Talk ) 07:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If they are citing something from Gamespot that isn't reliable, then even if it's peer reviewed, it's still not reliable. Nobody seems to be arguing that the sources are reliable, only that they are the most reliable you can find. But no one is denying they have reliability problems, so why are you defending the decisions? They aren't reliable and should be removed. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 09:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Such a concept completely ignores the verifiability. The fact that they are peer reviewed indicates that they are able to judge the usability of content. Being peer reviewed means that this source is reliable - one of the most common ways of discerning reliability in web sites, video game or not, is whether a reliable source cites them for information. Fact of the matter is that we have argued that they are reliable, in our discussions of what sites are and are not reliable. Your argument seems to rely on the notion that video game articles being less reliable than, say, The New York Times, is synonymous with being unreliable. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 09:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

@Therpgfanatic - Clearly we're going in circles here, as the consensus seems to be against your thoughts. At this point if you still want to discuss it, please take it to WP:RFC as we're not getting anywhere here. And again this seems like a larger discussion that stems from specific instances that you have issue with. Can you please point out very specific examples of articles that suffer from this problem? Maybe we can better understand what the issue is with actual examples. --Teancum (talk) 10:34, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:VERIFY says "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." The standards to be considered a reliable source is rather low.  Even Fox News is considered a reliable source.  There is also a rule about giving undue weight to a source. WP:undue might apply here.   D r e a m Focus  08:19, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You can re-phrase your arguments as many times as you like, it's not going to change that you're just making excuses for why you approved unreliable sources for citation. The statement that it doesn't matter if editors think it is true is a separate discussion from whether the information has been published by a RELIABLE SOURCE. We are not talking about what editors think is true or not. We are ONLY talking about whether these consumer magazines and blogs who, I again stress, DO NOT CITE THEIR SOURCES IN THEIR EDITORIALS ABOUT THEIR PERSONAL OPINIONS ON VIDEOGAME RELATED MATTERS which are being used to justify the inclusion of information like the previously mentioned "cultural differences in computer RPGs" article. The consumer magazines and blogs are not measuring up to the requirements of reliability. The best counter-arguments you have against this fact is that you can't find better sources but that is irrelevant. You do not "need" the information to be there unless you have some personal vested interest in that information being presented in the articles. If you cannot find a reliable source it should not be included. This should not be debatable, especially when you guys openly acknowledge they aren't very reliable sources. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 09:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Then discuss it at the reliable sources talk page. Regular newspapers are more likely to review books whose companies buy ads, giving them more coverage than others.  Its a horrible and idiotic system we use in Wikipedia, where we rely on the opinions of others, provided they are published somewhere, to determine what is notable.  Of course all game magazines and review sites are bias, and even television shows.  If someone has a crap game but their company buys ads, the worse score they are allowed to get is a 3 out of 5.  But they are the only ones giving any coverage at all, so if we ignore them, then we won't meet the ridiculous Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion, and every single video game article will be deleted.   D r e a m Focus  01:43, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

That's not the best counter-argument we've given, but either way, I'm with Teancum that we seem to be going around in circles. Eight editors have disagreed with you and you've ignored all of their opinions and continued to simply re-state your argument. Feel free to bring this to WP:RFC if this is still bugging you. Nomader ( Talk ) 13:54, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Off site reiteration of complaint - focusing on the issue
I was pointed to this blog which I'm pretty sure is the same therpgfanatic posting above (apologies if not).

Reading this, I think I see more exactly what he's trying to say about in a direct method: this section: History of role-playing video games. If you look at the comments of the online article, at the thread started by "REVULSIVE", I think I see what therpgfanatic is getting at, in that with a few lines of statements, we're making broad strokes about the differences between J and W games where there are clearly counter examples to those points. Arguably yes, that seems to be what's happening...

...but then you have to read the WP section carefully or you miss this: Western games often tend to feature darker graphics, older characters, and focus more on roaming freedom and realism; whereas Eastern games often tend to feature brighter, anime-like graphics, younger characters, and focus more on scripted linear storylines. (emphasis mine). "Tend" is meant to grossly summarize everything without going to exasperated details about the exceptional cases. There are western games that follow the stated Japanese trend (Anachronox); there are Japanese games that follow the Western trend (which I'm lacking examples ATM (Maybe .hack?) but the point's there).

That's true throughout this section: it never at any time says "All Japanese RPGs are linear plots", it says they tend to have this. This is not only supported by our sources, but it's also common sense if you actually played the games - eg that point is verifiable. We are a tertiary source, so we're summarizing these, and thus while one could likely construct a whole section to pinpoint every single difference and every single game that deviates, we just need to grossly compare and contrast. Again, since this compare and contrast is verifiable to any person that can play the games from both regions, we're looking at sources that reiterate these.

I'm not saying this section is perfect, and thus to therpgfanatic - ignoring the source issue, which statement of any in that section are wrong as a gross overview of the differences? Again, I'm not talking about detailing the one game from Japan that features Western-mechanics or vice versa, I'm talking about the generalized statements of the differences. If it is clear that there is a factual error that we cannot see by common sense and using awkward sources, then lets resolve that. --M ASEM (t) 14:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Anyone else notice the fact that seems to have been created just for this discussion? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:58, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Not a concern (of yet): he's not edit warring in mainspace to get his point across, and no problem for an IP that's tried to contribute before to join up to vent frustrations as long as its useful discussion. --M ASEM (t) 15:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Had the more specific issue come out it would have been a lot easier to possibly do something about. The original point seemed like an attack on all gaming sites and articles with things like talk of bribery rather than more of a 'wording opinion as fact' on the Role-playing video game page.  It's ironic because that page is Start-class and has maintenance tags, so clearly it's a major work in progress.  The talk page even has Controversial-issues on it.  He would have better served the issue to contribute and help clean the page up rather than ranting.  Bummer. --Teancum (talk) 18:06, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Assuming good faith, he did said in the offsite article he was trying to contest that but then they moved that section from one page to another. Little too busy to research the IPs to see what's comparable but I assume he did discuss on those pages and found no help or cooperation to resolve it.  --M ASEM  (t) 18:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Not to sound like a pessimist, but I doubt we're in any position to give the article the treatment it deserves. (Unless there's an RPG expert reading this with access to some good print sources.) Like so many other important video game articles, the bulk of the prose was initially written years ago when sourcing wasn't as enforced. Because of that and the relative difficulty of writing about genres compared to individual games, they are sorely under-developed. Without the sources and editors knowledgeable about the topic as well as Wikipedia's practices, the article will probably stay in its current form for a long while. :-\ (Guyinblack25 talk 21:18, 8 February 2011 (UTC))
 * I guess my point is this: reading through the article: I'm not seeing anything glaringly wrong; the states are decent generalizations, simply going off my experience of playing JRPG vs WRPG. There's probably a few things we could fix to reflect more recent trends, but the general statements are true. So the implication that therpgfanatic is said that there's huge factual errors because of the "bad" sources really doesn't hold up.  It of course can be written better and be true to newer sources that have come, but at it stands now, I see no rush to have to fix this as no WP policy is being broken. --M ASEM  (t) 21:25, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Just because I pointed to one particular section appearing in two related articles doesn't mean there aren't others in other gaming articles. The Megaman article has the following, "Capcom's handling of the Mega Man franchise has been criticized at various times, with many citing the frequent creation of new series which are discontinued without proper closure." which is cited from a Gamespot article (which is largely broken, btw). I would personally like to know which Megaman series has "discontinued without proper closure" because I know of none who have officially ended, let alone without closure to the story. The statement is entirely subjective and this is the kind of nonsense (not game review scores) I am referring to when I say the sources need to be scrutinized more. The statements that are purely opinion and not based on any facts. And if you think the WRPG vs JRPG argument has merit then you have not played many of these games. The only reason that many JRPGs have cute graphics is because of the target age demographic they are made for. Game developers, regardless of nation, make games targeted at kids have cuter graphics and games meant for older audiences have more realistic, grittier graphics. Hell, the concept and promotional artwork for most of the early Final Fantasy games were done by Yoshitaka Amano who can hardly be considered to have a "cute" art style. The section also talks about "WRPGs" focusing on character customization moreso than "JRPGs" do but what kind of customization are we talking about? Aesthetic changes, like changing hair color? Sure, that is less common among JRPG made games but it's not universal among WRPGs either (just look at the Diablo series, or look at Might and Magic, or Wizardry, or Ultima). Character aesthetic customization is more common among MMORPGs than single-player games, and that goes for the genre as a whole. And if it's about customizing characters abilities, even if you can't choose a class in the game a large number of "JRPGs" offer unique character customization systems; as a well known example, every Final Fantasy offers a different system to customize character abilities. Some games even like the original .hack games allow customization of character abilities by having abilities tied to the equipment. So this particular section expresses extreme bias that may represent the opinion some people have but it simply does not represent reality.


 * And realize this is just one example. There are more examples in other gaming articles. From the fighting game article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_game#cite_note-MK3-26 "In the new millennium, fighting games are less popular and plentiful than in the mid 1990s, with multiplayer competition shifting towards other genres." The source for the statement is Jeff Gertsmann's Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 review, probably this particular section of his review:


 * "The halcyon days of arcades are way behind us now, and the 2D fighting game has all but gone with them. The burgeoning retrogaming movement, combined with the power of the Internet, offers a lot of potential for the fighting genre, but there haven't been very many fighting games with online play at all, and those that do have it usually haven't worked very well."


 * Unfortunately you'd have to know nothing about the fighting game tournament scene to believe this. Nor has Jeff Gertsmann's put forth any evidence to prove that there are less fighting games being made than in the 1990s. This is certainly not true in the Japanese arcades and even in the US these games get imported (a local example here in Texas is Arcade UFO in Austin). All Jeff Gertsmann did was express opinion yet it is being cited as unquestionable fact in the Wikipedia article.


 * I do not buy the argument that gaming magazine reviewers represent legions of gamers when they express their own personal opinions, especially when they do not cite any source while making extraordinary claims. Especially when game journalists frequently behave more like propagandists than journalists. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 22:47, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't take offense, but that's why we have the policy WP:SOFIXIT. If you feel there's issue, make the change.  It's easy to accuse of using poor sourcing, it's another to actually jump in and fix it. --Teancum (talk) 22:55, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I am tired of edit waring with people when I delete sections that are obviously statements of opinion not fact. And it's because the sources have been deemed "reliable". So the first step to being able to delete them is to get those sources to not be unquestionably reliable. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Austin has a strong arcade scene with fighting games? You should try going to Einstein's on the drag... well, using a time machine, because it couldn't sustain itself even next to a university campus and went out of business. Anyways, yes, that's an opinion of a game journalist and should be attributed to him rather than left as fact. It's not the strongest source for that statement, and using the SSB sales data to corroborate is verging on systhesis. You have a valid argument that that sentence is not well-verified. I can follow your logic from there that our genre articles are often weakly sourced and aren't as strong as they should be. I don't follow your logic to go from there to say that all video game journalism is bunk and should not ever be used as sources. We know that the genre articles have problems- if they were all more solid, they'd be GAs, and if they were great, they'd be FAs. Role-playing video game is start-class, History of role-playing video games is B-class, and they both have cleanup tags at the top. We know. You can't jump from there to say that Gamespot isn't a reliable source. -- Pres N  01:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You need to read what I am saying closer. I never said to never use them as a source. I said to stop using them as reliable sources without having checked to see if their claims are verifiable. Their editorials are being assumed to be reliable sources without any kind of investigating to see if they even cite their sources. If they do not cite sources or so much as prove their case using sound logic (for example, to argue that JRPGs and WRPGs have distinct differences you have to compare a large pool of them together; which to my knowledge has NEVER been done), how can they be reliable? You have to accept their statements at face value and that is not how Wikipedia supposed to work. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 01:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That Mega Man GameSpot source looks questionable. Or more specifically, it seems to be cited inappropriately. Claims are attributed to that source that I simply could not find anywhere. Our article also claims that "many" have made this claim, while citing only one source. That one source makes up half the sources in the Criticism section. Based on what I'm seeing there, this is a problem with that article. Nowhere in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines is that sort of sloppy sourcing encouraged, but it does happen. If you can help fix it, by all means do so. Reach Out to the Truth 00:53, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You sound kind of like a JRPG apologist in your post-- you argue that, "And if you think the WRPG vs JRPG argument has merit then you have not played many of these games. The only reason that many JRPGs have cute graphics is because of the target age demographic they are made for." However, as pointed out to you before, WP:V dictates that we report what is verifiable, not what we personally believe. And if there are sources that back-up what's stated in the article, then they're there because someone wrote them. If you feel that we are not adequately representing the issue, feel free to add your own sources to the articles. If we aren't going to cite the sources in these articles that we currently are using, what would you propose that we use as an alternative for accurate JRPG coverage? Nomader  ( Talk ) 23:21, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not an "apologist"; I am pointing out indisputable facts . It is a fact that the cultural differences article is making sweeping statements that do not hold up under scrutiny. You claim you must report what is verifiable; the only thing verifiable is that someone made the claim. The problem is the claim itself is not verifiable. The latter is what must be verifiable in order to be included, not the former. Just because it was published by a magazine with a large subscriber base does not mean they should get a free ride for reliability; the article itself needs to hold up under scrutiny. Again, I have never found any kind of study that compared "JRPGs" and "WRPGs" together to see if they have differences. Until one can be produced the section should be removed. Someone whose only notability is they work for a magazine with a lot of subscribers only proves they work for a magazine that has a lot of subscribers-- you can draw no further conclusions from that fact. Unfortunately simply having lots of subscribers is the only proof being showcased for why they are reliable sources. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Therpgfanatic - I don't think your arguments are flawed but I think you're trying to paint too big a stroke to say that problems extend throughout the project, or that our sources are unreliable, because of a few bad apples in specific articles. I reiterate what others have said: WP:SOFIXIT if you think it is broken. If you get constantly reverted by editors on those pages, that's part of a larger issue, but if you're contributing to improve the statements, that's better.

We do want to make sure we establish the different between a source claiming something as a fact (which we need to be careful about for reliable sourcing), and a source stating their opinion (at which point we only need to care if that person is considered an "expert" in the field). However, if we're dealing with someone stating their opinion, we don't need to worry if they have it right or wrong - as long as we're saying "Soandso said..."; that leaves the reader the ability to evaluate the claim on their own. As for when source report something as fact and it is clearly wrong, we should fix that with a better source. Do keep in mind VGs move quickly - what was true a year ago may no longer be true now (which may be the program with that WRPG/JRPG comparison). But that only means we should write to show the effects of time on the issue. --M ASEM (t) 01:22, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Even by leaving the articles to merely say, "Bob the Game Reviewer said..." it is still too much. Merely by including their statements in the article you award credibility to the statements. Again, I do not buy into the idea that readers must verify every statement themselves. Realistically most people are not going to do that. The articles should be factual and neutral, not subjective. Including editorials (which are OPINIONS) does not make the articles have a neutral point of view. And it is a problem with many videogame articles which is why I asked for them to be re-reviewed. I personally don't feel like having edit wars with every single page when I try to remove statements that simply are not true, especially when the project is currently listing those sources as being reliable. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 03:17, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

OK give us concrete fact, that they aren't credible. NOt like "they said this, they said that". we need some hardcore fact. I agree we should be a little careful on choosing reviewers, but at the same time. Some of these people review for a while. it's hard to just say hey, you're not credible for the manner of your speech.Bread Ninja (talk) 03:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I have posted articles written by prominent game journalists (such as Dan Hsu) who have worked for several different game magazines who openly admit the business does not follow traditional journalism ethics used by other media. I have posted pictures of game reviewers accepting bribes. What more do you want? Do you think they would openly make these statements if they felt they were making themselves open to libel cases? I have also pointed out that game magazine editorials do not cite their sources when making statements of fact, which violates Wikipedia's verifiability policies. When they do not cite sources, the only thing you can verify is that the reviewer wrote something down; you cannot verify that they actually researched and found evidence for what they claimed in their articles. "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Game journalists publications and blogs are not reliable, third party publishes sources with a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. And based on this account of an ex-Kotaku intern, a lot of their material is scavenged from other blogs,


 * http://otakujournalist.com/2010/05/my-life-as-a-kotaku-intern/ (look at the comments where he explains what he did)


 * Then there are cases where major gaming sites and blogs have printed stories that were fake (you can check the links yourself, the printed fake news is still up)
 * http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2007/04/square_enix_rem/


 * They were caught these times but how much stuff probably doesn't get caught? We'll never know since they rarely ever cite sources.


 * Raph Koster (a prominent game designer) demonstrates the unreliability of game journalism with something gravely misquoted from his own blog,


 * http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/12/19/anatomy-of-a-meme-or-why-games-journalism-is-iffy/


 * It was mentioned earlier that VGCharts accuracy is in dispute. I find that interesting to know considering game journalists do, in fact, rely heavily on VGChart, or at least according to The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual, endorsed by the International Game Journalists Association http://www.igja.org/guide/index.php/Main_Page  and Games Press (who, btw, openly admits they also handle PR for game publishers like NcSoft and Microsoft) http://www.gamespress.com/about.asp


 * Then of course there is this article from Simon Carles who says that Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra have their own style guide but don't use it ,


 * "Now, having said that, we do, somewhere, have an official style guide for Game Developer magazine - which extends to Gamasutra. But it's simply never referred to - everyone who works on the mag has a pretty damn clear of what is what."


 * The problem, for those who have never actually studied journalism before, is that following a style guide is a very basic editorial procedure for the major reputable news sources like The New York Times (which I point out because some gaming sites have been approved as reliable because some of their authors have written articles for the NYT). If articles are not written to conform to a style guide then you can pretty much guarantee they are not being edited.


 * So you can sit there and point out how some major news organizations for other fields get things wrong but what you can't do is say that game journalism magazines follow the same journalism standards that those magazines follow. And that is part of the reason for why they are not reliable sources. That and the bribes, the publishing of editorials and few reports with any citations or sources listed, heavy usage of unreliable third party sources (such as rival blogs) and the list goes on and on. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 08:27, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * We verify ONLY what they say because that's all we are verifying: their opinion. what research must be taken in order for an opinion to go down of someone's experience? true the possibility of someone basing it off completely off blogs is there, but i doubt that's a serious problem as the reviewer would at least have to look at the game (at least)... Even if they were bribed, we would have to prove extensively that they were bribed and defraud them. Basically we aren't here to post the truth, only things that can be verified through people who are part of a reliable source (such bringing interviews, and inside look before the game releases). And you only state opinion, but we don't know how much blogs they take in, how much inside they actually have and how much first-looks and demos they get. the review over the satisfaction of the game is based on one person and that's the reviewer. But i would say this would be harder to do if there were such reviews that didn't depend on his opinion only. Such as a reviewer saying "Game A has been praised by many popular teens today and is still one of the greatest games to come out of japan" would be difficult because the reviewer is trying to state information that would actually need to be verified.


 * Just because not every game magazine has the same standard doesn't mean we can't use what they say. but beside the point, you mentioned gamedeveloper has a standard and they dont use it, so maybe thats one we can avoid when looking for reviews. Bread Ninja (talk) 09:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If we are going to give merit to the opinions of game journalists merely because they are expressing their opinion, you should ask yourself why we should not also do the same for everyone who expresses their opinion about a game? Why don't we cite GameFAQs user contributed reviews? Why don't we quote forum posts? There is a point behind this question. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 21:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

cultural differences in RPVGs

 * Okay, as someone whose worked on the RPVG article and the cultural differences section specifically I can say that its not perfect. Their is systemic bias there. I know this as a fact; however, its not verifiable because no experts have played very few non-translated Japanese video games in the west and in Japan, finding RSes that comment on such is hard (and likely would have its own systemic biases as they also have played few rpgs that made here - FE Baldur's Gate II a very popular RPG back in the day wasn't translated to Japanese). Thus he has somewhat of a point, but only to an extent. Some issues in there really are different, especially the religious ones; the focus on more linear plot (with the exception of rougelike games which seem more popular in Japan than US), general preference for turn-based over real-time (and actually Japanese wonder why the US disdains turn-based so much), etc. Others like preference for JRPGs on console systems of RPGs is a myth the bias creates (but its not verifiable that the JRPGs are mostly consoles because those are the ones that get translated); there is as big, if not bigger market in PC RPGs in Japan then the US. I can't verify that though. 陣 内 Jinnai 07:11, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * still it seems like he went to broad to begin with. For games such as japan, a japanese reviewer, or a japanese review site that covered both, would be enough i suppose. so we get both sides, no?Bread Ninja (talk) 07:18, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Jinnai those are your personal and unsupported opinions. There is no evidence to support the idea rogue-likes are more popular in Japan than elsewhere in the world, NetHack has, afterall, been in constant development for about a decade and a half and has a huge fanbase. The Diablo series, which to this day is incredibly popular in North America, can be considered a rogue-like. There isn't any evidence to support rogue-likes being more popular anywhere. There is also no evidence to support the idea religious symbolism or deities are featured more in JRPGs than WRPGs. Anyone who has played the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, EverQuest or anything D&D based like Neverwinter Nights or the Baldur's Gate series could tell you that. Heck, D&D religions and their deities are all based on real world religions and a lot of computer RPGs derive their basic mythology from D&D. Even "Western RPGs" like WoW and EverQuest have players fighting deities and religion is a heavy part of their game lore. Ultima 7 has the Avatar fighting against a pseudo-Christianity cult. Also, the idea that Nintendo's old censorship policies on games would impact games released on other console systems or home computers is just silly. Many computer RPGs have a fantasy narrative and fighting against gods is common to the entire genre of fantasy literature-- obviously it's going to appear in fantasy games, regardless of the game's genre (God of War, anyone?)


 * And for the idea that JRPGs are predominantly turn based to have merit you'd need to ignore every single action RPG made by Japanese developers; which means you're basically twisting facts to support a biased opinion.


 * There is also no evidence that "WRPGs" have more "nonlinear storylines" (which usually means two possible endings to the game) than JRPGs. Dialogue trees and multiple endings appear in games from both sides of the world; as examples from the past few years, you can find just as much freedom to determine your story route and explore the world in Romancing SaGa: MS as you can in Mass Effect. And then there is the MegaTen: Persona series and Radiata Stories.


 * Even "cute graphics" is pure nonsense; you see "cute graphics" used in games from both Japan and American developers. World of Warcraft is a great example, but there is also Adventure Quest and Farmville. And then there is tons of indie stuff made by companies like Rampant Games http://rampantgames.com/blog/ and of course Zeboyd Games. And Pier Solar and the Great Architects. Again, whether a game has "cute" graphics or not has to do with its target demographic.


 * The entire section does not hold up under scrutiny. There is nothing of fact in it; it's 100% opinion based and should be removed. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 09:08, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You didn't even provide anything just now....sure some things you say could be true. and you are misreading things again. as long as put in "reviewer A said etc." it wouldn't be opinion. it would be fact. for example


 * therpgfantaic has said "Even "cute graphics" is pure nonsense; you see "cute graphics" used in games from both Japan and American developers."


 * Did you or did you not say it? yes you did. it's right above. the same applies. You want truth, not verifiability.Bread Ninja (talk) 09:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It is nonsense in that the article says only cute / kawaii graphics appear in Japanese made computer rpgs and this is some kind of significant cultural difference. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 21:02, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I think this needs RFC. The specific point covers more than just videogame magazines. If any source used by WP should in itself state its own sources, and failure to do so means that it fails the sourcing requirements, then that ruling would cover the whole gamut of the encyclopaedia and so needs to be discussed by the whole of the WP community, and especially the people who keep WP:V on the rails. - X201 (talk) 09:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is I think symptomatic of a problem simply in terms of "is X a good research topic?" For genre articles there is relatively little analysis outside of generalizations by the media (and oh look I'm generalizing too), which is problematic from a verifying-the-facts standpoint. Thus, those articles are propped up by essentially, "Here's how the media has generalized this genre". I think this is fine because genres are, themselves, essentially generalizations of bunches of individual games, so knowing the media's generalizations (even if they're wrong under scrutiny) is immensely useful for providing a picture of how the genre is viewed. Nifboy (talk) 12:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think I can see Therpgfanatic's point in relation to the articles he's talking about, but I would much rather someone get "in the trenches" and fix it. Now I only say that because our numbers are minuscule compared to the number of articles we have on video games and the fact that most (hey, I'll generalize too!) WP:VG members have a specific area they want to focus on.  For instance, I'll never be interested in the particular articles he's mentioned, but I've always tried to follow the practice he's describing with the articles I focus on.  This seems to be more affected in game series and genre articles which luckily I steer clear from - everyone has their opinion in these types of articles (particularly genre articles) and it comes out as he mentioned.


 * I will say, however that I don't appreciate the group being "publicly" slandered. We have 368 "Active" members (of which I'm sure more than a few are inactive and never listed themselves as such) and over 31,000 articles, which equates to 80+ articles per person if we divide it evenly among active personnel.  I understand when people think something is wrong, but fix it instead of asking us to.  We're busy enough as it is, and this is only a hobby.  --Teancum (talk) 13:39, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If you are going to accuse me of slandering you then it would help to point out what you think I am saying that is not true. I assume you are referring to the claim that very few people are involved in the decisions to re-name article pages or approve sources as reliable. If so then you may want to count the number of people who vote in each decision. From what I've seen it has not been anywhere near 368 members, or even 10. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 21:02, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * As do I. I invite rpgfanatic to WP:BEBOLD and fix these genre articles himself, and I feel we should call a community-wide RfC to discuss these. Nomader  ( Talk ) 15:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This sounds very related to the previous discussion about how we interpret article content from sites like IGN, GameSpot, etc. It also sounds like a symptom of the bigger problem stated above: too much work and too little work force.
 * RPGfanatic- I can certainly appreciate your distaste with some of the video game coverage on Wikipedia. I, and I know others, am not satisfied with the quality level in many of our important articles. To re-iterate what others have said, you are welcome (and encouraged) to work on the articles yourself. I know Wikipedia's guidelines and policies can be a hindrance to new editors. But there are those here that can help you navigate them so you can improve the article. I suggest you start a draft of the article from scratch as a draft in your userspace. If you have any questions about the editing process, please feel free to ask. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:56, 9 February 2011 (UTC))
 * I have requested temporary FPP for RPVG and may for history article too. This is a huge issue and I've already seen edits, though not by Therpgfanatic to remove it since this debate began with removal of sources without reason and removal of content because someone thinks its untrue.
 * As for the claims, what Therpgfanatic is claiming is that even academics sources should not be used here because there are academic-level sources used in that section to support some of the ideas there. He's saying no source anywhere is essentially good enough to support cultural differences by the sound of it, a very extreme veiwpoint we don't have to adhere to (faith doesn't mean we have to tolerate such). However, as mentioned, I'd like him to respond to this to see if he just has an issues with the magazine/website ones used in that section or if it also includes the academic ones used in that section; if its the former it still needs an RfC and because of its large-ranging implication should be WP:CANVASSed to all the major relevant policy/guideline pages that are affected and possibly the major wikiprojects that get much of their info from these type of sources (probably most of Wikipedia).
 * EDIT:Also as there was an attack on what I said, I feel that I must respond. If you notice the article has nothing on roguelikes and stuff - that's because I can't verify it. So I don't add it; for the religious one, that needs some clarrification. I should say JRPGs tend to use religion iconography that is similar to Christianity and WRPGs don't. That is verifiable and thus not merely my opinion. Also you have not given one example of a source claiming the opposite. Citing specific examples isn't the same as a trend because there are always exceptions to the rule; that doesn't mean there isn't a trend. I mean that's like saying something like "Most volcanoes form along subduction zones" cannot be supported by showing that Hawaii doesn't and saying that because it exists a claim that there is a trend cannot be made by any reliable source. 陣 内 Jinnai 19:54, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * As I have repeatedly said, simply deleting the offending content causes an edit war. In the past Jinnai has immediately reverted the edits to that article in order to preserve his cultural differences essay. In fact Jinnai is the one who directed me to complain here when I recently tried again to point out the section should be deleted on the talk page. He claims I have not given any sources to dispute the editorials while his sources are valid. As you can see whenever I point out examples directly from games (easily provable by playing the game), he claims they are exceptions to some kind of rule --established by who? I don't know. Again, there is no study which compares such things in "JRPGs" and "WRPGs"; it's purely opinion. The idea there are trends is complete opinion because there simply has never been any study done in a logical and scientific way -- which requires pooling a large sample and investigating them, not just pointing to one or two games then proclaiming there is a trend.


 * And this is exactly why game reviewer magazine editorials should not be deemed reliable sources when they do not cite their sources. Pointing to Xenogears and Final Fantasy Tactics does not mean it is anymore common to see religious antagonists in "JRPGs" than "WRPGs", especially when you can list several "WRPGs" that have the same kind of theme but because some shoddy game journalists wrote an opinion piece, that makes it okay. Which is why editorial pieces in game reviewer magazines need to changed from reliable sources to unreliable sources. It's really ridiculous that we are even having this argument; I cannot imagine many journalism professors would accept citations from an editorial that make extraordinary claims but provide no source for where they are getting their facts. Editorials and reports are two separate things.


 * I've certainly not played every computer RPG ever made but I've played enough of them to know the editorials are bogus but that doesn't even matter because they do not cite any reliable sources. Again there has never been any comparison of games to see what the "cultural differences" are. It's purely speculation. And if there is no reliable source for statements then those statements should not be in an encyclopedia. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 20:55, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * And as I've pointed out these bad sources appear in other game related articles, not just the ones related to computer RPGs. I do not feel like having to constantly repeat myself in discussions like this every single time I delete statements inserted into Wikipedia that are supported by editorials which are purely speculative and opinion based, citing no reliable sources. The root of the problem is the game magazines being given undue amounts of reliability. The door to removing the offending content cannot open until this door closes. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 21:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Lastly if Jinnai believes that Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time, is an academic book then he needs to do some research into how academic publishing works. The book is not peer reviewed, which is a necessary part of the process of scholarly papers. The book is also written by game journalists who work for Armchair Arcade, a blog. But perhaps he or someone else can point out where in that book they cite or show the results of a study comparing a large pool of these games to see their differences. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 21:26, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Please see the related deletion discussion at Stub types for deletion/Log/2011/February/9. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  20:22, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The book is cited by at least 3 academic papers. At least because that's only the online ones. Please stop making attacks on myself. 陣 内 Jinnai 22:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Did you even look at the Google Scholar results before you claimed the book was cited by academic papers? Anyone who does can clearly see they are not academic papers. One of the sites isn't even secure. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 05:01, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And finding a copy of the paper listed on the non-secure site, I can see the paper has nothing to do with RPGs and is focused on discussing the programming of games. Actually none of the Google Scholar results have anything to do with RPGs, and none of the papers appear to be peer reviewed either. Also, even if they were reliable sources does a reliable source quoting an unreliable source make the unreliable source reliable or does it mean someone didn't do their research properly? When a "reliable source" like Kotaku reports on hoaxes, does that make the hoax real? --Therpgfanatic (talk) 05:04, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well they are citing a reliable source so it doesn't matter.
 * Even if they are, Wikipedia has in general given deference to a reliable source that quotes an unreliable source as being an expert enough in the field to know what they're talking about. I asked this because it came up in an unrelated case. It doesn't make the unreliable source reliable, but we don't assume they are suddenly unreliable except for extraordinary claims. 陣 内 Jinnai 05:52, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There are the authors cridentials. If you're going to start saying they're not reliable sources, then your standards are not supported anywhere in Wikipedia. In addition, I think I just found another at least situational RS we can add per WP:SPS. 陣 内 Jinnai 05:58, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Here you go once again, just like in the past, trying to rules lawyer to protect your essay.


 * You appear to be attributing reliability based on the credentials of the authors rather than the reliability of the documents they write. This is flawed reasoning. You cannot say just because someone has worked in an industry or is a Professor of English or whatever-have you, that anything they write meets the standards of reliability. You are simply assuming they are reliable even though their writing does not comply with the standards for reliable sources. Their writing must speak for itself; sloppy investigative writing cannot hide behind the credentials of the individual.


 * Those game journalists who, I once again point out, DO NOT CITE THEIR OWN RELIABLE SOURCES WHEN MAKING EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS, are third party sources. This means they are not involved in the creation of Japanese or "Western" videogames. They are not original sources; they are not talking about what their favorite color is or what kind of games they personally like. They are talking about decisions made by other people and the reasons why they are made; therefore when they make claims about what trends are in these types of games they need to actually back those claims up with evidence. They simply do not do that. They do not cite any kind of study comparing a large pool of games, which would be necessary in order to prove there are different trends in games made by Japanese and American developers. You cannot simply say "common knowledge"; we're not talking about something like the definition of a word or whether you need to breath oxygen to live. We are talking about thousands of different products created by different teams of designers for the past three decades, many of which have never even been officially released in the English language.


 * [|Wikipedia's policies concerning reliable sources states very clearly that in order to be a reliable source they must have a proven record for fact checking.] Please tell me how in the world they can have a reputation for fact checking if they do not show where their facts are coming from when they make wild assumptions about thousands of games they have probably never even played?


 * [|By the way, third party sources who are not independent of organizations with interest in promoting something (such as Game Informer, owned by GameStop) are supposed to be scrutinized closer than they currently are being.]


 * Since you seem to have skipped past the start of that page on what the policies and guidelines required of third party sources are, I will reproduce them here:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Third-party_sources#Policies_and_guidelines_requiring_third-party_sources
 * * Wikipedia's policy on both Verifiability and No original research states that "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."
 * * Wikipedia's policy on Verifiability states that "Articles should be based upon reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."
 * * Wikipedia's guideline on Reliable sources states that "Wikipedia articles should rely primarily on reliable, third-party, published sources".
 * * Wikipedia's guideline on Notability states that "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article."


 * You don't have to search for special rules to figure out that Wikipedia's policies concerning reliable sources deem these game journalists who do not cite sources when making extraordinary claims to be unreliable sources and that a book written by game journalists that continues to use their poor investigative standards is also not reliable. It seems very clear that the intent behind having these rules is so facts and not opinions are included in Wikipedia. As it is right now opinions are being presented as facts just because you personally agree with the conclusions of the game journalists despite the fact they do not provide any evidence to support those conclusions.


 * I state again, the articles need to be re-evaluated and any extraordinary statements made by game journalist editorials (especially those coming from game magazines whose primary means of funding are from game developers and retailers) need to be scrutinized to see if they provide factual evidence for the claims they are making. If they do not then the content need to be deleted so it is no longer spreading unverifiable information that is more than likely misinformation derived from sloppy investigative techniques, outright propaganda, or nothing more than the personal bias of the author being passed off as fact.


 * This is not a request to delete every citation from a game journalist. Rather, this is a request to not automatically deem everything they say as having notability and reliability, and to scrutinize them closer on a case by case basis. This is a request for the articles to comply with Wikipedia's own policies. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 12:44, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

One thing to consider that several of these "unsourced" claims that you are suggesting game journalists make are effectively attributed to the video games themselves. Their status as "experts" in the field allow us to use their collective knowledge to make the wider assumptions about video games in general (eg the cultural differences section). In such cases, there is no need for them to cite their sources as their sources are obvious, the games themselves. The types of statements that you appear to be focused on are where there are nuanced statements that aren't quite accurate or probably made some years ago. Take the customization issue: I would agree that the differences cited between customization in WRPG and JRPG was true in 2005 (pre PS2) but not today. That doesn't mean our sources are wrong, they're just out of date. Everything can be reflected to talk about "early games" for customization, and then update sources for newer examples. So here, when it is talking about games in general and nothing specific to the industry, we look to their "expert" opinion to use to make generalizations we can build on. These can be verified by the reader

Where we do need to watch for sources are things like industry reports - closures, buyouts, game sales, new titles, etc. Most of our sources don't specific "link" to any work for these but do start with "Today, CompanyX announced...". So they've named a source, and, at least how the VG industry works, news gets corroborated quickly. These might beat press releases to the door, or simple not be mentioned. Again, in this type of situation, not a problem if they aren't listing explicit sources as long as they aren't pulling data from thin air. (yesterday's news of Guitar Hero is an example of this type of sourcing working well - news broke from Eurogamer, at least two other sites contacted Activision to confirm, and then Activision formally announced it.) These also catch hoaxes too, given time. (case I'm aware of is the rumor of a PC/PS3 port of Limbo, which was listed by the ESRB, but nixed a day or so later by the publisher)

But, if say, Stephan Tolito of Kotaku comes along tomorrow and says "I've heard that Deadly Premonition sold 5 million copies" and doesn't say where or how he got that number, then, hey, flame on. That's a piece of data that needs to be challenged if only one person without any source makes that claim. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. This is where we do need to strongly evaluate the RS of the work and the expert making claim, and a general BS test to make sure it makes any sense, and then just to consider if it is a useful piece of questionable information to include. In this fake example, I would call foul and ignore that statement until it was proven by another source otherwise (and more than just, "Kotaku said that...", which is one thing to watch for).

Basically, a lot of your problems with how we treat video game magazines and web sites as reliable sources is because the journalism field for this area doesn't run itself like academic sources; they rarely cite sources and as most are online rely on hyperlinking for references back older articles. But at the same time, there's nothing wrong with that per WP:RS. These sources have a history of having editorial oversight and reporting factual news 99% of the time. The expert opinions are respected within and outside the area of video games. So really, its not a sources issue.

Really, I think most of your complaint is either 1) very naunced claims that really don't apply well when we're summarizing the field - we can't spend time to identify every exception to a rule and 2) sections that are outdated and liking need some TLC to get up to date. The cultural differences section does need modern refs from the last few years to show how the WRPG and JRPG sections have become less distinct from each other. I don't know if such exists. If we can't find them, there's some options for rewriting that to indicate the material there is outdated, but outright removal is not warranted. --M ASEM (t) 14:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Masem, you are not seeming to grasp the plain English ness of the rules. You cannot simply say all game journalists' statements are sourced by the games themselves. That is not how citations work. And when a game journalist writes an editorial (which by its very nature is an expression of the journalist's opinion) and makes a statement about trends in thousands of games but does not use the scientific method to prove the case, it cannot be included as a statement of fact. That you personally agree with some statement made by a game journalist about thousands of games you undoubtedly have not played (Have you played every computer rpg made before 2005? If not, how can you know the statements about customization differences are true based on your own experience? You obviously can't) is also not a valid reason to defend the information as being included in Wikipedia.


 * Game journalists are also not experts at videogame knowledge. What establishes them as an expert? Because they write for blogs and magazines that many people read? That does not make them an expert. It's irrelevant anyway because being an expert is not part of Wikipedia's requirements for whether something is verifiable.


 * Wikipedia is also not a source of news. Wikipedia is a source of information; information that is supposed to be reliable and accurate. So the argument about reporting on press releases and rumors is also without support by Wikipedia's rules. Just because the game magazines and blogs have sloppy investigative standards does not justify Wikipedia relaxing its rules so their information can be included in articles and no where in any of Wikipedia's policies that I have read is that deemed to be acceptable to do.


 * You can also not claim they have a history of editorial oversight and reporting factual news 99% of the time unless you can produce a scientifically created report that proves such. Otherwise it is a number you made up and if that is what you did I now further question whether you fully understand how Wikipedia is supposed to work. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 16:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You also don't seem to understand that entire subsections should not be composed of the personal opinions of game journalists, many of whose employers are either wholly owned by game publishers or have strong financial ties to them (because of the ads). It makes them less credible than other mainstream news sources; you don't know how many opinion pieces were written for marketing purposes but because the ties are so strong it is possible that some have been. So when they do not even backup their claims in editorials they should be deemed unreliable and not included in Wikipedia. Especially when an entire subsection (like the cultural differences in computer RPGs) is composed of nothing but opinion piece editorials that do not cite any scientifically created studies about trends in computer RPGs. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 16:55, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry but this last statement seems like you're just being difficult. By that reasoning, we need scientifically reported facts that USA Today, BBC UK, and NBC Nightly News report factually correct columns.  Nobody is ever going to have numbers like that, period.  But this horse has been beaten enough.  If you're not going to help us fix it, then the conversation is done - I can't speak for everyone else, but it is on my part.  Fix the page or leave it alone.  We're doing the best we can here we don't need to be hounded about this repeatedly because you don't agree. If you don't like policy, actually work with editors to come to a WP:CONSENSUS, or do without. --Teancum (talk) 17:00, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * (ec)I understand what you're trying to say, but this is again coming down to understanding how this field is covered. You're asking for academic/scientific standards in a field that has little coverage in that area. But this is also true for many contemporary topics like television and movies.  It's also true of current events and the like.
 * I can totally appreciate a source that goes through all X number of RPGs, cataloging them as WRPG or JRPG, and then identifying which features they have and then making a graph or chart to show the difference, and to come out with a statement like "65.3% of JRPG has anime-like characters, while only 12.9% of WRPG have these". (These are obviously false #s).  But obviously there is no such study, and likely never will be.  At the same time, people that are considered experts in journalism may say "More JRPGs have anime-like characters compared to WRPG" based on their own experience and a general common-sense.  As long as we are assured these are experts and that the statement makes sense from a common-sense standpoint, that is acceptable per WP:V and WP:OR.  If someone next month came out with a study to disprove that, then we replace that statement.
 * The problem that I'm having with what you're saying now is that you're not saying these are "wrong" statements, only that they are too generalized or don't reflect updated common sense. You have commented about the customization options, and I agree, this statement, possibly made in 2005, in not as true today. That is ok, as long as we establish that that difference existed then, and possibly another statement to say that that difference is not as evidence today.  But even without these, it is not a "wrong" statement - it is generally "right", technically "wrong".  We can remove the technical wrongness by the dating of information.  If it were the case that the statements are so wrong that even dating the statements or limiting the types of games they cover wouldn't make the wrongness go away (eg a statement like "WRPGs never have used a turn-based system" (eg Fallout 1/Anachronix as counterexamples) ) then yes, question the sources, rewrite the text, do whatever to get rid of the outright error.  But if the statement is generally correct with some exceptions to the case (eg "WRPGs usually do not use turn-based systems"), that's perfectly fine.
 * But I think again it comes down to understanding that you're asking for sources that are not the type generated by this field, and/or that we shouldn't be using the more casual sources over academic ones. However, WP-wise, this is a perfectly acceptable situation: WP:V and others call for using the best sources available in the field of interest, and for VG, that is our gaming magazines and major web sites.  We never should overlook the academic sources, of course, and use them over causal ones, but WP:V and WP:OR can still be met by these casual sources as proven by our body of Featured works and the fact that other contemporary topics have similar source use. What you seem to be asking for at the core is fundamentally against how the rest of WP works, and if you want that changed, you need to go up higher. Now, instead, if you're just looking to make some sections be more correct due to outdated information, be our guest and WP:SOFIXIT, and if you are getting reverted by your positive changes, come back here and we will likely help defend your changes as acceptable.  Do not be put off by those that revert blindly through WP:OWNership, because what you are saying about the factual accuracy of the statements is probably something that needs fixing. --M ASEM  (t) 17:09, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Therpgfanatic began blanking those sections in Role-playing video games and History of role-playing video games. I gave him a 4im warning as he was already well aware that he was alone in his position and aware that we weren't doing anything because he wasn't edit warring (just having a heated debate). He's also raised some issues on Talk:Role-playing video game, which while legitimate in and of themselves, are not so much with the way he is claiming some sources are unreliable. 陣 内 Jinnai 18:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * As you can see this is why I posted here about needing to re-evaluate the pages. What I said was proven to be true. I cannot simply "fix it" when Jinnai has decided he owns the page and can insert whatever of his own essays he likes even if the statements are not verifiable under Wikipedia's guidelines. It seems to me this needs to go into whatever the next step of the dispute process is, so people with more authority and not involved in the arguments can decide whether these articles are complying with the guidelines or not. I personally do not believe they are and the Wikipedia guidelines for verifiability are being ignored simply because some editors believe the only sources they can find to prove statements should be used, even if they fail reliability tests. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 18:43, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Deletion is not the same as improvement. If you question the statement (truly, doubting its factuality) add a cn to it.  If you think you have a better source that says something different, add it.  Outright deletion of sourced content - as long as the sources are generally considered reliable and the content is otherwise not offending WP:NOT - is frowned upon, which is why you are being met with resistance there. If you feel the section should be deleted, and you get reverted once, explain your reasonings on the talk page.  But if instead you positively improved the section by fixing statement you find questionable with more reliable sources, and you still get reverted, that's a problem. --M ASEM  (t) 19:00, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If you had read the talk page you would see when I attempted to do so Jinnai told me to come here. We're going around in circles. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 19:22, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I put in a request for mediation, which seems to be the next step in this process. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Role-playing_video_game --Therpgfanatic (talk) 19:43, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Since the majority rejected the mediation request I am now putting it into the next step of dispute resolution, especially since Jinnai threatened to ban me for removing the material and has pretty much rejected any effort to resolve it another way (again, he directed me to come here even though he has admitted the section is bias and relies entirely on opinion pieces rather than facts). Also that the majority of people here seem to think game magazines have the same journalistic integrity as other media outlets that lack the close financial ties that game magazines do is problematic and obviously needs to be something that requires someone with more authority explaining why my points have merit. Then we have David Fuchs, an Arbitrator, whose attitude is, to paraphrase, that it's okay to use bad sources if editors can't find any better ones. Basically, even though Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia you guys believe it's perfectly okay to cite opinions as being facts and give undue weight to magazines that are essentially propaganda. I don't see this getting resolved unless it goes to a higher level. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 23:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I begin to find it hard to assume good faith with you when you make personal attacks on you because you section blanked multiple sections to prove your point. That's considered vandalism here and you were well aware that your point-of-view, that all those sources are not reliable, was soundly rejected when you section blanked those sections. 陣 内 Jinnai 23:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Jinnai said no such thing. That was an edit warring warning, indicating that you can be blocked for such actions. Please take note of the difference between a WP:Block and a WP:Ban. If you'd like to take this to a higher level, please do so as it can't be resolved here. Reach Out to the Truth 00:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You know full well that other editors in this discussion told me to just remove the information. I was not "edit warring". Anyone who reads this thread can see it. Jinnai is also directly involved in this entire dispute. The section we are arguing over is something Jinnai has pushed and pushed to keep through all the many incarnations of the page and if I remember correctly is something Jinnai had a significant part in creating. If you think for half a second there is no conflict of interest, you're wrong. Jinnai can call it "blanking" a page; I call it removing bias information that comes from editorial pieces and that even Jinnai admits is not a neutral point of view. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 00:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Most non-academic journals - which include Time, Newsweek, Popular Mechanics, Entertainment Weekly - and a host of other journals, as well as most reliable newspapers and online news websites do not cite sources. Instead, we evaluate their reliability based on if they have editorial oversight and a history of fact checking.  There is zero difference from these and gaming sources.  And yes, advertising dollars have to be considered too.  If you want to challenge that, you need to challenge all such sources at WP:RS (which is an argument I think you would lose). Personally, everything you've said points to trying to win a specific battle at selected sections of specific articles, and there, instead of fighting the established systems, you should be communicating and trying to improve there.  Blanking is not improvement. --M ASEM  (t) 00:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No one told you to remove the whole section. I even checked your talk page and no one told you to do it there. You have no basis for that statement.Indeed quite the opposite - people supported its inclusion, albeit maybe with some edits as Masem pointed out. That is not the same as wholsale removing. 陣 内 Jinnai 00:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Massem, why don't you focus on the issue at hand instead of trying to justify one wrong by pointing to several other wrongs? Wikipedia very clearly states its purpose is to spread facts not opinions. It's policies stress again and again what a verifiable source is. And what you and others don't seem to comprehend is that you cannot compare Kotaku, IGN and GamePro to Time Magazine, the NYT or Newsweek; those consumer news magazines that aren't outright owned by the subjects they report, are not internet blogs written by amateur journalists and by the way, when editorials are concerned they aren't considered reliable sources for inclusion in academic papers either. I honestly don't believe it is an issue with Wikipedia's policies. I believe it is an issue with editors ignoring the policies.


 * Jinnai, they told me to "fix it". I said I wanted to remove it. They again said to just fix it and stop wasting people's time arguing about it. You and they knew what article was primarily being discussed and that I wanted the section removed because of its problems. You are even the one who pointed me to come here from that article. So don't be accusing me of not having good faith. I could say the same about you. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 00:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry if you feel that those sources in the VG community aren't appropriate, but the community (not on WP, but video games in general) consider these sources as our "experts" in the field. And no, you are very mistaken - none of these sources are owned by video game publishers or developers.  They receive advertising dollars from them (just like Time and the others) but that does not invalidate them as independent sources.  --M ASEM  (t) 00:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The really sorry thing is even though Jinnai and others admit it is violating Wikipedia's policies you don't seem to think it needs removing, but you'll harshly enforce rules when someone tries to remove it? Also last I knew Wikipedia [|Wikipedia is not a democracy]. From the very start of this my integrity was challenged simply because I'm also a game journalist. The facts of the situation-- that the game journalism as an industry is not as credible as that of other fields-- are being continually ignored. There doesn't seem to be any disagreement that they are not very reliable. All there has been is excuses for why they need to be included that are not supported by Wikipedia's guidelines on what reliable sources are; I don't see any exceptions for unreliable sources to be given a free pass as a reliable source when expressing opinions just because there isn't many other sources for information to dispute them. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 00:31, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Please do tell me who provides the overwhelming majority of ad revenue for magazines like Time or Newsweek while being the focus subject of their reporting? Last I knew they report on a wide range of topics and have multiple types of industries purchasing ad space, and game journalism receives the overwhelming majority of ad revenue from the videogame industry while also reviewing their products, reporting on their upcoming releases and basically telling people how to spend their money. They are NOT comparable to the magazines you are trying to compare them to!--Therpgfanatic (talk) 00:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Have any of these magazines in their factual reporting published purposely incorrect data (possibly on account of being influenced by advertisers)? I'm not talking about reviews of course, that's editor opinions. I'm talking about announcements of game release, features, interviews with developers, sales figured reported from NPD, and so on.  As long as those have been shown to be factually correct because of editorial oversight and industry-recognized experts, then the sources are reliable. --M ASEM  (t) 00:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Several people involved in game journalism and PR admitting the close ties to one another and how it basically doesn't work at all like news reporting for those other mainstream news sources that game journalism is being compared to. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1542/pr_and_the_game_media_how_pr_.php --Therpgfanatic (talk) 01:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to quote from the source you linked to:
 * "While no one we spoke to said that they had witnessed or participated in seriously underhanded behavior to win good scores for their games, most publicists believed that their efforts had some affect on the outcome of reviews." "In the end, the efforts never earned the kind of scores head honchos wanted. “The score would never live up to the expectation,” says Zuniga." " I said, basically, 'OK, I understand, but I'm afraid we're still going to have to do this, because we work for our readers, not for Sony.'”
 * I hate to say it, but reading through this article, it pretty much says that PR people try to attempt to influence the magazines, but when they try to, fail on a grand scale and they talk about how strong-arm PR tactics really don't work. If anything, this just adds to the reliability of the sources we use. Nomader  ( Talk ) 01:29, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You are lifting one quote from one person. You completely ignored the rest of the article, especially where another journalist pointed out writers who wouldn't play ball ended up not working for the magazines anymore and that saying anything the developers did not approve resulted in blacklists. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 12:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There may be bias. That's fine: we keep WP:COI in mind (eg if OXM reported that an Xbox 360 version of a multiplatform game was "definitive" and no one else backed up that claim, that would be an issue) but COI does not invalidate sourced, even if it did exist.  At worst, this means some games don't get as much coverage as bigger titles backed by those with deeper pockets, but if you follow game journalism you will see the community self corrects - indie-games being a strong example of this.  No, again, I asked if there is anything  factually incorrect (otherwise not corrected later) in how they report information to be an affect of the advertisers.  There isn't, and thus there's no COI issue there that you're claiming, moreso than what exists in any for-profit publication. --M ASEM  (t) 03:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You are asking if they admit to outright lying. You're unlikely to find that kind of admittance of guilt since it makes them open to lawsuits, nor is it even necessary for us to have that admittance when discussing this. This is not a trial. What you can find is acknowledgment that review scores are partially awarded to appease the developers, that magazines are either wholly owned by or have strong financial relationships to game developers / retailers, and that when writing articles about trends such as "cultural differences in games" they do not cite any sources. These are not things that a reliable source is supposed to be doing. They do, however, report factually incorrect things all the time. Even with the reviews, over the years some of the reviews make it seem like the the author didn't even so much as look at the instruction manual let alone play the game.


 * Some examples of reporting incorrect things that aren't simply a typo and demonstrate a lack of basic journalism standards:


 * http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/09/gamepros-reviews-editor-admits-error


 * http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Giant-Realms-Cool-Blog-for-Attractive-People/Kotaku-Kills-Their-Own-Credibility


 * http://gamejournos.com/post/588000458/the-link-in-my-original-post-about-this-article-no


 * Recognize with these three articles the journalists themselves acknowledge they screwed up. There are lots more cases where it's clear they screwed up but I'm focusing on some of them admitting they have poor standards. It only seems to be when they get caught that they admit there was anything wrong. The bulk of the time they just report on things they heard elsewhere, so they do very, very little investigative reporting. If they are just regurgitating things how can they be considered a reliable source?


 * --Therpgfanatic (talk) 12:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Other non-VG sources print wrong information too. What's important is that as an editorial-reviewed source, if the error is brought to light, they retract it - as your examples show. So, no, this don't prove anything. --M ASEM  (t) 14:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And you think other journalists don't screw up? That's why you have to use common sense, and not assume everything stated in these sources is correct by default. The same goes for any source. Please read this. There's even a list of a few cases where other reliable non-gaming sources have screwed up. Reliable sources are not infallible. We should not be assuming that they are. And we're not. Please, if you find a mistake in one of the sources we've cited, let us know. If you feel a specific source is unreliable, let us know. But if you feel that the majority of our sources are inherently unreliable, we can't help you with with that. Wikipedia's current verifiability policy simply doesn't support that view, so you'd have to deal with that first. Reach Out to the Truth 14:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Once again, you cannot compare game journalism to the other news outlets. These types of errors are common and routine for game journalism, and largely go without retraction. In comparison when the more reputable news sources publish these kind of mistakes it becomes a scandal receiving nationwide attention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_journalism_scandals#Notable_reports_of_United_States_journalism_scandals . And even if it were common for the more reputable news agencies to make these kind of mistakes, you can't prove a source reliable by pointing out how other sources are unreliable. Each source has to be evaluated on its own merits, not the misdeeds of other sources. And as I've already proven trying to remove bad information from a page that is sourced by a gaming magazine editorial causes me to be threatened with a ban. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 15:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * then let's leave it at that.Bread Ninja (talk) 15:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

@Everyone - I truly think this is all talked out here. If Therpgfanatic is not satisfied with the result then he can take it to Dispute resolution requests. However, that's where the buck stops, so the ruling decision there is what we as a community will need to follow. --Teancum (talk) 16:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I know this topic is talked out... but I don't think we should be re-writing the reliable source policy. On the other hand the VRPG article could use some work. There has to be a better way to write up the cultural issues and the history. If anyone decides to take it on... let me know and I will help! Shooterwalker (talk) 00:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And what would be the next step? I attempted to have it mediated and mediation was refused by the other people here. I already put in a request for comments. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 02:38, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Your RFC was on the incorrect page and was deleted. Most of us never saw it, much less participated in it. Reach Out to the Truth 03:22, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * * You clearly have not even read this entire thread. Why don't you go to the top of the thread and read it all over again? If you've missed the requests for comments block at the very top then who knows what else you've missed. --Therpgfanatic (talk) 22:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh. Well, it's clearly not being seen by a wider audience. I didn't notice, and others have decided that the discussion is over by the time the RFC started. This is an important matter of policy that applies to more than just this project. You're not getting what you're looking for here, please take it to a more appropriate venue. Our responses are based on WP:V and WP:RS, so try WT:V, WT:RS, WP:RSN, somewhere other than here. Reach Out to the Truth 03:27, 22 February 2011 (UTC)