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External links guidelines

Hi everybody,

A little while ago I nominated Template:GameFAQs for deletion. Right now, Template: StrategyWiki is up for deletion. On both nominations I've been citing WP:EL and WP:VG/EL. I've been discussing with Hahnchen, who is of the opinion that credits and cast lists and detailed are encyclopedic in nature and with Izno, who pointed out that (if I may summarize) VG/EL is not based upon WP:EL and unclear ("Additionally, Wikipedia is not a game guide - external links should not be added to include material that explicitly defines the gameplay on certain aspects of the video game.") What I propose is that we try to come to a new consensus here (of course based upon WP:EL), about these kind of external links and making sure VG/EL is clear.

What I'm having trouble with is WP:ELYES No. 3: "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject". I'll break it down into subsections for an easier discussion. First about "encyclopedic understanding", second about "neutral and accurate material". --Soetermans. T / C 10:05, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Weird, I didn't get pinged.

unclear. I'm not sure I ever suggested that. VG/EL seems fairly clear to me. It's that, as you've put it, VG/EL is not based upon WP:EL. But since you have questions regarding ELYES 3, we can talk below. --Izno (talk) 16:23, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Re no ping. There's a known fault with the notification system that can sometimes fail to ping people when they are mentioned by username. Last time I looked the advice was that if you want to make sure that someone gets notified about a thread, use ((ping|username)) instead of relying on linking their username or using the "u" template. - X201 (talk) 09:03, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Encyclopedic understanding

Right now, VG/EL reads "If the page contains substantial information that is relevant but not necessarily encyclopedic in nature, a video game's page at MobyGames, Allgame, Internet Movie Database or a dedicated wikia may be added on a case by case basis". So what do we consider to be "encyclopedic" and what is "substantial information"? I think for a greater understanding of a video game, a piece on development, interviews with its creator, or scientific theses are appropriate and give substantial information. I don't see cast lists beyond what we would mention as encyclopedic, but maybe I'm wrong. Same goes for gameguides, like StrategyWiki and GameFAQs. Knowing where to find all the audio diaries in BioShock gives no greater insight, reading about ludo-narrative dissonance might.

So the question is, what "encyclopdic understanding" and what is "substantial information" when it comes to an external link? --Soetermans. T / C 10:05, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Pasting ELYES 3: Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject.

I think VG/EL is defining "encyclopedic" in the same sense as what Wikipedia is not is defining what encyclopedicity isn't, and in particular WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:GAMEGUIDE are relevant (there may be other policies that are relevant but those are the two I think are the keys). Your quotation of VG/EL specifically states that we can or should add links that go into the kind of content which WP:NOT recommends strongly against.

Substantial information seems to me pretty clear: whereas a fictional character article here might receive a summary of 500 words related to the fictional character's part in a work of fiction, an external website (particularly wikis) can stretch that content to 1000s of words. Similarly, for credits and cast lists (since you mentioned Hahnchen's concern); on video game articles here we have more or less required that articles should not contain such information (in stark contrast to film and television; I understand the reasoning however), and so IMDB or whatnot is also a "good" external link because it does contain that information. The VG project found that both types of information in this case are unencyclopedic but also recognizes that it is content that another reader may have interest in accessing from Wikipedia.

piece on development, interviews with its creator, or scientific theses are appropriate I would be skeptical if these have more value as external links than as sources-proper, given that in a large number of cases we have issues finding content for the development and reception sections as it is. This kind of content is explicitly something we should be referencing in the main body of the article because it helps us write about fiction from a out-of-universe perspective. Their use or non-use as sources rather than as ELs may come down to WEIGHT and SIZE I suppose... but if you're having that much of a problem with that kind of question, you might want to split the content to a subarticle anyway.

Knowing where to find all the audio diaries in BioShock gives no greater insight. "Insight" is not a criterion as established in your quotation of VG/EL, but it is an interesting interpretation of "encyclopedic understanding" and perhaps useful for knocking out a certain set of websites or subsets of websites. Indeed, knowing where to find all the audio diaries probably does not aid the goal of "encyclopedic understanding" (if indeed encyclopedic is defined as in my first paragraph). I'll ponder this one. --Izno (talk) 16:53, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Neutral and accurate material

I think that means that links we add have to be factual, that the links provided are truthfully and real. Wikis are user-submitted, so they aren't reliable or verifiable. Can we allow wikis and user-submitted walkthrough websites if we're not sure these are accurate? --Soetermans. T / C 10:05, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

verifiable. I'm not sure how this figures into the discussion.

reliable. We're not discussing the use of wikis or walkthrough websites as reliable sources, so I'm not sure how this figures into the discussion either.

factual, [...] truthfully and real [sic]. If "truthful" is the word you understand "accurate" to mean, sure. "factual" might be a stretch because that implies real-world, which neither "neutral" nor "accurate" imply, but I'm not too hung up on it.

Can we allow wikis and user-submitted walkthrough websites if we're not sure these are accurate?. The crux of the question. I suppose my answer is that these same websites can be verified in the same way that you verify a plot section in a Wikipedia article—play the game. Maybe there is a question of detail i.e. it might be difficult for a general Wikipedia editor to verify the content of an external link with so much detail as user guides or external wikis contain, but I still think that concern comes down to playing the game. --Izno (talk) 16:34, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

And just to hit a point that you didn't ask about, I think "neutral" is more likely meant to disqualify fringe science ELs than to suggest that wiki or game guide links aren't neutral. (You may not have asked about it as you may tacitly accept that game guide and wiki links are A-OK from this point of view.) --Izno (talk) 16:58, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
First off, @Izno:, I think assuming good faith towards me is in order. Your tone is condescending, especially if you're quoting me repeatedly, unnecessarily in color, no less, and adding [sic] to my typos and/or style errors. English isn't my mother tongue and from time to time I do make mistakes. Second, I opened this new discussion to establish new consensus. I gave my opinion and asked for others. Instead, you decided to trash mine. I'm trying to reach consensus here, not to get bashed by you. @Masem:, @Sergecross73:, @Czar:, @X201:, @PresN:, @Salvidrim!: and others, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. --Soetermans. T / C 22:54, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
Let me lead off with: I am discussing explicitly in good faith.

color. This happens to be a template (((tq))) specifically used for quotation (seems most used at WP:MOS but I have seen it elsewhere). As for the use of ((sic)), I think it's customary to note when I am quoting a source which made an error (not in this case to be obnoxious but more to point out, as is intended by sic, that I did not introduce the error myself).

condescending. I am puzzled by this. Who is assuming good faith here, again? (Ditto for you decided to trash mine and bashed by you.) I am making my disagreement/differences clear, since you did not link to the original location for my portion of this discussion. I am explicitly discussing neither who you are nor what the implications of that fact (an argument which goes by ad hominem in some places, "discussing the contributor rather than the content" here more often). I am instead explicitly in some cases disagreeing with your interpretation and in others responding to the questions posed. I am troubled that you would see that as attacking you as a person rather than discussing how policy and guideline should be applied. --Izno (talk) 23:02, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

(This is just my reading of the situation and an attempt to calm the waters) Izno, I think what Soetermans is complaining about is that he was asking for people to express their interpretation of phrases like "Neutral and accurate", instead you've focussed on dismantling his comment, rather than just add your own opinion of what "Neutral and accurate" means. - X201 (talk) 06:55, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
So, I'll try to get us back on track a bit then. I do understand Soeterman's concerns a bit here. We don't allow for unofficial fansites or social media as ELs, so why should we have USERG violating ELs that suffer from the same problems that prohibit using fansite type stuff. I concede I don't do much in the way of adding ELs though, I'm usually just the one trimming out ones that are inappropriate (fansites, clearly promotional links) or better used as a reference to cite something in particular. Sergecross73 msg me 15:28, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:VG/EL guideline

I'm disappointed with the deletion of Template:GameFAQs, it's not a template I'd ever used, but we've used TFD to essentially rule that it's illegal to link to GameFAQs for any reason. Even if there were only 3 games for example that required a link to GameFAQs, the template would be useful in case of database changes. The presence of a link template is not an invitation to then use that template, as the pretty much unused Template:GameTrailers attests.

The WP:VG/EL guideline "Wikipedia is not a game guide - external links should not be added to include material that explicitly defines the gameplay on certain aspects of the video game" is just complete trash and should be removed. WP:NOT refers to what Wikipedia is, not what its external links. - hahnchen 09:40, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Infobox-less articles

Imagine, if you can, a poor, defenseless article cast adrift into the cold world, without even an infobox to hold it. Its own page creator caring so little about it to even dress it properly. This tragic image is a daily reality for 235 of our articles. But there is something you can do to help: for just 30 seconds per article, you can give the gift of an infobox to a needy article. Or you can decide to put the article out of its misery and delete/merge it- I won't judge.

*Cough* Anyways, apparently we're knocking out some of the smaller maintenance categories this week, and here's another one that's quite doable if everyone does just a handful. Category:Video game articles needing infoboxes is something I've been knocking against slowly for a while, and it really does just take 30 seconds to a minute for most articles:

Alternate Steps:

Either way, the article will no longer feel the pain of lacking an infobox. --PresN 22:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Though this is generally a good idea, be careful of adding disinfoboxes. If you can only fill out two fields there's really no point to adding an infobox. Sam Walton (talk) 22:59, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Corollary- if you really can only fill out 2 fields for a video game infobox with the information in the article, then the article should be deleted for not having any information to demonstrate notability. "Game X was developed by company Y" is two fields, but only one sentence. If the article doesn't even mention what the game is (just that it exists)- the genre, the platform, the year- then it is imparting no information at all to the reader. --PresN 23:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Likely true circumstantially, but not technically. I could imagine a game that received a great deal of infamy for breaking some social or political taboo, such as by being extremely racist, but that also happened to be extremely obscure and that far more people talked about than ever played. The game might well be covered in-depth in its reception/controversy sense by numerous secondary sources, yet have no verifiable information suitable for an infobox besides a title and a developer, year, or genre. Tezero (talk) 00:09, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
But realistically, what games can you not confirm at least name/release/developer/publisher/platform? Seems like that's an automatic 5 at the very least. Sergecross73 msg me 01:27, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
  • If you don't think an article needs an infobox, please remove the "|needs-infobox=y" tag from the talk page. This isn't a listing of all articles without an infobox, this is a listing of articles that someone has specifically called out as in need of one. --PresN 20:24, 6 March 2015 (UTC)`
  • I get that, but Salavat usually adds |needs-infobox=y and |cover=y to most newly tagged articles I've come across. But thanks for adding the infobox to TTT - I still don't think it is strictly necessary, but it isn't harmful either. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:35, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
I'll help as soon as I've finished adding stuff to the move thread above. - X201 (talk) 07:05, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Wait a second. What about images? Even if there's no official cover art, all games besides text adventures should have some kind of title screen suitable for use, right? (For Sonic: After the Sequel, PETA satirical browser games, and Ethnic Cleansing a while back, I opted for title screens; fair use rationales for them are easy enough.) Tezero (talk) 20:48, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

"the smaller maintenance categories" - Category:Video game articles requesting identifying art is 2335 items long, and I'm sure there's 500-1000 more articles that don't have a cover/title screen but don't have "|cover=y" on the talk page tag to put them in the category. Feel free to work in that space, but I was trying to push to clear a category where easy progress could be made, like the duplicate template args section above. --PresN 21:12, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
What might be interesting on all of these fronts is to have someone run a query of all mainspace pages with the WP:VG tag on the talk page specifically looking for items which:
  1. Do not have File:, Image:, or one of the common extensions in the article
  2. Do not have Infobox VG or one of its redirects in the article
I'm pretty sure this could be done with AWB, though that tops out at 20k items or something. --Izno (talk) 21:36, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
It's on my list. First thing I need to do though is to add the Project Template to the 500 articles I've found that don't have the template on them. Most of them will probably be redirects, but they need doing anyway. - X201 (talk) 21:53, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
I've add about few infoboxes to articles today. Only 120+ articles are left now. I have found these 11 infobox-less articles - StickWars, Sky Combat, Swordigo, Tentacles: Enter the Dolphin, Touch Hockey, Unblock Me, StarFlyers: Royal Jewel Rescue, Planet Crashers, Trigger Fist, Rocket Bunnies and The Sailor's Dream. They are all created by the same user, the one who create all the iOS stubs which were all deleted because of copyright infringement. These articles only have direct quotes from reviewers and seems like that the conditions are the same. Should it also be deleted? AdrianGamer (talk) 11:15, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
@AdrianGamer, ✓ done. czar ⨹ 15:51, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Only 64 articles are left. The rest of them are articles that I am not sure whether it needs infobox or not, articles that provide so little information that only 1 field can be filled in, articles that may need to be deleted since they are not notable (in my opinion) and articles that (may) require advance infoboxes as well as 2 articles that violate copyright. - Linkoidz and Vizati. @Czar maybe you can have a look at all the remaining articles? You can delete pages so effectively. AdrianGamer (talk) 12:46, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
There are only 20+ articles left. However, these articles - (Klik, NeuroRacer, NESYS, Namco Thunder Ceptor, N-Joypad, Login2Life, Let's! TV Play Classic, Pete Lyon, Slime Forest Adventure, Sega Zone (console), Say What?! (video game), Sanders Associates, Nvidia GameWorks and Video Challenger) stills needs an info box. Can someone help adding infoboxes for them? These articles need advance infoboxes (Infoboxes beyond the company/video games/video games series infobox) and I have no idea how to construct them. With these cleared out, and other articles deleted (if they pass the article for deletion / speedy deletion process), there will be no more infobox request left. AdrianGamer (talk) 16:11, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Awesome! I can get the rest- looks like many of them need ((Infobox software)). There's basically an infobox type for everything, really.--PresN 18:16, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Case in point: ((Infobox video game online service)). That's... oddly specific. --PresN 18:24, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, but looking at what articles use it, it seems spot-on, and I'm not sure what other type of infobox would "fit" the topic. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:14, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Category:Video game articles needing infoboxes is now empty. BlookerG talk 20:51, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Hooray! Thanks so much to BlookerG, AdrianGamer, czar ⨹, and anyone else who helped clear out this maintenance category! Background wikignome work isn't always very sexy, but it helps keep the project as a whole healthy if we don't neglect the problems we know exist just because we don't care as much about the articles. Remember- several of these categories are listed in the "tasks" box at the top of this talk page, so if you ever are looking for something to do, fixing a few issues is an easy place to start! --PresN 20:59, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Untagged articles

There's a lot of articles in the WikiProject that aren't tagged with needing infoboxes but do need them. I've made a list of video game developers missing infoboxes that may need them. Template:Infobox company is the infobox to use in most cases, sometimes Template:Infobox dot-com company or Template:Infobox website might be more appropriate. There are some articles which may need deleting, merging, or redirect instead of expanding. The1337gamer (talk) 13:37, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Potential copyright infringement in reception sections?

Take a look at some of these edits, for example this one. The editor just writes the score, and pastes some text from the review within quotation marks without even attempting to write it with their own words. Is this really okay? I haven't contacted the editor since I'm not actually sure if it's considered infringement. If it is, would anyone here be up for re-doing the reception sections this editor has made? I don't have a lot of experience with writing them, but still tried - I dunno if it's any good, though. Help would be appreciated. IDVtalk 08:07, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

With that particular example, he's directly quoting them and sourcing it, which is fine (though not something wanted for higher quality articles). It would be better if he could put it in his own words and only quote if his own words couldn't get across the same message. It's not copyright infringement unless the article that's being quoted specifically states that it cannot be used without permission. What you did looks fine. --JDC808 ♫ 08:24, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
Even if the source says "cannot use without permission", US Fair Use law would override that for our purposes, being the use of a short quote as part of a discussion on a game. Copyright gives the copyright holder certain rights in exchange for other facets like fair use allowance that cannot be taken away from end users. --MASEM (t) 13:49, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
Speaking of Hardcore Gamer, I have always found it being added to the review table every time after the reception section is constructed. Looking at the edit history of the user, almost all of his edits is to add reviews from Hardcore Gamer to the reception section. Despite Hardcore Gamer are recognized as one of the reliable sources for video games, does this related to WP:SPAM? AdrianGamer (talk) 08:34, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
It's not a copyvio, it's just spam. ChevCrank's entire history is just spamming Hardcore Gamer. We've come across similar situations before, such as with Gamezone, and there we blocked the editors, but in that case there was bad faith sockpuppetry involved. I don't think all his edits need to be reverted, I'd probably leave the ones where he inserts the first piece of reception (essentially a stub section) such as this. - hahnchen 09:22, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Open world games

I think there should be a consensus as to whether a game is open world or not. There should be specific requirements on the open world page to determine whether or not a game is truly open world. I feel as if there are quite a few games that are on the bubble, where one could argue they are, and one could argue against. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ECW28 (talk • contribs) 19:13, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Already addressed at User_talk:PresN#Open_world_games czar ⨹ 20:10, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Featured vg articles in other languages

Does anyone know of a list of the "featured" video games articles from the other Wikipedias? Not sure how their quality standards differ from ours, but might be good to get a few translations going, especially of the bigger-name articles. I'm working on a few of the German ones. If a list doesn't exist, I'd also take a list of links to where other Wikipedias list their own featured articles. czar ⨹ 18:40, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Is this the sort of thing you're looking for? If so, I'll look for some more later. – The1337gamer (talk) 19:23, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
Looking at zhwiki: Many FAs over there (Wii Sports, Age of Empires, Wipeout 3, God of War: Betrayal, Starcraft, COD4, Cave Story, Diary of a Camper) are already FAs on enwiki. Only two FAs on zhwiki aren't FAs on enwiki (and in both cases they're GAs on enwiki): Tomb Raider 2013 and Alan Wake. In summary: Probably not much use looking at the Chinese Wikipedia, so I recommend focusing on the other language WPs. --benlisquareT•C•E 01:41, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Expanding Metroidvania

I'm working on expanding an article for Metroidvanias, drafting it here User:Masem/Metroidvania. The genre is clearly notable on its own, including a large recent Gamasutra article on it. I'm going to expand it out before moving to mainspace (replacing the redirect we have now) but if anyone wants to lend a hand, that would help. --MASEM (t) 00:37, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Platform game's a really long article, if anyone fancies it there's probably half a dozen subgenres that could be split too. Also, no one has ever called it Castletroid. Some free images at Aquaria (video game) and Guacamelee!. - hahnchen 01:15, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
I am not aware of the genera being called Castleroid either. That should be sourced if we plan to include it.--67.68.31.204 (talk) 02:04, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
I've seen the term used on forums a lot, but checking around, hard to find any sources that use it, I'll drop it. (And yeah, definitely was aware of the free images for this). --MASEM (t) 13:47, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
I've got the core article expanded out and moved into place Metroidvania. There's probably more refs and games to be added, but it's good enough to start. --MASEM (t) 02:36, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Ongoing merge proposals

To try and resolve some ongoing proposals, I am going to list articles that have been tagged with merge proposals. Discussion is either unresolved, hasn't been created, or resolved and not closed/completed. If I have missed articles feel free to add them to the list. I am going to sort by the year on proposal tag for convenience. The1337gamer (talk) 16:27, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

2011

2012

  • Redirect NTSC-uk to Bordersdown. Content on both articles is the exact same. The1337gamer (talk) 15:18, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
  • The article Bordersdown was a copy-and-paste move that needs to repaired. Since the only edits to Bordersdown since October 2011 have been cleanup tags, I suggest we delete it and move NTSC-uk there instead. Reach Out to the Truth 22:05, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
I reverted the redirect and put a copy-paste speedy deletion tag on Bordersdown but admin removed it and just redirected again so I don't know... The1337gamer (talk) 18:32, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Done- PK4 was a one sentence article about a file type... that's identical to PK3. --PresN 20:11, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Merged and redirected. Port of the same game. The1337gamer (talk) 21:25, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

2013

  • Merged, both articles are about the same company. The1337gamer (talk) 14:07, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
  • This one has been redirected. The1337gamer (talk) 18:32, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I've redirected this one. There doesn't seem to be anything to merge. The1337gamer (talk) 21:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Closed- consensus was against the merge at the discussion, and 360 controller is too long now to really be part of a series article like originally proposed. --PresN 20:14, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

2014

  • I object this one. There's no discussion or merge tag present, and I think there's enough there to warrant a separate article. The Reception is just "okay" but there's a lot of "design/development" content there. Sergecross73 msg me 15:43, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
The tag was added to Bayonetta 2#Character design section by an IP editor, they didn't give a reason. I think their was intention to move the Bayonetta 2#Character design subsection into the Bayonetta (character) article, probably to expand the Reception section as the criticism is aimed more towards the character rather than Bayonetta 2. The1337gamer (talk) 21:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Merged and redirected. Port/remake of same game. The1337gamer (talk) 14:58, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Redirected this one too. Its never been much more than a paragraph in its 7yr existence, and only stated the most basic of information to begin with, (2 player games involve 2 people. 2 player games can be online or local. etc etc.) so there really wasn't anything of substance to merge. Sergecross73 msg me 03:32, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

2015

  • This one appears to be already completed. The ESPN one redirects to the other, and never really had any exclusive content in it. Sergecross73 msg me 17:02, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
  • 30 days since proposal, merged and redirected. The1337gamer (talk) 01:07, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Redirected, duplicate article at wrong name. --PresN 00:21, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

@The1337gamer: I've just done a bit of filtering work with AWB and have created a list of VG articles that have either got the merge template, the merge to template or the merge from template. The list is here (User:X201/temp). I've removed the duplicates with your list from the merge to list, but haven't had time to do it for the other two templates. - X201 (talk) 17:02, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Just so every one knows, I've now filtered the articles at User:X201/temp and there are at least another 20 moves in there. I'll add them to the above eventually. - X201 (talk) 16:03, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Have finished adding them to the above. - X201 (talk) 14:29, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Remember all, if you redirect an article please change the template on the talk page to be |class=Redirect, so we're not over-counting articles. --PresN 16:20, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Review Thread X: X-Treme edition

Time for the monthly reviews thread! This thread brought to you by the letter X.

FAC
GAN

Note: both Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and PewDiePie have the reviewer saying that it should pass on the review page, but never actually did it. If anyone could take a look at those, that'd be great.

Peer Reviews

Begging

As is traditional, I'll start up the review-trading thread: I'll trade a review of any kind in return for an FAC review of Children of Mana; the last nomination died due to lack of comments and I'd like to avoid that this time. --PresN 18:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

  • Thanks! I'll get to that soon. --PresN 21:12, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Are you still trading more reviews for Children of Mana? If someone initiates the GAN for Sarah Kerrigan i'll review any GAN, PR or FAC of their choice. Freikorp (talk) 01:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I'll take Kerrigan for God of War: Ascension FAC review. --JDC808 ♫ 16:51, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
  • JDC808 got Kerrigan, but yes, I'm still trading reviews for substantive Children of Mana reviews- I'm worried that the coordinators are going to discount @ProtoDrake's review as not being in-depth enough. --PresN 19:28, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
  • @PresN:, I've revised it. Sorry it was a bit short. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:43, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

1UP.com has returned to being uncrawlable at the Wayback Machine!

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is now forbidding 1UP.com's archived links, so they have returned to being uncrawlable by robots.txt again! At least AllGame is still crawlable by the links we've archived, but I'm worried now that 1UP.com is uncrawlable. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 19:21, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Some spot-check pages show that they are still cached at Google but thats not great. Wasn't 1UP a site we had a problem and asked the owners to allow the Wayback for archivals? --MASEM (t) 20:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
To balance that out, it will archive on WebCite and it 100% active again... for me, at least. So let's get cracking before it decides to go down again! --ProtoDrake (talk) 20:15, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikiproject Video games/Missing articles

Good afternoon everyone :). (It's 2:40 here in Perth). I have a question related to video game coverage here on Wikipedia - something I have had various discussions about in the past.

I essentially want to know if there is a way to create a complete list of video games featured at Metacritic/Mobygames that do not yet have a Wikipedia article yet (kind of like those listed at theWikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles page). I would recommend using a bot for this purpose.

Maybe many of those will end up not being sufficiently notable, but it is a way to create a discrete list (at least until more video games are released...) that Wikipedians can work off to complete the coverage. There is a concrete goal to head toward to.

Please note I am not suggesting a bot create spam articles. I am merely suggesting that a bot create a list on Wikipedia which will then house all the redlinks for video game articles yet to be created.

Thoughts? --Coin945 (talk) 06:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Hmm... it's not a terrible idea, but the problem space is bigger than you think, I think. There are literally thousands and thousands of tiny phone games that managed to scrape together a few reviews by unpaid freelancers on blogs that make it onto Metacritic, but for which no other reliable sources really exist. That's not to mention the other thousands and thousands of older Amiga, DOS, etc. games that only have good sources in books. Add to that the basic problem of actually scraping the metacritic or mobygames databases to find the games, and then managing to match the game up with the right Wikipedia article- is e.g. X-Treme DUCK Adventures located at an article by that name? at "X-Treme DUCK Adventures (video game)"? At "X-Treme DUCK Adventures (Super Nintendo game)"? at "XTreme Duck Adventures"? I ran into one of your iOS articles the other day that had that issue- the article already existed at a slight spacing change in the name. We could create a list of games that (probably) don't have articles, but I don't think we could really claim that it was complete at all, or 100% correct that the article doesn't already exist or isn't a part of the parent developer's article, and if that's the case...
The reason this problem hasn't been tackled before, though, isn't because it's hard (though it is) but because most people take a lot longer on an individual article than you usually do, so creating a list of 1000+ articles to create isn't helpful. Wikipedia isn't a database, so each article should have something meaningful to say about the subject beyond that it exists and got x scores on Metacritic.
Some subsets of the problem have been solved, though. Finding every iPhone game without an article is hard, but, for example, List of Super Nintendo Entertainment System games will give you every SNES game released in English, with redlinks to fill in. The template at the bottom of that page links to all such "by platform" games. Might be easier to take a subset of the problem (e.g. all games in one platform) and try to more manually fill in the corresponding list, or create the articles once the list is done. If you come up with a subset of the problem ("list all games on metacritic for X platform") I can probably get you a list that's not wikilinked, though. --PresN 18:34, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Same thoughts as PresN, I'm a fan of WP:MEA, particularly it's early successes by ensuring that Wikipedia had the Encarta/Britannica bases covered - I even wrote one or two articles. But these lists work best when there's a clearly defined task, not an open ended one. They also work best for subjects where there is no easily accessible index, users can easily click onto Metacritic, whereas they may not have access to specialised music encyclopedias. As PresN mentions, we already have lists of notable games, many of these are filled with red links; List of PlayStation games suggests we're missing a launch title! - hahnchen 19:29, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Agreed with the prior 2 responses. Really, I don't think the problem (if one sees it as a problem) is lack of awareness that these article need to be created. I think it's a lack of interest. I don't think there's many editors that are dedicated to creating and writing iOS articles at the moment. Editors like ProtoDrake or myself create the occasional iOS article, but usually only if there's a connection to a console series like Sonic the Hedgehog or Final Fantasy. We're not "dedicated" to it on a whole though. A lot of the articles you've suggested so far, aren't all that popular or mainstream. I think its the poor intersection between "low fanbase of game" combined with "those who are knowledgeable and motivated to create said article". Sergecross73 msg me 20:45, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Batman: Arkham Origins

Please see this discussion, regarding the proper disambiguation of an article. Thanks! Fortdj33 (talk) 19:33, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Restoring italics to Template:Video game reviews - take two

Tried to get some sort of consensus/discussion/action on this last month. Trying again. Italics functionality for print magazines was inadvertently removed from Template:Video game reviews when it was converted to Lua. I've restored this functionality through a draft in the sandbox, just need an admin to make it live. Either an admin here can do it, or you can drop a line to indicate consensus at Template_talk:Video_game_reviews#Loss_of_italics_in_Lua_transition. Thanks for the help! Axem Titanium (talk) 21:09, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

 Done ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:22, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks! Love it. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:03, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Issues with an editor

Several editors have been having problems with User:Spidervenom123, who has been editing since 2011. They have edited on multiple types of article, but I first encountered them editing multiple articles about the Drakengard series, generally confined to the story sections. Their edits seem to primarily be sweeping removal of content such as links and character names, along with sometimes whole paragraphs. They also seem to add little pieces of information without citing it, or changing referenced information without a whole lot of explanation. Given their nature, I have generally been treating them as possible or outright vandalism. @Tintor2: has had recent content with them, so should be included in this. If they wish to do so, @Spidervenom123: can come and explain themselves to us before any action is taken. --ProtoDrake (talk) 20:12, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Given that the first edit by them I pulled up (at Ermac) was them removing random names and words from whole sections, including references, I'm going to go with vandal, full stop. I'll give them a final warning on their talk page, and block them if they persist. --PresN 20:22, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
He popped back up two days after waying he would stop, so blocked for a month. Hopefully he'll find a new hobby besides removing random nouns from articles. --PresN 18:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Conflicting "Aeon of Strife" redirects

Hi all, "Aeon of Strife" redirects to different places depending on whether you capitalize the S or not. Your input at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 March 20#Aeon of Strife would be appreciated. --BDD (talk) 21:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Nintendo NX redirect discusssion

Please, if you could, leave input at this discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nintendo_NX#Redirect_discussion

People keep on undoing the redirect, so I'm hoping to get a strong consensus here to warrant a WP:SALT. Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 17:07, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, everyone. Please notify me if its ever recreated under some sort of different naming convention. Sergecross73 msg me 14:09, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Jargon check

I occasionally ask people in a wikiproject if they can figure out jargon that comes from an unrelated wikiproject. Can anyone tell me what "ten Barge, Tank, five tugboat Infantry" means? (No peeking, and don't answer if you already know military jargon, please.) - Dank (push to talk) 04:52, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I know what each of those terms means, but the capitalization is a little odd (I know why, though). Sum total of the phrase? Could potentially be referring to a marine invasion force... --Izno (talk) 13:46, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. We've got a working fix for the jargon at A-class, I'll point to this survey if I need to at FAC. (The actual meaning is so dumb that I won't even repeat it here. Generally, these things are handled in the military by acronyms with meanings that have become divorced from the original words.) - Dank (push to talk) 13:01, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
As a general reader, I certainly would have been confused without the changes you suggested at FAC, so questioning the sentence was certainly not a bad idea. --Izno (talk) 15:05, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Agreed, I looked up the Milhist review this came from, and I would not have guessed at that meaning. --PresN 16:19, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

dealing with release dates from episodic games (read TTG titles)

Currently in the infobox of episode games on multiple platforms (like for example Tales from the Borderlands) the instinct seems to be to list every release date for every platform per episode. This collapses "okay" but makes for a very incredibly messy infobox when all expanded. Add that because we treat these like TV shows, we have an "episode" table later that typically lists out the release dates.

I would like to offer that the better way to do this is that in the infobox there should only be one date per episode, the first release of that episode on any platform, and the details of release on the other platforms can be explained in detail in the episode list. It drastically simplifies the core information. I know we'd not do this on other games but other games rarely have a separate inbody table to help deal with this information for non-episodic games. --MASEM (t) 05:34, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I think that's sensible. Especially for the example above, the dates should be written in the prose anyway, if they're important. czar ⨹ 11:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Masem's proposal. Most (all?) episodic games also have a nice table summarizing plot/writer/director/etc. which is where the other release dates should live. Axem Titanium (talk) 14:00, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

1UP.com links are online again

I noticed that 1UP.com's original links appear to be active again. Just a heads up. -- Hounder4 17:52, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

There's a bit under 800 pages that have 1up links User:Masem/1up. We really should see about getting a webcite run on them given the way the archive ability comes and goes. --MASEM (t) 18:11, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Usage of Template:Video game reviews in TV articles

On WP:Television, I opened a discussion about this template being used for TV reviews. Seeing as its related to this project as well, I'm posting a link here if people want to chime in with their opinion. The1337gamer (talk) 18:43, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space

An editor at the wp:Helpdesk would like to work on Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. Can anyone here help? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 00:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

@Weegeerunner: Don't be shy! That article is terrible, and anything you do to it can only be an improvement. Really. Write whatever you want, then ask here and we can give you some pointers, but there's no reason to be nervous about running afoul of any rules. --PresN 02:42, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
As a note, WW:RtIS is one of the first rogue-like-likes so it is somewhat of an important article, and there's a good history piece here about it. It might take a bit more digging but it definitely can be expanded. --MASEM (t) 02:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Daniel Middleton (Minecraft)

This looks like a nice active wikiproject, so I am wondering if anyone here has participated in the deletion discussion of Daniel Middleton? Ottawahitech (talk) 03:38, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Lost Articles (aka: Look what I found down the back of the sofa/couch)

After a bit of digging, filtering and data scrubbing, I've found 353 articles that do no have the ((WikiProject Video games)) template on them, and are therefore invisible to the statistics page. In addition, I've also found 120 redirects that aren't tagged either. I'm in the process of tagging the redirects with AWB, but I just wanted to gather opinions on the articles that need tagging. I think the best approach would be to tag them with ((WikiProject Video games |class= |importance= )) so that they appear in the Unassessed part of the stats page and then at least they are recorded and on the radar, and can then be worked through with a group effort at a later date. Let me know if you have a different idea. - X201 (talk) 09:26, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

That's probably easiest; I've been keeping the unrated categories empty for a few months but I'm fine with populating them for a bit; with the Rater widget it's easy to sort them out. Shouldn't take more than a couple days, even by myself. How did you find them? Can you add 'needs-infobox=y' to the ones without a box, or was the presence of the box one of the ways you found them? --PresN 18:03, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
So I quickly compiled a list of articles that contain any video game template but are missing the wikiproject template using Catscan. It came to 531 articles although I expect some have incorrectly used video game templates. I've been working through the list, re-adding the wikiproject template back (I've assessed some and left others unassessed). It's worth noting that a bunch of these articles had the wikiproject template removed in the past by editors because the article was redirected but has since been recreated again. So while assessing these articles it may be worth considering whether to redirect the article again and assess class=Redirect. See Category:Unassessed video game articles. – The1337gamer (talk) 00:25, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
I based my list on the year categories so there will be a little cross over, but I'm picking up articles that haven't got the infobox in them or use a different template like infobox manga. yep, I'm finding a lot of Manga. - X201 (talk) 12:33, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Ugh, so many stubs. Just went through 100 of them, keep them coming. Thank the stars for the Rater script. --PresN 02:14, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Did another 50 or so, 300 to go as of now. If anyone wants to help out, the Rater gadget is incredibly efficient at rating articles without having to load up the talk page. --PresN 18:08, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
Down to 100 left, though there's now ~20 articles tagged as needing infoboxes. Thanks to whoever rated ~25 articles last night. X201 was right- a lot of manga articles with a line or two about a tie-in video game, as well as tons of little minor games. On that note, there's apparently dozens and dozens of 1-2 sentence stubs about every soccer game that was ever made; there's a project in there for someone to merge them into series articles. --PresN 18:48, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
I noticed the football title too, I'll have a go at compiling a list of those so that I can see if I can spot a theme we can group them around e.g. Football video games of the 1980s or Celebrity endorsed Soccer video games etc. - X201 (talk) 09:12, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Sean Plott

I've just copy edited Sean Plott, given it presented serious deficiencies with regards to neutrality (I wouldn't be surprised it contained autobiographical and promotional elements too), language and referencing. I'm not even convinced as to his notability to be honest. All of its references are either primary or unreliable, save Forbes'. Anyway, I'm leaving the ball in your court. Ping me if you need help. Cheers, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:07, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the copyedit, but he's definitely notable, PC Gamer's Gamer of the Year 2010, a Techcrunch article, a Guardian article (calling him the "biggest star in esports"), Eurogamer, and others. Sam Walton (talk) 17:02, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Well, I'm not sure how lucrative a "Gamer of the Year" award is considered, but it is a long article by a reliable source that covers him in details, I'll give you that... Sergecross73 msg me 17:49, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

"NationStates"

The usage of NationStates is under discussion, see Talk:Jennifer Government: NationStates -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 03:57, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Free use gameplay screenshots as alternatives

Let's say that we were to have free use screenshots from a game very similar to a major franchise, e.g., commons:Category:Socrates_Jones and Ace Attorney. Are these these accessible, free use screenshots that demonstrate the core Ace Attorney gameplay sufficient to replace the fair use gameplay images used in the current Ace Attorney article? Any other suggestions for their use? czar ⨹ 15:09, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

That's questionable to me, per WP:NFCC#1. No free equivalent. Non-free content is used only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose. Italics mine. Using a free screenshot on a page that is a non-free franchise would not serve the same encyclopedic purpose. However, there is certainly precedent for genre pages as well as free video games that have been spun off from a commercial video game but we have treated in the same article as the commercial video game. (I'm thinking SimCity (1989 video game) and MOBA for example.) --Izno (talk) 15:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Using free use images to illustrate a facet of the gameplay can work, such as File:Portal physics-2.svg in Portal. But we generally use screenshots for more than just showing a single facet of gameplay, there are usually multiple gameplay elements, and it is also used to show the art direction. The use of a freely-licensed clone image (as opposed to the clear diagrammatic Portal image) could also mislead readers. - hahnchen 21:14, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
That said, in genre or mechanics articles, free screenshots should be used over non-free if possible. --MASEM (t) 21:23, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
So should the Socorties Jones images remain or be removed from the Acr Attorney article then.--69.157.253.187 (talk) 04:05, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
As supplements to talking about how the AA format has influenced other titles, they are fine within policy; I could see need to talk more about editor discretion if they are needed but there's no immediately policy or guideline against that. Replacing the original screens from AA with those, however, would not be appropriate. --MASEM (t) 04:18, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
Unrelated to the discussion at hand, but Socrates Jones should probably get more than just a caption and an image if it wants to stay at the Ace Attorney series article. Images should be supported by the text, free or not. Axem Titanium (talk) 13:58, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
I'd oppose such an idea; the games may be similar, but they wouldn't be the same and it would be inappropriate to replace them. As an example, pretend that a free-use image for John Kennedy cannot be found or doesn't exist - we can't just go "hey, let's put an image for Robert Kennedy in the infobox instead - I mean, they are brothers and do look alike, so what could go wrong?" Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 09:27, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Italicisation of video game websites

Is there any reason behind why some game websites have their article titles italicised: Eurogamer, 1UP.com, Polygon (website), and others do not: IGN, GameSpot, GamesRadar? According to WP:MOSTITLE: "Website titles may or may not be italicized depending on the type of site and what kind of content it features. Online magazines, newspapers, and news sites with original content should generally be italicized (Salon.com or The Huffington Post). Online encyclopedias and dictionaries should also be italicized (Scholarpedia or Merriam-Webster Online). Other types of websites should be decided on a case-by-case basis." Am I missing something or do some of these need changing to be consistent? Also does Template:Video game reviews need updating to reflect this because currently only magazines are italicised and websites aren't at all? – The1337gamer (talk) 21:12, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it needs changing for consistency, unless the italised site names are within the "work=" part of a citation, in which case the italisation is automatic and can only be changed by deleting the "work=" part and using the "publisher=" part, which does allow the optional use of italics. I generally role with the idea that websites with paper equivalents get italised (Famitsu, Dengeki, Game Informer, Official Xbox Magazine), while those that are dedicated websites don't (IGN, 4Gamer, Game Impress Watch, Eurogamer, GamesRadar). --ProtoDrake (talk) 22:09, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, that's the convention I typically use. But I've noticed edits being made to italicise some game websites and then I checked the articles and noticed the inconsistencies. The1337gamer (talk) 23:02, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I stick with the "has a paper version" convention as well, but I know @Czar holds that since all of the websites mentioned here could be included under "news sites with original content", that they should be italicized, and I'm a little sympathetic to the idea. --PresN 23:46, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I italicize almost all video game publications/blogs as they were analogous to newspapers or magazines with original reporting. I think the above MoS guideline—which I believe was just recently moved from WP:ITALICS—makes that clear. The only really gray area is the holding out for IGN, which I would still consider a newspaper-like site and not a broadcast "network". GameSpot and GamesRadar are similar to IGN, though I italicize those. As for what ((video game reviews)) should do with italics, there is already a discussion at Template talk:Video game reviews#Loss of italics in Lua transition. (We recently had a discussion on how to use the |work= and |publisher= citation parameters. I use the work field to italicize the site names and the publisher field for the site's parent company, if different in name.) While it'd be nice to have consensus on this, I haven't pushed it and simply opt for consistency when I review a video game article that doesn't use italics. czar ⨹ 13:39, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Joseph and Melissa Batten murder/suicide

I do a lot of work on WP mostly with tabletop RPG articles, specifically those related to Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). As I was looking around, I was kind of surprised that this story was not really mentioned anywhere on WP... like, anywhere at all. Joseph Batten was the head of project development at Wizards of the Coast for online D&D content. In 2008, he murdered his estranged wife Melissa, and then killed himself. She was a Harvard-educated attorney when he was working at Microsoft as a video game developer; she also came to work at Microsoft as a software development engineer, and stayed at Microsoft when he left to work at Wizards. I think there is enough coverage out there to do... something with this, but I am not sure what. I don't really want to do just an article on him, because that would leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I don't think she is notable enough on her own to do just an article on her. So maybe one article about each of them and then the murder itself? I have never written an article on a crime case before, so I am not sure where to go with that. I came here since VGs are the thing they had in common. Any advice? BOZ (talk) 17:53, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Good lord. Never expected to see something like this here. Have you thought about taking this to WP:Death as well? Or talk to people who have made articles on crimes? This does sound like a rather interesting article to be made. Primarily the fact that a murder took place. Maybe just an article on that would be sufficient. GamerPro64 18:03, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Daaaaaaaaamn. You can find some inspiration here: Category:Murder–suicides. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 18:42, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
You should leave a note on WT:WPBIO. WP:BLP is very important for a case like this. --Izno (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
GamerPro64 and Jeraphine Gryphon - thanks, I have started a quick stub at Draft:Joseph and Melissa Batten. I saw a bunch of stuff while Googling, so I will revisit this later today. Meanwhile, anyone can feel free to edit or move the page in any reasonable way. Izno, how does WP:BLP apply if they are both dead? BOZ (talk) 19:23, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
If it mentions or implicitly gives info about other people (did they have any kids?) then WP:BLP applies. I'll put the draft in my watchlist. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 19:26, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I haven't seen anything like that yet, and no mention of kids. BOZ (talk) 20:19, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Czar, thanks. I did have one print source which basically mentioned the incident as a footnote, describing it as "one of the more shocking events in RPG’s history" - I added what I could from that source to the draft page already. That led me to look around for more info. I found some interesting links on Google, although I will need to go through them to see which ones are actually reliable, for example:
BOZ (talk) 20:19, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
It would seem to me that in addition to the WP:CRIME link that was given above, you should also be consider the policy at WP:ONEEVENT. That policy would seem to indicate for a case like this that you have one article discussing primarily the event but also the people, with possible redirects at the people's names depending on how the event page gets named. 1bandsaw (talk) 20:26, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, I think that is what I will go for. I don't know how it should be named though. BOZ (talk) 20:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
I would suggest if the sources use a fairly consistent title to refer to the event, use that, otherwise the title you have for this section would seem to be reasonable, substituting another character for the slash. 1bandsaw (talk) 20:44, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, I did some work on it, and published it as Joseph and Melissa Batten. BOZ (talk) 23:11, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I believe that is a good structure for a startup article - if sources are reliable, it should meet notability criteria.
Some comments on the discussion and recommendations for further development:
  • "that would leave a bad taste in my mouth" - shocking/sad, but irrelevant for encyclopaedia WP:UNCENSORED WP:NPV
  • Unless there are sources for notability of people; I strongly support 1bandsaw - article should be about event. WP:N/CA and the rest of that page.
  • Would be nice, if title reflected the event, as well. Some creativity and familiarisation with WP naming conventions might be required here. However it is important to get it right initially to prevent potential future link breakages and confusion of renaming. Some possible suggestions: ---Battens' tragedy--- ---Suicide-Murder of Batten couple--- ---Tragic Battens' deaths---. Further discussion advised: possessive noun might be undesirable; and first names should be excluded for concision (unless mixup possible).
  • Not certain here (should compare with prominent articles Category: Events and guidelines MOS:LAYOUT WP:LEAD), but I strongly believe, that article lead should: (1) briefly present notability of the couple (VGs occupation, relationship); (2) clearly and concisely describe the event (dates, setup, location, media coverage); (3) provide summary of prehistory and consequences.
  • Biography/History section would use some editing and longer contextual sentences.
  • A couple of images (of living people and event/investigation/funeral/memorial) - highly desired.
Overall, meaningful work - wishes for continued effort --- Fakedeeps (talk) 18:29, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
Hmm, it's at AFD now... maybe I should have kept it in draft a bit longer to work on it. BOZ (talk) 20:20, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph and Melissa Batten czar ⨹ 13:46, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
Prompt discussion/deletion is better than wasted efforts on non-notable subject. NPV
Adherence to BLP is always favorable; however (as stated before) it does not strictly apply here and I cannot see how the policy would support the biographical title. As for commonality, refer to subsections of Category: Events: Category:Murder in 2014 and Category:Murder in 2013, for example, and note the formatting of titles. Particularly, there is a significant amount of articles, about single person, featuring murder/event in title; therefore commonality is not established and two main subjects (Joseph, Melisa) would definitely suggest event over biographical title.
On the other hand, it ultimately rests on notability: if people lives were more significant than deaths, then biographical articles with 'Death' sections; otherwise article or section on event. This follows from WP:ONEEVENT (two subjects, again, make argument stronger):
When an individual is significant for his or her role in a single event, it may be unclear whether an article should be written about the individual, the event or both. In considering whether or not to create separate articles, the degree of significance of the event itself and the degree of significance of the individual's role within it should be considered. The general rule in many cases is to cover the event, not the person.
For maximum commonality, I could suggest ---Suicide-Murder of Joseph and Melissa Batten---. However this title is long and contains ambiguity. Maybe this event could be incorporated in another article or list/timeline? Fakedeeps (talk) 18:29, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Angry Video Game Nerd

I was thinking that while AVGN should not be covered as a source for the quality of a game, the fact that AVGN reviewed a game (and the context of the review) is important to include. This would of course preclude that it be citable in a secondary source to show that the episode is in itself notable. So for instance, one could theoretically mention the fact that Castlevania II: Simon's Quest was reviewed by the Nerd in its Legacy section or something. While the episodes are all satirical to some extent, they would be at least notable than, say, being featured in Robot Chicken or something (even more so considering that he usually devotes an episode to only one game). - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 20:58, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

AVGN, like Zero Punctuation, may create a legacy (in that their reviews create more buzz for a game), but I agree to avoid using these as proper review sources. --MASEM (t) 23:08, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
I agree. For instance, even though Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is most noteworthy for being on AVGN, that it appeared on AVGN isn't given note. Anyway, I'm gonna go through and try and add the content (w/ RSes) soon. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 23:44, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
Would AVGN count as self-published? That drove a mass purging of Anita Sarkeesian opinions from game articles a while back, despite her being clearly notable. Tezero (talk) 02:33, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
Self-published but recognized - to a degree - as an expert on older games. But the reason to disclude AVGN as a "review" is simply his are more done for humor and entertainment, so if AVGN is included, it should be about eyes being drawn back to the game due to his review (I think this can be said about Castlevania II for example, but I'm not 100% sure). AVGN should not be included as part of a critical reception. --MASEM (t) 02:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Opinions on having Castlevania (1986 video game) moved back to Castlevania (video game)

While there was a Nintendo 64 game of the same name, people generally do not remember it well, and I often see it get the same treatment as Superman 64 or Sonic 06, where people often identify it as "Castlevania 64". As for other reasons why the (video game) disambig should be a redirect to the disambig page, I think the NES game is by and large the most noteworthy use of the name, and that people searching for Castlevania (video game) are usually going to be looking for the NES game. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 22:07, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Possible article ideas in Drafts

There are currently 122 drafts tagged for the Video Games project and possibly more without it. Seeing how a couple of them look to be abandoned but might have a chance in actually becoming an article, why not take a look at Category:Draft-Class video game articles? Might be possible to get a well rounded page from one of these drafts. GamerPro64 17:05, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

  • Hehe, you can take it up for MfD where it would be a slamdunk of no value, or wait a while and have it CSD'ed under G13. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:17, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
  • My gut always said "yes", and it's certainly been edited by known IPs of that user, but I'm not convinced enough that he's behind 66.87.82.88 to actually CSD the page as G5; in any case, this title might be of use at some point, there have been rumours, and it will surely be announced at some point, so trashing this as G3-Hoax would only be temporary. I left it to exist in limbo until there's something more to write about the game. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:17, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Main Page in April

Coming up on April 6, we have Sonic X as the Featured Article of the Day. Congrats to Tezero! --PresN 23:33, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The Video Game Critic

Already marked by us as unreliable, this page is (or just was) a mess of refbombed puffery with small, obscure references used to make grandstanding claims. I weeded out a lot of it, but I'd like some help finding whether more has been said about the site or whether I should just take it to AfD. czar ⨹ 11:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Gaming Target too. czar ⨹ 12:05, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Any editors with Sega Interrest?

So I did pretty bold changed behind Sega articles, I thougt I might reach more users than in the Sega Project page, and this page been suggested to me.

First I redid the Sega article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega

Here was the previous version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sega&diff=next&oldid=654236100

And then Sega Studio page:

New: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Studios

Old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_development_studios

There have been complaints about these bolder changes, not wanting to replace the older versions. @TheTimesAreAChanging: @Dissident93:

In the Sega Article, the main porpuse was a redo of the 2005-current article, to slim it down and bullet point Sega's current history in a smilar fashion similar to one of their financial reports. I copied a couple PR -ish sounding phrases from primary sources (financial reports). That is of course problematic and has been tagged. Also I removed the advertising section that has been unsourced for a while, but I haven't heard any opinion on this.

Then there is the Sega Studios page. @Dissident93: thinks that the formatting is superior in the old page, saying that really large tables and bolded text is unappealing to the eye, and therefore should not become the definite page.

Then there is the complaint of redirecting every internal Sega Studio to the Sega Studio pages. In my mind only whole subsidiaries and division within a company, should get their own pages. This is reflected on japanese pages, who I think get authority on this, since I would assume japanese people know more about japanese company culture than westerners. I admit that Sonic Team should still get their own page at least, since they still have their own internet presence, but even that might not be as relevant to Sega anymore, since Sonic Runners is not on that website. But is there really a point of keeping Sega-AM2, especially with inaccurate claims such as: "Unlike most of the other old AM departments, it remains a separate division within Sega" and not having their own visible presence on the net or elsewhere?

I would welcome some opinions on the matter. --Tripple-ddd (talk) 10:00, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

  • Looking at it myself, I strongly agree with that. All of the Sega articles need work, but making one even bigger clusterfuck is not the way to go about it. Triple-ddd, of course, was responsible for that particular mess. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:53, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The difference is all the Rockstar entities are all clearly visible with their own entities, own websites, officially listed as subsidiaries, and so on. With Nintendo for example, the different EAD groups don't have their own pages either, as they are not subsidiaries. The only currently existing subsidiary on the Sega Studios page is Sega Networks.

The only time AM2 was a subsidiary (noted with a Co. Ltd. Limited company see Logo) was from 2000-2004. At most only games from that era should be listed, if all the Sega studios should get their pages.

And no the article has no original research, as the information is all listed from here: http://www13.atwiki.jp/game_staff/pages/13.html Which is all lifted from official japanese documents and reaseach. So it is accurate.

All the faults you mentioned can also be applied to this page as well: Sega development studios, also a page that was re-done by me as well. The "original reaserch" argument of yours, applies actually more to this article.

Large tables, with long lists, or less than perfect layout can be faults applied to many other articles, yet they aren't hastily reverted or removed. Such as these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_published_by_Nintendo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Capcom_games:_E%E2%80%93L https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Konami_games

So, what do you suggest? A page for each era of Sega games, do away with games for each system, no tables just lists...because I see little wrong with the text that I did at least, how the games and logos are placed I can agree with. --Tripple-ddd (talk) 12:52, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

  • Pretty much this. And on the other hand, the burden of proof doesn't rest solely on the one advocating the changes; there need to be reasons not to be make them if stopping them from happening is a reasonable move. That being said, the versions you created did look more than a bit cluttered, and it'd be in everyone's interest to compromise on something that's both condensed enough to easily access all the crucial information of and spread-out enough to be easy to navigate. Tezero (talk) 18:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Lukeno94 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg/707px-Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg.png When arguing please refer to the above and stay in the above 3 sections, thank you. --Tripple-ddd (talk) 15:50, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

  • Original article: Sega development studios.
  • Proposed new article, which I have since reverted back to a redirect after the page moves were corrected: Sega Studios. The1337gamer (talk) 18:56, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Hmm. So, both versions have the major problem of the overbearing list(s) of every game Sega ever made- that shouldn't be there in any version of the list, as it's far, far too large for the article. Besides that, Tripple-ddd's version is more of a history of the studios, which is better than the bare listing of studios in the original. On the flip side, the formatting is awful- those logos are in no way covered under fair use, there's random bolding everywhere, the text should be structured as prose, not a bulleted list, and there's no explicit citations for anything. An external link to a wiki doesn't make up for that- not that the original's youtube links are much better. I think that a version of Tripple's page without the logos or bloated game tables, and with the text as prose (a la Bungie, though they're a much smaller company than Sega) instead of a listy style (see WP:PROSELINE) would be pretty good. --PresN 20:17, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Another issue with the newer one was that many Sega subsidary articles were redirected to it. There seems to have been disagreements on which subsidaries should have been merged and which should remain separate articles. I agree though that it would be better to have an article that writes about studio history without mixing in lists for hundreds of games. All the subsidiary articles are in bad shape as well so I'm not what is the best decision for them, merge or stay separate and expand. There's also leftover ignored articles like this Sega PC, that need dealing with. – The1337gamer (talk) 20:38, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
  • That's one big issue, yes. One big problem I foresee is that a lot of these Sega subsidiaries (or whatever Tripple-ddd wants to call them) seem to have become defunct in 2004, if not earlier - which means finding sources on them online in English is a bit of an issue, beyond verifying that they made the games in question. I'm inclined to believe that the information does exist somewhere, in ye olde Sega fanzines or Japanese sources, particularly due to the importance of some of these developers - but those are not things I have access to. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 22:31, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't be so sure. Sega AM2's old website from 10 years ago is still archived: link. There's a bunch of news/blog posts there that might be useful. I'm sure there are other archived sources that could be found and used, might be worth checking the magazine archive as well. The1337gamer (talk) 10:28, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Well yeah, Sega's studios had websites until the July of 2004, so for AM2 you can list games till Sega Network Golf and Quest of D. I researched alot, and really, there is so many Sega games (old and new) that just have "Sega" attached to it with no other studio attached. Of course one could always do an "unknown" section with a bunch of games in it, but that would just be there forever.--Tripple-ddd (talk) 11:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm not talking about lists of games though. We can sort that out later. The priority first should be to expand these articles, write more about studio history and development, and decide which articles should be merged. --The1337gamer (talk) 11:47, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
  • I think my article covered history and development all pretty articulate.--Tripple-ddd (talk) 12:38, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


unrelated
to be true, I am also bothered by Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NYCSlover, due to the similarities in editing. The Banner talk 21:21, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
The Banner, I replied to these concerns on my talk page. Sorry if I forgot to ping you. :) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:33, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

PlayStation Home

So, as many of you might know, PlayStation Home is now closed. What can we do to spruce up this article? There's already a good bit of information there. Some spots need citations, which won't be hard to find (and I don't remember why I didn't put them there in the first place). If anyone would like to help in editing this article, please feel free to do so. This isn't your typical video game article though. There's a lot more to it, and there's no reception (none that I could find anyways). --JDC808 ♫ 01:13, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I recall at least two farewell articles mentioning the service's pitfalls—that would count as Reception czar ⨹ 02:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Do you have the links by chance? I just did a simple "PlayStation Home reviews" search and couldn't find anything. --JDC808 ♫ 03:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
czar ⨹ 04:13, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I will check those out, thanks. --JDC808 ♫ 04:31, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Bye Bye OnLive...

Thanks Sony. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 01:01, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Store pages in external links

I see lots of articles linking to Steam, Xbox, PS4, app store fronts in the external links section. Should they be there? I'm leaning strongly towards no but I can't find an explicit rule or guideline about this. I'd like to add and clarify it in WP:VG/EL if possible. --The1337gamer (talk) 13:19, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

No, these should not be included (unless they are an actual reference for some reason). You're looking for WP:NOT#CATALOG, we're not here to help people find where to buy games. --MASEM (t) 13:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Ok thanks. I'm going to add a sentence to WP:VG/EL to make it clear for future reference. The1337gamer (talk) 13:35, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
I had a related discussion with Soetermans. These types of links are an item at WP:ELNO#5. However, they can be included, per the disclaimer just underneath the section header of WP:ELNO where that page is an official webpage for the consumer item in question. I bumped into this problem with Counter-Strike: Condition Zero when Soetermans removed the link to the Steam web page. (Side note: If there's a better link in that case, feel free to change it.) --Izno (talk) 15:44, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Next time mention I did so by mistake, as Condition Zero was (or is) the only Counter-Strike game that directly linked to its Steam page and that http://blog.counter-strike.net/ is the official website of Counter-Strike. --Soetermans. T / C 13:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Soetermans: The blog would work for the newest game (CS:GO) I think, but because it's not particular to any of the older games, I'm not sure it's the best official link. --Izno (talk) 15:07, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Would the archived CS:CZ website be more appropriate than the store page? link --The1337gamer (talk) 14:58, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
I (personally) try to avoid sending people to an official but deprecated/removed website as an "official" link. --Izno (talk) 15:07, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Smash Bros. Fighter Ballots

Not related to Wikipedia unless it picks up some journal coverage, but since most if not all of us are gamers, I thought I'd mention that Nintendo's allowing submissions for DLC characters for Smash 4. I'll give you one guess as to which franchise mine was from, but I've seen lots of reasonable submissions like Rayman, Waluigi, Goombella, and some alternate version of Snake (as well as expected fare like Shrek and George W. Bush - the inevitable 9/11 jokes weren't even funny). Anyway, it looks to be legitimate. Happy wishing! (Agh, I should've been meta and put Jirachi or something. Oh well, next life.) Tezero (talk) 02:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

My money's on Geno czar ⨹ 02:19, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I wasn't taking it that seriously at all and I absolutely know EA won't allow it, but I voted for Faith from Mirror's Edge. BlookerG talk 15:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
A very natural choice would be Bomberman. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 15:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
How is it that I tried to pick him, but ended up writing down Pat Buchanan? Bah, stupid ballots. Tezero (talk) 18:23, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Come on, Earthworm Jim and Bubsy! (Realistically, probably Geno, Ridley, and Isaac from Golden Sun.) On topic though, this will undoubtedly get a lot of coverage if it actually leads to characters being put in the game, but I'm not entirely sure how to make an article about it. And with there being consensus to keep Smash 3DS/Wii U one article (a decision I was against) I imagine they'd want to keep this as a subsection in that article too. Sergecross73 msg me 15:40, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
An article? Even I think that'd be a bit much; how much would there really be to write about it, even counting first-party sources? (Off-topic again, would Professor Layton be eligible due to his games being Nintendo-published in North America? Dat sword-fighting action in Diabolical Box, though!) Tezero (talk) 18:23, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I assumed that's why you started the discussion, since there's really nothing debatable about why it shouldn't be just mentioned as part of the main article, that's all. Sergecross73 msg me 18:44, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Oh. Nah, just bringing it up for the gamers in the room, that's all. Still, if I've managed to stir a discussion that'll result in changes the community would've wanted anyway, more power to me, I guess! Tezero (talk) 18:47, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Not sure if my tastes are 100% known, but I put my hat in for Tingle and King Hippo (I know I shouldn't do two, but I did it anyway, ha-ha!). Debating whether or not to submit Ashley from WarioWare and Dixie Kong. Not going to do Wolf because Wolf is totally going to be added as DLC with or without the ballot. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 03:04, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
They should add ROB from Star Fox. Not even give him a disambiguator or anything, just as ROB. (My actual vote was for Cream and Cheese, by the way, since I'd love to see [1] a character with both the Kirby characters' flight and marionette-style combat and [2] people actually acknowledging that the era between Adventure 2 and Colors even happened. I do what I can.) Tezero (talk) 15:14, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
And to make it relevant, I think that a Smashbros.com website article should be made. There's tons of coverage of the subject. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 03:06, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Now that you mention it, we do have Halo.Bungie.Org, which always seemed weirdly esoteric to me. Anyway, is there coverage of the site's creation or opinions of it, or only of things that have been on it? Tezero (talk) 15:14, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Consensus building for reworked Sega site, thoughts please

So...here is the revision that get's reverted https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sega&diff=654842950&oldid=654831919

current version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega

Complaints about this revision are

I did some tweaking and put sources on the citation needed tags, the sources are mostly the same as they are from the pages of the games themselfs, that have been previously acceptable. I removed the "shaped and reinvogerated the industry" part.

Then I did some changes, regarding the recent changing legal information on Sega, with it not being Sega Corporation anymore. I noticed on the JP wiki, they did seperate pages pages for Sega Games, Sega Interactive etc. I thought it would be for the best for it to simply being referred to "Sega". More information on the Sega Holdings entity could be be part of the Sega Sammy Holdings page.

Any opinions of the removed text about software R&D and hardware R&D and the advertising sections? --Tripple-ddd (talk) 23:29, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Super Mario topic project

I'm working on taking the Super Mario series games to GA status and wanted to invite anyone interested to join in. I tend to rewrite my articles from scratch (easiest way to vouch that the refs are correct), but the following articles could just use a bit of cleanup to get to GA, if you want to pitch in:

The others are in sadder shape—I'll work on them. czar ⨹ 22:21, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

  • Shouldn't be too hard a task though. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 04:55, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Discussion of Awesome Games Done Quick on Super Metroid

I started a discussion on the Super Metroid talk page, and I would appreciate if I could get input from people on whether or not the subject could be elaborated upon in Super Metroid's article (assuming that adequate, reliable, secondary sources can be found, which I can say definitely do exist). - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 05:02, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

First 1UP.com, now this!

Something is terribly wrong! I was on the way to visit an archived GameZone web page this morning, as usual, but now the Wayback Machine has added "robots.txt" and made all archived GameZone pages uncrawlable! Awful! First 1UP.com, and now GameZone! Here's proof of this! So now what? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 16:14, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh great! As if that wasn't enough, now the Wayback Machine has added "robots.txt" onto TeamXbox and made all of its archived websites uncrawlable too! Here's the link for this! How long will this go on? If they keep on adding "robots.txt" onto more game pages, pretty soon there will be no more archived game pages to display onto Wikipedia! Please fix this! --Angeldeb82 (talk) 03:33, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
(A note - it's not Wayback "adding" robots.txt, but respecting what a site's current robots.txt allows, which means the sites recently changed it. So if, for exmaple, 1up.com changes its robots.txt to prevent caching, then irregardless if Wayback has cached before, it will not operate on those pages. But to our benefit, if the robots.txt is altered to remove the restriction, then all that content is back - Wayback does not delete anything, just does not present.) --MASEM (t) 03:54, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
I think I've found a problem. It is because of a bug that was discovered over the last few days. Thankfully these guys at Internet Archive are getting it fixed, as described in these forums. I hope they get it fixed soon. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 16:06, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Common name for electronic sports players

I have an RfC for moving professional gamers to default to their common birth names instead of gamer tag for article titles. Right now it is a mess with some articles under tags and others under real name. Valoem talk contrib 20:35, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

User making "typos"

User:Devin.1125 has been adding comments to the Kingdom Hearts articles without back up sources. Apparently it all started last December and he hasn't stopped. Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 22:48, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I've blocked him several times in the past for doing this at other articles. He's blocked again. Sergecross73 msg me 23:26, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

3rd Birthday rewrite planned: anyone want to help?

I'm preparing a rewrite of The 3rd Birthday. I would do something for the other Parasite Eve games, but I think that's beyond my skills of research as they are rather old and little commented on. I am more than willing to handle the development, reception, gameplay, lead and infobox, but the plot synopsis is a little more than I'm comfortable handling. Could someone help with this by tidying it up rewriting it or something while I work on the rest of the rewrite in my sandbox? I can handle the rest easily enough. --ProtoDrake (talk) 21:45, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I'll offer you my usual services of reading it once over, making a few minor changes, and then telling you that you did a good job. ;) Sergecross73 msg me 22:22, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
Not sure I made myself clear. I've clarified above. To be frank, I won't want to do the story at all as I find it confusing and weak. That may be a little wrong of me, but after dealing with Tales of Hearts, I am more than a little cautious when it comes to confusing and/or poorly-written plots. --ProtoDrake (talk) 22:28, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
Haha, sorry, I actually did understand what you were getting at. I was just making light of how easily distracted I get with content creation, and that you're so thorough that you generally do a great job anyways, leaving me with just a few minor revisions. ;) Sadly, I share the same distaste for writing story sections too, so we aren't such a good team in that respect... Sergecross73 msg me 12:29, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Help needed with romanization of Japanese titles

Not 100% sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I doubt a lot of people would even notice this if I just asked on the article's talk page, so...

I've been working on the Etrian Mystery Dungeon article for a little while, and yesterday I added a section about the game's soundtrack. However, I'm not good enough yet at kanji - or indeed, Japanese in general - to be able to reliably romanize the track titles. Like, yeah, I'm fairly confident that 新しい冒険のはじまり is "atarashii bouken no hajimari", but I'm not so confident with all of them. Is there anyone here who's more knowledgeable than me, who would like to help out? There are two discs with 16 tracks each, and I have already added the kanji+kana titles to the article. IDVtalk 09:45, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

If you make it easy to answer, like "What is the romanization of 新しい冒険のはじまり?", WP:JAPAN has been helpful to me in the past. WP:VG has surprisingly few Japanese speakers/readers. --PresN 14:53, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, as active as I am in Japanese video games, I have zero knowledge on the language. I'm sadly entirely dependent on what English sources tell me... Sergecross73 msg me 14:58, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
I took a crack at disc one, though I did have to look a few words up. Any particular preferences about the formatting? Tezero (talk) 16:55, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! I don't write about music very often, but I'd probably choose to do it something like "Romanization (kanji/kana, lit. translation)", since the translations aren't official English titles --IDVtalk 22:18, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

One last appeal

Back in February, I got Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children reviewed at GAN. NathanWubs reviewed it, gave it greens across the board, said he wanted a second opinion... and vanished. For two months. Can someone please go to Talk:Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children/GA3 and give it a second opinion so it can finally be done? I'll trade a review back for it, any type. --PresN 20:12, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I'll do it if you help out with copyediting a single Virtual Boy game article (once I'm through working on it that is). - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 20:42, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Heck, if you help get a VB game article to GA, I'll review like, three of your articles. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 20:43, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Apparently I can't even get my own articles to GA... (frowny face) But yeah, IOU one copyedit, and we'll see about the VB GA. --PresN 22:21, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Looking for consensus on vg infobox

Not sure if this is allowed, but since a post I made regarding the composer field for game infoboxes hasn't answered by anybody yet, I thought it might help to get it noticed more by posting here. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 18:28, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Its definitely allowed, and probably a good idea even, as this page gets far more traffic than I imagine the original discussion location does. Sergecross73 msg me 19:09, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
@Sergecross73: Could you make your thoughts known on the page? Nobody else seems to be bothered, and having just one other opinion is better than none. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:23, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Hitman: Absolution

Hitman: Absolution needs its gameplay section improved. It would be pretty straight forward and easy for an experienced editor. There were requests at the talk page too. It would really improve the article. I will try myself tried. —DangerousJXD (talk) 23:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Review Thread 11: Non-April Fools' Edition

Once again, the thread is up, as it is helping cut down the multitude of GA and FA nominees that become neglected. And no, the list below is not a joke. It's virtually a copy-and-paste from the previous review thread, except that the peer reviews have closed.

FAC
GAN

Note: both Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and PewDiePie have the reviewer saying that it should pass on the review page, but never actually did it. If anyone could take a look at those, that would be grand.

Begging thread

As the creator of this thread, I'll start this off. Excepting PresN, I'll exchange any review for a review of Before Crisis or for someone to do something about Advent Children before it fails due to lack of activity. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:30, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll also trade a review for someone finishing the GA review of Advent Children or doing an FAC review of Children of Mana. --PresN 21:00, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
Many thanks to Niwi3 for his review of Before Crisis. Now, if only someone would complete Advent Children, we will be most of the way towards the VII Good Topic. --ProtoDrake (talk) 22:08, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Advent Children finally got cleared, thanks to NARH! I'll reiterate, though: I'm willing to trade a review, any kind, in return for an FAC review of Children of Mana. --PresN 20:08, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
All right. I'll take a look at CoM. More than likely you might not own me a trade of review anytime soon but its the thought that counts. GamerPro64 20:19, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
Well, save it up, and spring it on me when I least expect it. --PresN 20:20, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

To be honest PresN, if you help ensure that Virtual Boy articles are reviewed at GAN quickly, you can straight up just link me to articles you've nominated and I'll do a review for them. :P I wanna finally get the VB GT done! - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 00:01, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

PvZ

If someone could take a look at Plants vs. Zombies, an editor is inserting unsourced genres into the infobox. Efforts to discuss with the user, who seemed to agree to go to the talk page and find sources, appear to have failed, as the user continues to change the infobox. I am at 3RR so am walking away. -- ferret (talk) 01:47, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Image of River Phoenix at the Squall Leonhart article

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Squall Leonhart#Image of River Phoenix. A WP:Permalink for the discussion is here. Flyer22 (talk) 00:26, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time/GA1

So, the review of my article has started (I use the term "my" loosely - you know what I mean in the context of Wikipedia), and have realised that I'm in way over my head with this one. I am nearing the point where I feel like if I do any brutal copyediting to the article, I will only end up removing the info I worked so hard to find in the corners of the internet.

I think the best thing for the article is for someone here to take a look at it and see what they can do to make it better. I love the franchise and have worked a lot on this article, but have no "ownership" over it, and I don't think I can get it to GA by myself. So I think it would be fantastic if a more advanced editor took a crack at it, rather than me freaking out at the daunting task ahead. As mentioned before on this page, it is very rare for an edutainment game to be headed for GA, and this is from the popular Carmen Sandiego franchise, so I think it is quite an interesting topic to work on.--Coin945 (talk) 14:43, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't feel like I'm the "more advanced editor" you are looking for, but it seems to me like the entire Historical accuracy-section consists of primary sources, whereas the entire synopsis section is unsourced. I am not worried about their factual accuracy, but I don't think the content of those two sections are entirely notable. Cutting both out entirely or looking for third party sources talking about the game's historical accuracy would probably make the article easier to maintain, more focused and more encyclopedic.
So... I'll just go ahead and do that, I guess. The rest of the article looks very good and a decent contender for GA, but I feel that a lot of less notable content is weighing it down. If someone more experienced thinks differently, please revert. ~Mable (chat) 16:06, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Virtual Boy Good Topic?

I was giving it some thought, and this is something I've suggested in the past, but I think there's potential for a Virtual Boy Good Topic since there are so few games released for the system. Anyone interested in giving a helping hand with any of the articles? I'm presently trying to cleanup Golf to be ready for GAN. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 11:09, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to say I'd help, but it's taken a lot of effort to squeeze out even C-B class articles out of the ones I've worked on. (Mario Clash and Mario's Tennis) Sergecross73 msg me 19:43, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
Well, if you get the time, you could totes help out on the Golf article, and I'd do what could be done to give those two articles a leg up. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 20:02, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
It would definitely be a challenge. By my reckoning, it's a 22-article topic:
edit | discuss
Virtual Boy
17 articles
3D Tetris
Galactic Pinball
Golf
Jack Bros.
List of Virtual Boy games
Mario Clash
Mario's Tennis
Nester's Funky Bowling
Red Alarm
Teleroboxer
Vertical Force
Virtual Boy hardware
Virtual Boy Wario Land
Virtual Lab
Virtual League Baseball
Waterworld
And that's leaving out Gunpei Yokoi. My magazines stretch back this far, and there's probably quite a bit of online material on the subject—so sourcing shouldn't be an enormous problem. It would take years to get this thing finished, though. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:53, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
I was thinking that we could do something to trim down the list; for instance, what if we stipulated that the Virtual Boy game must be the primary focus of the article? This would help us not have to deal with Panic Bomber or Puyo Puyo Tsu. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 20:02, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
The "hardware" article could probably be merged into the main VB article too, those spin-outs make sense for these decade spanning consoles like PS3 or Wii, but not necessarily this little blip on the radar. Sergecross73 msg me 20:07, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
Although there might well be active and helpful magazine collectors out there to help, I'd be concerned about finding sufficient sourcing for all of these articles, since not only are the games old; they're for a platform that was unsuccessful and unpopular even then. That, along with a bit of resentment that what critics consider to be "classic" games conveniently ends pretty much right before my gaming childhood began, is why I normally don't work much on games from before the sixth generation. Tezero (talk) 20:44, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
I could work on some, I've been pretty idle on Wikipedia recently. BlookerG talk 21:32, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
The VB's failure might be in Wikipedia's favor, Tezero. Colossal bombs from big studios tend to get a lot of coverage, especially retrospectively. I doubt that sourcing will be a serious issue. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:44, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
I concur. The system was hyped at the time of its release and I have plenty of magazine coverage of some VB titles as well. Heck, Famitsu even devoted an entire spin-off magazine to covering the topic (see Virtual Boy Tsushin). Of course a lot of this material will need to be painstakingly translated. It takes time, but it can be done. -Thibbs (talk) 10:35, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I removed a few games from the demonstrative GT template, specifically ones that are just articles about games that were ported (or planned to be ported) to the Virtual Boy. Anyway, if I had to guess about which games likely have the potential to become GA, I'd say Golf, Waterworld, Teleroboxer, Nester's Funky Bowling, Red Alarm, Mario Clash, Mario's Tennis, Jack Bros., and Galactic Pinball. I'm considering doing a proposed deletion for Virtual Lab if there aren't enough sources to show that it's a notable VB game, and while Dragon Hopper and Bound High might have potential, they are ultimately just cancelled Virtual Boy games. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 10:07, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

If you do go ahead with this, let me know and I can handle the cleanup/prep on the two Mario games. I think the VB hardware article can be merged into the console article, and I know the List of games has had some style changes in recent months. czar ⨹ 12:04, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm probably going to start to work on this. Can you tell me what you think of Bound High? I think I've exhausted all of the sources I could find to add to notability, though I suppose there could be one or two references left that I haven't found. I'm considering merging it into Chalvo 55, since that article could use some boosting up anyway. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 12:21, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I burned some time today by writing a Dev section for Red Alarm. I might finish the article at some point—the rest will be much easier. It's an interesting subject, too. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:01, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not super able to focus on Wikipedia at the moment, but I can definitely find some Virtual Boy sources. Let me check and see if I can find any for Red Alarm and others. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 07:25, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
I've edited a big chunk of 3D Tetris, but I'm having trouble finding development information. If anyone could help, that would be great. BlookerG talk 22:02, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
I agree with your decision Czar, and I am proceeding to redirect Dragon Hopper to Virtual Boy, as I couldn't really find anything noteworthy in any sources, merely repeats of "this game was cancelled." And to Blooker, I'll try to find some sources, though like Golf, you may have to settle for a tiny development section. :P - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 00:11, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Question - I'm of the opinion that the GT should be limited to exclusive games in order to avoid having to focus efforts on articles where the primary focus is not the Virtual Boy (ie Space Invaders, though that example is an FA). If we flat-out limited the GT to exclusives, it would mean that Space Invaders, Bomberman: Panic Bomber, and Waterworld would not be included. I'm mostly okay with not having the first two in the GT, but even though Waterworld isn't exclusive, I feel that if we went this route, Waterworld is pretty notable as a Virtual Boy game. Anyone have any comments on the matter? - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 02:50, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Review Thread XII: Mist and Graces Edition

The time has come again for this surprisingly successful strategy. The thread above is quite near the top and likely to vanish in the next couple of days, so it likely to be ignored. So I will create a new one down here. As per usual, editors are reminded that Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Requests has a backlog that needs to be attended to. Willing volunteers more than welcome.

FAC
GAs
Peer Review

Note: All but Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time, Saints Row IV Lego Racers, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island are already being reviewed already as can be seen. All the others are up for grabs. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:32, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Begging thread

I'm opening myself to all sorts, but I'll trade a GA or Peer Review of SXX 3 for a descent set of comments on the Type-0 or FE Awakening Peer Reviews or a review of The 3rd Birthday. I've already put in my two-bits for the Children of Mana FA. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:32, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

@ProtoDrake: I'd love to be able to help, but I feel way too inexperienced. I'm still trying to learn the ropes around here, and I usually forget a bunch of important stuff when looking over articles. Thanks for the offer though, I appreciate it. BlookerG talk 02:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
@BlookerG: You gotta start somewhere. Might as well dive in and learn as you go. --JDC808 ♫ 16:02, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
@BlookerG: Easiest thing is to just go ahead and do a GA review, then ask here for a second opinion to double-check once you finish. --PresN 17:32, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Silent Hills Cancelled?

Seeing how Hideo Kojima might be leaving Konami after the release of the new Metal Gear game, I saw reports that the other game he's making, Silent Hills, is cancelled. Not sure if that's true, though. The link on the article is a bit vague. Might need someone to look at the page for a few days. Link. GamerPro64 03:09, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

This article looks like bullshit to me. This quote in particular "Silent Hills has been cancelled. Hideo Kojima did not allow Konami to use the Fox Engine to make the game and Konami has since put the game on ice and my sources tell me that the project is now effectively cancelled," Cyberland reports."" That part is highly unlikely. Also their source, Cyberland, is just some dude on 4chan that constantly fabricates rubbish, he gets quoted on numerous other unreliable websites. --The1337gamer (talk) 10:08, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
Yeah... "Kojima did not allow Konami to use the Fox Engine"? That's... that's not how game development works. Why would Kojima, employee of Konami, own the rights to an engine that was developed at Konami for Konami games? --PresN 17:56, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Drafts are drafts

Just a heads up, I've fiddled with the settings and the assessment table now shows Draft articles as being Drafts, rather than dumping them in the catch-all "Other" row. - X201 (talk) 11:29, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! --PresN 18:00, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Merger proposal

It has been proposed that GPLRank be merged into Grand Prix Legends. You are welcome to express any views you may have on the matter at the merger discussion. Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 23:50, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Review Thread XII: Mist and Graces Edition

The time has come again for this surprisingly successful strategy. The thread above is quite near the top and likely to vanish in the next couple of days, so it likely to be ignored. So I will create a new one down here. As per usual, editors are reminded that Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Requests has a backlog that needs to be attended to. Willing volunteers more than welcome.

FAC
GAs
Peer Review

Note: All but Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time, Saints Row IV Lego Racers, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island are already being reviewed already as can be seen. All the others are up for grabs. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:32, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Begging thread

I'm opening myself to all sorts, but I'll trade a GA or Peer Review of SXX 3 for a descent set of comments on the Type-0 or FE Awakening Peer Reviews or a review of The 3rd Birthday. I've already put in my two-bits for the Children of Mana FA. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:32, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

@ProtoDrake: I'd love to be able to help, but I feel way too inexperienced. I'm still trying to learn the ropes around here, and I usually forget a bunch of important stuff when looking over articles. Thanks for the offer though, I appreciate it. BlookerG talk 02:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
@BlookerG: You gotta start somewhere. Might as well dive in and learn as you go. --JDC808 ♫ 16:02, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
@BlookerG: Easiest thing is to just go ahead and do a GA review, then ask here for a second opinion to double-check once you finish. --PresN 17:32, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Silent Hills Cancelled?

Seeing how Hideo Kojima might be leaving Konami after the release of the new Metal Gear game, I saw reports that the other game he's making, Silent Hills, is cancelled. Not sure if that's true, though. The link on the article is a bit vague. Might need someone to look at the page for a few days. Link. GamerPro64 03:09, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

This article looks like bullshit to me. This quote in particular "Silent Hills has been cancelled. Hideo Kojima did not allow Konami to use the Fox Engine to make the game and Konami has since put the game on ice and my sources tell me that the project is now effectively cancelled," Cyberland reports."" That part is highly unlikely. Also their source, Cyberland, is just some dude on 4chan that constantly fabricates rubbish, he gets quoted on numerous other unreliable websites. --The1337gamer (talk) 10:08, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
Yeah... "Kojima did not allow Konami to use the Fox Engine"? That's... that's not how game development works. Why would Kojima, employee of Konami, own the rights to an engine that was developed at Konami for Konami games? --PresN 17:56, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Drafts are drafts

Just a heads up, I've fiddled with the settings and the assessment table now shows Draft articles as being Drafts, rather than dumping them in the catch-all "Other" row. - X201 (talk) 11:29, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! --PresN 18:00, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Merger proposal

It has been proposed that GPLRank be merged into Grand Prix Legends. You are welcome to express any views you may have on the matter at the merger discussion. Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 23:50, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

To Article or To Redirect that is the question - Halo Online

Don't know if this needs any consideration like in WT:VG#Black Ops III
--- :D Derry Adama (talk) 00:18, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm inclined to redirect it back to Halo (series)#Future until there is official release info or coverage on its development. So far it is just info from the press release announcement and a sentence on the leaked/modded version of the game. --The1337gamer (talk) 10:19, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Grand Prix Legends

The Grand Prix Legends article has gone a bit MySpace. Its got plenty of content, but it needs someone who is in a "batter it into shape" mood, section headings need renaming, tone needs altering, and a bit of pruning with the copy-edit shears wouldn't go amiss. Just giving a heads up if anyone is looking for a small task.- X201 (talk) 08:12, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I started a bit, but stopped because I felt like virtually everything could be removed. Almost everything borders WP:GAMECRUFT territory, and anything that actually would be appropriate, is basically unsourced. In my opinion, I'd think the best route would be to basically start over and write it according to sources that would be dug up. I'm not familiar or interested in this sort of game though, so I'll leave that to whoever may want to take this on. Sergecross73 msg me 14:49, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Is VideoGamer.com an unsafe site?

I have a problem. Lately, VideoGamer.com appears to be a safe website, but when I go on a website link, I get redirected to a report from Norton that says that VideoGamer.com is unsafe! It feels as though VideoGamer.com may be hijacked by a trojan! Can anything be done to rid VideoGamer.com of trojans and make the website safe again? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 03:53, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Well that's a rather interesting development. Is there a place do direct this concern to in the event something like this would happen? We have VideoGamer.com marked as a reliable source. Something like this being a new thing now might lead to some issues for readers passing by it. GamerPro64 04:02, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
Well, it may be that "VideoGamer.com" is redirected from "Pro-G.co.uk", which may have been why the VideoGamer.com site is marked as "unsafe". --Angeldeb82 (talk) 04:26, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
Forgot to add that it may also be because I use Google Chrome for this. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 14:51, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
I've used VideoGamer on Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, and I'm not encountering any warnings from Norton. There are some sites that work better on one browser or another for various reasons (makes some research interesting), but VideoGamer isn't giving me any grief. Siliconera and Gematsu did for a while, but once Iswitched to Chrome, they stopped that. --ProtoDrake (talk) 15:38, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
This might be over zealous, but: make sure it's not your computer, with a virus and malware scan (I suggest Malwarebytes) Though I can't see a problem
--- :D Derry Adama (talk) 15:43, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Hint - don't use Norton. - hahnchen 20:48, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Seconded. Chambr (talk) 21:21, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Template:Luigi series up for deletion

Just a heads-up, as the template falls under the scope of this project. Nomination found here. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 12:28, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Any Warcraft fans here willing to help?

I've created the Sylvanas Windrunner character article off a split from Characters of Warcraft, but the "Role in Warcraft" section badly needs attention from an expert from the subject (shame WikiProject Warcraft exists no more...), as it was simply copied off from the original subsection. Any help and improvements would be greatly appreciated. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 04:01, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this character has significant coverage for the general notability guideline. All of the mentions that make up the reception are individually trivia, without depth. She would appear to be best expanded within the character list article. czar ⨹ 11:39, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Sorry but I contest your notion of "significant coverage" - these sources are more than enough to establish notability, especially when compared to other articles - there's literally one article at AfD that is currently attracting !votes to keep literally because of only two sources. I've even seen BLPs with far less sources survive an AfD... Not saying this article can't be nominated, just saying I'd certainly be !voting to keep. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 11:50, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Also, I strongly believe that sources #3, #9, #13, and #14 in particular (as of revision 656718568 - numbering of sources may change over time) contain quite a bit of depth, and are most certainly not trivia'; the others also demonstrate the overall notability and impact of the character. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 11:59, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
This article shouldn't go to AfD because deletion is not plausible and a redirect would be suitable. People can also argue to keep for no reason at all—the closer won't interpret the existence of two interviews as a valid keep rationale. BLPs can be kept for other subject-specific guidelines if not by sourcing and the general notability guideline. It remains that this character has no shown out-of-universe importance and that the majority of its discussion is in trivial (i.e., discussed in sources as trivia) capacities . It isn't to say anything against your work, but that those types of amalgamations are best for character Wikias and not for an encyclopedia. (edit conflict) As for those four sources, there is essentially a sentence about Sylvanas in each one—passing mentions that are the opposite of significant coverage. It's stuff that's suitable for a list of characters but not for a dedicated article, as there's little to say apart from that people mention her and that her story (within the context of a game) is all right. czar ⨹ 12:15, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't think it's that bad. It's not perfect, but the content does run a lot deeper than a lot of the fictional video game character articles, that largely equate to endless "Buzzfeed-esq website X called character Y the number 7 most hawt character in gaming. garbage comments. I think it either meets the GNG, or would be close enough that its worth working on rather than redirecting. (Though I know nothing of WOW, so I'm not the person for that...) Sergecross73 msg me 12:39, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Personally, I feel as if we have quite different interpretations of the GNG, "significant coverage" and what constitutes as a "passing mention", with yours being much more strict than mine, especially regarding fictional characters. I believe we had the same disagreement over the Sonic the Hedgehog characters debate quite a while back, with you !voting to redirect and me !voting to keep all of them, and the end result was somewhere in between. Nothing personal but due to this I doubt anything productive would come as a result of this discussion, so I think it'll be best if we were to close it for now and not comment further. Feel free to nominate for AfD if that's what you really want, but I'd much prefer to work on and improve the article more. Thanks, Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 13:14, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
I can help. Let me know if you have specific questions on my talk page. --Izno (talk) 16:27, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Importance of eSports articles

Would there be a problem with upping the importance of all the current eSports Tournies/Leagues, Players, Teams and Commentators to Top importance.

I've identified ~138 eSports biographies, not all are active in the scene any more, there's likely about ~20 teams and ~10 Tournies/Leagues that also would be applicable. There's only 46 articles in the Top, category so it shouldn't be too much of impact

User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Video game --- :D Derry Adama (talk) 02:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there would be a problem; it would be completely inappropriate. Top is for articles that "reflect the basis of video gaming and not so much the hallmarks of the fields". It's for entire genres, the history of video games itself, basic ideas like Video game console, etc., not Day9. The most important ~50 articles out of ~30,000. Not for whatever current eSports tournaments are around to play 4-5 games in. I could see them as Mid ("Notable gaming phenomenons and specialized topics"), but that's about it. Given that there's an eSports task force, I'd recommend reworking the articles section of Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/eSports to rank the top-importance articles for eSports instead. --PresN 03:05, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
My stance is similar to PresN - this eSports stuff may be important to eSports, but little, if any, of it falls into the top importance as far as the scheme of video games on a whole. I also oppose. Sergecross73 msg me 03:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it makes more sense to discuss whether eSports itself should go into top priority, with which I can agree. Other than that, MOBA might make it, though I doubt it. I'm surprised fighting game isn't top priority, hmm, seems like MOBA doesn't even come close to its importance. We should also note that no single game is top importance according to our guidelines, so making a team or tournament top importance seems silly. If you want to make a social event top importance, the first thing to look at might be E3. Just my two cents :) ~Mable (chat) 11:02, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Video game articles requesting screenshots

What is the purpose of counting Category:Video game articles requesting screenshots? Seems academic.--Vaypertrail (talk) 21:32, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Which tasks to be done?--Vaypertrail (talk) 21:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
This particular task is for adding screenshots to articles that do not currently have any. Reach Out to the Truth 22:08, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Why? Screenshots not important, they are to complement text, you can't just dump screenshots on articles without proper text.--Vaypertrail (talk) 22:16, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Each article is viewed by human beings before adding requested images. If an article doesn't need an image, nobody is forced to add one. Reach Out to the Truth 22:35, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
It is appropriate per NFC policy that in describing a notable game, one non-free screenshot to establish how the game is shown to the player as part of describing the gameplay. We presume that if the game is notable (that is, having critical reception), it's gameplay can be documented and thus illustrating it is helpful. There are exceptions, and we also want to encourage free game screenshots (which is possible thanks to the work of some editors in this project) whenever possible. --MASEM (t) 22:38, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Star Wars: Battlefront merge proposal

There has been a merge proposal by an editor at Star Wars: Battlefront (2015 video game). Any input would be good. Chambr (talk) 02:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Non-diffusing console exclusives

Why are the console exclusive categories (e.g., Category:Super Nintendo Entertainment System-only games) templated "non-diffusing"? Am I missing some kind of use case? It should follow that if a game is a console exclusive, it will not also be a member of the parent category nor a member of any other "console game" category. Or is the idea that it could also be a member of sister categories such as "Cancelled Super Nintendo Entertainment System games"? My real question is whether removing "SNES games" from a game already categorized as "SNES-only games" is the right action. czar ⨹ 03:04, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

We have a consensus that "(Platform name) games" should contain all games for the given platform regardless of any other differentiating factor. The reason is because of WP:DUPCAT, "...some are simply subsets which have some special characteristic of interest,...", being a platform exclusive is just a small characteristic of a game, the more important factor is that its a Super Nintendo Entertainment System game. - X201 (talk) 08:07, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Additional - Sorry forgot to answer your direct question. A game should be present in both The parent and the "only" categories. As for cancelled games; its a case of when do we decide to call it a SNES game, when its released it gets called that, but if its being developed is it a SNES game then?, I would say yes and so apply the same DUPCAT rule to the Cancelled category and have the game in both cats. - X201 (talk) 08:24, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption

Paging User:Thibbs, User:JimmyBlackwing, and User:SubSeven. I am in need of references for the above and the directories have led me to yourselves.

If any of you can provide any of these materials I would be grateful. I have lots of development info so I'm mostly interested in receptions/awards/plot/story/characters/gameplay info as I'm struggling to find this on the net.

Thanks all.Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 19:11, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

The 9/99 issue has just a handful of screenshots with uninspiring captions. There's a meaty preview in 5/99 and a review in 8/00—I'll get those scanned as soon as I have the chance. In the meantime, I dredged up some CGM articles: Preview Part 1 and Part 2, Second Preview Part 1 and Part 2, Interview. Don't know if these will be useful, but I figured they'd be worth looking at. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:07, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Jimmy! Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 20:45, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Oh wow. I checked out the article (Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption) because I thought to myself "who ever has enough development info that they specifically don't want any more?" The answer is you. That's a crazy-long dev section! I'm mildly concerned that you've pulled in too much from the Gamasutra ref 41/43, since you have about 6 paragraphs just from that big piece, but whatever, that may just be jealousy talking. --PresN 20:31, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
The Gamasutra article was an amazing find, I struggled with web sources for the game, but when I came across that, it was a goldmine of pure development information. I wish all games were that easy, it even had a budget! Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 20:45, 16 April 2015 (UTC)


@Darkwarriorblake: Next Gen May 1999: 39, 40, 41, 42. Next Gen August 2000: 84, 85. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 16:03, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Jimmy, I don't suppose there is an author for the preview article is there? All I can see is the NG as a signature. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 18:00, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Sadly, Next Gen articles were anonymous until Lifecycle 2. I think standard practice is just to leave the author field blank on Lifecycle 1 NG citations. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:49, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Nevermind, I've been able to put the scans to good use! Thanks Jimmy and Thibbs. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 19:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks SubSeven. Do you know what issue that is? Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:58, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Volume 7, Issue 9 --SubSeven (talk) 22:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Template:Resident Evil chronology

I just want to let everybody know that I nominated Template:Resident Evil chronology for deletion. If anyone cares, please discuss this matter at TfD. Thanks in advance. --Niwi3 (talk) 21:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Joystiq is now Engadget!

In response to the topic that has since been archived here, I've just discovered something: When I went to the Joystiq link shown here, it is now redirected to the Engadget link here! So it seems that Engadget has preserved old Joystiq reviews! The proof is in the Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D article I've edited. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 23:03, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed this the other day too. They open up as Engadget links, but they're still the same Joystiq articles. Sergecross73 msg me 00:06, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Gran Turismo and Forza vandalism

There's an IP user that seems to disagree with Gran Turismo and Forza being described as simulators, they are changing simulator to game in the prose, and moving the category from simulator to game. Keep your eyes open for it happening on any other articles. - X201 (talk) 11:01, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

If you check the sim racing page you will see that both games don't fit the description. Maybe there should be a new category simcade which is popular term in the racing video games communities. I might not be answering properly here but bear with me I'm a new user. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UglyTroll (talk • contribs) 14:07, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
They fit the definition on Sim racing perfectly ("...attempts to accurately simulate auto racing (a racing video game), complete with real-world variables such as fuel usage, damage, tire wear and grip, and suspension settings"), and Gran Turismo is even listed as an example. - X201 (talk) 14:32, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Agreed, both titles are pretty much the exact definition of simulation racing. How much more realistic do we need it to make it be a sim? Super complicated special controllers akin to Steel Battalion? Making new terms is not an option here either - Wikipedia documents what is already in existence, it does not coin new terms or phrases. Sergecross73 msg me 14:58, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
You are using "perfectly" way too lightly. The fit would be perfect to a simcade category as these games are far from realistic or acurate. racing game is still a correct category as sim racing is a subset.--UglyTroll (talk) 15:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Arguably, "racing simulators" are a proper subset of "racing game", specifically focused on a game that attempts a level of realism w.r.t. driving and physics. --MASEM (t) 15:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
I'm positive that reliable sources much more commonly call them sim racing than "simcade", which Wikipedia doesn't even recognized as a game genre, nor does anyone outside of a few random forum posts which would not be usable as a source. Wikipedia has to go according to what sources say. Sergecross73 msg me 16:05, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
On the same page, the games in question are listed as Semi-simulation. I think moving them to the more general "racing video game" category is valid. --UglyTroll (talk) 16:12, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Articles can't be used as sources for other articles. Similarly, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. As Sergecross correctly stated, the gaming press refers to these games as simulators, which makes them independent and reliable sources. Personal opinions and observations should not enter into this. --McDoobAU93 16:20, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Simcade is a relatively new term but here are some sources using it: I think isrtv invented it but not sure.

truepcgaming.com

expertreviews.co.uk

You will mostly see it used by reviewers dedicated to sim racing which are less popular than the mainstream ones.--UglyTroll (talk) 19:18, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. Also interesting to note that none of these sources places either Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport in those categories. Only one even uses the term Gran Turismo, and it's only in the sense that the reviewer wanted something similar to what was in GT. The clear majority of reviewers of both games refer to them as simulation racers. --McDoobAU93 19:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
This is an appeal to popularity fallacy. And the question isn't whether the titles are in this category, the question is whether the category exists. --UglyTroll (talk) 19:47, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Category exists, no question of it. Provide a source that places GT or Forza in these categories and the discussion can continue. --McDoobAU93 19:54, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Not the same word and the site is currently down

racesimcentral screenshot However despite having sources, we can't pick an authority between them. So I think we should first get a proper description for the new category and then check which titles fit it.--UglyTroll (talk) 09:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I really think you should slow down and try to learn more about how Wikipedia works before you go about trying to revamp things. Your suggestions so far don't really mesh well with policy. Like I said, on Wikipedia, we write according to what reliable sources say. See WP:V and WP:RS on what that means, and see WP:VG/S for a huge list of websites that are generally considered usable or not usable. Also, make sure to stay clear of original research - we need to go by what the sources say, not what we can synthesize with our own personal conclusions. You may better persuade people once you can formulate a plan that gels better with these sorts of things... Sergecross73 msg me 12:18, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Fan-sites don't rise to WP:RS standards, and this appears to be a fan-site for racing games. They have their hierarchy for such games, while another fan-site may have a hierarchy that places GT and Forza in the simulation category. Neither qualify as sources, as Serge points out. --McDoobAU93 11:52, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
Maybe there is no reliable source then? If all majority and significant minority views have to be covered it won't fall in any subcategory and we are back to square one.--UglyTroll (talk) 12:45, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
Well, it took me all of 30 seconds to find a reliable source for Gran Turismo being referred to as a racing simulation - see this IGN source. Also, while not directly stated literally, its pretty apparent by this GameSpot article that they consider GT a simulation racer, or the premise of the entire article doesn't make sense. Sergecross73 msg me 13:01, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
They don't cover minority views.--UglyTroll (talk) 13:02, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
Indeed. And as such, neither does Wikipedia (when policy is being followed.) Sergecross73 msg me 13:03, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
From Identifying_reliable_sources "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered" I don't see what makes IGN reliable and sites dedicated to sim racing unreliable.--UglyTroll (talk) 13:10, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:SOURCE "The best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments. The greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source." - X201 (talk) 13:35, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Super Mario Land for Virtual Boy

Digging through the archives, I saw some Internet forum rumors of a "Super Mario Land" sequel for Virtual Boy that was canceled in development. Do any WPVG super sleuths know anything about it, or better, have some reference I can use? It would even be good to know if it was related to the Wario Land VB game. czar ⨹ 14:07, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

VB Mario Land was shown at WCES 1995. Here's the footage, and information pages at MarioWiki and PlanetVB. TMK also has a short blurb on the topic, and a few screenshots from three different MP issues -- tracking these issues down is sure to provide a lot more information! ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 14:28, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
List of Virtual Boy games (where VB Mario Land redirects) makes mention of a "Mario Adventure" unreleased platformer game, referencing the July-August 2000 issue of Big N Magazine (see here?) -- it's not clear if this is the same unreleased game, but surely the magazine issue must have more information. I can't view it from work, though. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 14:33, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
I know what you're talking about, but my knowledge is basically limited to about what Salv has already provided. I looked into trying to start an article on it a ways back, but I couldn't find enough coverage to personally feel comfortable with creating it and being able to not have it be sent to AFD or a redirect discussion. Sergecross73 msg me 15:15, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
I've been mulling over some sort of a "merge" of the few unreleased Mario games about which we know enough to talk about, but for which a "full article" is doomed to remain stalled -- Super Mario 128 and Super Mario's Wacky Worlds are the currently standalone ones, but there's surely a bunch of others that are already discussed inside other articles or lists.
Alternatively, since (by some accounts), VB Mario Land eventually mutated into Mario Clash, maybe it could be discussed in its own section there. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 15:27, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, I think I tried that angle back in the day when I was writing it with you, actually, but it seems like I was having a hard time finding a RS speculating that. Could be wrong though, it's been a while. Sergecross73 msg me 15:30, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
There's already a small mention of Mario Clash originally being a sequel titled Mario Bros. VB, sourced to EGM's January 1995 issue. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 15:33, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
ONM connects the two.[2] I'm not completely clear on how list notability works (or how a List of unreleased Mario games article would go down—I would think that it isn't worth making a list unless there were articles written about "unreleased Mario games"), but I'm thinking to gather all RS that mention VB Mario Land and Wacky Worlds and just giving them two-sentence mentions apiece in the Super Mario series article. I think that's fair. There appears to be a ton more coverage for 128, so any unreleased Mario game list would be really heavy on 128 coverage. For my original question, though, there doesn't appear to be any apparent connection between the Super Mario Land series and the VB game. czar ⨹ 16:07, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

The current state of shmup articles

For the past few days, I've been improving and trying to standardize the format of shmup game pages. I started with most of the games by Cave and I noticed some glaring issues. Most articles are either:

If there is one constant however, is that almost all articles are borderline unreferenced. Even if I wanted to, I can’t do all of the sourcing by myself, which is why I’ve reached out to you to see if you would be interested in helping out in this task. This is definitely where the most help is needed. Here are some websites that provide a very good source of validation for most of what’s already written are:

As a side note, it would be ideal to at least have a paragraph in the key sections of the weaker articles for gameplay (specifically scoring) and releases (arcade, console, etc). The same criteria applies to company pages. I’ve already done a fair cleanup for the pages of Cave, MOSS, Triangle Service, Milestone, and G.Rev. Unfortunately, a fair share of this genre’s titles aren’t released overseas and sometimes are even region-locked. It would be a very good resource if it could be stated on each company page which games are available in all regions, have regional locks, etc.

Finally, the other resource I wanted to start creating was a list containing all shmup developers, similar to the existing list for fighting game companies. Unlike other genres, there aren’t many developers around who produce these kinds of games anymore. It could be a valuable source for newcomers to the genre. Thanks for taking the time to read this! Jotamide (talk) 06:33, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Reassessment of the Sources Idea

I was originally thinking of putting this in the Sources talk page, but I wanted to run this idea through here since it'll probably get more discussion here. Now, I've been thinking about how there are a lot of sources that are used on multiple articles that are part of this project. They have either been deemed Reliable, Situational, Unreliable, or just have no consensus on what they should be marked as. A couple of these decisions were made years ago, which makes me wonder if their reliability status has changed over the years. What I'm suggesting is possibly reassessing sources to see if they still hold up on being reliable or maybe deem a site as not being unreliable anymore. Thoughts? GamerPro64 00:55, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Part of me says anything that would make us more accurate with our stances on sources would be a good thing, but part of me says - "If it ain broke, don't fix it" - no use reviewing non-conentious things when there's so many things out there to be done that do need attention. I don't really want to, but I know that, if it happened, I'd be there giving my two cents on the matter too probably. Sergecross73 msg me 12:42, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
There may be date issues to this. "Don't use prior to 2015 but OK after" etc. - X201 (talk) 13:07, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
I agree, unless there is evidence that a significant number of sources are mislabled I don't see why the current system would not work.--67.68.161.47 (talk) 21:29, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Black Ops III

Activision just confirmed Call of Duty: Black Ops III. I have created the page with reference to the now confirmation article. But this page is destined to be a source of vandalism for the next few days, so any help keeping an eye on it would be much appreciated. Thanks. Chambr (talk) 19:55, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

This is the case where this should be a redirect to the main Call of Duty series page until more details beyond the existence of trailers and release date should be done. (E3 is coming, the same thing needs to be kept in mind). It helps to reduce vandalism doing it that way .--MASEM (t) 20:09, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
In the past, Call of Duty articles have been started right at initial announcement, I think mainly due to Activision always progressively releasing new information right after the announcement, like they have already started doing for this. Not to mention, if the article is left as a redirect, then every single editor or IP that hears about it will just try and create the article anyway. Chambr (talk) 20:20, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Just to note, IPs can't create articles. They can only edit (unless by create, you meant edit the redirect article). --JDC808 ♫ 20:48, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Most IPs and lots of casual editors don't even know you can edit redirects. Redirects are so effective that in many cases (and this is a negative), they actually kill what would be better off as a standalone article. In this case though, the redirect is better, it'll only last until the 26th. - hahnchen 20:37, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Chambr (talk) 20:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
I honestly don't agree. I think there's enough to start at least a stub. CRRaysHead90 | #RaysUp 03:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
Until there is consensus, it needs to be left as it was, a redirect. Chambr (talk) 08:25, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
I would say the opposite, because there was no consensus to redirect in the first place, but that's irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, the game is confirmed, the article in it's last state had not one, not two, but three reliable sources. And there are further sources, like this one, that can add to the article to extend it and add more information. A redirect in this case is detrimental to the wiki. As for precedent, which I personally always look to for established patterns, Advanced Warfare's article existed, without redirect, with not much more information that we have now, especially when you consider the supplied PC Gamer source. CRRaysHead90 | #RaysUp 08:50, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
Sandbox your edits and then copy it over, just wait until the 26th --- :D Derry Adama (talk) 10:36, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
Really? That nice, long, thought out comment and that's what I get? Not one concern/point addressed? Wow. CRRaysHead90 | #RaysUp 11:16, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
CRRaysHead90, I would recommend using a more friendly and civil tone when dealing with disagreements, as stated at WP:FIVEPILLARS. BlookerG talk 11:29, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
@BlookerG: I was not uncivil, I was simply using my brand of humor to relay that I'm astonished that I made an argument and got brushed off. But it's easy to mistake the intentions if you don't know me, I understand. @Czar: The fact of the matter is that a binding consensus has never been formed in less than an hour, because it doesn't give everyone a chance to comment. Now I would like to point back to my second comment on this thread for the rest of my argument. CRRaysHead90 | #RaysUp 18:56, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
We have a title and an announcement for the upcoming reveal. It's a 2 line article with nothing more to expand on. It's also not detrimental seeing as the redirect destination Call of Duty#Call of Duty: Black Ops III covers everything in the proposed article. So for now, I would agree with keeping it a redirect. --The1337gamer (talk) 19:11, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
We also have a general description of the game and know some of the consoles it will be on thanks to the provided PC Gamer article. There's plenty here to start a stand alone article. CRRaysHead90 | #RaysUp 19:15, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
We don't know which platforms specifically. Source just says "next-gen hardware". That is ambiguous and I don't think we should be making (seemingly obvious) assumptions on which platforms they are referring to if we can't verify it. The premise and description of the game we have so far is just a vague marketing statement that is covered in a single sentence. I don't see any harm in waiting until there is more concrete info. --The1337gamer (talk) 19:34, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
This page receives a fair amount of traffic and it is textbook procedure to redirect vg titles until there are several different references about the game. With the dearth of material right now and likely until the official reveal, it's fine to build the article at the series article (summary style) and it can expand from there. I don't think further discussion on this matter will be fruitful. Plenty of other things to work on. czar ⨹ 01:23, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
So we're going to ignore the source provided and the snapchat videos, not to mention the fact that we can build a pretty decent pre-reveal article for a change, because you have established norms? Seems very anti-policy/guidelines to me. And I wholeheartedly don't agree. Never before has Activision done a reveal for a Call of Duty game this way. Never. We need to adapt. The article as it would stand today would easily pass WP:N and WP:GNG. CRRaysHead90 | #RaysUp 08:05, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
We are an encyclopedia , not a vg news site, and especially for a game like Black Ops III, an article with minimal information attracts speculation against WP:NOT#CRYSTALBALL like flies. If we can't write a fair comprehensive article that is more than just release date and platforms, we shouldn't have an article yet particularly on a series that has year to year iterations with little change in each one. Contrast the little we know about Black Ops III to what Activision did for Guitar Hero Live - massive press coverage, articles covering the details of the new changes and the approach they took, etc. That's the type of information we really want when we are starting a new article so that we start off comprehensive and build from there. --MASEM (t) 12:53, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Please read WP:TOOSOON - situations like this are basically why it was written. Take it easy, surely they'll be doing a huge blowout on it soon, at the latest by E3 which is just months away, and then it'll definitely have any article. If you're really that antsy, just build up the info at the series article, or the draft space. (Perhaps people seeing that could even persuade naysayers.) Sergecross73 msg me 12:59, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Break

There are now two teasers, 14 snapchat teasers, sources about how Deus Ex-like the game is. There is more than enough for a standalone article here 24 hours before the reveal. CRRaysHead90 | #RaysUp 23:39, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

What's the rush? It's 24 hours. Tomorrow you'll have a wealth of more details and higher quality sources to use. -- ferret (talk) 01:56, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
The point is that we have confirmed information now, and enough to start an article. But fine, we'll wait another 16 hours. CRRaysHead90 | #RaysUp 02:40, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Bloodborne

There is a discussion about Bloodborne going on here and here. Feel free to take part. —DangerousJXD (talk) 05:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Upcoming/Early Access?

I was thinking about this when I looked at the page for Killing Floor 2 and it said upcoming. Since it is out for Steam early access, should it say early access instead? Has this issue been ever discussed? Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 15:04, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

I reworded it. --The1337gamer (talk) 15:35, 27 April 2015 (UTC)


Calling all self-appointed experts

I'm making my way through Category:Video games articles needing expert attention (cleaning up each as best as I can and removing the tag) if anyone wants to join me. Count started around 85. Once it gets to zero, maybe we can discuss retiring it? czar ⨹ 23:55, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

To bring some focus back to this section (since Czar's managed to get it down to 53 from 85 by himself!), I agree that the category should be retired. It's not clear how it's distinct from "articles that need attention", its sister category, for one thing. For a second, I don't know if either category should exist- any article that's less than, say, B-class "needs attention", so why are the articles in this category(s) special? Is it just that we don't have an easy way for editors to ask for help on an article (in which case it's failing, no one checks these categories before now), or are the cats added by driveby taggers who just want someone else who supposedly knows more to fix the problems they noticed, rather than people invested in the article? --PresN 18:54, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Silent Hills Cancelled? Pt. 2

Well I didn't expect to make another one of these threads so quickly but it seems that Silent Hills may or may not be cancelled this time. It's really hard to tell since, While even Guillermo del Toro said it is, Konami itself has not made a statement just yet. Can we get some more eyes on this page? GamerPro64 03:23, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

  • Konami has not stated if the game has been canceled. People are just assuming because del Toro isn't apart of the project anymore, the entire game must have been canceled. I'd be reverting all the recent edits, but everything is too ambiguous currently, so I'll simply wait until the dust settles before attempting to fix the article. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 09:01, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Citation needed  ;-) - X201 (talk) 15:58, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Here. --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:11, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Category:Electronic sports games moved to Category:Esports games

So Prisencolinensinainciusol (talk · contribs) has made this category move along with a dozen other esports related categories. Is this move appropriate? Per WP:CATNAME it says to avoid abbreviation and that topic categories names should correspond to their article name which in this case is Electronic sports, not Esports. He/she says that the term "electronic sports" in full has fallen out of usage but has not requested the Electronic sports article be moved yet. --The1337gamer (talk) 00:36, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with the move per WP:CATNAME, but he is right that esports appears to be the preferred term now. Valoem talk contrib 00:59, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
I could see an argument being made for the widespread use of "Esports", but the cat name must follow the article's name. Move the cat back or propose a rename for the article. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:02, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
They've requested article move at WP:RMT so this shouldn't be an issue once that's carried out. --The1337gamer (talk) 01:12, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Remove eSports talk page redirect

Currently the eSport Task force Talk page was redirected here by @Entropy: and at the moment there are some points that need to get discussed and this talk page is already very busy. Are there any Objections to this action? CC:@Prisencolinensinainciusol, Valoem, and ImRespawn: --- :D Derry Adama (talk) 20:18, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

The talk page was redirected as of This task force cleanup discussion last May, where it was decided to redirect all the talk pages (since so little discussion happened that didn't need a wider audience) except for Nintendo, Sega, and Visual Novels (though that one because it overlapped with the Anime project). If you guys think that you'll actually have a lot of dicussion, not just a section a week or two, then I'm fine with it; I have been seeing a lot of article activity in the eSports space (mainly because you don't rate your articles, so they pop up in the unassessed queue. Grr.) so I imagine you may have some discussions to have. --PresN 20:37, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
If discussion is what you want, you're much more likely to get on this page than on a quiet subpage. That's the rationale. czar ⨹ 20:40, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
@PresN: I've avoided grading because I'd rather have more experienced eyes on it. I've been thankful for your grading, and to be honest this is the best project I've seen based on Unassessed/Ungraded Article being none most of the time--- :D Derry Adama (talk) 22:01, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
@Czar: I'm not concerned with eyes on discussion, I'm concerned with the fact that this talk page is stuck to the top of my 600 page watchlist and there is so much discussion smaller points get flooded out IE I'm looking for a more concentrated discussion rather than eyes --- :D Derry Adama (talk) 22:00, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
It's easier to grade when it's easy to maintain and not hopelessly backlogged. You should be concerned with eyes on discussion—it's the only reason to have a talk page. If no one discusses changes, it's a poor place to form consensus. Considering the amount of redlinks and non-notable articles going up in the eSports space (e.g., ((Competitive Super Smash Bros.)), ((Professional League of Legends competition)), ((Professional Dota 2 competition)), ((Professional Counter-Strike competition))), I think it pays to have as many willing eyeballs as possible. czar ⨹ 22:04, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
@Czar: What's wrong with templates those are the largest esports game currently, I disagree that the red links are not notable, articles should be made on some if not most of them. I personally wouldn't have done it that way, I would have made the articles first then add to the template, but Prisencolinensinainciusol has shown a willingness to do the work so I would give it sometime. Valoem talk contrib 23:39, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
We'll know that those redlinks are notable when someone procures reliable, secondary sources for each. Most of the redlinks in the templates above will not have sufficient sourcing. It's a big waste of our time to make non-notable articles and then bring them to AfD instead of only making articles for which there is secondary source coverage. Furthermore, if eSports editors really want to make an article but can't find the sourcing, it makes more sense to ask here for help first. Just a little common sense. czar ⨹ 00:19, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
I completely agree, maybe New Age Retro Hippie can help. I think we need articles on Professional League of Legends competition, Professional Counter-Strike competition, and Professional Dota 2 competition which has the highest payout right now I believe. Valoem talk contrib 00:32, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't really see the need for esports to have its own talk page, seeing as there at most five users who regularily edit such articles. I'd imagine any discussions alternatively could be held at Article Talk pages for the time being, unless you guys think otherwise. However this is something that will definitely change in the short term future as esports grows in popularity.Prisencolinensinainciusol (talk) 18:53, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Duplicate Templates, Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sidebar and Template:WPVG_sidebar

I just want to bring to attention we have Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sidebar and Template:WPVG_sidebar as duplicates. I'll tidy it up, but want to know wich direction --- :D Derry Adama (talk) 20:03, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Transcluded for now, avoiding doing an edit sweep until I've audited the WP:VG project pages --- :D Derry Adama (talk) 21:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Are the individual Beatmania IIDX and (Music of) Dance Dance Revolution articles for the newer arcades excessive?

As a quick sample, look at IIDX 20/21/22 and DDR X (music)/X2/X3/2013 (music). Recently these two franchises has dropped a lot in full coverage than its newer and more active sister games like jubeat, usually only having reposted press release of (links with IIDX20) location test and in service data announcements, but still punctually have articles made for each new installment (which [spoiler alert] is just a fancy version update on the same cabinet now), and then slops down to excessive and badly sourced gameplay details and song lists. While the series has been and will continue to be notable (WP:TEMPORARY), there is no good evidence to continue supporting new individual articles be made for each installment (WP:NOT INHERITED).

Gonna consult the good people here to see if there's any best course for action, before nominating bold mergers or AfDs. Seriously though, this will mean 30+ articles be merger-nominated/AfDed in the Bemani topic, so if there are simpler ways to save a few hundred clicks and types it is greatly appreciated. 野狼院ひさし u/t/c 09:13, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

That's a lot of information on those pages, and a good chunk of it would likely be beyond the lines of encyclopedic. Are there any existing off-site wikis specialising in the series that the giant tables and other content can be moved to? We could have one article which contains short summaries (i.e. no niche details, at least a few basic paragraphs with good citations) of each iteration of the games, with the page separated into sections for each iteration, and then redirect all the individual pages (IIDX20, IIDX21, etc) to that page. You can redirect a bunch of pages based on any discussion-based consensus, it doesn't necessarily have to be an AfD. --benlisquareT•C•E 09:37, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Here's a recommendation of what I personally might do:
  • For each IIDX page:
  • Ignore the "Unlocking System" and "Music" sections, they're too niche for such a broad encyclopedia project
  • Summarise the lead paragraph and "Gameplay" section into somewhere between 150-400 words, and find a few reliable sources to cite. Focus on what new features that the new iteration brings, and what makes it unique. This will be the summary intended to be kept, with everything else on the page to be eventually discarded.
  • Either create a new section at the Beatmania IIDX article called "Iterations" (or just use the existing "Releases" section), and move all of the 150-400 word summaries of each game that you just created over there, separated by third-level section headings. Alternatively, create a new page that will act as a dedicated single page for all of the iterations, if you want to leave the Beatmania IIDX article as a basic summary page for the entire series.
  • Finally, redirect all of the IIDX pages (i.e. 20, 21, etc) to Beatmania IIDX#Releases or wherever you moved all the summaries to, by replacing the content with #REDIRECT [[...]]. Redirection is preferable to outright deletion, as it preserves attribution, in line with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license that Wikipedia uses.
  • For each DDR page:
  • Ignore the "Characters", "Extra Stage", "Music", "Course", and other niche sections.
  • Summarise the lead paragraph, "Development" section, and the bare essentials of the "Features" section, and add citations.
  • Repeat the same with IIDX, merging the smaller summaries on one page, and redirecting all the pages to that one page.
In the end you should get something similar to this:
Extended content
Music

Konami also releases home versions of IIDX for the PlayStation 2 console in Japan. The home versions are known as CS (consumer software or console) styles, while the arcade versions are known as AC (arcade cabinet or arcade) styles. The CS games can be played with a DualShock controller or with a special controller from Konami that recreates the arcade experience. Konami manufactures two forms of home controllers, which are known as Konami Official Controllers (KOC) and Arcade Style Controllers (ASC). The KOC, pictured above, is much cheaper than the ASC... (etc etc)

Releases

The beatmania IIDX series has been released in the home video game market in addition to its arcade releases. To date, the only video game system to have seen a IIDX game is the Sony PlayStation 2. There are currently sixteen games that have been released for the Japanese PlayStation 2 and one game for the American PlayStation 2.

Beatmania IIDX 20

Beatmania IIDX 20 was released on September 19, 2012. This iteration introduced new features such as asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf. (citation)

Beatmania IIDX 21

Beatmania IIDX 21 was released on November 13, 2013. This iteration introduced new features such as asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf. (citation)

Beatmania IIDX 22

Beatmania IIDX 22 was released on September 17, 2014. This iteration introduced new features such as asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf. (citation)

etc
etc
See also
References

(Reference list)

Of course, someone else might have a better idea, this is just a quick brainstorm. --benlisquareT•C•E 10:04, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Japanese sales figures

So, apparently every year Famitsu publishes the Famitsu Game White Paper book, which details how the Japanese game industry is doing. ~400 pages of analysis of the gaming industry, complete with ("estimated", but somehow out to the individual unit) sales breakdowns in Japan of the top 500 games of the year, both in total and amount sold that year. During the course of the year they publish weekly sales figures, but the book at the end gives the final counts. Here's the 2007 edition. "But PresN", I hear you saying, "I'm not so sure about spending 30,000-33,000 yen (~$250-$280), or 36,000 yen if I want the physical book, plus shipping, just to get a long treatise that I probably can't read. If only some enterprising Japanese man would buy it for me, and put just the sales data into a webpage, perhaps with sortable columns."

Well, person-who-can-talk-through-the-internet, your brief prayers have been answered, even before you knew you had them. Because geimin.net does exactly that, covering the 1996-2014 versions of the book, and the 2015 weekly numbers. They claim to have permission to do so, sales numbers only. Are you comfortable trusting their transcription of a book you'd have to spend hundreds to verify? You'll have to look inside your own soul to answer that question. All I can do is show you the door. And tell you that the reference would look like this for the 2007 edition (covering 2006 sales): <ref name="EBsales">((Cite book |title=Famitsū Gēmu Hakusho 2007 |publisher=[[Enterbrain]] |year=2007 |isbn=978-4-7577-3577-4 |location=Tokyo |page=387 |id=((NDL|21240454)) |language=Japanese |script-title=ja:ファミ通ゲーム白書2007 |trans-title=Famitsu Game Whitebook 2007 |chapter=2006年ゲームソフト年間売上TOP500 |trans-chapter=2006 Game Software Annual Sales Top 500 |url=http://geimin.net/da/db/2006_ne_fa/index.php))</ref>. Anything else is up to you. --PresN 21:42, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: I did verify that the (2006) numbers matched up with other references talking about 2006 Famitsu sales data in a few articles. --PresN 21:47, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
This is an incredible resource. Great find—could be a minor revolution for Japanese VG articles. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:52, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, it is useful. I've been using it for a few months where applicable. --ProtoDrake (talk) 07:49, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Moby Games getting rid of watermarks

As a note, it looks like Moby Games is removing the watermarks they had for game covers and screens. This might help for those working on older games for sources for these. (Remember that they remain non-free images in general, just that hopefully less searching now). --MASEM (t) 00:18, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

You're right. Looks like it might take a while, though. But still will help out the articles a lot. Link GamerPro64 00:46, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

esport players

There seems to be lots of Category:eSports players pages now, but they've been created by fans so have very few good sources. It's difficult to tell if they meet WP:GNG. Maybe get something up on WP:VGSCOPE?--Vaypertrail (talk) 23:24, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, this would make sense. A spot check of a couple shows a lot just sourced to primary esport coverage (eg not something like IGN) or youtube replays of matches or events. We need these players discussed at length in our reliable sourcing. --MASEM (t) 23:37, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
This was my concern above (#Remove eSports talk page redirect). Anyway, VGSCOPE #1 covers it—those individual player articles should not be created unless they have significant coverage in reliable, secondary sources. This isn't Wikia. Burden is on the creator to show that each is notable, otherwise they're just making a mess. czar ⨹ 01:13, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
Basically, the WP:GNG. Sergecross73 msg me 01:22, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Kileak: The DNA Imperative

I created the article recently with sources I found. Feel free to take a look on it. -- Hounder4 01:51, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Good work. I submitted it to DYK. There's a further review available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Reference library/Next Generation Magazine. - hahnchen 12:36, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
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