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Unnecessary templates

I’ve come across a few recently, so I figured I’d discuss them collectively. I don’t think any are necessary.

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Fey_family_tree - In-universe cruft to the highest degree.
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Xenoblade_Chronicles_chronology - Ignoring that I think we tried to move away from these sorts of in-universe templates, this one is exceptionally poorly conceived, as there aren’t enough titles or continuity between them for there to be a “chronology” at all. It ceases to flow, it’s just a bunch of names plopped into white space.
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Donkey_Kong_chronology - Listing out the ...Donkey Kong... fictional continuity?

I just wanted to get some consensus going here, as these aren’t those “relics forgotten from the sloppy days of 2009” like some of the stuff we discuss here. They’ve all been created in the last few days... Sergecross73 msg me 01:50, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@TheJoebro64: It's stuff that makes you emotional before you even start the game! ~ Arkhandar (message me) 16:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I've already made the point before that the Fey family tree is completely unnecessary. At least two other editors have pointed out that the tree contains inaccuracies and connections that are either not supported by verifiable sources, or ones the author decided to artificially bloat the tree with, such as non-familiar relationships. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 02:46, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
These are not needed. I noticed creator Arkhandar also made the {{The Legend of Zelda chronology}} template. That's too in-universe for my taste as well. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 05:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
I feel differently about the Zelda chronology, which was the topic of a lot of sigcov from official and independent sources over the years. The idea of including the timeline is not as frivolous as it is for the Donkey Kong Kronology. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 09:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not against seeing the template at the main article on The Legend of Zelda, but it's also included at plot sections at individual games, at The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Majora's_Mask#Synopsis for instance, it just pushes the plot to the side and shows very in-universe template of the fictional chronology. I don't think that's helpful for the general reader. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 10:42, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
I could be wrong, but I think Zelda was one of the few rare instances where it was acceptable, since the chronology gets so much RS coverage. But at best it’s an exception, it absolutely should not be used to justify things like “Donkey Kong chronology” or “Xenoblade chronology”, which has very little to document at all. Sergecross73 msg me 12:13, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
The Zelda template was created in the last week. It was originally just a table in the series article and it was split out and added to the plot sections of several games. -- ferret (talk) 12:45, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, the template as a single-use in the series is fine (its like a simple figure to path out the timeslines), its not needed in the other games as rarely, within a single Zelda game, does the specific continuity of any other Zelda game directly affect it save for exact sequels (spirit train from wind waker, but that can be described in text). --Masem (t) 12:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, didn’t mean to sound like I was defending its placement on everything Zelda. Only it’s existence. And even then, I’m not personally all that enthusiastic, I merely can understand a policy-based rational for its existence. Sergecross73 msg me 13:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
The specific issue I have with the chronology template is a) it's huge, interfering with content to a great degree on smaller screen sizes, and b) doesn't actually provide any useful context. On normal articles the whole dichotomy of the chronology is not going to be explained, so it's basically only adding confusing information for general readers. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 15:48, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
@David Fuchs: I nice concession I think we could make to address this issue is to remove the template from the individual game articles, and put a See also in its place linking to the series article section where you would find the chronology template (could be converted back to a sidebar, but it would bloat the articles markup). ~ Arkhandar (message me) 16:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Why is the Xenoblade one necessary though? There’s only 3 titles. And one is a spin-off that falls outside of the “chronology”. That leads you with...two items. A chronology of 2 items is something that needs visual representation? Sergecross73 msg me 17:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Sergecross73 and Kawnhr: For the precise reason that there are 4 titles, on multiple continuities is enough reason to warrant a visual representation in order to properly and easily illustrate how the titles relate to each other. And as far as I know, X is not regarded as a spin-off by RSs. That being said, I don't oppose to removing the template from the game articles and just hard-code it in the series article. ~ Arkhandar (message me) 19:10, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Arkhandar: That all three games are in different continuities is a reason against creating a series chronology, because it means there manifestly isn't a chronology (or at least not one that's readily apparent), and there's no use in a table that says "these games are unconnected". — Kawnhr (talk) 19:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Kawnhr: Actually, no. While X is on a completely different continuity and has no chronological ties with any other games in the series (it's properly marked as such, and described as spiritual successor, as per RSs), the other games share the same overarching story, in that the events of one affect the other, akin to The Legend of Zelda (with an arguably much stronger connection). This is cited by RSs, feel free to take a look at them to know more. So again, it's a visual help to how these games all relate (and don't in the case of X). ~ Arkhandar (message me) 20:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Arkhandar: Again, "readily apparent". All the table tells any reader is that one game (and its expandalone prequel) takes place in one continuity, another game in its own, and a third game off in its own world. To anyone not familiar with the series, it communicates no chronology at all; that it only has meaning and use to a series veteran is a mark against it. And as mentioned upthread, this is ultimately concerns four games— it is hard to see why four games, which have loose connections, needs a visual aid. These sort of tables should only be used for long-running and convoluted series, whose chronology cannot be succinctly explained in prose— like Zelda, or Kingdom Hearts. But this is not one such case. — Kawnhr (talk) 20:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Kawnhr: While I don't oppose the template's deletion, I don't see why the "hard-coded" version should be deleted from the series article. The article's point it's to explain the series as a whole, and this visual guide has a place in it when it comes to story and plot. It's not like the chronology is immediately apparent either (e.g. 2 doesn't follow 1 in the traditional sense, and X is not the tenth entry following that) While I understand that Wikipedia is not a catalogue, it's not a book either. So deleting visual helpers just for the sake of deleting makes no sense. ~ Arkhandar (message me) 20:57, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Because it’s useless. It’s much like how we don’t do timelines for band membership in music articles (like this) when it’s just 4 people playing the same instruments for 20 years without any membership changes - no one needs a visualization to understand that. Much like this, which is removed on the spot every time people try to add it. People don’t need a visualization of such a basic concept. Sergecross73 msg me 21:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Sergecross73: I understand. But while Xenoblade's timeline is simpler than say the one from The Legend of Zelda, it's not straightforwardly linear like the examples you gave. Again, it's two linked continuities and one unliked one, with non-traditional numbering in the mix. Keeping series timelines out of game articles is already a nice concession; but for series articles it just makes no sense. If the simplicity is what's bothering (which is subjective), then why not have it collapsed and let the reader choose whether it's useless or not? ~ Arkhandar (message me) 23:29, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
@Axem Titanium: What about Template:Metroid chronology? ~ Arkhandar (message me) 00:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
What about it? I don't particularly care for chronology templates in general, but this one has a dozen links and the fictional chronology for this series is not obvious compared to its release order. Axem Titanium (talk) 00:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
@Axem Titanium: So, it's getting differential treatment from say Template:The Legend of Zelda chronology solely based on size? ~ Arkhandar (message me) 01:02, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
The objection to the Zelda template is that the individual games rarely reference more than one or two of the others and operate largely independently of each other, so including the full chronology isn't necessary; for instance, seeing that Tri Force Heroes takes place in the "Hero Is Defeated" timeline doesn't offer any particular context to someone reading about Majora's Mask, and so on. In contrast, Metroid games actually reference and build upon the previous games' stories quite frequently, and knowing where any game occurs in relation to the others does (or at least can) provide context. I mean, Metroid isn't exactly the most story-driven series out there, but a template seems reasonable to me… — Kawnhr (talk) 02:39, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Feel free to nominate the Metroid template too. I’m not certain that would survive either. I really think the only reason Zelda gets a pass is because of the extreme attention it gets from sources, with things like Hyrule Historia. I rarely see Metroid get much RS attention for its fictional continuity... Sergecross73 msg me 02:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm confused. Don't most of these series already have a series template? What's the point? I'm leaning delete, but why even create these in the first place? Shooterwalker (talk) 05:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

On the matter of useless templates...

Any feelings one way or another on "special edition tables" like the one on Assassin's Creed Syndicate ? I have a feeling that we can state "The game shipped alongside special editions which included exclusive content, artbooks, figurines, etc...." and only going into details when the special edition gets flagged for its oddities (Fallout 76's canvas bag issue for example). --Masem (t) 21:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought we had a consensus against that sort of stuff too. (Are we going soft? Burning out? Outnumbered by the non-encyclopedic masses? I kid, Im not actually blaming anyone, I know I haven’t been around to help as much lately either.) Sergecross73 msg me 22:24, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm fairly sure we agreed as a project not to track this retail nonsense anymore. This one was missed in the cleanup, or else readded at some point after that. Axem Titanium (talk) 23:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
WP:GAMECRUFT Item 17 states not to have special edition tables as discussed last year. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 23:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
I removed it. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:26, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm back

I just wanted to let everyone know I'm back and hope to do good work. I had some personal issues to deal with. But now I plan on getting my hands dirty again and make great articles.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 13:17, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Welcome back. We look forward to your contributions. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 15:33, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
I’m personally thrilled, come join us at Wikiproject Square Enix, we would greatly desire Good Article reviewers right now for our drive, or nominate an article from our scope yourself! Judgesurreal777 (talk) 18:37, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Related to good articles, I'd be happy to help out and do some GA reviews myself. But I'm coming off a hiatus, and haven't ever fully taken on a GA (or a review) myself. Would someone be willing to mentor me as a reviewer? Basically, I do my best to do a thorough review, and a second editor comes through to give it a second look, see if I missed anything, and close the review. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:49, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Hey, I'm back too, sorta. :) Work's keeping me busy, but I'm finally back to where I feel I can contribute more to the project. Will probably still be doing minor edits and revising things like plot summaries and gameplay sections mostly. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:15, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
I came back recently too. I reckon the pandemic is a good excuse to do so, haha. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 19:56, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Hi, I know I never post around here anymore but I'm back too as well-- I may not be super active in participating on this page but I'm definitely around. I'll be just creating indie game articles and the such. Woooooo! Nomader (talk) 05:29, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

New Articles (June 1 to June 7)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.4 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 19:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

June 1

June 2

June 3

June 4

June 5

June 6

June 7

  • How strange; I see it popping up in the bot log on the 27th when the draft was created, but then there isn't a log on the 2nd for when it got moved to article space for my script to pick up. Instead, there's a log line saying "Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics renamed to Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics", which obviously isn't right. I think it's because on the same day that you moved it from draft space, someone added a second WPVG tag to the talk page? But you fixed that like 40 minutes later... who knows, something messed up with the bot anyways. I've added your article in on the 2nd. --PresN 01:59, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @PresN: Sidebar here-- thank you so much for automating this list every week. I remember when you started doing this a couple years back, and it's awesome to see that you're still doing it. Nomader (talk) 05:38, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

E3 2020 page as landing for the reveals

As planned I'm going to use the E3 2020 for at least right now to plug all the game reveals that are due out in the next few days or so (with Sony's today). I probably have to go back to add in a few missed cases like IGN's yesterday and the early MS Xbox on from last month, but any help on checking redirects and platforms would be good. --Masem (t) 02:07, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Ubisoft website archiving

Hi, I am trying to archive to this article on the Ubisoft website for the Clint Hocking article [1]. However, both the Wayback Machine [2] and archive.today [3] do not work. The former initally works but it automatically redirects to another part of the site whilst the latter blocks the text with the Ubisoft logo. Is there any way to solve this? Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 23:40, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Could you link to this screenshot of the latest archive from the Wayback Machine? Comes directly from Archive.org so I think there's little chance the image will break (but I've also archived the archive, to be safe). – Rhain ☔ 00:17, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Perfect, that seems to be working. Thank you. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 08:02, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Want to join my new WikiProject?

I can't get the link to work

Just saying, Another Wiki User the 2nd (talk) 14:07, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The user is referring to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/WikiProject Minecraft which is absolutely unnecessary. I don't even think the topic broad enough to warrant a task force. -- ferret (talk) 14:52, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
I also oppose the idea simply due to there being a small scope. Minecraft is one game with two small spin-offs that really don't have a lot to do with the original game. You're saying there should be a new WikiProject for three games? That's a tiny scope that I don't ever see becoming wider as time goes on. ~Namcokid47 (Contribs) 14:54, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
I don’t mean to be rude, but are you sure you’re ready to start up as something as major as a WikiProject when you don’t even know how to link to other articles. I’d recommend slowing way down and learning the Wikipedia basics first... Sergecross73 msg me 14:55, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Creation of Haseo

In the past days I've been trying to expand the real world information of .hack character Haseo. However, while I found a lot about his reception, I think the creation needs expansion. The only source that I found is this blog but the user does not reference the original material for the articles.Tintor2 (talk) 15:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Just Dance 2021

Can someone take a look at this draft? It was created by an IP that's been blocked for creating hoax drafts. JOEBRO64 11:39, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Another Just Dance game is inevitable but has not yet been announced as far as I can see. Probably a CSD candidate either as a hoax, as a topic with not a single reliable source, or a WP:TOOSOON case. IceWelder [✉] 11:43, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
Deleted as a hoax. (The wording alluded to it already being announced and released.) Let me know if there are any others. Sergecross73 msg me 12:44, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
There's been this one IP editor that has a real crush on the series and falsifies a lot of JD game releases, which... is like one of the last series I'd think anyone would want to be that excited about...--Masem (t) 13:35, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I think I’ve stumbled across the IP before too, though there’s similar editors who like to make fan-fiction-like hoaxes about future Sonic and Mario games too, so I could just be thinking of that. Still, an intersection of loving JD, writing Wikipedia, and hoaxing is an especially weird one... Sergecross73 msg me 14:10, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
WPVG is definitely a place you want to be in if you want to meet some interesting characters. JOEBRO64 01:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
You can say that again.... Namcokid47 (Contribs) 02:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Hiroshi Matsuyama

Just created the article Hiroshi Matsuyama. Since the game developer talks a lot about his works, there is quite a lot of information about how his works. However, I'm not skilled at making tables like the ones who have other game designers.Tintor2 (talk) 14:51, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Good job on the article! Been interested in Matsuyama for a long while. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:58, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Comments needed at Talk:List of PlayStation 5 games

As this probably affects how we build future game lists, input is needed on what (if any or if we should) addons or features of a game for a system should be tracked is requested at Talk:List of PlayStation 5 games#Add-ons. --Masem (t) 14:21, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Hoo boy. I feel like I will never have the energy or temperament to maintain these massive platform lists so I'm inclined to just let those editors (who by and large seem to never interact with the rest of WPVG) have their way on most things. Too much effort to interfere. But that's just between you and me. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:04, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Arguably between the combination of what can be special features for a platform release and the number of digital downloadable games, we really need to establish better metrics what should be going into these. We certainly don't list this for Steam/Epic/GOG/etc. --Masem (t) 20:52, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Virtual Boy Good Topic

So I've been thinking about this, and it's something I think can be reasonably done with time and effort, but I've been wondering what the scope should be for this. Like, should the Good Topic be only about released content? If it includes cancelled games, should it also include games like Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, since it was mentioned that a port was planned? - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 02:20, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'd consider ports of games like Donkey Kong Country 2 or Star Fox to fit the project's scope, since they're....well, ports of pre-existing games. In fact, I don't even think the Star Fox one was even a legitimate game, it was just a tech demo to show off the hardware. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 02:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, that's my mindset, I just wanted to kind of gauge how other people would feel. Don't want to get to GT qualifying and then have to deal with someone bringing up DKC2 or whatever. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 02:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
I would suggest asking over at Wikipedia talk:Featured topic questions GamerPro64 02:40, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
I would consider a game having an unreleased port for a system not to be a strong enough connection.--69.157.254.64 (talk) 00:39, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

List of cult video games

I'm a bit baffled by the longstanding existence of this article, but since I've never brought an article of its sort to AfD before, I thought I'd get input here first. There are no comparable articles for other media (e.g. List of cult television show, List of cult comic books), which makes sense to me because the term "cult following" is basically WP:PUFFERY; its definition is hopelessly vague, and its existence almost impossible to disprove, so journalists can freely claim that just about anything has a cult following without fear of being contradicted. Thus, the fact that many of the list entries are sourced doesn't take away from the fact that the article is basically a mountain of non-neutral claims, any more than it would in a well-sourced article called "List of fondly remembered video games". Am I missing something?--Martin IIIa (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  • God, that list is terrible! In addition to all your excellent points, no one even bothered to source most of the entires (not that it would matter for the reasons you articulated) and there are several bonafide hits on the list. Kill it with fire! Indrian (talk) 19:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Hmm? --Izno (talk) 19:20, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Izno - That's odd. I promise you, when I enter in "List of cult " into the search box, the only bolded result that comes up is "List of cult video games". Don't know why that is, but I apologize for the error.--Martin IIIa (talk) 01:56, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  • This is an example of a list where each entry 100% needs a RS source inline that says it is a "cult video game". Not just fondly remembered. And for purposes of avoiding editors trying to promote their single favorite game, there should be at least two sources. --Masem (t) 22:00, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Agree. Removing all unsourced entries is a good start. Broadly speaking, I think it would be hard to delete but I'm not certain. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:22, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
      • In case anyone's got objections, I can PROD the article and see what happens. JOEBRO64 22:29, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
        • I would not PROD it. I would explain on its talk page that I would prune out all entries that are not directly sourced on that page, and that those that are sourced, not sourced to anything that is close to a reliable source (for example the source on the 1984 Boulder Dash). I'd also question any source that is <2-3 years out from a game's release calling it "cult", this is a measure of longevity. This can be made to work, it's just needs tons better inclusion criteria. --Masem (t) 02:34, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  • The list doesn't make any sense. What's the criteria for something to be a "cult hit"? How many people know what it is? Most of these games aren't even given a source that shows they're labeled as such by the media, so anybody can just stick a random game they really like on there and say it's a "cult classic". I strongly support this being deleted. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 01:54, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Google [4] does seem to have lists and documentation behind the idea of a cult video game as well as multiple lists. I think deletion is the wrong remedy here. --Izno (talk) 02:07, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  • The best thing I would suggest is this one: Instead of deleting the article as an easy route, it would be wise to rework it from the ground-up like a video game list, including one or two sources that regards said games on the list as cult classics. That's just my opinion... Roberth Martinez (talk) 04:34, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  • There are definitely cult classic video games— the parent Cult following#Video games lists a few that are, I think, good and uncontroversial examples— but the page in question is a huge mess and I'm not sure how to even go about fixing it. Adequate sourcing would be a good step, of course, but it's also the case that "cult" is often poorly understood and used very liberally; as an example, the two of the articles cited for Cuphead do indeed call it "cult", but also call it "wildly popular" and having "true universal appeal"— which go completely against the idea of a cult classic. While I'm not calling for a delete, it does seem like a list that would have to be carefully curated and monitored. But then, I don't know how stringent the criteria is for the film list… — Kawnhr (talk) 06:49, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  • So, I noticed an IP added a ton of unsourced entries while we were discussing here. Then I dug through the page history, and saw that the IP has basically been adding hundreds of unsourced entries every day for the last week. If you look back a week, the article looked much different. Still not perfect, but much better sourced, and a lot less questionable entries. I think it’d be best to start by reverting back a week and having a talk with the IP... Sergecross73 msg me 11:16, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
    • I've performed this revert, as it's clearly a mass of unsourced additions. The IP is certainly welcome to start providing sources. -- ferret (talk) 11:57, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I think this list would pass WP:LISTN so I advise against any PROD/AFD attempts. See Sergecross's note above and my subsequent revert, which cleared most of the cruft. However, the list needs a lot of work. One item(s) in particular that stuck out to me was ... you know... any entry from the last 5 years. Can a 2 year old game have "cult" status? And my normal understanding of "cult" is something that failed to take off on the market and mainstream but has a near-rabid following among niche fans. Another entry that pops up is Cuphead, which is described in the current sources as "wildly popular", "massively successful" and "universal appeal"... if so, how is it cult? Several of the sources do say cult once or twice with the phrase "cult following", in regards to pre-release fan reaction generally, but.... So there's some work to be done here but something can be salvaged. -- ferret (talk) 12:06, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
    • If nobody is up for it, i'll take care of revamping it. It'll take time but i'm up for it... Roberth Martinez (talk) 01:00, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
      • We have already removed all non-sourced entries as well as weakly sourced ones. But there are still cases of where "cult" seems to be used in passing and not where it is discussed "why" it is a cult game, which should be needed to be on this list. --Masem (t) 01:18, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

So, to give everybody an update about this list as the one who assumed the role of improving the page: I'm almost done. I'm in the 2000 range (where the number of titles regarded as cult games exploded) so this will be the most exhausting part of revamping said list. I've also found a few more titles to be regarded as cult titles, despite some being initially successful during their time but their popularity dwindled in today's world. Titles like Castle Wolfenstein now have a proper source as to why it's regarded as such. I'm doing this on my PC outside of Wikipedia in order to have it ready before going live. Despite the sheer amount of titles, it has been a pretty neat little endeavor I dived myself in... Roberth Martinez (talk) 02:36, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Its finally done! I managed to completely revamp the list in less than five days. This might be the only list article i've been involved during this year... Roberth Martinez (talk) 02:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
    • This does look significantly better, both in terms of organization and that a lot of the questionable inclusions have been weeded out. It looks much more reasonable of a page now. — Kawnhr (talk) 16:37, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Arcane Legends AFD

If anyone is interested, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arcane Legends is in need for more comments after two relists right now (whether it's delete, keep or any other possibility), and even I'm on fence too what to do with the article right now. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 08:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Review thread 47: Summer of 2020 Edition

The continuing adventures of staying inside has gotten us a lot of nominations that need handling. And hopefully we also have some people interested in reviewing these picks of the litter as well.

FAC
GAN
Other FC
Reassessments
Peer Reviews

And, as usual, we have the massive backlog that is the Request Board that offers many ideas for new articles to make. GamerPro64 03:02, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  • I mentioned this in another thread, but I'm around and want to help out with GA reviews. Problem is I'm just getting back up to speed on GA standards myself, and I'd hate to pass (or fail) something that is out of step with what we expect. I'm willing to do the bulk of the review if someone else wants to volunteer to be my mentor or coach. Basically, take a look to see if there's anything I missed, and ultimately sign off on the review. With one or two under my belt, I could probably continue on my own. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

New Articles (June 8 to June 12)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.4 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 20:13, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

June 8

June 9

June 10

June 11

June 12

(bot hasn't run in a couple days, so dumping this out on Monday anyways and next week will just have a big clump on the first day) --PresN 20:13, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Rather worrisome to see DSOGaming's founder write an article for his own website. WP:VG/RS lists it as unreliable, though of course unreliable doesn't always mean unnotable. I don't have the time right now, but could somebody check whether there are proper sources for this? IceWelder [✉] 20:23, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't see any sources covering the site itself. Looking at the history of the article, I'm frankly surprised that it was approved at AfC. Woodroar (talk) 20:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree. I've prod'ed it. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 08:31, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
The PROD was constested. AfD can be found here. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 16:47, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Current event: First video game treatment approved for prescription

This Monday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first video game treatment, a game for children with certain types of ADHD called EndeavorRx.[1] WP:MED will be notified as well. I need help determining which articles should be updated with this information, and whether it should be nominated for Portal:Current events at WP:ITN/C. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 00:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ CNN, Naomi Thomas and Amy Woodyatt (16 June 2020). "Children with ADHD can now be prescribed a video game, FDA says". CNN. Retrieved 18 June 2020. {{cite news}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
As to ITNC, no this would not be a good fit there as a long term regular, but you should consider WP:DYK as a possible target for this, it fits well. And there's definitely additional coverage, as Fortune covers it and you also have a key Lancet medical trial paper that covers it. Also make sure to search on the company name Akili as I can see hits about working with the FDA before this week, such as getting the FDA to approve the game as an emergency measure during COVID, and back as far as 2017 [5] (This might not be an RS but gives a point of reference). --Masem (t) 01:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I have opened a merge discussion for multiple titles (5 for the start) under Beatmania IIDX series at Talk:Beatmania_IIDX#Merger proposal. Any comment will be appreciated, and thanks in advance! Jovanmilic97 (talk) 11:22, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Game Services AFDs

Hello all. Would really love some more AFD input, especially if you understand the difference between a number of the video games services out there - Google Stadia, PS Now, PS Plus, Xbox Game Pass, Netflix, etc. We’re getting into some confusing discussions, and I feel like it’s because people don’t really understand what they all are. I’m not trying to canvass or anything - it’s fine if you disagree with me - but I’m concerned we’re on the verge of deleting one list article, and keeping another extremely similar one, and I fear it’s going to create a confusing precedent on what is and isn’t acceptable.

The two in question are:

Thank you. Sergecross73 msg me 14:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I think we've got it fixed but we've established that Stadia is considered by media and ourselves as a platform that a game has to be specifically developed for, compared to PS Now that is just a service that can play any past PS game for the most part. --Masem (t) 01:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, not the outcome I expected. Good luck trying to explain that one to newbies... Sergecross73 msg me 01:18, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Simple: games are ported by developpers to Stadia. No games are ported by devs to PS Now. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 19:27, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

combining two oculus game lists together

I believe List of Oculus Rift games and List of Oculus Quest games should be merged together, and just have a box clicked to show which system has which game on it. There is no list for the games that run on the Oculus Go. Just put all three on a List of Oculus games. Does everyone agree that'd be more useful to have? Is there a bot to compare which things are listed in the title column on each page are the same and mark the proper new column properly? Or would someone just need to open both tabs and then click on boxes by comparing them that way? Also the Oculus Quest list seems to included everything, be it notable or not, even things with no references. It also includes Netflix which of course isn't a game. Could a list be made with everything from Category:Oculus Rift games and Category:Oculus Quest games games, with a bot reading the names of things there, then the relevant information in the infoboxes, and putting that information in the correct columns automatically? Dream Focus 01:32, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd open a discussion for that on their talk pages. Seems like a reasonable thing from what I can read, and I also completely agree with the inclusion criteria, which needs to be narrowed down to notable games. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 11:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I'd support this. Also slightly off topic, but didn't we come to a consensus on rearranging the VR game categories to "VR console games" and "VR PC games"? There really is no actual Oculus exclusive, as they can be made to work with other headsets. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:30, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Agree with the merge. As to rearranging the cats, it's fine with me but the technical distinction is not something I'm familiar with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Fuchs (talk • contribs)

Individual Articles for each Game Awards Category.

I have started making individual articles for each Game Awards category, because there are individual articles for each Oscar category. So why can't there be individual articles for Game Awards category. The Game Awards have now surpass the Oscars in viewership, and viewership of the Oscars has been decreasing over the last few years. I would like the Game Awards to have bigger role within the Wikipedia community. Hence why I have started to make individual articles for each category. I have already created articles for Best Action/Adventure and Best Role Playing Game. I will make requests for other categories as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MR.RockGamer17 (talk • contribs) 13:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

The Oscars have been around for decades and have been the subject of many academic studies. The Game Awards are still relatively new and while their individual yearly ceremonies are notable, the individual awards are not. Viewership is not a measure of notability. --Masem (t) 14:00, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Adding that even The Game Award for Game of the Year article is somewhat debatable and has only really been kept because "Game of the Year" is a generally a notable achievement. Otherwise, it has the same issues as these other award articles, which is all of their references being "here's what was nominated" and "here's what won". ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:28, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't see how any of these awards are notable on their own. The sources used are just "this game was nominated", "this game won", etc. Please don't make any more of these. I'd further suggest that the ones that have already been created be open for an AfD. (I didn't know these were already redirected. Nevermind my last statement.) Namcokid47 (Contribs) 19:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. We just finished a large discussion about over-coverage of non-notable awards. Let this one go for a few years and then get back to us. Axem Titanium (talk) 05:53, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

989 Sports Major League Baseball series vs MLB: The Show

Hello,

(Not too sure where best to flag this so posting here).

To give some points of comparison with other Wikipedias:

To give some points of comparison with some external databases:

I don’t really care one way or another (I just want to get this cleaned-up on the Wikidata side) ; but as is 989 Sports Major League Baseball series and MLB: The Show somewhat contradict each other so you might want to look into it. :)

Cheers, Jean-Fred (talk) 09:17, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 19 June 2020

On the first line of the second paragraph its says "Fornite Battle Royale in particular became a resounding success..." For better formatting, sentence grammar and fluency,It should say Fortnite Battle Royale, in particular, became a resounding success... L.Holmes19latymer (talk) 10:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC) L.Holmes19latymer (talk) 10:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not necessary because modern English uses fewer commas in general. We'd really only need a comma if the sentence began with "in particular", as in In particular, Fornite Battle Royale became a resounding success.... Woodroar (talk) 12:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
I am not sold the text needs "in particular", but either way, this is the wrong page for the edit request. --Izno (talk) 13:19, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Is Lumines: Puzzle Fusion remotely close to becoming a Featured Article if I decide to nominate it? It's one of my proudest accomplishments, and I thought I try to push it further and see if the fixes for Featured are minimal. If it requires even more extensive work, I understand too.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 21:10, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Just from a quick glance, that infobox needs to be cleaned up, and I feel like paragraphs could be formatted more cleanly as I'm personally not a fan of single sentences being split off other paragraphs; either they can be rewritten to flow better, or expanded. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 00:07, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Sounds good. I'm making some adjustments now. Let me know what sections you believe need the most work.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 17:11, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Rock Band songs articles

Hi everyone,

After seeing List of Rock Band Network 2.0 songs nominated for deletion, I noticed the series' navbox with these listicles.

All very, very long and barely referenced. The actual reference used for the lists of songs is the official Rock Band website. Aren't these all just WP:CATALOG stuff? soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 14:36, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Pretty much. I don't see why any of these lists are necessary, not to mention the abysmal references they have. I'd say delete them all. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 14:55, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
  • When the games were big (up through 2010~2011) you could easily source these to the main RSes , though obviously this wasn't being done consistently. EG: for example Eurogamer in 2011, Dtoid in 2009 etc. Past 2011, I say, there were less chance of this being easily sourced except to the game or to the fan website rockbandaide.com (save for when they were closing down dlc in 2013 and then restarting in 2015 prior to RB4).
  • Now, we know the question of the songs that SHIP with the games has been asked a few times and we've (both VG and when questioned at AFD) that those are beyond catalogs because there is often constructive criticism of the song selection shipping with the games. But that's simply something that can't apply here. So while we can say 1/3rd of these lists can be documented, at this point the documentation is just a rote activity that isn't well backed by sources and doesn't have the same justification that the main setlists have, AND where we know there are external wikis (official and unoffical that track these). So while I probably would have supported these in 2012-2013, today they aren't approprate.
  • The track packs, however, were retail products, and are not the same as DLC. That's a different case altogether. --Masem (t) 15:02, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Also as a separate note, the current AFD is not a good nom only on the basis that the nominator is likely not aware there's transclusion being used there to duplicate content, so I've suggested a procedural close there, but mentioned discussion here of the larger potential deletion of these under discussion. --Masem (t) 15:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
So... redirect them all? AfD? Any other opinions? Dust? Anybody? No? soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 07:49, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Once the current AFD is closed, two separate AFDs - one for the main DLC set and the other for the Network songs, should be started on the basis that these might have been reasonable in 2010 before rhythm games took a hit. --Masem (t) 17:13, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Alright, let's wait it out and then start AfD'ing. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 08:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Or everything from Category:Music video game soundtracks. IceWelder [✉] 08:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
With the RB and GH soundtracks, which most I've worked on, these were built and kept (in comparison to other GAMEGUIDE type lists) on the basis that there is distinction reception that was presented from RSes to discuss the soundtrack and in some cases, the dev's reasoning on the song selections. DLC used to be that way, but not anymore, and even if a new RB or GH game came out today, I doubt the soundtrack would get similar coverage. --Masem (t) 21:57, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Track packs should stay because they were full retail releases. Everything else should go (but the main downloadable songs page should be a redirect). Frankly most of the Guitar Hero and Rock band pages are a bit of a mess. Eldomtom2 (talk) 21:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

New Articles (June 17 to June 21)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.4 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 16:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

June 17

June 18

  • None

June 19

June 20

June 21

As said last time, the bot hiccuped from June 13-16, so the 17th is pretty large. --PresN 16:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Voice cast of .hack//G.U. Trilogy

I recently expanded the article .hack//G.U. Trilogy game OVA but failed to find too much material to source the cast section. The only two actors I happened to find sourced are two of the leads (Sakurai and Kawasumi) but for some reason not even Behind the Voice Actors has an article dedicated to them. Any idea where I could get a reliable source in regards to them? Might be enough to remove the citations template since I managed to cite most of the prose.Tintor2 (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I was going to suggest going on the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs' Media Arts Database, but strangely, there seem to be no .hack entries from 2008 listed. Is there a credits roll in the OVA that you can cite, until you find a better source?--AlexandraIDV 04:15, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Notice: Switch eShop games at Categories for discussion

Hello,

I have nominated Category:Nintendo Switch eShop games for merger with Category:Nintendo Switch games - if you have an opinion on it either way, please weigh in over at Categories for discussion.--AlexandraIDV 17:09, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Duplictive articles?

We have both Home video game console and List of home video game consoles in addition to the individual console generation pages. Not touching the latter generation pages, but I think the first two links duplicate material already on other pages as well. Given that we have the console pages that go into deep detail already on the consoles, I feel we can cut down the tons of detail about the specific consoles in the "Home video game console" list, leaving it more just to history facets and combining the list elements into it. (this would also be one less article to watch for 9th gen issues at this point...) --Masem (t) 17:04, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Fully support combining. As we talked about on the list talk page, I had in the past considered drastically paring back the list one anyways. Maybe it’d just be better to merge. Sergecross73 msg me 17:23, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I also support a merge. Feels unnecessary to have two articles on basically the same topic. The list one is in really rough shape and a lot of the info there can just go to Home video game console. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 17:29, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Merge: Home video game console has about 37 Kb of WP:RPS, so it's okay to merge them and avoid duplication. ~ Arkhandar (message me) 18:39, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Support merge. Seems like a tough one to parse though. Definitely hard to maintain consistency across two articles. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:48, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
And I just found Video game console to also be in this mess of duplication. (Thankfully Handheld video game console doesn't seem to be as bad). How did these to this point?? --Masem (t) 13:27, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Merge, it's easy. Iias!:postb□xI 23:53, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

A debate about WP:TMRULES

OmegaFallon believes that we should indicate all capitalization on articles such as Fez (video game) and The Longing (video game). I've already attempted to clarify by using WP:TMRULES that we should use all capitalization. The problem is that there are not enough sources that use all capitalization. And if this editor has a point on accepting all capitalization as a recognized stylization, then there are hundreds of Japanese video games that choose to romanize their video games in all caps.

I don't think he has a significant point as both "Fez" and "The Longing" have no official sources that indicate that this is a recognized stylization, but I thought I bring it up here anyway so we can straighten out the matter. WP:TMSTYLE does indicate that we should mention all forms of stylization, and it's not clear on the restrictions apply.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 22:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

So, to clarify, OmegaFallon wants the bits in the lead like "(stylized as FEZ)", and you don't? Including it there does seem to be in line with MOS:TMSTYLE (a few paragraphs down from WP:TMRULES, which like WP:VG/STYLE bans that sort of thing in the rest of the article). I don't feel the romanization argument is a strong one- how a publisher chooses to translate their titles into English isn't the same thing as how an English game's title is handled by the publisher. That said, you have a point- besides the box art, does Polytron call it FEZ or Fez? [6] uses FEZ exclusively, though of course that's not the 'common' way to capitalize it in the press. --PresN 23:59, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
We shouldn't note trivial stylisations such as all caps unless they are overwhelmingly reflected by sources. We don't write THE LEGEND OF ZELDA even though that's how it's rendered in the logos and title screens. Nor do we write A TALE OF TWO CITIES even though that's how it's written on its first page. It's not useful for the reader to know that sometimes things are written in all caps; that's normal, especially in logos, title screens and cover art, and in many promotional and press materials (especially in Japan, and I speak from bitter professional experience there). Popcornfud (talk) 00:11, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
I will say that when games use the allcaps stylization choice of allcaps (and only this choice) over normal english, and we're not talking initialism or acronyms, then no matter how many press sources use it, its absolutely unnecessary as being plainly obvious (eg whether it is Fez or FEZ in the article is clear and obvious) The "(styliized as)" should be reserved for anything that is not allcaps in which there is a reasonably consistent agreement to how it is presented. Unfortunately, off the top of my head, I can't think of any games with this, but taking the movie "Seven" where it was branded as "Se7en" frequently, we'd just be using "Seven (stylized as 'Se7en')..." so that the read knows we're not playing around with the funky formating on the title here. You don't need to say that for just the allcaps variation. -Masem (t) 00:15, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Here's one example of a game with a stylized title: We Love Katamari (stylized as We ♥ Katamari). — Kawnhr (talk) 01:09, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
@PresN: if we do accept The Longing and Fez, where does it stop? I think we have a small consensus that all-caps isn't a significant stylization to make note in the article.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 06:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
The third example at TMRULES says to de-cap trademarks that use all caps unless it's an acronym. I think this is clear-cut. Remove the allcaps from Fez and The Longing. Axem Titanium (talk) 07:22, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
All caps stylisation doesn't need a source, most of the time it's right there in the cover art. "FEZ" and ":THE LONGING:" fit into this. Additionally, ":THE LONGING:" is how the game appears on Steam, even in a player's library. Harmonia per misericordia. OmegaFallon (talk) 19:37, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
I would normally say that consensus had agreed that we shouldn't make a note of it and left it at that, but I do believe education is important to make better articles. Think about how much media is out there in the world that just uses all caps on a cover or logo. It's not significant to point out. There are prominent video games such as Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Elders Scrolls, Super Mario, Mega Man, Legend of Zelda, etc. And it's not just video games. Other media such as children shows Sesame Street, Mister Roger's Neighborhood. There's also horror media too such as Dracula, It, Jaws. Everything listed here doesn't even come close to 1% of all media that uses all caps on a logo or on the cover. As for the stylization of ":THE LONGING:", the majority of the Steam page sticks with just "THE LONGING" everywhere else. I still don't think its really prevalent to use in the article. But others can discuss that here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk • contribs)
OmegaFallon, if numerous sources refer to it as ":THE LONGING:" with the colons either side, then I would consider including the stylisation as a footnote, but only because the colons are so unusual. (That said I would still hesitate to include it because I only the most unusual and defining stylisations - where the stylisation is unusually closely associated with the subject - are worth mentioning. Others might disagree.) Popcornfud (talk) 20:24, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

":THE LONGING:" being how it is in the Steam library is about as "official" as it gets. Why should it matter what the press uses? They can very well be incorrect, and not using the proper stylisation. Harmonia per misericordia. OmegaFallon (talk) 04:06, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

We don't necessarily use the official name. How reliable sources write it and what Wikipedia's guidelines say is also part of it. I would definitely not recommend writing ":THE LONGING:" throughout the article, that's just distracting and unnecessary. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 10:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia rules clearly state that stylizations aren't grounds for capitalizing titles. See WP:ALLCAPS. They need a specific reason for being capitalized, like an acronym.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 11:03, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

The Last of Us 2

More input is needed at Talk:The Last of Us Part II#Adding caveat to Metacritic scores regarding how to handle the reception section. OceanHok (talk) 15:56, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I concur. There's a couple of autoconfirmed/confirmed users who are contesting using Metacritic's consensus due to how it aggregates a game's score based on unscored reviews. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 16:50, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
There's still been little progress made over on the article's talk page, specifically with regards to the phrasing of the reception consensus in the lede, in addition to how the game's Metacritic score has been aggregated based on scored and unscored reviews. A reduction in protection level has been refused until a consensus on the talk page has been reached. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 21:13, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
Reliably sourced or not, this seems wildly out of step. A section detailing a games' critical reception now begins by questioning the methodology and usefulness of Metacritic to determine a fair aggregate score because it does not assign a weight to unscored reviews. Is this something can we add to every project page moving forward providing we have a reliable source? — Niche-gamer 13:41, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Even worse, the page somewhat distorts Riley MacLeod's opinion. Although his piece was prompted by the wider reception to The Last of Us 2, he is making a general observation about Metacritic as a whole.
"There are a lot of problems with Metacritic: the effects ratings have on game developers and the ease with which players can abuse them, to name a few. Basing your sense of a game’s quality on numbered review scores is itself a fool’s errand; Metacritic scores fail to take into account the diverse critical opinions of the game (several user reviews accuse these positive critical scores of being paid for) and the plentiful non-scored reviews (such as Kotaku’s, among others)."
Which has been twisted to read
Riley MacLeod of Kotaku opined that Metacritic's aggregate score for this title "fail[s] to take into account the diverse critical opinions of the game" by excluding unscored critic reviews.
We should cover this games reception the same way we do every other article. — Niche-gamer 14:05, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Sonic the Hedgehog/archive1

Hey! I've nominated a WPVG article, Sonic the Hedgehog, for peer review here. If anyone has time, I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't mind taking a look at the article. Thanks! JOEBRO64 23:40, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Wirehead (video game) AfD Notice

Just thought I post here, if anyone is interested, notice the AfD which has been there since the morning. Govvy (talk) 20:50, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

On that topic, would it be wise to add active video game-related AfDs to {{WPVG announcements}} so they can get more attention? WP:VG/D is linked in the "Articles that need" section, but AfDs seem a little more time-sensitive and collaborative than, say, articles that need infoboxes or cover art. – Rhain ☔ 01:09, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Video game-related AfDs pop up at WP:VG/AA. Isn't that updated daily? soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 08:55, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
It is, but I don't think that list gets much attention. {{WPVG announcements}} is on every VG talk page so it would definitely get more eyes. – Rhain ☔ 00:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
I think WP:VG/D works fine, it also seems like we need to have this conversation a couple times a year to remind newer or semi-active editors that it exists. So maybe visibility could be improved or something? Sergecross73 msg me 14:24, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
The current GA nominees are populated automatically using some complicated code at Template:WPVG announcements/shell. It's not impossible but it wouldn't be trivial to replicate that functionality for XFDs. Axem Titanium (talk) 21:10, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Automatic updates through code would be neat, but I don't even think it's entirely necessary—FACs, FLCs, GARs, and PRs are still updated manually. Even if it's not entirely up-to-date at all times, it would get more visibility than it currently does. Failing that, though, perhaps we could start mentioning it in Review threads, or starting a new thread specifically for XfDs every few weeks. – Rhain ☔ 00:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I've configured Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article alerts/AfD and can ping Pppery to bestow some fancy regex similar to what was used for the GANs but first would need to know how y'all want the AfDs to display.
    ConBravo! (6 participants; relisted) · Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle (1 participant)
Something like this, perhaps? czar 06:24, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah that looks great! Maybe don't need to bold every article but other than that, I'm very happy with it. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Removed bold czar 22:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
@Pppery, similar to what you did for the GANs in Template:WPVG announcements/shell, there is interest above if you would be able to regex Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article alerts/AfD into the above format for use in our announcements template. czar 21:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
It took me about an hour, but  Coded at Template:WPVG announcements/sandbox * Pppery * it has begun... 22:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Looks really good, thanks Pppery! Axem Titanium (talk) 20:25, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Live with a few other tweaks. Nicely done, Pppery! We could ostensibly automate the display of featured articles/lists/topics, peer reviews, and good article assessments, as those each could be separated from the Article alerts report just as the AfDs were, but I'll leave it alone for now. czar 16:04, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
@Czar: The page got protected as high-vis template, so the bot can't update it anymore. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 19:14, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
@Hellknowz, what would work best for you as the maintainer or how have other WikiProjects handled this? Could exempt the one page, exempt all ^Wikipedia:.*\/Article alerts, request the template editor user right for the bot, or something else? czar 22:34, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
@Czar: I've never had this issue before. No other report has ever been this highly protected, because none are transcluded to such massive number of pages. I don't think the bot should have extra rights just for this. So excluding this page in MusikBot's config seems best. I don't think malicious edits are an issue, because it's a very non-obvious location. But we could semi- or extended- protect it. I don't think other pages (i.e. all report pages) need exclusion, just this one. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 09:31, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
@Hellknowz, if I configured it correctly, I think we should be good now. I'll keep an eye out and thanks for the heads up! czar 03:33, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Yep, looks good. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 11:34, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Yesterday I fD'ed {{Games based on Arthurian legends}} and {{Computer Olympiads}}; I see that the latter was listed at today's article announcements, the Arthurian legends one wasn't, probably because it was never tagged with the WP:VG banner on its talk page. If I add the banner now, will it pop up sometime later? soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 09:36, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, if you add/remove banners, then the entry will get added/removed from the appropriate reports. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 11:11, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, the banner is the trigger, so it should be in the next report. --PresN 13:38, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
@Soetermans, it'll be in the main report but not the WPVG announcements experiment mentioned above (which is just AfDs). czar 03:33, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Formatting errors in updated template

Hello all. I fix Special:LintErrors in pages throughout Template space, and {{WPVG announcements/shell}} and the pages it is transcluded in popped up on the reports today. The main problem is that the AfDs section is truncated in the middle of a bolded word, which leaves an unclosed bold tag, not to mention awkwardly displayed text. What I see right now at the end of the AfD section is:

The word "relisted" is truncated, and the closing span tag and bold formatting are hence missing (I have added them here.) I am sure that truncation is undesirable. If the intent is to include only some of the AfD listing, it would probably be best to truncate at a line break. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:11, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Jonesey95, thanks! Fixed. czar 22:18, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Czar, thanks for the quick fix. All affected pages look much better now, and show no Linter errors. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:55, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
A stray </noinclude> today. (The report "trims" entries for transclusions when there's a lot.) :) —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:05, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Xbox Series S

@Masem: I'm sure you have your finger on the pulse of the news but looks like a lot of leaks/rumors for the lower priced new Xbox is breaking today. -- ferret (talk) 22:11, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Grand Theft Auto V and Cyberpunk 2077 for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in 2021

Been trying to add Grand Theft Auto V (PS5 and XSX versions) and Cyberpunk 2077 (PS5 and XSX versions) to the 2021 list, because they have been officially announced. Why is it being removed by a user every single time? Can GTA V and CP2077 for the PS5 and XSX be added into that list permanently? Bolt 995 (talk) 18:25, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Jalen Folf (talk) 18:40, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
It's being removed because that page isn't for ports, it's for games that are both original and haven't released yet (and go beyond 2020). ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:46, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Mmm... they're being removed due to being ports? I don't feel that's valid. Backwards compatibility being excluded, I completely agree with, but if a game is getting an official release on the platform, an actual port or remaster, then it should be listed. For that matter, CP2077 isn't out yet. -- ferret (talk) 22:36, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Ferret, I'm personally not against adding ports/regional releases (the year in gaming articles handle it this way), but I could have sworn it was something that we discussed before. That list is formatted weirdly in general, since we include 2021 games despite having enough for a standalone article. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:20, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@Dissident93: Apologies, I assumed this was about the actual list articles of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. I see it's about List of video games in development. In that case, no, ports that get released later do not place a game as in development in 2021, IMO. -- ferret (talk) 22:28, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

New Draft Pages

I have created a handful of new draft pages, eg. Draft:Ness (EarthBound), Draft:Poké Ball, and Draft:Team Rocket, that I would appreciate some help on. They were all older articles that were deleted at some point and I wish to bring them back. (Oinkers42) (talk) 17:20, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I don’t think you’re in the right track in proving the notability of Pokeball. It’s written like a wikia article - lengthy recounting of all this trivial in-universe detail. My first point of help would be to read WP:INU. Sergecross73 msg me 18:04, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree, all three of these I find very dubious. Ness I could possibly see getting his own article due to him coming from a very popular game and being in Super Smash Bros., but I doubt that either Pokeball or Team Rocket could get pages. It's really just fan-cruft, and nothing that could institute significant coverage. They're best left off as mentions in other articles. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 18:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
My rationalization for those two were that the Poké Ball was an iconic video game item and the symbol of the Pokémon franchise and The Pokémon Company as well as, for Team Rocket's case, nudging the article more in the direction of being representative of the anime. These articles are simply just the base at the moment, however I do believe they have potential and could meet notability requirements.(Oinkers42) (talk) 18:48, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
The Ness article I must note does have a lot of fluff in the reception section, as well as some invalid sources like Gamerant. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 22:07, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
And maybe you’re right, maybe notability can be proven. But writing 10 unsourced paragraphs about how a Pokeball functions is 100% not the correct way to go about doing this. Sergecross73 msg me 22:41, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Next Generation Magazine reviews completed

It took just about two years but by the end of April 2020, I was finally done with my project of going through every single entry at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Reference library/Next Generation Magazine, adding a citation and quote from every review to each article for each game, and creating articles whenever one did not already exist. Most of the games (90% at least) did not already cite Next Generation as a review source, so I am glad I started it. I started this project as a way to break up my regular work on citing tabletop gaming article (which is a much bigger challenge than citing video game articles), after seeing JimmyBlackwing adding citations to video game articles that I had started in the past, and finding out that all issues of Next Generation were freely available on archive.org.

As you can see at this version of the page before I started working on it, there are a lot of redlinks under the "reviews" column, but there were far more previously. While most of the redlinks were for articles that had been deleted or were never created, many of the redlinks (which you can still see in that version) were due to misspellings and typos, and other incorrect names. Additionally, many of the bluelinks on that page were actually bad links as well, linking to anything from the game series instead of the individual game, disambiguation pages, different games altogether, and completely incorrect pages. The lists themselves appeared to have been listed mostly in alphabetical order, but sometimes poorly so, so I instead re-ordered them by console in the order they appeared in the magazine, which I think is more helpful (especially when, in some of the earlier issues, the same game was reviewed more than once for each console, in the same issue). I did all of this reformatting, correcting, and updating as I went.

I created many new stub articles for games which did not already have articles, building them from scratch or from existing redirects, and I split articles from series pages or pages on related games or even the articles of the publishers in some cases. I started them as stubs, partly because video games are not my main area of interest and I am sure they would be better built by someone who actually is interested, and partly because you have to start somewhere and I feel that people are a lot more likely to work on something which actually exists than to start it on their own. I also restored a number of articles that had been redirected or deleted for notability reasons. I want to take a moment to look at the best parts of this effort; not to brag on anything I have done, but to show the possibilities for people who are looking for something to build on.

First of all, the two articles that I am happiest at having started or restarted, and in fact they were among the earliest ones that I got to from issue #2 of Next Generation. Burning Soldier, deleted at AFD in 2008 for lack of notability (nominated 7 minutes after it was created), was since built up fantastically by KGRAMR after I brought it back. Doctor Hauzer, which started off as one of my many stubs and built up beautifully by Haitch2PointOh in a single edit. I would also give honorable mention to KGRAMR's rebuild of Hover Strike, which I restored from a PROD deletion.

Next, there are many articles which have been built up to some degree by users such as those already mentioned above, and on at least one of these articles, Salvidrim!, Red Phoenix, Rugger80, Waxworker, Martin IIIa, Angeldeb82, TerryHeyBleeper, Jovanmilic97, MiasmaEternal, Judgesurreal777, Neverrainy and more, so thanks to them!: Family Feud (video game series), Motocross Championship, Rugby World Cup '95, The Shadow (video game), NASCAR Racing (video game), Virtuoso (video game), Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon S (3DO game), College Football USA 96, Zone Hunter, PGA Tour 96, Blade Force, Arcade America, Felony 11-79, NFL GameDay 98, NHL FaceOff 98, Armor Command, Redneck Rampage Rides Again, Uprising X, Chocobo's Dungeon 2, and Gradius III and IV, being the best available examples of improvement.

And finally, there are many more stubs with little more than my Next Generation review and in some cases some additional development in the reception section, waiting for any interested parties to show them some love one day, including the following:

Extended content
John Madden Football (1994 video game), PaTaank, PGA Tour Golf 486, Battlecorps, The Masked Rider: Kamen Rider ZO, Real Pinball, Shadow: War of Succession, Iron Angel of the Apocalypse, Ultraman (video game), VR Stalker, After Burner Complete, Alien Gate, Kether (video game), Armored Fist, Shanghai: Triple-Threat, Station Invasion, World Cup Golf: Hyatt Dorado Beach, PegLeg (video game), U.S. Navy Fighters, Zephyr (video game), Bouncers (video game), Midnight Raiders, NHL All-Star Hockey '95, PGA Tour Golf III, Tama: Adventurous Ball in Giddy Labyrinth, Gazillionaire, Zeppelin (video game), NBA Action '95, The Flintstones (Ocean Software), The Ren & Stimpy Show: Time Warp, Atari 2600 Action Pack, Front Lines, Retribution (video game), ESPN NBA Hangtime '95, Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings, No Escape (video game), Seal of the Pharaoh, Renegade: The Battle for Jacob's Star, Shanghai: Great Moments, Zorro (1995 video game), Rapid Deployment Force: Global Conflict, The Adventures of Mighty Max, Sonic Blast Man II, Cosmic Race, Gotha (video game), R.B.I. Baseball '95, Extractors, HardBall IV, Maabus, Sensory Overload (video game), IMG International Tour Tennis, NCAA Final Four Basketball, Pebble Beach Golf Links (video game), Worldwide Soccer: Sega International Victory Goal Edition, Slam 'N Jam '95, Trip'd, The Pure Wargame, Tank Commander (video game), HardBall 5, Triple Play Baseball (video game), Zhadnost: The People's Party, Eco: East Africa, Celtic Tales: Balor of the Evil Eye, Powerhouse (video game), World Hockey 95, Paparazzi!: Tales of Tinseltown, C.E.O. (video game), D-Day: America Invades, NFL Pro League Football, Savage Warriors, Prime Time Football '96, Black Fire (video game), NHL All-Star Hockey (Sega Saturn game), Flying Nightmares, Mazer (video game), Agile Warrior F-111X, Boxer's Road, CyberSpeed, Werewolf vs. Comanche, College Football's National Championship II, VR Troopers (video game), NBA In The Zone (video game), Space Griffon VF-9, Power Move Pro Wrestling, Hang-On GP, Empire II: The Art of War, Peter Jacobson's Golden Tee 3D Golf, NHL FaceOff (video game), Scramble Cobra, Epidemic (video game), Skeleton Warriors (video game), Thexder 95, Virtual Karts, Druid: Daemons of the Mind, Hyper 3-D Pinball, Top Gun: Fire At Will, Shellshock (video game), NBA ShootOut (video game), NHL Powerplay '96, Dinotopia (video game), VR Soccer, Adidas Power Soccer, Olympic Soccer, Striker '96, Virtual Open Tennis, Fire Fight, Pool Champion, Total Mayhem (video game), Marsupilami (game), Tokyo Highway Battle, Project Horned Owl, True Pinball, American Civil War: From Sumter to Appomattox, Manic Karts, Private Eye (1996 video game), Tracer (game), College Football USA 97, NCAA Gamebreaker, NHL FaceOff '97, Pitball, F-22 Lightning II, Slamscape, NBA In the Zone 2, Blam! Machinehead, Bedlam (1996 video game), NBA Full Court Press, Robotron X, NeoHunter, DragonHeart: Fire & Steel, Peak Performance (video game), Scorched Planet, Wages of War, TigerShark, Jetfighter III, Front Page Sports: Football Pro '97, FIFA Soccer 64, BRAHMA Force: The Assault On Beltlogger 9, Buster Bros. Collection, NBA ShootOut '97, K-1 The Arena Fighters, League of Pain, VR Baseball '97, Banzai Bug, Scarab (game), Battle Stations (1997 video game), Grand Slam (video game), Triple Play 98, Air Warrior II, All-Star Baseball '97 featuring Frank Thomas, Rush Hour (video game), Fallen Haven, F/A-18 Hornet 3.0, D-Xhird, Quo Vadis 2, Comanche 3, Into the Void (video game), Kickoff '97, Meat Puppet (video game), Gundam 0079: The War for Earth, iF-22 Raptor, Creatures (artificial life program), XCar: Experimental Racing, PGA Tour 98, VMX Racing, Virus (1997 video game), Battle Girl, Bug Riders, Courier Crisis, Steel Reign, Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Midway Collection 2, NCAA Gamebreaker 98, Sega Worldwide Soccer '98, Sabre Ace: Conflict Over Korea, Robotron 64, Lode Runner (1998 video game), Micro Machines V3, Andretti Racing, Air Warrior III, NBA In The Zone '98, Newman/Haas Racing (video game), Judge Dredd (1997 video game), NCAA March Madness 98, Alien Earth, NFL Blitz (video game), All-Star Baseball '99, Tennis Arena, Burnout Championship Drag Racing, Star Trek Pinball, Ultimate Race Pro, Rocky Mountain Trophy Hunter: Interactive Big Game Hunting, Game, Net & Match, MLB '99, VR Baseball '99, Extreme Tactics, NFL GameDay 99, Team Losi RC Racer, NCAA Football 99, Emergency, Microsoft Revenge of Arcade, Knockout Kings, VR Baseball 2000, Barrage (video game), Uprising 2: Lead and Destroy, Contender (video game), NBA In The Zone '99, MLB 2000, All-Star Baseball 2000, NFL 2K (video game), Championship Motocross featuring Ricky Carmichael, Sled Storm (1999 video game), Official Formula One Racing, NFL Blitz 2000, NFL Game Day 2000, NFL Xtreme 2, RC Stunt Copter, F-16 Aggressor, NHL FaceOff 2000, You Don't Know Jack, Braveheart, MTV Sports: Snowboarding, Knockout Kings 2000, SuperCross Circuit, Deer Avenger 2: Deer in the City, NBA In The Zone 2000, Virtua Striker 2, Deception III: Dark Delusion, Wall Street Trader 2000, Industrial Spy: Operation Espionage, Rock the Rink, Invictus, Break Neck, N.GEN Racing, NFL GameDay 2001, Swing Away Golf, NFL Blitz 2001, Monster Rancher Battle Card Episode II, Ball Breakers, Enemy Engaged: RAH-66 Comanche vs. KA-52 Hokum, Gungriffon Blaze, Mike Tyson Boxing, MTV Sports: Skateboarding, Q-Ball: Billiards Master, Real Pool, Super Runabout: San Francisco Edition, NCAA GameBreaker 2001, ESPN NBA 2Night, Surf Rocket Racers, HBO Boxing (video game), The Mummy (video game), Power Spike: Pro Beach Volleyball, Stupid Invaders, Kengo: Master of Bushido, NCAA Final Four 2001, Supercross 2001, NHL FaceOff 2001, Serious Sam: The First Encounter, ESPN National Hockey Night (2001 video game), World's Scariest Police Chases (video game), Pearl Harbor: Defend the Fleet, MX 2002 featuring Ricky Carmichael, Sports Jam, Off-Road Redneck Racing, NCAA Football 2002, Motocross Mania

I needed a break! LOL  :) BOZ (talk) 00:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I really don't like the way you decided to go about doing this. Most of the time you just cram a random, out-of-context quote from a Next Generation review into an article. You've done this on several GAs, which don't match the writing style used in those articles and don't belong there. I'd wish you'd actually incorporate them into the writing instead of just tossing it on there. This needs to be fixed. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 00:14, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Editing on this scale necessitates some stylistic imprecision. I for one applaud BOZ's dedication to a huge sourcing job that no other Wikipedian would've attempted. Polishing the results can be handled later, by other users with smaller edit-loads. What's important is that the citations exist, the material has been included and we no longer have to go hunting in the dark for Next Generation reviews ever again. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
We should all give the same treatment for GameFan don't you guys think? There are some seriously awesome stuff to be found in those GameFan issues that I wonder why nobody has updated its reference library more often. Now in the regard of articles that need to be improved, I'm calling dibs on Steamgear Mash, Swagman, and Zone Hunter... Roberth Martinez (talk) 04:35, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
That said, if there are any specific articles where I need to go back and clean up anything I added, let me know and I will have a look. BOZ (talk) 04:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Wow congratulations on finishing this worklist BOZ and thanks for devoting such a quantity of your efforts and volunteer time to video games, it's highly appreciated. Some people have expressed irritation at the perceived low-quality of some of your contributions or that some of them were made logged-out but I'm a strong believer in WP:PUTEFFORT, and like you, I believe a stub with even a single cite is infinitely more helpful to readers and more likely to be improved on than a dead redlink. And adding MORE sources to existing articles is never a bad thing, even if it's initially dropped as a barelink or not fully-formatted. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 06:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Great job, BOZ! Nothing to add to what has been already said here by now. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 08:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • "video games are not my main area of interest" - (spends two years adding reviews to articles on old games and making video game stubs). I think it might be somewhat of an interest at this point! The exact way you added the reviews may not have been perfect, but I think overall this was a massive contribution to the project and wikipedia as a whole, so, thank you! --PresN 14:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
A vigorous and persistent side project, then? LOL Thanks. :) BOZ (talk) 14:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I was able to take Monster Truck Madness to GA status, it had a Next Generation review. Iias!:,,.:yyI 05:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm planning to improve more articles with Next Generation reviews in them. Iias!:postb□xI 12:20, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Awesome, User:I'm Aya Syameimaru!, I can't wait to see what you do. :) BOZ (talk) 17:23, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

[year] in video games articles are a disaster

I was just thumbing through them and holy spit, the lack of consistency is wild. It's not at all clear when a game's release is in the US or Japan or what, some years use completely different formats, etc. Does anyone have the gumption to come up with a standardized format for these articles? lol - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 23:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

It’s a Wikipedia-wide issue. When I started creating the “year in rock music” articles a few years back, I looked around for a common standard...and couldn’t find it, so I had to create my own. That’s probably the best path forward here too - create a template now. Sergecross73 msg me 23:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah. I think the best idea would be to identify the region of every release and platform. Game of the year awards could also be an idea. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 23:55, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
These articles should be generally from broad coverage to detailed, as with any other topic:
  • Broad coverage of the major year events
  • Key awards of the year. If we can figure out to do a succint GOTY summary as well (eg a single source that counts and adds all GOTY lists such that we can list the top 5-10 games from that list, that would be fair)
  • Key financial drivers
  • Detailed events, starting from the industry level (trade shows, conferences, eSports events, major business events), then hardware (since their so few) and finally software. On the software, these should not be detailed release tables (that's what the platform lists are for!) and I think the level of detail we have now there is even too high. We also need to keep these to notable (blue-linked, standalone articles or games that clearly will have them, such as the next Ratchet & Clank game, avoiding random indie titles).
  • More recent years should probably summary and link to major eSport events. --Masem (t) 03:36, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
Not always. Not all notable subjects have articles. - X201 (talk) 11:11, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
We should really raise the threshold for inclusion. Random indie titles and very niche games that didn't get mainstream attention should be removed from such lists. Games that aren't significantly reviewed by at least several mainstream RS should also probably be removed. If we only include the date the game is first released, these lists will also be a bit shorter as well. For instance, Trover Saves the Universe was listed four times in the same list because it was released on 4 different platforms on 4 different dates in the same year. OceanHok (talk) 12:28, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
That'd be somewhat unhelpful. For instance, a game may come out one year in Japan, and another year in America. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 12:54, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
See, this to me is one of the problems with these lists. It should only be for the first release of the game regardless of platform or release. Though remasters/remakes/collections would be tracked separately for this purpose (but here again, only the first release of that remaster/remake/collection). Otherwise, we enter too many levels of detail of release kudzu for a table that should be a broad coverage of releases for the year. --Masem (t) 21:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
To me, for someone to say, go into a list looking to see what games were released in 1997, they might be surprised to find out that certain games were missing. As such, I think it may be confusing to readers. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 23:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia already does this with categories, though: Castlevania was a 1986 release in Japan, '87 in North America and '88 in Europe— and it's only part of the "1986 video games" category. — Kawnhr (talk) 03:38, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
The "[year] video games" categories do not serve the same purpose as the "[year] in video games" articles. To give a clear example, Persona 5 was a major video game release in 2017 in the west, (quote from its article) "considered to be one of the greatest role-playing games of all time" - it would be very out of place to not mention it as one of the releases of the year in an article about 2017 in video games, to the point of misleading, just because its Japanese release was in 2016.--AlexandraIDV 06:04, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
On the "not all notable subjects have articles", that's a reasonable starting point. If the game doesn't have its own page but we can point to its series article or to its developer (not publisher) where the game is discussed, that's good enough as well. --Masem (t) 21:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
Also, do you think we should include notable deaths? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 09:32, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

How much should Metacritic define how a game was reviewed?

There is sometimes a situation when the aggregated score that Metacritic has, doesn't match the general reception that Wikipedia has. And that's usually because Wikipedia doesn't take account of all the journalists that Metacritic does. So I wanted to ask if Metacritic considers a game "mixed or average" but the majority of the reliable sources are clearly on the negative side, should we still mention that it's considered "Mixed or Average" just because that's what Metacritic is classifying that?Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 09:03, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

We generally treat Metacritic as a reliable source in its own right. So, we should quote exactly what metacritic says. We can then say what individual reporters say. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:16, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
"Mixed" doesn't imply any lean toward positive *or* negative, nor a lack of a slight lean, so it should probably still be accurate?--AlexandraIDV 09:28, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I know, but I provided a situation where Metacritic would label something like "Mixed" but the reliable sources speak another story.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 09:36, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
It is not for us to come to our own conclusion. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:06, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not saying that we should come to our own conclusion. But I think the reviews speak better for themselves if we don't put out what Metacritic labels. I'm not saying we don't use Metacritic, but their aggregated score and how many reviewed it should be enough. But that's my opinion. I"ll go with whatever the consensus says as this isn't that important to me, but would like clarity from more than one person. Just to feel reassured.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 10:12, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
We use Metacritic to provide a sourcable summarization of the reception, attributed directly to Metacritic. This practice began, and is now more or less enshrined in the MOS, because people would create their own summations and then edit war over it. There were two options: Stop listing any sort of overall reception, or list Metacritic's label with direct attribution. There's no world where we'd be able to successfully stop people from putting a summary, so using Metacritic became the standard to stop the general OR/EW. And for the MOST part, that has worked out. -- ferret (talk) 11:54, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If we don't use what MC says in one article, then we shouldn't use it elsewhere either. But consensus is to include their "summary" verbatim whenever applicable without any interpretation. I guess I agree it's a contradictory situation in some rare cases then, but I don't know how to resolve it without SYNTH issues. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 12:01, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, just state the MC summary verbatim and then write the reception section how you intended. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:31, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe this discussion is promoted by the ongoing disagreement at Talk:The Last of Us Part II. A number of editors are dissatisfied with Metacritic as a barometer for gauging a games "true" critical reception, questioning its rigour and completeness, wishing to add caveat(s) to the page highlighting the review score aggregator's inadequacies. — Niche-gamer 23:21, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Hmmmm yes, I thought that was the case but decided not to mention the obvious connection. Highlighting the review score aggregator's "inadequacies" is the height of WP:OR though, unless there's some secondary source discussing it. -- ferret (talk) 23:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, we aren't going to go into trying to cavaet anything on MC unless its a case like Black Mesa where they have stupidly mixed the reviews for two completely different versions of the same game. (which you can tell at an immediate glance [7]). There's nothing special how MC is handling TLOU2 despite what people wanting the unscored or user reviews to matter, we shouldn't be changing our approach for this to accomodate them. --Masem (t) 23:45, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Actually this is about Mount & Blade, which Blue is doing the GAN review for. Axem Titanium (talk) 00:22, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
I think that makes this issue stand out even more in that case, since it applies to several different articles. Personally, I would just omit Metacritic from prose since it's usually the same ol' copypasted statement that an summarized section of reviews does both more clearly and in greater detail. Their "tiers" are also somewhat odd and misleading, as a 89 game is "generally positive" but a 90 game is "universally acclaimed". ~ Dissident93 (talk) 02:04, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
I made this table in a prior discussion about Metacritic to illustrate how meaningless their summary labels can be:
Score index[1]
MC Bucket MC average MC percentile OC average OC percentile OC Bucket
Metacritic "Universal acclaim" 90–100 98–100 84-100 90-100 Mighty
Metacritic "Generally favorable" 75–89 60-98 75-83 60-90 Strong
Metacritic "Mixed or average" 50–74 8–60 66-74 30-60 Fair
Metacritic "Generally unfavorable" 20–49 1-8 0-65 0-30 Weak
Metacritic "Overwhelming dislike" 0–19 0-1 N/A N/A No 5th bucket
Notice how over 90% of all games fall into just the middle two buckets labeled "Generally favorable" and "Mixed/average". Not really interested in relitigating Opencritic right now but I'm definitely moving toward thinking that we should broadly stop recommending to use Metacritic summary adjectives as a default. Axem Titanium (talk) 03:29, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "How We Create the Metascore Magic". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 2015-09-28. Retrieved 2012-05-13.
Metacritic is a bit like junk science. Everyone quotes it and shares it before they actually read it. Koncorde (talk) 04:47, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
This actually had nothing to do with the Last of Us: Part II. I recognized that even if I disagree with the scores provided by reliable sources, that we should provide that. But I don't consider that the same for how Metacritic labels games based on their aggregated score. I actually brought this up because I was reviewing Mount & Blade. Metacritic is considering the game "Mixed or Average" despite the majority of the critics are disappointed in the game. I'm glad Axem Titanium brought their chart. I also brought this to WP:VG's attention because there is a List of video games notable for negative reception that don't all meet the criteria of "Mixed or Average".Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 05:45, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
It goes without saying that Metacritic is reliable. But the issue is the prominence of metacritic, treating it as absolute or authoritative when it's not. More and more high quality journalists have shifted away from numerical scores. There are also lots of reliable sources who have criticized Metacritic as a reliable source. So there's some holes in Metacritic. We often use metacritic to effectively summarize what the critics are thinking, by using it as the "lede" for the review section. But the formula now, by definition, fails to account for unscored reviews. We need to find new lede. Shooterwalker (talk) 05:58, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
What do we think about softening the language at WP:VG/REC? Currently it says Metacritic's qualitative summary often provides a satisfactory summary of a game's overall reception. As in the image to the right, The game received "mixed or average reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic. Avoid summative claims that cannot be explicitly verified in reliable, secondary sources.. I propose Metacritic's qualitative summary can provide a satisfactory summary of a game's overall reception. [remainder identical]. It's a minor change but I think the tenor of this discussion indicates that we'd largely feel better if we move away from formulaic requirements to discuss MC in prose. Axem Titanium (talk) 06:29, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
I think that's better. The outcome I wanted wasn't to remove them from the prose from all articles. My intention was to use them less, especially if the prose is painting a different outcome.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 18:22, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
I also support this. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:56, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not seeing the issue. That the overwhelming majority of Metacritic reviews are classified as positive or mixed (i.e., not negative) is reflective of the games press itself, which nearly never posts negative reviews. It's important to clarify that "mixed" is an ambiguous word that in this case means "middling" rather than "varied". By any sniff test, hearing that a game's aggregated reception was "mixed" is much more immediately edifying than hearing that it was "fair" or "weak". czar 19:30, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Metacritic tanked Obsidian getting a bonus for Fallout New Vegas because they got something like 94% instead of 95% based on an internal arbitrary scoring system. We should not be reinforcing their power any more than we should Rotten Tomatoes. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
The MC "label" is actually rather important in that it is the most impartial summary of a quick overview of a game's reception that we can do without OR. Without that, we have editors playing games on "mostly positively" "universally praised" etc. and other factors that isn't sustainable, unless there is that additional level of sourcing that does talk of the reception to a game on a whole by an RS. MC's label is a neutral way to assert the game's general reception without our original research. --Masem (t) 22:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
While the MC label is verifiable, the presumption that it is "neutral" or "impartial" is a stretch. MC is a business just like any other and businesses aren't impartial at all when it comes to their own products (in this case, their "product" is the MC score). 90% of all games on MC get labeled "mixed" or "generally favorable". If anything, that tells us that MC's label isn't particularly useful for providing the quick overview that we'd like it to. Yes, it's more work for editors to actually look at all the reviews to come up with a summary but it will ultimately make better articles as a result. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:20, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
It's not that MC's label is neutral, but it's a fixed data point that cannot be argued against. While it is certainly possible for editors to come up with a descriptive phrase and one that is neutral, this is often fought over or changed by others particularly if the game may be controversial. Eg, take the current TLOU2, we could easily say the game received a great deal of praise from critics but I can see one-off editors coming in and challenging that due to the few critical reviews that were negative against it and the user reviews. We take that issue away by leveraging the MC summary. --Masem (t) 22:34, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
It seems more of a crutch to prevent inexperienced editors changing it to what they personally think is best suited for it. But this becomes a problem when the label Metacritic provides doesn't match the reviews provided. I just don't think it should be used especially because Metacritic doesn't meet Wikipedia's standards on what is considered reliable. i also think its important to note that Metacritic's label system isn't designed around video game reviews and how they label a 5/10. I agree with Axem Titanium that it may require more work, but it's better to provide a more accurate summary based on what reviews are provided in the article.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 22:50, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
(ec) I don't think it solves that because, again with TLOU2 as an example, you then get an argument about MC itself and its ability to adequately summarize. I don't think enshrining Metacritic as an impartial arbiter that can't be argued against will actually reduce the amount of conflict in the long run in the way you think it will. For uncontroversial games, it will have no tangible benefit since people won't argue over it at all to begin with. For controversial games, people will find an aspect to argue about regardless of whether MC's label is afforded WPVG's blessing in the VGMOS. Between these two options, I think the more hands-off, let people work with fewer MOS handcuffs approach is better. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:54, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
I'd like to WP:AGF and trust editors, that they can read through sources and pick out the recurring themes. "Universally praised" is almost always inaccurate, and not especially useful. What are people universally praising? Which parts are they criticizing? All that said, I can see why it's nice to be able to just point to a single source instead of trying to summarize a wide swath of opinions. I have seen some articles effectively get review bombed, trying to cherrypick the opinions of the angry users from whatever sources they can find. If we do say that Metacritic isn't an authoritative summary of what the sources are saying, then we ought to offer some kind of guideline on how to avoid WP:NPOV and WP:OR in our editorial summary. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:13, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

this becomes a problem when the label Metacritic provides doesn't match the reviews provided

Where is this a widespread issue? czar 20:54, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

@Czar: Anything in the 50/100 range in my opinion. That score could've reached by unanimously thinking it was bad to just largely differing opinions. sometimes its accurate, but not always. For a game that's recognized as bad these days is around the 5/10 to 6/10. Yet metacritic score considers that as "mixed". it can be misleading, or just not what the prose of the reception section is actually saying.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 20:59, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Keep in mind there are hundreds of games released that do not get reviewed - these outlets simply don't have the time or effort for it, and they are only going to spend the time on AAA releases and high visibility indie games (eg your Celestes/Dead Cells/Slay the Spires) Ignoring the AAA, this is immediately going to swing the perceived "average" that we see out of these reviews to a 6-8 out of 10 range as they aren't going to go around review the bottom of the barrel Steam asset flips that would certainly pull 1's and 2's. Even if we still go to IGN's much joked "it's okay, 8/10" ratings system here, a 5 still an average game for them, they just don't do a lot of games that rate less than a 5 - of the 14500 reviews on MC, only 1600 are <5. [8]. Gamespot's in a similar boat. [9]. There's just too many games out there to effectively track.
The average though is more visible if we go back to a system like the Gamecube [10] where if you "squint" on all three pages you do see a curve that may be a little weighted in the 60-50 range , but that that also lists 500 of the 650-some GC games. Same story on most of the other legacy platforms. Its closer, but basically, the "shape" skews a little heavier than "average" but that's because reviewers don't want to review shovelware to start.
Basically, the idea is that "average" is not the "graded on the curve" average but what someone, having been playing games for much of their life, would consider to be an average game given all other factors equal and not otherwise trying to compare to any other title. So if the MC comes out as a 50-60 score and that's because all the other scores are 50-60 range, that's an average game by all means , and that's a fair descriptor.
Of course, if it that we have a number of 80-90s alongside 40-50s and the net score in the 50-60s then you can definitely call that "mixed" and make sure to explain that in the reception in more depth. --Masem (t) 21:41, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Your last sentence basically is suggesting that we would have to make the Metacritic label somehow work it into the prose of the Reception section, no matter what the reviews actually say. And that's not ok in my humble opinion. It gives Metacritic's label more power than it should. We should be given the freedom to use a more accurate description if reviews aren't painting a different picture. Here's a hypothetical: Let's say 5 reviewers gave a game a "40/100" and only 2 reviewers gave it a "90/100". The "Average" would be 54/100 (rounding to the nearest whole number). If Metacritic would to ever have a situation like this, it will call the game Mixed or Average. Even though by reviewers scales, the majority thought it was bad, and the minority liked it. Sure we can call it "mixed" but that's not an accurate portrayal.
It doesn't help anyone if what the reviews are actually saying contradicts the label Metacritic provides because that's all Metacritic is doing, its just label its own aggregation, not what the reviewers are actually saying.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 22:30, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

New Articles (June 22 to June 28)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.4 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 19:01, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

June 22

June 23

June 24

June 25

June 26

June 27

June 28

I've redirected the character Johnny Silverhand to Cyberpunk 2077, definitely WP:TOOSOON at this point and might not ever be stand-alone notable. Huge chunk about the character's fictional background and in-game appearance, very little on actual relevant information like creation, development, reception, etc. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 09:50, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

No PC reviews?

Yesterday I tried cleaning up Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4. While I think I found coverage of the first consoles, DLC expansion and Switch port, there seems to be nothing going on about the PC based on Metacritc. Could there be another site that reviewed the port? Same thing happened when I tried expanding The King of Fighters XIV. Cheers.Tintor2 (talk) 19:26, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Clockwork Aquario

So, knowing that a previously unreleased arcade title is coming soon to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, i dediced to make a draft for Westone's Clockwork Aquario (Tokei Jikake no Aquario) but since i'm currently doing another side-project here on Wikipedia (namely the arcade title rankings in Game Machine), i don't think i'm able to get it done if the game gets released sometime in 2020. I dedided to post the draft here (Draft:Tokei Jikake no Aquario) to see if anybody here is interested to turn it into a full-fledge article. I managed to get almost every sources and references related to the title, including development information that i hope is useful. Have a good day everybody! Roberth Martinez (talk) 02:34, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

A Category about Whips

I was wondering when making Draft:Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash I was wondering was there a category for whips in video games as Zip Lash's main gimmick is to use a power cord as a whip. As far as I can tell, there isn't, however I feel like whips are a prominant part of gaming and I was wondering should there be a category for this idea, such as Category:Video games that primarily uses whips or Category:Video game characters that use whips? Captain Galaxy (talk) 22:21, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Those categories are really trivial. GamerPro64 02:46, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
@Captain Galaxy: Here's my two cents about the draft; It looks good but i would recommend placing the gameplay section above the plot section, as people are more interested in how the game play instead of its in-game story. And creating a category for whips in video games is just too redundant to have its own category here. Roberth Martinez (talk) 12:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
That's also the MOS:VG recommendation for section order and would need switched for any future GA effort. -- ferret (talk) 12:40, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't know if there's much you don't already have, but I have a bunch of sources here. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 13:12, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
@KGRAMR:, @Ferret:, @Abryn:: Thanks for the input and I have indeed swapped the two sections so Gameplay goes first. Captain Galaxy (talk) 15:55, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Revisiting the issue of Early Access and Release dates now that Fortnite is "officially released"

We've had a debate about this a couple years ago but I think in light of Fortnite releasing we may want to revisit it. Currently the date for Fortnite: Save the World is listed as June 29th,2020 since it left early access as per how most games are handled. The problem is that it's been playable and largely complete since June of 2017, which was, until a day ago listed as the actual release date. Early access is interesting because in an age of games as a service it's somewhat questionable when a game is truly "done" and if we should be reporting when it was first available vs when a publisher gives the word that it's done. Like I said this is a discussion we've already had, however the release of Fortnite-a game that was so influential last decade. Saying in the infobox that it was released in another decade just sits the wrong way with me. In my opinion this seems almost arbitrary and I still maintain per the old debate that we should be listing both the Early Access date and the final release date in the infobox. --Deathawk (talk) 22:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Adjacently, Crucible (video game) has just been somehow... de-released. So good luck with that one as well. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 23:01, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't have a problem on case-by-case- basis like Fortnite here were we can recognize both dates in the infobox, given the unusual nature of its early access period. What I don't want to see happen is for games like, say, Hades or Slay the Spire, where while they used early access, these were not unusually prolonged periods and both clearly waved their arms well ahead of time "We're releasing here!", whereas Fortnite just tripped and fell over the released line for all purposes. As long as we treat Fortnite as the exception and not the rule, I'm fine with marking an "(early access)" and "release" in the infobox here. --Masem (t) 23:12, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
There is no need to complicate things, simply list the original date in the lead and infobox and keep all the extra details in the release section. Save the World is different since it had a clear release out of early access, while the Battle Royale and Creative simply had labels attached to it because of Save the World (and thus removed). ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:03, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
And that creates an impression when you do that that FBR was "first" which is absolutely wrong. Reading what exactly Epic says, it is not like they are retroactively removing the label from the release in 2017, but dropping the label of early access from all versions going forward now too. That also aligns with how the media has treated it. --Masem (t) 21:31, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
In my humble opinion, we should list Early Access and Official releases. If the reviewers are reviewing the game as is, even if it's not officially released yet, it's worth mentioning.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 22:05, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
That makes sense. I also see it as especially important in a case like this since as mentioned it would imply the battle royale mode was the original release.--69.157.254.92 (talk) 22:27, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Masem, so they consider the "official" release date for Save the World to also be its original early access date? In that case, that makes this even more of a reason to not complicate things. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:39, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
No, the situation as best as I can tell is that up until June 28, 2020, all three parts of Fortnite were "early access" (as per [11] on Oct 2019, "When you load up any incarnation of Fortnite, you’ll still get a big ‘early access’ label in the upper right corner of the screen.") Whether it was because that "ea" title was lingering due to StW (which is what the Epic blog implies) or across all modes, its not clear, but we do know that as of June 30 , 2020 all three modes are now officially v1.0, no longer early access. That's how we should present it which matches what is observable and minimizes all confusion. --Masem (t) 20:53, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Per the discussion here I have updated the game's infobox you can find a permalink here. I still think that this is a conversation that needs to be had at some point. While Save the World is a special case right now, I do not anticipate it to be an outlier. At the same time I can understand @Masem:'s point about not wanting to overdo it. However it may be, going forward what has to be done in order to keep things reliable. I don't have the answers right now but it's something that we should think about. --Deathawk (talk) 05:20, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Additional participation at Talk:Grand Theft Auto V#Merge accolades list

I opened this discussion almost three weeks ago and there hasn't been any uptake. Please clap? Axem Titanium (talk) 03:35, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

This discussion about Uncharted 4's accolades list has been open for even longer. Thanks, Axem Titanium (talk) 23:22, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Been slacking on these announcements but we have a Featured List on the front page right now. Congrats all around. GamerPro64 01:58, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I worked real hard to bring that list to FL status. Glad to see that it made the front page. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 15:35, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Contended PROD of Pokémon lists

Bringing this discussion here for additional input on the sub-lists for Pokémon: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII

@Arkhandar: The Pokémon lists have been a long-standing, albeit contentious, feature on Wikipedia. I spent considerable time working with WP:VG to reorganize and condense the multitude of lists and provide an easier avenue to convey relevant information. The lists do not violate WP:NOTACATALOG as ample information can be provided for almost every Pokémon (but not enough for an article for most). The empty listings that would lean toward just a simple listing can be fixed with someone adding content. Issues with WP:GAMECRUFT are partly my fault due to my lack of understanding of how to handle VG articles. I'm primarily a hurricane editor so this is far outside my comfort zone. But these can be easily remedied by someone who can rework the information into an encyclopedic format. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 22:15, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cyclonebiskit: Thanks for reaching out! You're right that the lists wouldn't violate violate WP:NOTACATALOG if there were ample encyclopedic content to be described in the majority of its entries. However, as is, this is not the case and WP:GAMECRUFT is widespread out of proportion. I realize that it might be out of your comfort zone to rework the information into an encyclopedic format, but that's what WP:DRAFTs are for. Until its in encyclopedic format, it has no place in an article. Furthermore, you don't contest deletion by deleting the deletion discussion notices. I'm going to re-add them, so please don't revert back to avoid an edit war. I'll also start a discussion in WP:VG, so please refrain to only commenting there. Thanks! ~ Arkhandar (message me) 22:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC) Edited: Didn't realize this wasn't my talk page. Ups! :D ~ Arkhandar (message me) 22:34, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
@Arkhandar: Please do not re-tag these. Once a PROD tag has been removed, for ANY REASON AT ALL, or even NONE at all, by the article creator or not, it cannot be added back. I can say with nearly 100% certainly none of these lists would be deleted at AFD, especially if the general concerns are the content and GAMECRUFT. Also, we're already at WP:VG. -- ferret (talk) 22:33, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
@Ferret: Thanks for the heads up! Didn't realize that ~ Arkhandar (message me) 22:37, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
@Arkhandar: the generational lists have been up since February 2016 so moving them to draftspace would be a disservice at this point. I personally think it's fine for an article to be in mainspace even if they're not perfectly up to par if they have the potential to become a solid article. That's what the maintenance tags are for, no? Some of the lists need more work than others, but properly filling out all entries is a monumental task. Research needs to be done in English and Japanese as a lot of development info is likely only in Japanese interviews. We're up to 1,013 entries: 896 species, 48 Mega/Primal, 18 Alolan, 19 Galarian, and 32 Gigantamax. Mega/Primal/Gmax could probs be merged back into the individual species but that really doesn't change how much effort this will take. It needs community effort and the best way is to have them widely visible, especially if they're at least serviceable enough to be in mainspace. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 16:40, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@Cyclonebiskit: I would argue that in order to conform with Wikipedia guidelines, it would be a better service to the community and readers if the current encyclopedic content (naturally excluding WP:GAMECRUFT) be merged back into either the video game or series articles. Maintenance tags are only appropriate as a warning to readers and reminder for editors, not when most of the article blatantly violates guidelines, and especially considering there are other wikis that are more complete and appropriate for the sort of information these articles convey. ~ Arkhandar (message me) 16:57, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I do not agree with the deletion of the lists. While the lists could use more strengthening, I view them as notable in the same way that a list of games would be notable, even though not all games will necessarily also be notable. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 19:04, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Sources on Moon Ho Joon

Hi everyone,

Before I unnecessarily go through AfD, I thought I check here first. I noticed that Trivialist prod'ed the article on South Korean professional gamer Moon Ho Joon, which was de-prod'ed by Andrew Davidson. There are a ton of references, all in Korean. I can't find anything on Moon Ho Joon (and other spellings) or on Moon Ho-jun, which is also mentioned in the article. I'm not familiar with the professional gaming scene and the like, but shouldn't there be at least some coverage by international - in this case, not solely Korean - sources? soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 12:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

C'mon, of course I know that we don't have to use only English-language sources. And that's not what I meant, I can't find a single non-Korean language reliable source on a professional gamer. Isn't that the least bit strange, in this day and age? Category:South Korean esports players has sixty entries, plenty of which are referenced by English-language sources. But then again, like I said, I'm not into esports and maybe I'm missing something. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 13:27, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
Somewhat, but, if Wikipedia is to take any strides in fighting Wikipedia:Systemic bias we have to try to include topics that aren't necessarily garnering US/EU coverage. -- ferret (talk) 13:55, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
Granted, we still need to check whether the individual sources used are actually reliable. IceWelder [✉] 14:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
The article is much longer than the Korean language counterpart article and it's written by a new user. I don't see any obvious copyvio but I don't know if it's a machine/manual translation of an existing work in Korean. The user appears to be a student in university taking some sort of Wikipedia class, perhaps? A cursory glance suggests that the topic appears to be notable so I would focus on the potential copyvio and OR. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:03, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Help requested at WP:RM

Can WikiProject members have a look at Talk:GunBound#Requested move 22 June 2020? TIA Andrewa (talk) 09:14, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Alphabetical order in list articles

A small thing. Which method of sorting is recommended for list articles. See Alphabetical order#Treatment of multiword strings. MoS wasn't helpful. — Niche-gamer 10:22, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Niche-gamer, could you elaborate? What kind of list article do you have in mind? A list of characters would go from main characters to minor characters, a list of video game releases would be chronological for instance. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 10:33, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
  • If your question only refers to the styles shown in the article about alphabetical orders with spaced names, note that Wikipedia's table-sorting functionality uses the former of the two, wherefore it should be used in tables for consistency (see the following example given in dictionary order). I suppose the same could be applied to lists as well. I highly doubt that there is a guideline on this. IceWelder [✉] 10:39, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Name
Oak
Oak Hill
Oakley Park
Oakley River
Oak Ridge

Nintendo Switch 9th Gen

In April 2018, we came to a consensus that the Nintendo Switch was an 8th gen console. However, things have changed since then and I believe that we can now consider the Switch to be a 9th gen console. Not only have Microsoft and Sony announced the Xbox Series X and PS5 respectively while Nintendo has not announced a successor, but this source considers the Switch to be a 9th gen console. GamerKiller2347 (talk) 05:15, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Nope, neither new console is out yet, so we have no idea how the media will compare them yet. It will take several months after the consoles are out to determine how the media treats them. --Masem (t) 05:19, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
The linked article (from two years ago) isn't even sure if Switch is 9th generation and takes pains to point out how weird and inconsistent determinations of generations are. Axem Titanium (talk) 08:26, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
You can’t make the claim “things have changed” and then present a single source. If we handled it like that, then we’d be switching it every time a website mentioned it in passing. It could be worth looking into eventually, but wait until things have actually changed - as in, new consoles are out and many sources are declaring it 9th gen. Sergecross73 msg me 10:59, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Need some eyes on Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

A user has been bouncing around IPs adding trivial and unnecessary information to Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. I've had some fun with the edit descriptions, but since I've reverted the edit three times I don't want to break WP:3RR. Famous Hobo (talk) 10:29, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

FYI, this is not remotely correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection#Zero_Escape:_Virtue's_Last_Reward. Please actually get the full story, and help to moderate the situation, if you can, instead of simply slinging muck from behind a fence. --2A02:C7F:3A2B:3B00:8C7D:B3C6:69E7:87E3 (talk) 10:31, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

The IP has been blocked for a year. I'm not sure exactly who they are, but they've had 3 checkuser blocks and the pattern of disruption and edit warring is clearly not going to change. Special:Contributions/2A02:C7F:3A2B:3B00:0:0:0:0/64 may need a deeper review over the last month or two, but I suspect most of it's been reverted. You can see that edit warring is a constant issue in the contribs. -- ferret (talk) 11:46, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Christ, I looked at the edit history and was met with a lot of weird accusations and inappropriate language from his behalf. I guess some people never change. Thanks for blocking him. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 20:48, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
@Ferret: The user has returned under a new IP: Special:Contributions/176.27.43.63. IceWelder [✉] 09:35, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

EA Sports Collection

Notifying IanTEB of this discussion, as the creator of these articles.

I stumbled across The EA Sports Collection while doing some New Page Reviewing, and was surprised to find this whole cluster of articles. I did a lot of digging through Google and the WP:VG/SE, and couldn't find anything more than pretty much what's there - evidence it exists, but nothing that suggests any of these are notable outside of the individual games in them. There is no coverage of the compilations, no articles, no reviews, nothing. I'd like to propose a mass merger to EA Sports, because we don't need five articles to cover these compilations. Red Phoenix talk 14:57, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Those were some of the first articles I wrote on Wikipedia, so I wasn't as familiar with the notability guidelines, which I apologize for. IanTEB (talk) 15:04, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Hey, that's all right. I think we've all done some of that in our first few articles, myself included. I'll leave the discussion open for a bit just to get a good vibe that the community agrees, then I'll be glad to work on the merge myself. Red Phoenix talk 15:10, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
IanTEB, no need to apologise! Everyone has to learn before they know, and we all make mistakes. That said, though, if you want to just get rid of them, you could tag them for author-requested speedy deletion (see WP:G7). Regards, IceWelder [✉] 16:06, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. However, other (more-experienced) users also edited the article, so I thought it was fine. But I am very glad that this discussion is now taking place. IanTEB (talk) 16:10, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Seems like random non-notable publisher sale bundles, so I agree with the merge/redirect, although I am not sure what content there would be. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 15:55, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
They could all be merged to the main EA Sports page. Seems as good a place as any. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:01, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

All right, everything looks like we're in agreement, so I've incorporated a sentence in EA Sports and redirected the articles. Unfortunately I really couldn't find much more to incorporate than that unless perhaps someone wants to go through the trouble of putting together a list of all the games for each year into a table. And that might be a bit excessive, I think. Red Phoenix talk 03:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

It's great to finally have this done. We should also probably delete the series' category page, EA Sports Collection games. IanTEB (talk) 07:09, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I think what we’ll do for that one is wait seven days, then tag it for WP:CSD#C1. The criterion requires that it be empty for seven days first, but that’s probably easier than a seven-day open discussion through CFD. Red Phoenix talk 11:48, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

This exploded rather fast since Sunday, but a number of streamers were accused of abuse by several ppl on Sunday, and that's since led to a few others, in particular Chris Avellone as one those accused (to the point he's been taken off Dying Light 2). Probably a good heads up to watch. I've had to add to Chris's page since that meets the necessary threshold (RS + impact on career) so just want to make sure eyes are on it. --Masem (t) 00:28, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Any notable others? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 06:33, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
None that I've seen so far but these things tend to build slowly then break quickly. Thanks for the notice. Axem Titanium (talk) 07:24, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I've seen posts about Chris Avellone, Angry Joe, some folks at Weta Workshop, and Tom Cassell. Sam Walton (talk) 08:22, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I wasn't sure which of the numerous allegedly shitty YT and Twitch people we actually had articles on. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:46, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I know that Twitch is also facing some accusations of "covering up" for these people, both from creators and users, so there may be backlash on that page. Also, this appears to have touched into the comics world, Warren Ellis has gotten some, so just a general heads up to be watchful on these stories. --Masem (t) 16:41, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
This is a good point. Definitely worth covering in the article on Twitch itself. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:46, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Max Temkin. CAH's statement. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:46, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Our general page on this is Sexism and video games, and I've added a brief section for the twitch-related ones as well as Avellone and Temkin (as named/linked people). I know there's a couple Ubisoft people that were named but we don't have articles on them so I don't think its appropriate to get into those details yet. But there still may be more fallout in next few days. --Masem (t) 00:15, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
An observer is cataloging this round of accusations here. Do NOT cite to this directly; use it to guide your search for references as news sources are also using it to guide their reporting. Remember BLP and use your best judgment. Axem Titanium (talk) 05:49, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Summary article (includes comics and tabletop). Twitch is finally banning people. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not interested in this subject. However, I think a new generation of Wikipedians is going to say that Avellone is sexist, and that the news media lied about it. What's the difference between us and the upcoming new generation? Iias!:postb□xI 03:28, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
And just to add that with Evolution Championship Series getting cancelled over this, we may have problems there so just a couple eyes too... --Masem (t) 02:03, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
And just adding more that Ubisoft has had yet another major shakeup with several big names voluntarily taking leave after a French newspaper reporting on internal problems. [12] --Masem (t) 23:55, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Incentive for GAN reviews

In my humble opinion, we should actively incentivize editors for GAN reviews. It is a lot of work and effort just to review one article and in certain times, most editors get is just a "thank you" if the result is to pass the article. I think we should start handing out Barnstars every time an editor helped review an article, regardless of what the outcome is. And if the VG barnstar isn't enough for that, we can invent a "Thank you for reviewing" Barnstar (don't take the name so seriously). What do you think?Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 06:17, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

At first I thought this was to get editors to review the (already massive) GAN backlog. Anyway, I don't think I agree with this. There's a lot of really terrible articles that get reviewed really poorly by those that don't really look at the article much. We shouldn't reward this kind of behavior. It's really why I think we need tighter guidelines regarding GAs. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 06:21, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
I am aware that there are bad GA reviews out there that just give it a pass without fully reading it. I still think those who do take the time and effort to review the articles and make sure these are quality articles should be rewarded for their efforts. And yes, obviously the goal is to thin out the long list of GANs we have.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 06:30, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
It's best you guys deal with the current GAN backlog but that's just my opinion... Roberth Martinez (talk) 13:46, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I do think people who review GAs should be shown more appreciation. As far as strengthening GA criteria, I do not agree with that. The GA process is meant to be a little looser than the FA process explicitly so that people are incentivized to promote them. FAs becoming more difficult to achieve has only made people less interested in them, and I do not think that this is something we should be worrying about too much. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 14:24, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I can agree with that. I'm still waiting for more reviews for Squirm and the whole process is stalled right now. I think that if you can an article out for review you should review someone else's article. Might get things done quicker. GamerPro64 18:59, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm always silently side-eyeing people when they nominate articles but never review, haha. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 19:16, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
When I say "we should tighten the GAN guidelines", by no means do I think they should be like FACs. I'm referring to ideas like "having a max number of articles that can be nominated" or have the process be a Quid pro quo deal where an editor has to review an article after nominating one of their own. There really should be something in place, it's annoying to see the GAN backlog continue to bloat out further and further with no reviewers. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 19:43, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
Oh, yeah I agree that nominators should be expected to help out, though "max number" doesn't jive with me as much; for instance, if I worked on 10 articles and brought them to GAN at the same time, but reviewed 12, I think that would be an okay thing to do. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 20:03, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't think there needs to be a quid pro quo, there's a simpler answer: when I'm reviewing, I prioritize noms by people who have reviews by their name. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
Do you happen to know how Legobot keeps track of how many reviews you've done? Axem Titanium (talk) 22:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
I think if you look in the GAN list, it will say. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 01:06, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
@David Fuchs: and how do you verify they have reviews on their names? I've reviewed a handleful of articles in the past and no one bats an eye on the very easy to review articles.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 05:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
As mentioned above, it's automatically tracked and displayed by people's noms, for example from the GAN page now: Elsinore (video game) (edit | talk | history | protect | links | watch | logs | page views (90d)) (discuss review) (Reviews: 7) Nomader --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 13:03, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
This can be found at WP:GAN#VG. IceWelder [✉] 13:11, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
@David Fuchs: My problem is that the moment the GA is complete, there's no real way for you to track it afterwards because the nomination goes away. yes you can click on the "(nom)" link when its nominated, but that works only if you're actively paying attention.
@IceWelder: that doesn't show who is reviewing the article. Regardless of how you want the GA reviews and how we can get more people to promote them. I still 100% believe the way we show appreciation for GA reviews is not enough.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 15:11, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I was actually only linking to what I believed David Fuchs was referring to ("nominator X has previously done Y reviews", based on which they prioritize reviews), as it had not been linked to previously. I don't have a strong opinion on the issue at hand at this time because I really only started doing GANs late last year and have only done one reivew myself (which Legobot is even missing because that was prior to my name change).
My 2 cents would be that review trades are the most effective measure: two editors commit to reviewing an article and get one each of their articles reviewed in return. Pre-emptive QPQs would be more likely to deter people from creating GANs in the first place because reviews are much work and QPQs do not guarantee you a review (in due time) in return. IceWelder [✉] 18:11, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Review trades is a form of QPQ. I just think we're so close to write this off before ever giving it a real chance. Right now Review trades is being done in practice and we have a backlog now, so to say this is the most effective measure is false. When people give GANs, and it passes, the editor gets notified and although they don't get a barnstar, legobot does in a sense congratulate them. This makes sense, that's why we have a backlog. There is a real incentive to nominate, there's not a real incentive to review other than hope someone reviews your article.Blue Pumpkin Pie Chat Contribs 18:29, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I mean, I'm certainly ngl, the reason I stopped reviewing and nominating articles as much is because I felt like people didn't reciprocate in that way. That said, I'm not sure how that could be fixed without making a bigger problem than a backlog. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 18:32, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I've said this a few times, but I've been willing to help out at GAN. I haven't because I take the standards seriously and I would want to be sure that I'm being firm enough with them, without being a WP:DICK. I don't mind doing the work if someone wants to be my mentor / quality control. I'm willing to bet you'd have more reviewers if we helped train each other. (I'm working on my first good article in a decade and hope to learn a lot from that process.) Shooterwalker (talk) 23:48, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I do remember it being discussed some time ago at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations of some kind of limit of 2 or 3 articles per nominator before the nominator must fufill a review in order to reduce the backlog but nothing ever came of it. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 16:50, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd definitely be in favor of this. This rule has been instated for both peer reviews and featured content candidates, so I think the same could work here. It would help cut back on the backlog and give others a chance at reviewing each other's pages. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 17:01, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
It would be difficult to instate for the main GAN process but we could always try to implement and enforce a local QPQ system for VG GANs. It could be an extension of the semi-regular review begging threads that show up here. It could look like the existing begging threads except you'd also link to the GAN that you reviewed (doesn't have to be a VG GAN) to signal that your nom is ready to be reviewed. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:17, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't agree with requiring a QPQ. For people who might want to make GA but don't think they're qualified to review one, it will discourage people from making GA's in the first place. So, yes, you are solving the problem of the GA backlog being too large, but not in any way that is beneficial to Wikipedia. It will just turn into more of an insulated walled garden of people who specialize in GA's.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 00:58, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm surprised that everyone's reviewing VG GANs recently, I just nom'd Beatmania IIDX (video game) for GA status this time and I think I'm gonna receive a review quickly. This is so very fun! ias:postb□x 19:29, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
I feel like this wikiproject is very active in terms of GA reviewer, but until this happen as a bad faith [13] and revertions on just about article's class. Disgusting. 221.157.183.109 (talk) 12:54, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
Yes, because me failing a poor GA for being far from meeting all the criteria is "disgusting", and as a result I single-handedly killed all interest in this wikiproject. Come on, really? Are you for real? Namcokid47 (Contribs) 13:27, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
Its a bit too far reached to think that review killed interest in this sub-project. Namcokid didn't reviewed Rad Racer's article out of malice. I know the Square-Enix project wants to have all of the company's article on the GA level but a little bit of more effort to improve it in a good way, as he suggested in the review process, doesn't hurt in the slightest. And I say this as a fan of the original Rad Racer. Speaking of SE, I want to say that if somebody has the strategy guide for it, expanding Alcahest's article would be cool to see, since it was a HAL Laboratoy-developed RPG published by Squaresoft. Roberth Martinez (talk) 13:44, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
Agreed with ZXCVBNM. When I started out with GAs, I was feeling unsure about even just submitting an article to GAN - if I had been then required to review an article, too, I would probably have held off on doing GA work at all. Reviewing others' nominations should be encouraged, especially when you submit articles to GAN yourself, but absolutely don't make it a requirement imo.--AlexandraIDV 18:32, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Clive Tyldesley

I was wondering whether to tag his talk page with the VG project template, also, the video games section, on his bio feels a real mess, I've done a little bit + one cite. I wanted to find some good citations for the VG projects he has done. Just giving a call out for a little help to help clean it up. Cheers. Govvy (talk) 13:07, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Roblox

Several updates to Roblox recently are tied to a Dubit Limited presentation, a marketing firm specializing on how to market to children. I feel this is an unreliable source to be relying on, looking for other opinions on the talk page. -- ferret (talk) 15:33, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

New Articles (June 29 to July 5)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.4 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 05:28, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

June 29

June 30

July 1

July 2

July 3

July 4

July 5

Characters in the Mario Kart series seems trivial WP:GAMECRUFT to me. Just x character appearing in x game. Thoughts? soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 06:21, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
And I've redirected MeepCity to Roblox. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 06:29, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
The Characters in Mario Kart article is a repost of the character table that has been discussed to death and removed from Talk:Mario Kart. I don't think it technically qualifies for speedy delete as a repost... but it should be speedied if we live in a just universe. Axem Titanium (talk) 21:12, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
AfD'ed. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 06:48, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Does Cat hair mustache puzzle need to be a separate article from Gabriel Knight 3? Cut down the plot from the latter, there's plenty of space, and that's probably the game's most notable facet. Individual levels getting articles makes sense, but individual puzzles really really need a huge amount of justification and I don't see it here. --Masem (t) 13:39, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, from what I've looked at of the article I think a merge is warranted. It doesn't look like a single reference is solely about the puzzle itself, it's mostly sourced to just "top 10 bad puzzles" listicles. JOEBRO64 14:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure what you mean. There's one listicle in the entire article. In addition to the other sources, it was also specifically called out as being responsible for the death of adventure games. For instance, designer Erik Wolpaw devoted an entire article to it (which I didn't source directly because I was not aware at the time that "Eric" was him). - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 15:26, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I also don't agree at all that Gabriel Knight 3 is only notable for this puzzle. It was a game that, despite the image it has now, was well-rated at launch and has numerous articles talking about it without mentioning the mustache puzzle at any point whatsoever. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 15:32, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I think it meets GNG as a standalone article. It has legendary status among adventure game designers as an example of what not to do (the cross stitch pattern referenced looks like this). Axem Titanium (talk) 21:12, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
It should be merged. Popcornfud (talk) 20:46, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
The puzzle does probably meet the GNG, but keep in mind the GNG is still a presumption of notability and can be challenged later. Nor meeting the GNG necessitates a standalone article. On the other hand, GK3 isn't going anywhere, the article is not super long, and thus there's plenty of space for a section to talk about the puzzle itself and commentary about it. You supply better context for the puzzle there. That's all I'm saying is that its odd to separate that one facet out for a game. A single level or character usually can be justified but not a puzzle. --Masem (t) 21:12, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
What is a level in an adventure game if not an individual puzzle (or set of interconnected puzzles)? Axem Titanium (talk) 02:40, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Sorta the same thing too. Typically the only element of a game that gets any type of attention outside it tends to be an individual character, things like weapons, levels, puzzles, etc. typically remain confined to the scope of the game and rarely touched upon outside. There are limited exceptions, such as World 1-1 given how much attention that has been given for teaching the basics of how to play the game w/o tutorial messages, and that's the type of stuff we should look for before breaking out any gameplay concept that's not a character out from a game article into a separate article. You can always create a standalone section to talk specifically on the level or aspect that gained more attention in the game's article, and if that creates size issues, we can figure out where to break articles apart to maintain summary style then. --Masem (t) 14:03, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't really agree with that mindset much. I don't think an article's existence should be dependent on whether it can't fit in a parent article. So long as it gets adequate coverage about its existence, that should be enough. Also, it is not as though Gabriel Knight 3's article is a stub, and I doubt it is as fleshed out as it could be, even if the puzzle is independent. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 18:40, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
It may not be so evident in the video game area, but there is a general larger resentment that pop culture can get so much coverage and have so many articles compared to any topic pre 1950, particularly in minority areas, that we should be very aware of given excessive attention to small singular aspects of one video game just to do our part to avoid feeding that problem. Absolutely this puzzle surpasses the GNG and a standalone is possible but there is no requirement that a standalone be created on passing the GNG, particularly when talking one facet that only has relative importance to the game itself. I can't make anyone merge it - there is no absolute policy or guideline here I can point to to say to do that, but I really think in the long run it is better suited within the game article. --Masem (t) 20:08, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
2¢: I usually view it as WP:NOTPAPER and WP:NODEADLINE. Yes, there are many many topics Wikipedia hasn't covered while almost all notable pop culture content from Western world from the past decade is covered. But that's not a problem with current content and I do not believe current content should care that other stuff (doesn't) exist. Yes, it's systematic bias, but it's not malicious bias, nor does it make content mutually exclusive. Adding 1 or 100 new video game articles makes no difference to whether another article can be added. I believe any merge/split decisions should be based solely on how much sense it makes for the reader. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 20:24, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
I feel that this mindset can be extended to video games period, honestly. How often does a video game article get taken the piss out of for being Today's Featured Article? - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 21:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

A suggestion of where to place information

As there's evidence we're to see a bump of console game pricing with the next console releases, I've been able to find enough sources to document the general trends on console game pricing (broad strokes) as I do feel this is an important part to track the industry, but I'm not sure where the best place to put this would be. My initial gut is at Video game console (which I'm still working to merge up with a few articles as noted above), but it could also go into into Video game industry#Economics or elsewhere. Ideally I'd want to also add discussion of the incorporation of DLC, special editions, season passes, and so on with that to explain the value , and we technically already have that at Video game monetization too. Maybe that article's the better one, but just trying to get opinions of, if you were a reader looking for this, where would you start and how can we get them there. --Masem (t) 14:10, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the monetization article is the way to go. The retail box price falls outside of what we generally think of as monetization but it's absolutely a part of it. I think having a description up front about retail game prices would serve as a useful contrast to the other forms of monetization discussed later in the article. Axem Titanium (talk) 00:52, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I should note that I did put it there already as it tacks on well to the history of monetization already Video_game_monetization#Historical_pricing_of_games. I'd *like* to see if we can talk more on the costs that go into the pricing on games but that's not as critical now. --Masem (t) 00:55, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
Yeah I would too. Something about how development costs have ballooned even as the retail price has stayed the same. Maybe AAA (video game industry)? Since that's probably what it would primarily be discussing. Axem Titanium (talk) 01:53, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Please may we have some help with Draft:Simon Belmont ?

It is at WP:AFC and has been reviewed as not yet appropriate. The creating editor (Oinkers42) could do with some additional advice. Video games are not an area I am used to reviewing Fiddle Faddle 19:34, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Question about gnaw titles

I noticed that we have articles titled Punch-Out!! (arcade game), Super Punch-Out!! (arcade game), and Punch-Out!! (NES), my question is should they be at those titles or we be using the year of release to distinguish the titles? They were all released in different years so there wouldn’t be an issue there.--69.157.254.92 (talk) 18:58, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Also regarding Super Punch-Out!!, the article title for the SNES game, should that title be moved as well due to the article for the arcade game of the same name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.254.92 (talk) 19:04, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
Per WP:NCVGDAB, aka "what to put in the (disambiguation) bit for video games if you need one", titles should use no disambiguation if possible, then fall back to (19XX video game), then fall back to systems. So, Punch-Out!! (1983 video game), Super Punch-Out!! (1984 video game), Punch-Out!! (1987 video game), Super Punch-Out!! (1994 video game). Also Punch-Out!! (Wii) should be at (2009 video game). Punch-Out!! is the series page, which is fine, while Super Punch-Out!! should redirect to Punch-Out (disambiguation), as that covers both Super and non-Super titles. --PresN 20:08, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

New Articles (July 6 to July 12)

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements
 A listing of all articles newly added to the Video Games Wikiproject (regardless of creation date). Generated by v3.4 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 16:58, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

July 6

July 7

July 8

July 9

July 10

July 11

July 12

This is like the third or fourth time that somebody has decided to recreate the Bullet Bill article. It doesn't meet notability and probably won't ever. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 20:46, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
I think the creator was a sock of Raymondskie99 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who has this bizarre obsession with constantly recreating articles about non-notable Mario stock characters. The user in particular who created it is globally locked (but not blocked) right now. I think SALTing/protecting them is the best way to prevent recreation. JOEBRO64 21:22, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
I got asked to recreate the same article. Maybe he asked him as well.(Oinkers42) (talk) 00:28, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Question about GDC licenses and free images

So I've been looking around for a free image of Yoko Taro to add to his article and have come up empty. I checked all the usual suspects including GDC's Flickr, which has a CC compatible license. I was wondering if anyone knew what the story is on other GDC content. Who owns it, technically? Does GDC own the presentation you give at GDC or do you own it or do you agree to release it under some license when you give your presentation? I ask because I could take a screen cap of Yoko from his GDC talk, which is freely available (also available free on Youtube), and use that. What to do? Axem Titanium (talk) 23:42, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

The only thing that is a free license we can use is the GDC photostream at flickr. Stuff from the GDC Vault is stored there but doesn't become GDC property and retains copyrights of the original presenter. That video would be the GDC themselves but as you can see on the Youtube version it lacks any CC markings and knowing that the GDC Vault does have areas that require membership login to access, I am sure they are not giving that away under a free license. Photos, yes (and thank goodness for that).
You can look at those GDC talks and ask yourself if there's a possible non-free that is useful. For example, one of the images on Inside (video game) I took from their GDC talk which describes how they made a specific creature in that game. But that falls under the non-free that you have to use with caution.
Also keep in mind about the use of copyrighted images that may appear in displays and the like in the GDC photostream. Whomever the photographers are they usually do a good job to avoid including too much of game screens/etc beyond de minimus that keep their images free but once in a while they will have too much of a screen in view that we can't use then as a free image directly. --Masem (t) 00:35, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
I ended up finding a different image on GDC's flickr. The background is a bit garish/distracting so I've got a lead on another one as well. Axem Titanium (talk) 02:23, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Identity for Mortal Kombat characters

Discussion moved from my talk page:

Hey there, Tintor. Thank you for the links and keeping in touch with me despite my ignorance in replying in a timely manner. I might add the picture of Boon into the Ermac article sometime in the future. Liu Kang's looking good, and I want to try to get Johnny Cage into GA nom territory soon after putting it off for more than a year.

While I'm here, I would like your opinion on a couple things. During the GA process for Ermac, Freikorp advised I restrict the infobox to game-only appearances. I wholly agree with that because otherwise boxes just get way too cluttered, plus they were game characters first and every alternate appearance doesn't need to be listed; that's the purpose of the article itself. I've been removing non-game voice actors but keeping/re-adding live portrayals (movies, TV), as that seems to be the unwritten consensus nowadays. Second, I've had issues with user PizzaTime04 reverting my MK edits without explanation (i.e., my removing an unneeded quote and content from Sheeva's article that I myself had added years ago, and him instantly reverting it) and repeatedly inserting content such as Clancy Brown voicing Ermac in DotR (no source proves this) and Ed Boon co-creating Quan Chi (not true). He hasn't edited anything MK over the past few days, either to take a break or to avoid 3RR, but the nonsense will inevitably start again. This leads to one last thing: in Noob Saibot's infobox, he keeps adding Sub-Zero from MK1 as the character's first appearance, which is both false and in-universe as his official debut was in MKII. I'll go ahead and ping @Freikorp: because I value his input as much as yours. Cheers and sorry for the lengthy ramble. :) sixtynine • whaddya want? • 00:14, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Beemer69: The whole SubZero's identity is a bit confusing to handle. It's like writing an article like heroes like Grayson who is the first Robin and then becomes Nightwing. Maybe we could ask the project for help.Tintor2 (talk) 00:51, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

For a second there I thought you were issuing WP:VG a warning, Beemer69! :D soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 05:37, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, Tintor2. For readability, I removed the 'July 2020' section heading, if that's okay. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 05:40, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

"Ninth Generation" heads up

Microsoft has announced that the Xbox One X and the S All Digital Edition are discontinued. The Xbox One S still in production. These are NOT signs we take as the end of eighth gen or start of ninth but you know non-regulars will jump on this. So heads up on the usual articles on this stuff. --Masem (t) 19:37, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I’ve also heard speculation that this supports the existence of the rumoured Lockhart so we may need to keep an eye on that as well.--69.157.254.92 (talk) 03:17, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Deletion review for List of League of Legends champions

(heads up DRV) An editor has asked for a deletion review of List of League of Legends champions. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 05:44, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Sockpuppet/troll alert

User:Mariyaismail appears to be a new user who is making deletion discussions about obviously notable pages with little rationale, including video games, any admins able to assist in reversing this disruptive editing?ZXCVBNM (TALK) 14:48, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I have withdrawn my nomination, It was not a trollMariyaismail (talk) 15:00, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for withdrawing, but stop removing other people’s comments. You are not allowed to do this. Sergecross73 msg me 15:51, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
OkayMariyaismail (talk) 15:56, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
I’ve issued a final warning on edit warring and bad deletion noms. I don’t know anything about potential socking so I can’t do much there. May or may not be around to do anything else for the rest of the day, but any admin would be in the right to issue a block if there’s any more issues. Sergecross73 msg me 16:01, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Blocked as sockpuppet. See also Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Khadim ahlesunnah waljamaah. Eagles 24/7 (C) 17:32, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Milestones

Why are milestones removed from WikiProject page when they are reached? I think it's always better to have them visible. There are multiple reasons, such as a better understanding of WikiProject progression, as well as the planning of future actions. EchoBlu (talk) 14:02, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Direct Mini coming today

Just thought I'd put this notice here. Also, in case the 3D Mario remasters are announced in it, I've already started a draft at Draft:Untitled Super Mario collection (so no need to start a separate article, just flesh out the one that's existing). JOEBRO64 11:54, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 12:33, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
They've said it is only partner games and only updates to games previously announced, so its like only 10 minutes long. Not expecting anything big from it. --Masem (t) 13:18, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

The Elder Scrolls disambig

Hi everyone, I stumbled upon The Elder Scrolls (disambiguation), created in February this year by Werldwayd. With main article The Elder Scrolls and List of The Elder Scrolls video games, is an additional disambiguation page necessary? soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 09:52, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

This is just a brief version of the series article. We don't need it. IceWelder [✉] 09:59, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps we do need the disambiguation. List of The Elder Scrolls video games is so long, it is a distractor and the disambiguation becomes a real time saver. This way you don't need to read the whole article to have a listing. Take it like the "list" is a full book, the disambiguation is a summary. Let's try one. You are searching for the one to do with "Oblivion". In the listing, you go up and down the loooooooong page to find it. In the disambiguation: one second and it's there. I think both should stay. werldwayd (talk) 10:45, 17 July 2020 (UTC) werldwayd (talk) 10:47, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm undecided at this point, but in the meantime I did make it chronological with piped links for downloadable content / expansions. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 11:52, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
If size is the only issue, the games list article should be fixed/altered. The disambiguation page is just duplicated content tailored to specific needs (and the same timeline is already present under The Elder Scrolls#Development history). There is also no real disambiguation here, as we have only one full title match in the entire project. IceWelder [✉] 14:51, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm leaning toward it's fine to leave as is with the (disambiguation) tag. It's not unfairly occupying the main undabbed slot so it's hard to get up in arms about it. Sometimes it's useful for navigation to just have a basic-ass list of articles you might want to get to in one place. See also Super Mario Bros. (disambiguation), Street Fighter (disambiguation), etc. Axem Titanium (talk) 17:19, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
That's a good point! soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 13:43, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
I aligned the TES dab to be more dab-like, without unnecessary timeline fluff, as when compared to Axem's examples. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 14:05, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2005 and 2012 article move

There's a current move discussion to move the articles of Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005 video game) and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012 video game) to Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012) with two users arguing because there's no other media named Need for Speed: Most Wanted the word video game should be removed for the article title. Any input to the discussion will be appreciated, Thanks. TheDeviantPro (talk) 08:14, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the consensus is shaping up to oppose, as it should be. I have also noticed Shadow of the Beast, which should absolutely move to the year disambiguation. 2016 game still gets tons of views, and the original is not overwhelming it in views per day basis, even 4 years later. [14]. Any opinions on this? Jovanmilic97 (talk) 08:49, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Characters tables

@Srwseki: Are tables like this really necessary for video game characters. I fear it's quite undue weight.Tintor2 (talk) 15:28, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Its iffy. For the Super Smash Series, a similar table is at Characters in the Super Smash Bros. series but as nearly all of the games' characters are notable ones on their own (standalone, with the # of standalone outweighing those that aren't) and the amount of attention the game series has gotten, this is reasonably justified and easily sourced to third-parties to show that this type of list is significant. KoF, outside of a few titles, draws far less attention and few of its characters are notable on their own, and as such, I think that table is overkill, particularly its "sparseness". It is better to list out on each character what games they appear in. --Masem (t) 15:41, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
I've reverted it. List of The King of Fighters characters is in dire need of some good trimming and will need sources that aren't in-universe as it is. A whopping 37K on a huge table is WP:GAMECRUFT and adds nothing. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 15:49, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
Related, but character lists tables for fighting games seems to be some grandfathered clause we kept for them. Personally, I think we should enforce consistency and remove them from the most articles (with the exceptions being ones like the Smash Bros example). ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:51, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

magazine source

Hi guys, has anyone got a copy of video games magazine from 9/2000? Looking to source the only review I could find for Jimmy White's 2: Cueball, but the link I have is dead. Any help would be appreciated Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:21, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, the site has switched to TLS/HTTPS. Changing the protocol fixes the link: [15]. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 11:29, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Use the Whatlinkshere functionality to find sources in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Reference library. Because of covid, I do not have access to my sources, but they're mostly online now anyway. - hahnchen 20:36, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

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