Type in any game in the search engine. Mobygames rarely found in any search result. *sigh*

Type in "games database" and...well, check it out yourself.

On the first page at least... At least for me.

Our Alexa rank also dropped recently...

Adding content here is not enough. Other websites must point to us to improve our searchrank.

While you were away I was busy at IMDb:

http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/dgm,166734/

and Wikipedia:

http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/dgm,164046/

Aye, I've noticed.

For the time I've been away, I get my game info easily enough from Google search. Rarely in my search results did it warrant me to click on MG. Usually end up going to:

[1] Wikipedia: everything about the game. From detailed description summary, trivia, game development background -- everything. Whereas here, detailed description are considered too long. Meh.

[2] Youtube: Who looks at screenshots these days when you can watch entire videos of the game?

[3] Gamings wiki: Everything about everything. Those guys adding info there are too hardcore even for my standard of OCD.

Etc.

Oh, am I whining again? It's like I never left. :p

Yeah, Wikipedia is a better source for game details, MG is for identifying games mainly. But I do prefer screenshots and text over videos any day.

Spamming may not help though, particularly after the latest Google code update. I got the weirdest request a while back, somebody from the company who made the web kits from which I got my site background asking me to STOP linking to them at the bottom of the page, because as of the latest update all such links with identical text seemed to be considered "unnatural" by Google and lowered their ranking.

First time I got here was due to yahoo search looking for oldies. MG was unique back then. Now there are dozens of sites practically doing the same 'games database' thing. Though thus far, MG now is #2 in traffic...and by a large margin too.

Probably because the only real person here is Sciere while the rest of us are malfunctioning bots. Or was it the other way around? I forget. :p

Yes

Might not want to do a comparison with other websites. It'll make you cry. :p

Odd how Poland has the highest MG regional ranking. You're hoarding Poland's bandwidth aren't you Rola? :p

Maybe it's me spamming every forum I'm a member of with links to Moby's?

People are getting paid doing things like this:
http://www.spwaw.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=26865

Wikipedia fails with screenshots. It won't help you if you don't know the title.

I grew up reading. I can get all the info I need by just skimming the article and glancing the screenshots, watching 10min. of some stuttering guy's "Let's Play" is a chore! I'm not talking only about youtube, paid websites ("gaming TV") also have low quality reviews... but hey, in HD!

The thing that bugs me is that numerous other game databases outrank us for their empty entries about obscure games whose existence they only know about after scraping our database, where the games are fully documented.

What's worse, Mobygames doesn't even protect its content. I'd have thought GameFly should be able to threaten to use legal action against websites copying our stuff en masse - they're from America, the land of the lawsuit, right? Even a cease&desist letter could be effective.

google for site:gameclassification.com "mobygames]"

Few months ago I've informed our staff about this and demanded action. Yet I still find my texts on that website...

Looks like we're building more than one website at once... yippie?

Btw, the most copied descriptions are those written by Unicorn Lynx. XD They think we're some sort of Wikipedia or what?

Well, they do list us as source and I see comments about what we list and what we don't, so I don't really see the issue. Shouldn't we want information to be free and easily accessible to as many as possible?

We're not Wikipedia

III.2
http://www.mobygames.com/info/terms

Highly unlikely to get me to agree by pointing out copyright regulations when I tend to reject the whole concept.

You did agree to these terms when you submitted your stuff - a portion of that disclaimer shows up in contribution wizard.

I do re-use information collected by other people on other websites. I said I'm a PC gamer only, where would I get those Spectrum or Aquarius cassettes? But I don't copy people's texts verbatim. Those websites that are taking our stuff

1. don't credit people who wrote texts (I contribute to MG - and not Wikipedia - because there's my nickname on the bottom of every page)
2. sometimes display ads and thus make money thanks to our effort (wait, wasn't it the reason many people left MG in 2010? Yet at least GameFly pays the hosting bill for MobyGames, those websites don't chip in a penny),
3. leech potential visitors (because our descriptions/screens are no longer unique), divert the traffic from us, thus making us look less important

Have you noticed that even in (software) pirate community there is an unwritten code "give credit when credit is due"? All those quarrels "It was our release, we cracked it, you stole it!" - and that coming from people skipping copyright laws, LOL

*claws out*

1. So you're essentially a narcissistic prick who just wants his name on all walls (there's a saying here about that). All that matters from my perspective is not to make a claim, direct or implied, that they wrote those texts.
2. Yes, that's a valid complaint, but as you said so does MG, and it's our work, not the (current) management's. If we do what we do for free and can be fine with MG earning something out of it, why the hell not others too?
3. Which actually makes the information even more accessible for others who may be looking for it. Which should actually be the damn point of putting it out there, not bragging rights!

Yeah, those quarrels are weird... All I care about is not taking credit where it's not due. Plus, yes, not actually making money from others' work, but again, once we allow MG to do that, don't see why we'd give a flying rat's ass about others doing it as well.

Hey, I'm the only narcissistic prick around here, thank you very much. The rest are just pricks. Though I admit, some prefer to be associated with dildos. :p

Anyway, copyright laws in regards to anything remotely attributed to software and the internet are a bit overrated. Considering the very technology we're using for its intent and purposes was created to freely disseminate information, sometimes enforcing copyright is like trying to force a homosexual bloke to dig chicks or force a heterosexual bloke to dig fire hydrants.

Personally, I have no problem with fire hydrants. :p

After cooling off enough to look at that last part again... Actually, that cracking issue IS a matter of taking credit for others' work, so it's not weird at all.

That site, now that I actually looked too, has a quite clear purpose which isn't "stolen" from us, and which makes the descriptions, which they may copy from here as well as from various other places, basically irrelevant. I reckon that anybody using that site knows just what they're looking for.

Also, they link to us, which may help. That it'd certainly help far more if they'd link in the form of "[game name] on MobyGames" instead of just pasting the link itself is another matter.

Going off on a personal tangent, it never occurred to me that MobyGames has ads. I always use some ad-blocker or another (for shame, I know), I have been doing that for years, and I keep forgetting most websites have ads. I'm not sure how I feel, now that I've been exposed to the cold, hard truth, but I definitely felt better about my occasional contributions when my ignorance was still intact. :P

I believe there is an option to turn them off for contributors. It's a way of punishing the noncontributing account-less freeloaders.

That's the same issue I have with IMDB. They rely on members to submit information, but hide their very existence. I was shocked to learn, years ago, that members submitted trivia and quotes. Then IMDB goes around and licenses that information off, through an API, for about $10 k a year.