Curious to hear what other people would like to see as improvements to MobyGames. What would you like to see added? Bear in mind that 1) they may (well, likely) won't happen, and 2) I'm talking features, not things like "more approvers," because that's a given.

I'd like to see

- Expanded description section. Something more wiki-like in its structure with greater flexibility for categories (like plot, characters, etc). I feel like there's a lot more that could be written about these games.

- A new interface? Not too flashy, but a modern update might be nice.

- Expanded search functionality. There's a lot of entered info we can't mine by yet.

- Sources! Some kind of source section allowing for linking or (gasp!) bibliographic references to print books or articles. I'm not suggesting we turn into Wikipedia, but just the ability to quote sources would help us greatly as a resource.

- A button placed on the sidebar that magically generates a fresh, tasty pie next to your keyboard (watch your hands!)

Particularly high on my list are expanded search functionality and more platforms.

Twiced... and from time to time a bottle Budweiser - signed by our Admins, for deserved Contributors and Approvers - yeah, that wouldn't go amiss.

A more comfortable credits-wizard, five points in particular:

• A feature like the game-wizard has where he tells me if someone (and perhaps even who) is already working on credits for this game.
• I would like to be able to see for which company and under what classification a developer was entered last during the add-phase without having to update the side and hoping I've selected the right one or deactivating JavaScript. Best would be a tooltip.
• A Drag & Drop-Feature both for new and existing credits allowing for easier regrouping of credits perhaps even during the add-phase before going to the order-tab.
• It would be nice for the classification-wizard to be a bit more intelligent meaning he pre-selects a classification based on a) the name of the job and b) based on what already existing devs where assigned to last time. Of course always with the option to change everything manually.

I honestly forgot the fifth point while writing these - perhaps I'll remember it later.

For your last point see here. Classifications used to be a bore and thanks to the toolkit it's no hassle at all. Thanks to MegamanX64.

yeah I know and I'm using the classy-helper but most of the times it just doesn't find anything or makes a totally wrong selection as the internal hierarchy doesn't seem to be that intelligent. It's a start of course but it's still far away from being perfect.

Credits Listing

- A way to compare changes similar to the descriptions revisions where I can see the changes between the updates. I want to be able to see for example what joyvalley added to my ArmA II credits just now for example.

Can i answer directly - never heard of the PM option? Our both German should be good enough to understand each other, or?

1 - Special Thanks addition: Alexey Trushin (q1184) 33 - if i counted correctly on a quick tour: VOICE ACTORS - see Voice Actors Group 2 times the guy Jan Kunt of Idea Games for Localisation + Q/A there.

Source: The manual of the 1st US release, either you accidently overlooked them, or your source, probably the German 1st release manual, haven't included them...

...Next one?

I think this was more a general example than an accusation. You now that now - because you submitted them not long ago - but what if he wants to know this in two years or something? This is definitely a low priority (because it doesn't improve usability which should be the main focus for now) but it would be a nice feature like the revision history of descriptions.

Well, yes if I really wanted to know I could've asked you using a PM but that's not the point here :). It would still be useful to be able to see the comparison in years to come.

Basically what Patrick said just now too...

I knew that you meant it primarily as OVERALL-feature, but when you guys take so directly my name in your mouths, then i want to feed you DETAILED .... hey, noone should say: Joyvalley hides secrets from his beloved community ;)====

Credits Wizard

- Still some foreign characters aren't recognized or associated correctly leading to unnecessary double entries

n = ń
L = Ł
e = ę
a = ą
s = ś
l = ł

and such.

I second Drag & Drop-Feature, but for every order related data, like screenshots, too

Even I have to admitt, Moby is starting to look old. I didn't say that last time that topic was brought up, but it's been a while, and the site is starting to look dated. There are too many < div > on each page. It's works as far as functionality (And speed.), but looks too 2003-ish. It would be nice to have some graphic CSS or Javascript pull down menus for the stuff that's on the side of each page now. I would avoid heavy graphics though because it slows everything to a crawl. (IGN, Gamespot anyone ?) The layout of the game browser page could use some tweaking too. For example, the "250 most popular games", it seems like most of them are from 2003-2004 era. I think it's time to update that. The user accounts are laid out fine, but could use some more graphics. Just too mush plain HTML. Can't think of anything else right now, but I think what I mentioned is a good place to start.

Eh, I rather like the way it looks. Nice and simple. I don't like graphics and often pulldown menus are annoying--sometimes they shove text around on the page when you hover, sometimes they won't stay pulled down while you're trying to navigate them, and sometimes I just hate them because I don't like change.

For example, the "250 most popular games", it seems like most of them are from 2003-2004 era. I think it's time to update that.

Uh, isn't that based on mobyrank or something? I agree that it's time to update it, but the way to do that is for game developers to release games that are better than those.

That suggested features actually get implemented before the advent of the Messiah? That new platforms with tech specs readily listed will be added to the database as promised? That the biggest bosses reply to messages and participate in discussions? That people don't have items pending for over a year?

And many other great suggestions, which I will keep to myself, because...

Here on MobyGames, those who care can't do anything, and those who can don't care!

Oh, that would actually be a slogan suggestion.

Eh. Still better than The Bomb. At least for games older than the last year.

It's true, the feeling that the site is adrift and just floating without direction is a bit worrying. Part of the whole general lack of transparency feeling.

I absolutely 300% agree. Without a doubt it's my biggest concern about approving, submitting, and staying with Moby. Seems like all of the founders have checked out (I know Rob and Brian are still around, but rarely), and no one's set up to take their place (not even the admins).

I really do get the sense that current Moby is as far as Moby will ever go, and one day we'll wake up and it will be gone because someone forgot to pay the bills and/or didn't care.

Still, it's better than the Bomb.

A better Release-info-wizard which allows me to open up additional fields to enter more than one company (besides publisher and developer) at once without needing to update the page first.

I want an update button when adding release info outside the New-Games-Wizard. While updating is a bit annoying, having to click "continue" and "go back" for every company (besides publisher and developer) is unbearable.

Just hit enter when you're done typing the name of the company. It'll add it and refresh the page with a fresh new box for the next company. :)

I'll to try that out the next time for sure! Thanks for the hint.

Oeh, that's new for me as well!

You didn't knew that Patrick & Paul uuuuiiii, it's only a little bit annoying when you filled the first 2 existing (Dev + Pub) that you only get one more each time, having games with 3 Companies for Add Graphs, 2 for Sound, 1 for Loaclisation etcpp. --- one entered, return - evtl. choosing from a list of more than one developer appearing for the entered name - Return - next one - Return - next one - Return ... here it won't be bad, perhaps technical already available and needs only a minor mesh to make it available - but no one ever asked for, two have 2 or 3 additionals, after entering the first 2 ... if you should know what i mean here? ;)

You know when you go to add ratings? wouldn't mind it if you could tell 1) what ratings are already contributed and 2) when they've been approved, if your ones wasn't contributed.

Also, you know other forums that list what members are currently logged on. Wouldn't mind seeing that here. No particular reason, just curiosity really.

Also, a visual update would be nice.

This is a very small suggestion, but we have a section for Xbox Live Gamer Tags in member profiles, but none for Playstation Network ID or Steam ID. The Playstation Network omission seems especially strange to me.

It would be cool to also include Game Center and OpenFeint.

When you type out or approve moby ranks it'd be nice if you could have a clickable link with some info about the different magazines/sites listed here. As it is now, they are just names on a list, with no info whatsoever about any of them.

I second that, but precisely this for platforms should be higher priority.

The ability to link a MobyRank to multiple platforms. Particularly handy for those Win3.x/Win/Mac edutainment titles.

3D-Glasses for PS3 and Xbox 360: G-Force (plattforms in question not yet approved)

added

Thanks!

Bah! Don't get me started on this... besides, those changes are so big I don't expect them to happen even in 5 years time... or perhaps?

* updated interface for the forum... I'm NOT going to type html tags out of my memory, thnx

* a rehash of the database regarding game groups, compilations and special editions. Game groups would be only used for shared themes (like "games with zombies"), other uses like game series would be done by linking titles and flagging them (separate flags for special edition etc.). One thing that could be done first is color coding - make the compilations stand out. Or add a checkbox allowing to hide them (like stuff in search results). "Ideal" solution would look something like this: (with the ability to filter the search results, say, to "series" level, thus skipping all unofficial and compilation stuff)

Just to clarify from your example - "100 new levels" is an expansion to the roguelike fangame? 8)

I think he meant it as an unofficial expansion on the main game. But the indent makes it confusing.

OK, imagine that the fangame is on the bottom of the bubble. 100 levels is an addon for the first (official) game. I was hoping for more comments...?

Looks nice!

It definitely looks like it would be a step in the right direction. The limitations of our current system for filing information, especially in game groups, does seem to assume that another source will be used to supplement the information we provide. What you've proposed would mitigate that, I think, and allow for an expansion of game groups as a more informative segment of the site, rather than a (highly) convenient grouping tool.

I totally agree with you in this.

For how things work right now we have that all the special editions are other game, that are related to the original just only if a group including the 2 (or more) is created, which is just silly.

Moreover this leads to the creation of a lot of unnecessary duplicated data, since for example, being the same game, game tech specs and ratings would be the same for both the regular and special edition so they should be contributed only once!

I think this is the right direction to take, but as Rola stated this would require a major database overhaul so would take years...

Regarding compilations etc.: I think that we should consider compilations as releases of the games they contain, rather than as games themselves. The Visual Novel Database, for example, has separate objects for games and releases, and a game may have multiple releases, and a release may contain multiple games. This would let us say that (for example) Windows 95 was a release containing some games (Hover, Minesweeper, etc.) without having Windows 95 show up in search results, which looks silly.

Of course, this requires a change in the database, so I estimate its chances of happening at right about ain't-gonna-happen.

As for the forum... eh, I say we replace it with an NNTP server. Who's with me? Eh? Anyone? Honestly, I rather prefer that the forum should remain user-unfriendly--at least here, we don't have a bunch of posts in pink 18pt Lucid Handwriting with blue backgrounds. Remember that, and be grateful.

Good point. I'm also having serious issues with compilations. Tech-specs, for example. I can somehow accept it if the Game1 is packed with its sequel, Game2 - and it also received face-lifting in the form of engine upgrade etc. which also increases system requirements to almost match Game2 etc. etc. But I can't stand compilations of totally random games! Various genres, different publishers etc. Nearly impossible to properly rate, review those entries or tag them with genres/themes etc. And don't mention tech-specs for those...

And let me get back to special editions. New games repacked with just a custom mug/mouse pad/figure get another database entry. Old games that were released on CD-ROM and thus having plenty of upgraded content, like speech, CD audio music, FMV cinematics etc. are crammed with the standard floppy editions. Umm...?

So if this site has any serious upgrade plans for the near future (say, next 4 years), better if it won't be big, shiny buttons...

But one point, perhaps i understand it wrong, does your remarks also mean, that the compilations do not have their original names ?? But instead the title is then the addition of the game with their titles included ?

I personally share the opinion for thingies like OSes - i'm no friend of this actual constellation for example:

Windows 2000 (included games) andsoon...

But how shall this look for normal compilations, sure you can add the original compilation title as alternative title - so that the search engine will still find them, that's not the problem...

BUT...

how shall this look for example for such a compilation?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/aber-hallo

Title: Armaëth: The Lost Kingdom + B-17 Flying Fortress + Battle Stations + Black Gold + Bunny Bricks +.... more than 40 titles coming !!

Okay, it's 2.30am in the morning here in Germany, i'm tired, and i have no clue any longer tonight - this could cause fatal errors in reasoning to me ...

The tech-spec problem is for at least most older compilations not really a problem. Example: Compilation with 6 games included for 3 platforms 2 games for each platform: DOS + Windows 3.1 + Windows --- normally it should be so (but often not practiced or no detailed infos available): Our tech-specs required "section" is based on the minimum needed, that means: You enter the minimum requirements of the game that needs less hardware power - AND - add in the notes a info about what is required at least for the other game of this platform.Doing this for all platforms -> everything's fine.

I share your opinion partly about the Disk -> Enhanced CD-ROM versions. Sure it is for example possible to add Trivia in the style of "CD-ROM version contains speech, and this or that, and blabla.." - i would prefer a split of the game, or when it comes to new entries - 2 games for it. Partially this is done - you find several games when you search long enough that were already splitted. THE PROBLEM imo is the missing of sheer menpower. Don't forget all those games - and these are plenty when we're talking about the constellation of especially DOS games... how will you handle it? Contributors give a broad info "Game xy" need to be splitted. Only Admins can handle this as far as i know, perhaps a very few approvers - i can't or do not know how. So now what must happen: Covers must be moved, release infos must be moved, perhaps trivias, tech-specs etcpp. need to be moved/splited andsoon, new descriptions must be written.

As i said at the start: I share your opinion about that, but having a lot of background about the site, still more than enough i have to learn day for day ... this will be a process - that should been getting started, but it's not a thing that will be done in a few days or weeks, with the limited menpower and the knowledge how to handle this, that's an sheer incredible amount of work - not to forget that even admins and approver have to double-check if the given information is reliable to make the split, to proof exactly which informations, let's say: we make a split for DOS game "ABC" to "ABC (Disk)" and "ABC (CD-ROM)", which informations will remain at "ABC" that will be changed to "ABC (Disk)", which informations will be moved to "ABC (CD-ROM)" - which informations must be duplicated because it must remain for ABC Disk but alo for ABC CD-ROM...

I don't say: We should not start that - WE ALREADY DO THIS - and we splitted several games already ... all i wanted to do here, is to give an expression - that this is not a thing we can think about "Ah, here a split and there a split - that's 10 minutes of work" ... no-no, i'm afraid this is the work - excessive said - "Of a limetime" - and we do still have the "problem" (if you want to call it so) - we're all, even those Sciere's, Corn Popper's, Kabushi's and others, or crazy freaks like me, we still do it, like every contributor out there too, volunteer-driven - many of us do not need much sleep, sitting more or less the whole day and night before our PC's - to be continued ---

because we want to see progress, we want to see the site growing and getting better and better - and this works! ... but that's only my opinion, such things can't be done immediately AND require for more helping hands - helping hands, that can handle such things, but also have the background how the innards work. I don't want to say you or others couldn't have that or can't acquire this. But Moby - and that's fine - i love it! :) still grows and grows and grows, and contributions all over the database increases year for year, and that's the benefit of all of you video game nerds out there :) ... but it is still a volunteer-driven project, and it's not that easy to let the "Dark Side" (approvers+admins) of Moby grow with the same speed, it's an great job on both sides for me, i love my "work" as approver and i love to contribute like crazy too ;) - but it also costs a lot of time and nerves - i have all hands full with it, and i think now after - don't know exactly about one year on the "Dark Side" i have learned a lot of things, but there are still also a lot of things i have no idea about, and i can't expect that others are as crazy as i am or all others here on the "Dark Side", and it needs a lot of time and nerves as said to be a "good approver" too - and you really need video games deranged creatures ;) and the "bad" thing - users, gamers, contributors the prosper on trees, those ones are willing to stop gaming more and more to join the other side, and have the nerves and patience and the absolute will to spend so much time for the "Dark Side" and persevere- they're rare sown... "Jesus Christ" has finished ;) (do you really read this down-the-line?)

Um, what?

You're supposed to enter the tech specs for the MOST POWERFUL game in the set. That's the -minimum specs required- to run all games. If your rig can run the game with the most requirements then you can (in theory) run all games.

While that makes sense, I don't think that it's stated explicitly anywhere that that's how we're supposed to do it.

I'm pretty sure a few approvers told me about that a while back.

And you know, if it's not in the rules...

Regarding to game editions, I'd like to see implemented a system similar to the one on discogs or rateyourmusic (in terms of look, I prefer the rateyourmusic one, it looks far more organized).

So, basically, having a main entry under the US title (if it exists), and adding any subsequent releases under it in a list, be they editions with alternate titles, or re-releases. Tags could be used for stuff like Limited Edition, Re-release, Alternate Cover, etc. and release locations could be marked too. Screenshots should be tagged to their corresponding entry, so say a user goes to a page and has the option to see every screenshot, but clicking on a certain release will filter these to show only the corresponding ones.

The only thing I'm not sure of is how to handle it platform-wise, showing these in this list too, or having new entries for each platform the game was released on. I believe the consistent method would be the first, to have a field for platforms, and having an option to view only selected platforms, thus not dumping everything at the users when they access the page.

That would be the most organized way to keep data.

If we look at the two pages you linked we clearly see that there are some common / generic informations for all releases such as band name, genre and first release date and other infos that are particular for each release. The main difference with the current MG is that all the other infos are together in a let's call it "release" entity. This would allow to link together all the data regarding a single release of a game.

Now we already have all the data, such as covers, screenshots, release dates and product codes, but they are not clearly related one to the other so for example we could have a game with the cover with English, Italian and Spanish language words on it, but maybe 3 different release dates based on the country, this wouldn't be a problem if only few releases of a game existed, but since can happen (at least here in Italy) that we get both the fully-localized game, so with an Italian-only cover and the multi-language cover that should both have the same release date, but definitely different product codes.

This may look useless to most, but as a collector, which I figure most of you are, it's important to know what and where a game was released to see if you are missing something from the box or whatever like that.

So in my opinion it would be nice to have the games organized in this way, that's the same as discogs or rateyourmusic, so I know that this game with this cover was released here on that date and with this code.

If it's possible to have a system organized that way we could have the game collection lists based on actual releases of the game! This would allow to a more precise "Most Wanted!" to gather missing informations and would simplify work for approvers.

Some of the stuff I remember asking for, or just thought of:

A rehash of the website. Not just a new theme, but keep the database and change everything else. Making it more horizontal, less cluttered would be nice. Also necessary for some of the following.

Better queries for mobyscore. Making it possible to find out which NES game released on 1988 is believed to have better graphics, or the 2001 PC game most liked (ie, personal slant). Know that was the score a user has given to a game by looking at the collection, and the deviation from the norm (IGN had this, I think). Could be a bit heavy on the database.

A mobile website (with minimal info and graphics) would be nice.

Better game management. Make special editions (and the like) subpages from the original game.

Also, create a new system to categorize game series, with sortable columns for release date and order in the game universe history. Stricly for games who belong in the same universe and series.

Since approval takes so long, I'd suggest a "open" system (like rateyourmusic). Allow users to contribute and show material immediately, but mark unreviewed material as such, and allow users to flag wrong material for faster review.

Speaking of reviews, short form reviews. Maximum of 300 characters. Many times I wanted to write a review for a game, but couldn't find enough to write the whole "good/bad/bottom line".

Tagging. Sure, it's a bit 2006, but the site seems to sit proudly in 2002 anyway.

Sort out the genres. While many games these days qualify as "adventure" in the Indiana Jones (the films, not the games) - like GoW or Uncharted - they're not the same "adventures" as Indiana Jones (the games). Guitar Hero/Rock Band/Cowbell Hero should have their own "music" genre. GTA is a "Sandbox", not a driving game. The current genre selection made sense 10 years ago, now, not so much, because terms change, and genres (such as music and sandbox) emerge.

There.

Since we've crossed the border to fantasy/sci-fi land :P

* integrate "games missing from mobygames" list into the database somehow. maybe make those titles invisible to visitors but available for approvers/admins? so that they appear in search results but you can't click them (since you'd enter a nearly empty "stub" page), but this would make easier tracking those old titles. For me writing a description is a time killer and a major turn-off, otherwise I'd probably send a dozen more titles by now, maybe even with 3-5 screenies each (example: browser Flash games, there's a Firefox plugin that makes screen captures too easy, making a sensible write-up of that another "tower defense" game is what's hard here).

I'm against tags. They turn into a mess soon, people are too lazy to look up and re-use existing tags. Better give us more flexible game groups focusing on themes (including those historical periods, darn it!).

I'm happy with the layout. The fact that everyone else tries to stay "trendy" doesn't mean we have to do that as well. Especially when so-called improvements are a step back in terms of functionality (those big shiny buttons are for computer-illiterate masses, we're hardc0re 3lite!). Better give us advanced search options, like ability to choose more genres/themes at once AND while browsing a group.

example: browser Flash games, there's a Firefox plugin that makes screen captures too easy

Do share, please, because I for one am getting royally tired of cropping them 8)

I'm glad I can be helpful: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/1146/

It's just fantasy because things are moving waaaay too slow. some of that stuff shoould have been implemented some time ago.

My issue with the layout isn't because it's not trendy or whatever. It's simply not effective at all - hard to browse and terribly streamlined, For instance, in a gamepage, only five or six names should appear on the credits - usually the key elements such as designer, lead artist, lead programmer, sound designer and executive producer. Why should the page stretch just to show who the "Product Test Manager" (just to name from a gamepage picked at random) was? I know the credits are the pride and joy of MG, but in a gamepage, it should be used to highlight the key roles. Not the higher and then a "complete credits" if there are too may entries.

The credits box simply shows the first 25 names in the credits that are on file. It isn't our fault if the creative services guy put all the testers first. :P

I agree with you, for both the fact that English is not my main language and I'm crap at writing anyway the compulsory description is a major let down. I can easily provided all the objective infos that I find on a game (covers, screens, tech specs and on), but I would be glad to leave the description to someone more talented than me in writing...

Another idea, when going to submit release info, show a list of what countries release dates are currently pending, like with product codes. This will save contributors seeing the info they contributed rejected with a message 'already on file', and approvers going over the same info twice.

Here's a quick five-minute fix: a link somewhere, anywhere, on the site to browse/game-groups. A friend found it for me using google, and near as I can tell there isn't a single link to that page anywhere on the site.

There is a link in the upper right blue box ("Find Games") on the main page.

Well blow me down. First time I even noticed that. Probably because having one searchbox two hundred pixels away from another search box is kind of silly.

Man, Moby does need a UI overhaul, doesn't it?

A checkbox you can click on your profile so that, when entering mobyranks, you can trim down the list of total websites by removing those that do not publish reviews in a specific language. For instance by checking english and french a source that has only ever published reviews in german would disappear, but one that has published reviews in german and french would remain.

• The possibility to change the role title without having to delete it first.


• A checkbox to to delete all names associated to a role. Now you have to click every single name.


• Fixing the bug that you have to click "update" twice to affect the credits order


• Less slowdown with big credits listings


• The possibility to create a new developer even if someone with the same name is already on file


• The possibility to associate an alternate name for a developer directly through the credits wizard without having to ask the approver.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

At the very least, a way of adding AKAs other than merges or name corrections.

Overall: Yes'si, seconded :)

a) That's annoying, the fact that approvers can do this without problems when fixing/editing contributor credits, shouldn't make it too hard to "open" this feature for all.

b) That's more than annoying - yes, these "double confirmation". All times, but especially for longer credit listings, when scrolling/paging down always twice. Really hate this "feature".

c) Normally available most times, does not work always - no idea why. 1.) If the wizard does not give you automatically all people listed with this name (as main or aka) to view and choose the one you want - you can b.) DISABLE this "Java" feature of automatically selection, by clicking on the LAST paragraph of the above mentioned explaination... "The credits wizard uses a JavaScript program to parse the names you enter in real time. If you don't like this feature, or it's not working on your browser, click here to disable it." - click there. DOES ONLY WORK (as said most times, but not always) if you DELETE such an entry BEFORE, then DISABLE the feature, and enter it new.

d) No, this one i don't want. It's one more contribution point - afterwards :) - by adding it the way: DEVELOPER --> CORRECTION ---> "Please add additional name sdfjlksdf - source: Manual credits of game asjkldfskdf. 1 extra points in credits requires 4 additional persons. So i like it the way it is so far.

It even gets more stupid. I just noticed that it reverts to the original order if you click "update" three times...

the workaround is to avoid pressing update and instead using previous or next - then he gets it the first time.

This actually works. Thanks!

I want someone to fix the "Most Wanted" bug which has plagued us since at least 2006.

Approvers being able to help out on the corrections queue. Having less than a handful of people able to correct a TON of inaccurate info on this site is insanity. If one of this site's main goals is to have the most accurate information on videogames, letting wrong info languish on the site for sometimes more than a year definitely hurts that image.

I can tell you that's not going to happen because you have to have admin access to manipulate a lot different data outside of the queues.

Whilst recently adding PS2 tech specs, i noticed that a couple of specs were not present, namely 'analogue controller: sticks only' and 'analogue controller: all buttons'.

Considering there are a few games out there that have these, i think they should be added.

In the spirit of the new way things hopefully will get done. A few brainstorming ideas that I don't think have been mentioned here, yet:

Game Groups:

- The ability for contributors to submit game groups (including already selecting the games which are part of it) | this could create more work than it's worth.
- The ability to add a game to a group during the submission (only approvers can do that right now AFAIK).

Contribute page inside the game wizard:

- Add an option to directly add MobyRanks without the need to go to the partial main summary and do it from there

Game Wizard:

- Description on the "Ratings"-tab defining when to use "personal slant" only and a basic description of what this page does anyway
- The ability to access the original cover art on the "Cover Art"-tab. It works for screenshots - so why not for cover art?

Tech Specs:

- The ability to suggest additional/new tech-specs for a platform (which can only be approved by an admin of course) | this could also create more work than it's worth.

Hardware

- Pages with information about consoles and hardware and stuff. You know that page there for the PS2...

Credits:

- The ability to make a correction like a false group name or a typo in a devname and such in already approved credits through the normal approval system without the need of an admin to go in and fix it manually.

Release Info:

- The ability to add/remove additional companies to existing release information through the normal approval system without the need of an admin to go in and fix it manually.

So that's all from the top of my head. The whole Credit Wizard thing I already mentioned a few posts above. Surely I'll find more.

It is possible to submit complete new release info, and ask the approver to replace an existing one. There is an agreement that this is only done when 2 or more things (date, company, comment) differ from the original submission.

- which is more work than if I could just additional stuff myself and the approver just needs to clear it. It would also mean that the original contributor wouldn't get a whole rejected item (always a downer :) ).

True. I just mentioned it in case you weren't aware.

That OFLC url has been replaced.

Under his thread branch I want to collect all small and big changes needed for subpages (just text, no functionality).

Classifying Credits
This page was compiled eight years ago or something. It is horribly outdated and little use for new contributors. Needs a complete rewrite to match the classifications we currently use.

Game Credits start page
"We recommend that you use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher or Netscape 6.0 or higher.
The most famous one. While the statement itself is true it should be adjusted so it doesn't look like it was written eight years ago.

That's all I can think of right now. Please add more! I'll add your suggestions to this post so we have a handy list for future "change of the week" discussions.

By far the most important demand now is to fix the buggy new search engine, that doesn't show some games or game groups!

More:

Developer page:

- Ability to submit alternate names (similar to companies)
- Ability to send in a name correction which an approver can look over without an admin needing to manually changing it

You may have noticed a basic theme already: The whole "Corrections" thing in my opinion has to be completely reworked. Instead there should be as many options as possible for the contributor to get things into the normal approval queue where a normal approver can look it over and just approve it without any admin needing to be involved for manual labor.

Game Wizard - Description page:

- Ability for a preview (including the spell check) similar to here in the forum. Always loading the overview to check if something is spelled right sucks as this page takes a while to load.
- Ability to directly replace a wrongly spelled word with a suggestion from the spell checker
- A WYSIWYG-editor or at least formating buttons, eliminating the need to manually write out HTML-code and mobytags. This of course goes for all pages including here in the forum or in the rapsheet. But Game Wizard is where it would be needed most.

Game Wizard - Entry exists:

- If not approved yet: See the current status of that existing entry
- If not approved yet: Show the name of the user who is already working on the entry.
- If approved, show the oldest release year of the already existing together with the platforms to make it easier to distinguish between games of the same name.

I don't know if came up in this thread before but:

Awards Section
A separate page (or at least a special section in trivia) in which we collect all awards and prices a game got - e.g. "Best game of 2008", "best graphics in 2008" etc. - from magazines, award celebrations, websites. Possibly also from ranking lists (e.g. #10 of magazine X's "Best Game of all time" list).

Reason: Clutters up trivia

Which brings me to:

Magazines

- Own sites for magazines, featuring basic information about them as well as a collection of all the games that they reviewed possible including their rating on the same page. An enhanced Gamegroup if you will.

I also think this is very much needed indeed.

Another one:

Trivia revisions
Same revision system for trivia as we have for descriptions.

Reason: There is a lot of badly written trivia in the database.

As MX per Z mentioned in the other thread, this also goes for

Screenshots:

- make screen shot captions revisable like descriptions

make screen shot captions revisable like descriptions

I strongly disagree with this. People will simply start changing any caption they don't like. What is a "bad" screenshot caption, anyway? There is hardly such a thing, unless there is no caption at all. It's not at all the same like with game descriptions, where accuracy and objectivity is what matters.

If we have this feature, a lot of amusing, individually unique captions will disappear from the site, just because someone will come up with captions that describe what's happening on screen more precisely. I don't want to see captions turn from "Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful!" above an ugly monster into a boring "This is character X, standing in front of location Y"!

That's not the intention here. I've just seen so many typos in captions and almost always was too lazy to submit a correction for it.

We can agree not to approve those, but as it is now, there are a lot of grammatical errors in these captions. Not to say there really are bad ones, that just say "Level 1" or something like that.

In every other field we can replace things right now (covers, release info, description) there is a big, big standard which says: Only if it is significant better. I don't see the danger that that could change if we allow users to replace more.

Here's a five minute (ha ha) fix:

Company pages

On game contribution pages it is possible to click on the game's title to return to the game's main page. This should be added to company pages too.

Caption edition for my fighting games screenshots? Oh, man... I don't want to think about this possibility! =(

2nd that, been wanting that for years.

Based on that other discussion:

Genre-Tags

- Transform "adult" into real "adult" and add a new tag perhaps called "nudity" or something - to differentate between all the hentai and just the "we don't want naked chicks on the front page"-stuff.

Good suggestion ! But maybe even more detailed?

Adult - Porn
Adult - Nudity
Adult - Violence

Come on guys, let's not do that, please. We will never solve this. We can't play every single game and see if there is nudity in it or not. Hundreds of games have demons with bare breasts, but nothing else concerning sex. Hundreds of games have no nudity but suggestive erotic themes, girls in bikini and sexual innuendo in dialogues. What is porn and what is not porn? There are hentai games that don't show genitalia but have dozens of naked girl pictures. There are games that show genitalia one or two times and have no sexual content beside it. And so on, so on. We will never get to the bottom of this.

And for what? Adult games are adult games. They are games made with a specific goal in mind. Games like Witcher is not one of them, just remove that screenshot and let the poor game be among its peers, not dumped together with hentai!

You have a point. But then we can never again submit a bare breast shot for a non-adult game... *sigh*

I would rather like to see it the way it is rather than bowing to censorship. It simply reflects that this here is an US-based website. ;-)

My suggestions:

- Some sort of implementation of "special editions" in the regular game entries. The current amount of additional entries clutters the database and makes the website less useful for regular visitors in my opinion.

- Better right-to-left languages support - Currently, submitting content in such languages is somewhat difficult. The punctuation mark at the end of a sentence moves to the beginning, the order messes up when English characters are used somewhere in the sentence.

- High resolution covers, perhaps with the ability to hide the MobyGames tag if above a certain amount of points.

Not sure I like the concept of any of moby's content being contributor only.

I assume the removal of the tags however is not really an option. Perhaps restrict by registered account age, regardless of points, with a daily view limit? (although it may be more difficult to implement)

As a small improvement to Credits, having an alternative to the wizard where a contributor can confirm that the credits already on file for one system's release can also be used for another system's release.

oh yeah! That would be awesome. WotLK e.g. would finally get its Mac credits (too lazy to add everything a second time). Although the question the is: how to distribute the points? I mean the other guy did most of the work. Perhaps just a percentage for the one who discovered that they are the same?

-edit- deleted

Just a few:

Moby Tips:

- #67 - The survey doesn't even exist anymore. Either remove it or renew it.
- #76 - I don't think anyone is allowed to leave out the dev or publisher anymore. So perhaps remove it?
- #44 - I see no word "Browse" on the main page. If it refers to the "Game Browser" it still isn't accurate as you can't see the total number of games in the database there. Perhaps just change it so that it points to the Database Stats on the left?
- #7 "The short list of companies and genres on MobyGames' main page are the ten most common of their kind in our database." - Don't remember ever seeing that :). - Remove?
- #72 "Do you still have the receipt with the box? Most stores print a date of purchase on the receipt, so you could check through some of your older games and fill in some more accurate release dates for lesser-known titles." - I don't think anyone would approve that would they?
- #47 - Wouldn't it be easier to point the user to the game-page and tell him to hit "contribute" instead of that complicated method using the "game entry exists" page?
- #57 - by now the first 200 entries are some of the most complete entries here so we could remove that tip now in my opinion.
- #15- The link is dead. I guess the new one is http://www.mobygames.com/info/faq6#f8
- #22 - Should be reworded. At the moment it sounds like we just recently began accepting shareware and freeware games. Perhaps just write "commercial games -- we also document shareware and freeware games".


Of course we should also think of new tipps but that's for later :).

adjusted as needed

Screen shots should be group-able similar to what we do in credits. This feature should come with a new standard for the grouping, like

Title screen(s) / Intro
Menus/Options
Early game
Mid game
End game
Extro

If we'd have this, we could even hide the last three groups per default, for people afraid of spoilers.

sounds good but don't forget "Multiplayer".

I think also groups based on different hardware configurations should be possible. For example for a DOS game you might have different screenshots for CGA, EGA and VGA.

Seconded. But this means we would need groups (CGA/VGA) and sub-groups (like above).

And I'm looking forward to submitting 40 screen shots for every supported resolution of a Windows game. =)

Or for different languages - at least for games where understanding the screenshot text matters. Or for different game versions, e.g. these sprite swaps in some console games or the censored German version.

shots from censored games for comparison is definatly something we should cover. Of course that wouldn't warrant an additionnal 40 shots but e.g. 5 shots which specifically show the changes as opposed to the normal release would be awesome.

Wouldn't it be good, the longer this excellent thread gets, to make for example an additional thread - with hmmmm.... something like CONCLUSIONS:

If i were Brian, Rob or one of those guys - it won't be great fun for me to read up and down, left and right, Post. no. 85 is the further discussion of 34, andsoon - if you understand what i mean:

A quick, compressed overview in another thread, and maybe - god knows, there the Masters can make own comments, like:

No. 3: DONE No. 9: Working at No. 11: Sorry, this requires a lot of hard work, don't expect this soon... No. 19: Impossible, dream on guys!

??

Things from here will be lifted to the approval thread in due time.

I think the general idea is that we approvers follow this thread and decide what we think are the most urgent/usefule issues. Then we present it in the thread in the approver's forum and decide on the week's schedule. Or something.

You said what I said, but more eloquently =)

Okidi-dokidi - i had the first impression that our Approver Wishthread is a separate thingy - Brian & Co. make contributors happy here - and Approvers happy there. Because the needs of both sides are often totally different.

So fine-fine, then i take the role of:

Don Joyvalley Controlletti, i take a look on you, approvers+admins buddies, that you shovel the data to the Approver Thread like Contributors contributions at the end of a week. And i sweep the remains.

Hah, i'm a badass - don't forget about this - let's start with the simple things: EYES FRONT! EAT DIRT! DOGS, DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?!

Hmmm, i think i could enjoy this *harharhar*

May I direct the approver / admin attention to an adjustment of the beta policy again?

This would make a perfect candidate for a weekly accomplishment, no coding needed here. :o)

You have my vote at least

Yes, I agree a new beta policy should definitely be figured out.

Also, a minor issue. Pages like this should have their minimum vote raised. It's pointless to see a bunch of 1 vote 5.0 games.

If it hasn't already been mentioned, when proof reading a new game submision, the caption you put for any screenshots should be visible to check for any spelling errors, before you send it in for approval. That happened to me just a minute ago.

seconded - too many typos from me make it into the live database because of it being absent in the game wizard.

That's why I never contribute screenshots with the main game wizard. I always contribute them like I would if the game was already approved. Then I have a preview.

Paah, again you poser! ;) ... no-no - i say THIRDED, i submitted no shots so far, but to edit many, many times the shots of others in the Approval queue -> i would like to see this too.

And bizarrely the submission spell-checker even marks items like the database's own genre names as misspelled, but these things slip through.

I've been waiting for some action on that to submit Echo Bazaar...

Hehe - it took me a while to spot that little "Beta" in the lower left corner... :o)

It's true: they are still adding to it.

Personal quick wish list, though many have already been mentioned, for good reason.

Efficiency & User Friendly Fixes

Trivia and Tips&Tricks section should be changed to same format as game description revisions (easier to fix, less burden on the admins);

Each contribution section should also include a separate FAQ and standards. Also notification that html tags does work in MG submissions.

That "bigger box to-type-in" suggestion.

Behind the Scenes fixes

Permanently delete problem developers that cannot be deleted by approvers or admins;

Permanently delete certain duplicate game groups (the numericals can't be deleted);

Someone give Pseudo a wiki account so he can whine on a lot more issues :p

Serious Consideration

A separate all-user accessible MG wiki. We can't seriously claim to be a community driven site, if not everyone has access to all the issues and facts.

If you're hard core enough, a team (or just anyone who's interested) in the genre overhaul (yes, to hell to you gaming industry standards). I have a framework, just need support. A lot of it.

A couple of tech spec requests:

• I know processor type is already an option, but i would also like to have processor speed to be listed as well.
• Some where other than the comments box for the HDD needed to install a game(PC and modern consoles) and to save a game (any console with a game save ability)

To me, them not being already included is something of a glaring omission.

A few things I've been thinking about:

1. Our game pages could use a little redesign. We have some valuable information which is hidden away on other pages, and a little reordering might be helpful, too.

1a. The game links should be on the main page for the game. This is especially true of browser games. Are there any games that have so many links it'd ruin the game page to have them included?

1b. We have a tips section, but it's little enough used that I rarely glance over to see if there's anything in it. Perhaps listing a few of the entries in that section on the main page would encourage people to actually use it. It's a bit useless as it stands, I think.

1c. I'd like it if the screenshots linked to the actual shots, rather than all of them linking to the screenshots page. I still occasionally open up a few new tabs pointing all at the screenshot page before remembering that's how it works. Of course, we could then just have a little text 'all screenshots', or something like, linking to the screenshots page.

1d. I'd reorder the sections. If I had my choice, I'd probably say: description; forums; trivia; user reviews; the press says. And, on the right sidebar: screenshots; links; groups; credits.

2. It'd be great if we accepted more pictures. Feelies, sides of game boxes, scanned advertisements, whatever else people might dream of.

3. Releases should be able to be tied to multiple games, and should have more detailed descriptions. Then, compilations, special editions, demos, and whatever else could just be added as releases of the games they contain, with whatever necessary details spelled out per release. Screenshots could also be tied to a particular combination of release and game, and we could use our current only-distinct-content rule to prevent fifty copies of every screenshot being added.

4. Related to the last: we should support demos, shareware versions, publicly released betas, and any other kind of game release that people might have acquired in any way. We can't claim to thoroughly document games if we don't cover this as well. In particular, there are lots of cases where demos were released weeks or months in advance of the full version being available (or even cases where the full version was never released), and we should document that release date as well.

5. We should have videos. These could be hosted by youtube or whatever your preferred video host, but we should have them. I was a little skeptical about the value of videos before, but I have seen the light. Observe the animated GIF on this wikipedia article. That little video explains Prince of Persia better than pages of text or dozens of screenshots could. We need things like that here.

I guess that 2 and 4 could be more or less done now with just policy changes, but some software support would probably be best.

I've got lots more never-gonna-happen-but-would-be-neat ideas, but I guess I'll leave off here so as to have a list of merely finite length.

- When a credits submissions is about to run out you get an email - it would be cool, if this concept would be expanded to include other submissions currently WIP. Mainly of course new game entries.

- I know the yellow warning text is there for a reason and I don't want to remove it. But it would be cool to have a way to tell the wizard "Yes, I've read it and I know that I've more work to do here but let me jump to another page of the wizard real quick anyway, okay?".

In my case it would mainly be useful for the credits wizard because during the classification-phase I often find typos in the role-names but I can't immediately go back and fix them but instead have to finish the classifications or reopen the credits. The first way has the risk of me forgetting about the typo and the latter is a bit of a hassle.

Something I'd like to see, being a new user to this site:

-Abolish the 100 games limit for the playlist. I'd like to maintain the list of games I've played with the links to their respective MobyGames database entries, and the "playlist" feature serves this task very well, but I'm afraid I might hit the limit at some point.

But we've just raised the limit to 100!

Welcome!

You can use a havelist for this purpose.

Yeah there's no limitations to the have list.

Thank you for the tip, I will use it instead. If I could propose an enhancement to the Havelist feature, that would be the addition of the respective MobyGames database entry links directly to the havelist. Currently, one has to click on each title, and then proceed to the linked game entry from there, adding the link directly to the Havelist (for instance hidden under some little arrow sign next to the title) would save 1 step. With this improvement, this feature would be just perfect.

Seconded.

I moved house some weeks ago, and my collection moved up from a cold and wet basement to a hugeish locker in my corridor. Wonderful. So I plan to finally complete my havelist in the next months, and it would be nice if this small change could be part of one of the next updates.

I have a suggestion for a minor change to the playlists, one that should absolutely take no time away from any other project because it is so trivially cosmetic. Instead of just listing the first five objects of a list in alphabetical order, could it instead take five objects at random? It would make the short lists look nicer than just being defined by the random nature of their titling.

After entering credits for the first time in ages, since we (finally) have the name ID in the drop box, search results for developers should have a second line with the companies he/she worked for, something like:

Developer: Peter Molyneux
Microsoft Game Studios, Electronic Arts, CDV Studios, Sierra Online, Firebird Software

Or even:

Developer: Peter Molyneux
Active between 1988 and 2010 (Microsoft Game Studios, Electronic Arts, CDV Studios, Sierra Online, Firebird Software)

This would make choosing between common names (even searching) a lot faster, although could be a bit of a stretch on database queries. Comments?

Separate MobyRanks for non-scored reviews.

I've seen lots of magazines that don't give a number or a grade, instead they say "X has this and that, avoid / play it."

I'd like to have this featured as an option for MobyRanks, but not have it affect the score. Just as reference. Or something.

Seconded. Computer Gaming World, the most important American games magazine of the 1980s didn't have scores in its reviews.

MobyUn-Ranked sounds a little weird, but yeah. Though for visual pleasure, I would believe a green thumbs up/red thumbs down pic, would suffice as an alternate "score" in this regard.

Great, Facebook ratings. Whoopdee doo. :P

Ditto on the expanded search capabilities. I think BoardGameGeek.com should be used as a model. Their search options are simply awesome!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/advsearch/boardgame

(You will have to expand the three options at the bottom to see the true scope of what they allow you to select.)

Something like SQL Server Report Builder, where an admin exposes a limited subset of data and regular users can build whatever type of report they want out of it, would be cool too, I guess.

A Downloadable Content tech spec to be used on Windows / Mac, PS3, PSP, Wii, XBox 360, and whatever other platforms that need it.

It's a necessity considering how much DLC is being released these days, no?

I don't think we need a new tech spec for that. What significant differences are there to "add-on"?

I mentioned it so it would be a visible tech spec along with the others. I figured it wouldn't count under the add-on spec since it's electronic.

Of course it does! DLCs are exactly the same as add-ons, just with a new trendy name and less content.

Edit: Or do you mean a tech-spec for the base game and not for the DLC itself?

I think this has already been brought up, but would it be possible to expand the Tech Specs pages for PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and GameCube pages to have a stat aside from the notes section for the official save file size, since all three systems list save file sizes on the box? Also possibly an additional section aside from notes for every system from the Turbo Duo to the GameCube for actual save file sizes. I guess they could be used for other consoles with large HDDs, but that just seems kind of needlessly pedantic.

Seconded, since every game has a memory card requirement we should have a tech-spec for that.

Not every game requires a memory card.

Check out Skullmonkeys on the PS1. You don't need a memory card. It uses passwords.

Yeah, but 99% of PS1 game DO require a memory card. And practically every console for over a decade requires or uses memory storage. The PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, Gamecube, dreamcast, Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii and not forgetting the PC all pretty much utilize memory storage, some for more than one purpose. Yet is this reflected in the tech specs for them?

Yeah, I didn't mean that it should have become a mandatory tech-spec, in that case I would have understood your complaint that not all the game need one. What I want Is just a tech-spec like the others, tick for "Memory card space" and then type in the quantity required.

Quick bug: When adding a game, under "Game Ratings", I can't just leave it at just "Personal Slant"; the system asks me to add at least one more rating category. The problem? Just having Personal Slant is (I hope) the correct behavior for compilations. I can work around this by skipping that screen entirely, but that's annoying.

(Also, I'd like the ability to go back to an earlier screen even if the current one isn't filled in correctly. When researching the release date, sometimes I think of something I want to add to the description.)

Unfortunately that doesn't work neither. If you skip the screen there will be no ratings at all. I think the approver can deselect all ratings when approving the game.


Especially annoying when you find typos in your role names during the credits classification.

spam

Another bug report: an approved description correction in Approval Notifications has the before and after listed, but both are identical. (Not useful....)

Just wondering, is it currently possible to add a game without an exact release year? For example like 198X or 199X, or without a release year at all?

I ask because I have recently submitted a game (David's Kong for DOS) of which there is no release info to be found at all. It was somewhere in the 1980s, probably 1984 or 1985.

Nope it is not. What can sometimes help is file creation dates. I think that's where this site got its date.

Though a few dateless submissions slipped around the net back in the dawn of time and are still floating around the database, a date is required for a legitimate submission these days. It's a pain, because there are tons of games whose release dates have been lost to the ages and long forgotten even by their creators, but there are some good "ballpark" release date sources (x must have come before, or very shortly after, y) one can employ in a pinch, including file datestamps, remarks in game documentation or source code, wareZ infofile and crack release dates and walkthrough release dates, mentions in usenet forums, etc.

How about some more Sony PN prefixes? I'd like it if CPCS could be added since Capcom uses that for some of their later releases and bundles.

There should be a few threads in the approver forum where I complain about these.

company specific is a no

... Why?

These are codes Sony assigned to these companies. There's well over thirty games and packages that use this code. Other companies (I don't recall which ones) also have their own codes. So why the refusal?

Konami is one of the others. They use a VX prefix for their japanese games.

That's just their internal product code, not the Sony PN. See here, the Sony PN is below their own product code.

No answer? Really? Not even a "because we said so?"

Whine about it in a year or two after the other more urgent whinings are implemented. Come to think of it, we should be whining one a week now. How goes the update progress, anyone?

I guess this is the proper thread to post this.

Having video reviews and features might be nice if it were tied into a Youtube channel. (Bandwidth would not be an issue, correct?)

It might be nice to have a tech spec box where a game's level of subtitling (completely subtitled, partially, none) can be described. It's not exactly a "tech spec" per say, but that sounds like the best place to put that kind of information.

The style guide at
http://www.mobygames.com/info/game_guidelines#t_mobytags
says we can put the platform of a game into a moby link, like
< moby game="something" platform="DOS" >something< /moby >
This does not work. It results in a link to
http://www.mobygames.com/search/quick?platform=DOS
instead of something like
http://www.mobygames.com/search/quick?q=something&p=2

The current "This day in gaming" short list is kind of, well, limited. It might work better if it took one or two entires from random years in the past three decades (i.e. 2003, 1996, 1988). There probably isn't enough to-the-day dated information from the 70s for it to be worth fitting in there.

Ok, now for something i would really like to see, and we do not currently accept anywhere and that's been brought up somewhere else, possibly by Dewa Indra. That being images/scans/photos of extras from limited/collectors/special editions, especially but not limited to artwork books. Also inlcudes stuff like the Fallout 3 bobblehead, the Dom and Maria keepsake photo fron the Gears of War 2 Limited Edition and the injector pen from the Dead Rising 2 Zombrex Edition.

Considering the aim of MobyGames is "To meticulously catalog all relevant information about electronic games", i am a bit surprised this sort of thing is not already accepted in here.

If any of the big wigs are reading this, I would be interested in any comments, thoughts or plans about this being implemented.

already been thought to add and in line with a lot of other stuff

Cool. Thanks.

A revision of the ad blurbs section of the mobystandards could use a revision regarding ad blurbs similarities. Had a few just rejected by one approver after a few were approved by another, despite nothing about it being mentioned in the MobyStandards. I know it this has had a thread about it in the approvers forums, but not everyone has access to it.

After submitting a description revision I'd like to be redirected to the game's rap sheet like for any other contribution.

Hi, I am not sure if anyone mentioned this earlier, but I would like to see one improvement in Game Browser. There should be a way to sort the games by MobyRank and MobyScore via Game Browser.

I'd love to see the backend streamed into blog software such as WordPress.

What I'm most interested in is a sidebar widget that could display one of my playlists. I'm currently doing this for my blog with an Amazon plugin (the now playing widget http://www.significant-bits.com/), but it doesn't always have the games I want to mention and linking to a store might be seen as an advertisement.

a sticky forumthread where any "wishes" which were made here in this thread and made it to the site a mentioned and described.

Uh oh, the non-contributing pointless users are getting sarcastic and ornery!

Well, since some of us simply don't care to do so because our requests keep getting ignored...

Whose not?

Never mind

When doing any sort of contribution, the "notes for approver" section doesn't get saved if you go back a page. Bit annoying if you notice something you missed while explaining something.

Wonders why MG doesn't provide a form of description + pictures + anything regarding the platforms available here.

A bit low on the educational and informational values here.

Links to other sites which have informations /details of a game which arent covered up on mg.

think links to gamefaqs when they have a faq or a movelist for a game.

sources from where the informations are,

languages mentioned.

most ps2 pal games as example have 3-5 languages, here, they just have a uk or europe flag.

more informations about the disc content, especially from the CDrom era when many games had audiotracks which were playable on normal cd players to listen the music of the games

This is already covered in the tech-specs

[1] Already covered in the Links/Searches section (go to game --> game rap sheet left column --> bottom link).

Though personally I'd like that section to be removed and moved/incorporated in the main page of a game. Pretty useless now since (unlike before, if no links were available, it could not be clicked on) the links section no longer provides distinction on whether or not there are links available there.

If there's no link there, the only information displayed is:
"*Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.".

Not really helpful.

[2] You'll have to submit this manually. Can't rely on incorporating an automated system since for example our dubious "relationship" with replacementdocs has not yet been fixed for more than 5 years. My grandma walks faster and she's dead. :p

[3] Has been proposed eons ago. No definite solution on how to handles this yet. Different releases may introduce different language selections. Information regarding supporting languages has almost always been minimal on official gaming websites. Even for PC games, they also lack this information in the readme files/manuals.

yarr,thats a pity, but its true, the whole internet lacks of infos regarding the different language and often gametitles too.

wouldnt manual scans on mb be cool?, similar to readme files

nobody says we would need 600 dpi files in png`s here but about the same..or at least a bit better quality as on replacementdocs. same with other retail game content like surveys and ads which came with the game

http://www.replacementdocs.com/ already does that and is a permanent authority in that regard. Redoing that scene would be redundant considering, not to mention copyright issues.

1. In credits add page, when multiple developers exists under similar name we have string "multiple people match the name Gavin Parker, please select the correct one". It would be useful to have name there linked to search, like these: "multiple people match the name Gavin Parker, please select the correct one."

2. Ability to create credits categories with blank title.

You can do that if you just enter a space.

Actually, you can't do this anymore. It just deletes them. If you're working on existing credits that have them, it'll tell you to enter a title, and you have to exit the wizard to go to the other pages.

It should definitely be changed back, in my opinion.

I approve of not allowing blank titles.

As 雷堂承太朗 -djsw- says, it doesn't work anymore. I had to use "_". Maybe, it's worth to try some invisible Unicode characters.

Also, I wish some kind of quick access table with latin letters, like Ç,ß,í and so on.

And an apple.

It would be nice (and very helpful) if yet to be approved submissions where shown on the release info contribution screen.

Seconded. Would be useful for approvers also, so one could check whether the submission you're currently looking at is the first one submitted or not.

I want to able to assign a classification to a whole group.

Example: I have a group "Voice Actors" with 30 roles. I don't want to have to assign "Audio-->Voice Talent" to each one individually

My workaround usually is to have one position for "Voice actors" and then have a long list of people's names, each one followed with the roles they played in parentheses.

there should be no workaround... the credits should be presented as they shown in the original credits

It shouldn't be difficult to make group role selection with JavaScript. If you have free time, of course.

I'll keep that in mind next time I see a name listed /before/ a role, or a name written in all caps.

If all positions, roles and sequences are entered and filed in such a way that all the salient information is retained, I see no reason to insist on the most labour-intensive input method. The database doesn't know any difference between "Voice Actor" and "Voice Acting: King Graham" and neither does any human reading the listing, except the one who put in ten times the work to make it reflect precisely the way it was initially laid out.

I'm hardly advocating a loose interpretation of all rules, but if the programmer can't be bothered to do the work once, it's a bit rich to expect volunteers to do the work hundreds of times.

Tab, Q, up, up, up, up, tab, Q, up, up, up, up, tab, Q, up, up, up, up...

I do. Still a pain.

So I was reading The 5 Hardest, Most Pointless World of Warcraft Achievements when it hit me: MobyGames should have achievements. I know that the points system was introduced for a similar reason: to give contributors a numerical measure of achievement. But perhaps it's time to implement achievements for, e.g., contributing your first game, contributing 10, 50, 100 games ("OCD historian!"); 100, 1000, 5000 screenshots ("Shutterbug!"); 20, 50, 100 bits of cover art ("Paper trail!"). You get the idea.

We just need to come up with the appropriate category thresholds and absurdly punny names for each one.

Oh, and we also need to have a separate committee to keep generating new achievements based on whatever contribution level Sciere happens to be at this week. :-)

Like that idea too

Sounds too much like GiantBomb.

No frame of reference since I haven't really spent any time there.

I absolutely don't care about achievements in games but this sounds fun. I approve of this idea.

There's already a contribution stats page that lists everything a person has added. What would achievements add to that?

That's achievement relative to all other site contributors. The kind of achievements I was proposing would be individual milestones.

I like this idea!

StackExchange sites (like StackOverflow) have nice achievement system (they call it badges).

But if similar system would be implemented at MobyGames, I'd like it to be something more than another way of points showing. It should display such deeds, which can not by measured by points.

Purely Academic (10g) -- Add 5 Adult-flagged games.
The Historian (10g) -- Add 5 games that are more than 25 years old.
Picking up the Pieces (5g) -- Add 4 different pieces of information for a game you did not submit.
Completionist (20g) -- Add information to 60% of the games for a platform.

And of course some more rigorous ones for the first three. :)

You was the first person associated in my mind with achievements for MG, heh.

King of the Hill (100g) - Dethrone Sciere from the first place.

Obsessed and Too Much Time - have more pending contributions than joyvalley for a continuous time of three weeks

How much does he have now?

There are 1275 PC tech-info pending (without my own) and I bet at least 1200 are from him. And I guess a good chunk of the 625 pending alternate titles, too.

But he has to wait a bit. At the moment I'm working at the trivia queue, it looks like no one touched that in the last six months.

Seems like I'm 1/3 way there, with 1010 submissions pending.

P.S.: Useful suggestion - make date selection input done with select HTML element. I've been using this for couple of weeks now and such approach greatly improves adding release info time.

Reduced a lot in the last 8 days, especially because of Jeanne and Paul, and a few others:

3.700+ are now not more than 2.500+, when it become less than 2.000+ i have to stop approving, sleeping, eating and all other unimportant things again. Under 2.000 i get nightmares, that i will wake up the next day and my pending queues are empty... ;)=

Stupid bandwidth. Might as well do something while I wait.

Gigantum list of things that need to be updated in MG (which may or may not have been addressed already), all of which may only be fixed by the MG Gods. But before that, there should be a philosophy that I need to propose for MG:

Let the MG community decide the development, growth, and direction of the MG database.

[enter sarcastic comment here]

1. Approver Consensus Notification
   Severe communication issues really should not be an MG trademark.
   
   
2. New User Submission Priority Concern
   Separate queue for approvers regarding submissions by new users submissions, i.e. under 100 points. So they don't get buried under joyvalley's stuff.
   
   
3. Buy/Trade
   
   • The Buy section should be made available in the main game rapsheet instead for obvious MG commercial reasons, leaving only the trade option.
     
   • The link should be un-clickable if there is no info available there, since many having nothing in it.
   Reasoning: Obvious for MG commercial purposes. Also inefficient, since for many games, that link contains nothing.
   
   
4. Browser
   • Mentioned new bug: Avatar does not show up properly.
   • Long posts not viewed properly. I seem to be the only one that has this issue with Modzilla FireFox. Long posts (like this one) get cut and the rest is not displayed, for both MobyClassic and MobyDark. Bug emerged during the last big update.
     
     [edit] Note: Bug only appears in threaded view. It displays correctly using flat view.
5. Documentation
   • That thing we used to have with replacementdocs.org should be resurrected.
   • A place to contribute a list of documentation provided by a game. Includes readme files, manuals, licenses, any and all readable documentary.
   • A place to contribute complete readme files and patch readme files, and any part of any documentation needed for research (e.g. system requirements in game manual). Will do wonders to improve the quality of the database.
6. Downloadable MG Tool
   A downloadable tool which will allow users to work offline and upload content when needed. Invaluable for users that have lousy bandwidth like myself.
   
   
7. ChangeLog
   New changelog updates should indicated by an additional symbol to inform registered users that new updates have been implemented.
   
   
8. Credits
   Too many to mention. Here's some:
   
   A. There seems to be an additional space that appears after an entitized name in the official approved credits.
   
   ..and that's about all I can remember. :p
   
   
9. Developer Names
   
   • Developer Name Standards
     Stage names (or nicknames) really shouldn't be the main name in the developer rapsheet. A bit tired of proposing this, since this should be a game database first and foremost. Databases really shouldn't make such unequal distinctions which does not follow any form of academic standard. Please compare the following:
     
     George Alistair Sanger aka the Fat Man
     Curtis Jackson aka 50 cent
     Madonna
     
     Stage names have a bad habit of changing for inspiring artists. The legal name would be more responsible (and perhaps an unpopular approach), despite many artists are more well known for their stage names. It's harder to change the real name than their stage name. I use the same reasoning for company names as well (LucasArts Ltd. instead of just LucasArts).
     
     
   • Developer Name AKAs
     An 'add developer aka' feature would be nice for efficiency's sake.
10. Future Feature Requests
    Future Feature Requests (or similar name) link should be made available, ideally after or before the ChangeLog link. It will give the notion that user recommendations have at least been recognized and taken under advisement, as well as something to look forward to for veteran users.
    
    Or basically an official tidier version of this thread
    
    An interesting version would be a link that allows any user (registered or not) to submit a feature request. The feature request may then be edited/tidied up by any approver and be added to the list of future update requests.
    
    List viewable here may be ordered by date of request, priority (increased by user votes), features currently being worked on by the admins, etc.
    
    
11. Links/Searches
    Should be removed and all relevant information provided in the main game rapsheet for efficiency. The game's official website should also explicitly be viewable somewhere at the top, beside the cover art.
    
    
12. MobyAchievements
    As mentioned in previous posts. Will allow users that already have no life discover that there is such a thing as having even more no life beyond of having no life!
    
    
13. MobyGames Credits Toolkit
    As provided by MegamanX64 in this thread. Haven't tried it personally, but it really should be made available in the credits wizard.
    
    
14. MobyStandards
    Relevant sections of the standards and guidelines should be made available at each contribution section. Or at least a link directing to specific mentioned section in the MobyStandards.
    
    
15. Online Users
    Similar to other forums, number of registered, unregistered, and approvers currently online. Approvers should also opt to make themselves uniquely identified:
    Approver: Sciere is always online.
    Approver: Kabushi will be online in 2 hours.
    Approver: Unicorn Lynx is online but busy playing and contributing hentai games.
    Approver: BurningStickMan is offline. PC just blew up.
    Approver: veddar is online. On Facebook, not on MG.
    Approver: joyvally is online and busy approving a sheeid load of stuff he contributed himself. Oh, wait.
    
    
16. Original Title
    As addressed before by some users. The original game title should be the main title used. It really is time to get rid of the 'this is a US site' mentality...'this is a games database' mentality should take precedence. It will also add more respect for and by the international community.
    
    Will also have to address this problem mentioned by Kabushi:
    
    "The problem is that there is no attributes attached to the main titles. So there's no way to know which country they are for. So you would probably have to go through and edit them manually for that to work."
    
    
17. Patch History
    There should be a paragraph break between dates. Example: X³: Terran Conflict.
    
    
18. Release Info
    • Company Roles
      A. There should be an easier way to add new company roles in an existing company release info without using the correction approach...an approach known to veteran users but not to new users.
      
      B. Also need new company roles.
    • Efficiency fix
      
      Example: X³: Terran Conflict. Looks messy as hell. Would propose a hide box. Categories using countries/release comment.
      
      Example:
      
      - Germany [Hide Box]
      - [Click on Hide Box]
      - [Germany full release info viewed]
      
      - GamersGate release [Hide Box]
      - [Click on Hide Box]
      - [GamersGate release full release info viewed]
      
      
    • Release Info (in main game rapsheet) should be separated from Patch Info:
      A. Patch Info should stand alone.
      B. Patch Info should be located in the same frame/column under Release Info.
      
      Reasoning: New users may not be aware that patch info is also featured in the database. A separate Patch Info section may also provide a more complete description of patch updates, including direct links for patch downloads.
      
      
    • Font Size
      There appears to be some minor inconsistencies when using certain font sizes:
      - One font size shows a spacing lack between 'Additional Graphics by' and the companies.
      - Larger fonts have companies continued to displayed under the company roles instead of sticking to their designated margins.
      
      
    • Punctuation Fix
      - There should be a comma (,) before 'and' for more than three contributors
      - There should be a fullstop (.) after the last contributor name:
      
      Sicarius (61193), Agent 5 (8040) -->,<--- and Klaster_1 (18708)-->.<---
      So it should look like this:
      Sicarius (61193), Agent 5 (8040), and Klaster_1 (18708).
      Instead of this:
      Sicarius (61193), Agent 5 (8040) and Klaster_1 (18708)
      
19. Reviews
    • A minor edit feature
      As once proposed by several users. Original score will be retained. Hate it when I do a minor edit on a 10 page review and my score gets degraded from 5 to 4 depending on the approver. :p
      
      
    • Editable box title.
      That Good/Bad thingy. Some reviewers have expressed their dislike of these restrictions. If it could be editable or other variations to suit users odd tastes would make the site more user friendly.
20. Sources
    
    • Academic Footnotes
      As mentioned previously by BurningStickMan. Thus far, the only form of academic footnotes used have only been provided by Sciere. We really should promote its use.
      
      
    • Screenshots
      Other contribution areas, such as tech specs, release info, should also provide a screenshot upload to help the approvers verify an entry.
21. Search Engine
    A total disgrace for a database. Should feature clickable boxes (for genres/platforms/years/game groups/EVERYTHING) since gamers really have strange tastes.
    
    
22. Trivia Revision
    The new trivia revision system does not yet recognized contributors resulting from merging trivia items. Users still have to manually identify mention past contributers in new merge revisions.

Does not cross fingers.

Yes please. I've asked for this several times, but I guess it just isn't a priority.


Does IMDB still do that stupid thing where they give the main title of a Japanese game as, say, "Suupa Mario Burazaazu Surii"? I really hate that shit, bugs me to no end.

It would be great if we could flag titles for various things -- language, country of origin, original title, production/working title, rerelease title... Then make it a user option for what displays as the main title -- prioritize by USA title, by original title, by English title, etc...


Do you have a link to an example? I like the idea, but I haven't seen this in practice before.


I would actually like to see the ability to upload images with any submission type at all. Many times I've wanted to include an image with a correction, and had to host it separately or simply go without.

Since a while back IMDB gives you the choice between original title or title in your country. It defaults on the latter. Although I don't think it does non-latin alphabets, so they still serve Asia latinized transcriptions of their own film names. (Unless they see something I can't)

Incidentally, I'd also like an option to display Japanese game titles in Japanese characters here, but I suppose that may be asking too much. :)

Don't remember where exactly. Maybe Stijn can point it out. If memory serves correctly, he used it for trivia items.

I don't remember where I used it, but we would need separate input fields to implement the footnote/reference/citation. and agree on the format (I'm all for APA but I assume MLA is more popular in the US).

Prefer to use APA. Though the casual passerby usually can't tell the difference. Hell, I can't tell the difference sometimes. :p

Couldn't find yer trivia entry. Checked all yer 2010 trivia submissions. Must've been a revise. Dang it.

I agree with most of Indra's suggestions, especially "Developer Name AKAs". Transcribing non-latin characters is pain in the ass, using original spelling as AKA should ease credits contribution a lot.

What about a Similar to: feature? On the technical side, I imagine it working most similar to a game group, but for each individual game. So Electric Dreams' Aliens is very similar to Space Hulk, but that's not covered by game groups.

Could help those "what's that game I've been looking for that's like this but not this" requests we get. I like anything that interlinks games on a more "organic" level too.

After months of pondering the classification of games, I've come to the conclusion that:

1. The reason why we all (presumably) want this feature is because we have failed to identify, separate, and classify any and all game features a game has;
   
   
2. Our genre system and our understanding of it is based on gaming trend, which usually is based on either [a] gaming consensus [b] marketing PR. Both in terms of finding an adequate definition, scope, and limitations is usually conducted by irresponsibly but eloquently conjuring it from one's own arse;
   
   
3. Game groups should really be limited to series identification only. Other variable patterns should be up-ed to a sub-genre level or something else entirely.

I once mentioned, if I had it my way...I'd identify each and every freakin' little game feature detail and group it. Genre's are usually the combination of a few game features...these game features actually should be identified more specifically. Which is why any genre system soon becomes inadequate every time a new hybrid comes up.

Example. Age of Empires. Games similar to AoE: Warcraft, Starcraft, etc. They all have something in common that other strategy games and even RTS games don't have in common. These features have not been identified by any gaming community...which have irresponsibly just dubbed all of them as an RTS...but does not provide a distinction between an RTS and a Strategy+Real-time game.

Proposed solution:

Ignored.

---

[edit] Probably my best work to identify such specific variables is the 4x game group or the Diablo variant game group. Both though still far from what I intended, should roughly give an idea of what I'm talking about.

Probably my best work to identify such specific variables is ... the Diablo variant game group

Your best work on this topic is the universally controversial Diablo variant game group?

Only in the context that it was amazingly clear that myself and everyone else had their own assumptions on what qualifies in the group. What was assumed to be an obvious estimate only become controversial because no one really bothered or more precisely, had reason to question the dubious consensus of what Diablo games are.

Remember...I used to do this for a living. Policy making. There isn't a single issue in existence that isn't up for debate. Ironically, the most obvious ones are the ones that ignite disagreement.

I agree very much with BurningStickMan, adding a Game is similar to or You might also like feature is a great idea.

My recent edits are mostly linking games together by adding "game play is similar to..." in the description. For example Quest of Kwirks castle is obviously based on Kwirk. Another example, Achtung, die Kurve! was clearly inspired by Červii, and in turn "Achtung" the iPad game (not on MobyGames yet) is based on "Achtung, die Curve".

I've thought about this and Mobygames could facilitate this by adding a sort of tags-system. It could be similar to the tags on www.flickr.com, except more restricted. Users are only allowed to use certain tags, which are already used in other games. So users cannot add new tags, only admins. And maybe the tags can have a weighted score to reflect to what degree the tag applies to the game. For example the FIFA games could have the tag "soccer" with a weighted score of 100%, but Soccer Kid has the tag "soccer" with score 50% or something like that.

Or for example, both SimCity and A-Train could have tags "management", "city" and "infrastructure" (just an example) so an algorithm could link them as similar games. I know it's a lot of work to implement this, but I think it has great benefits.

Also see this closed thread -> If you liked this game, you might also like...

Was just scanning the covers for Borderlands, and looking at the case sitting on my scanner, I wondered why we don't add the spines of game covers as well. Lets face it, they are part of the box art and are 90% of the time like the rest of the cover, unique and styled to that game.

That is a feature that is "in the pipeline" since a few years, more or less.

"Pipeline" as in "don't expect it, Probably ever"?

Let's put it this way: if there ever is a relaunch I am 99% certain that this feature will be included.

01. A column containing platform, or even better, a platform-filter on the "game updates" page would be nice.

02. When searching for a game title: it would be nice if you can just search for "a.k.a." to get as result all the games using a.k.a. [being known by more then 1 name]

A RSS feed for the general game update list

1. Editable - everything;
2. Customizable - everything;
3. Change the dang game rapsheet into a dang game portal enabling any and all information about the dang game to be available, in addition to dang downloadable stuff instead of just being a dang library reference card that no one pays any dang attention for more than 5 dang minutes.

Dang.

[edit] 4. One reason why certain swashbuckling communities tend to stick together through thick and thin.

I created our own MobyGames Feature Wishlist. :)

You mean I can whine there and still be ignored? :)

Yeah pretty much, but at least you can whine and get ignored with a much cleaner interface :). One day we won't be ignored, and on that day a system like that would be helpful.

When is this proposed gamefly update meant to happen anyway? I've no longer an approver so I am missing the inner circle news.

*shrug* Last we were updated, Brian was immediately pulled in to work on a different GF project.

Inspired by indra's recent thread, put a button on each game page that registered users can click to request a review. Games with review requests can be searched on Most Wanted!, sorted by the numbers of requests, and requests will decay when reviews are submitted.

I too would love to see more platforms added. I'm new here and love the screen shot comparisons and want to contribute to more of the rarer and obscure consoles not featured on this site. This is a really cool site though BTW, been browsing it a lot lately.

You know how we have a "currently playing" list on out rap sheets? well it would be nice if there was a link to a list on every games rap sheet showing all the people currently playing that game.

Furthermore, I want complete backlog system, integrated to MobyGames or with it's database.

Don't we already have something like that (more or less) or are you talking about something else?

Nope, more like this.

Oooh, another lovely category: Mastered. This is usually my target goal and the main reason why I've possibly played less games than anyone else here.

I'd like to see an expansion of the Most Wanted! feature to include a percentage of database completion for each game system.

How you would calculate it would be up for debate, but some combination of entries with complete descriptions, credits, screenshots, etc. Likely compared against established lists of all known releases for the system. Then, if you wanted to, you could drill down and see what's missing same as you can now.

Idea being that someone could see that 80% of Mega Drive games are documented, and be inspired to help finish the last 20%. Actually putting a number to it gives it more a tangible goal.

I would like another expansion of the most wanted section, but this would be linked to a little remake in the Have List section.

If we could add to our Have Lists a specific release of a game, instead of the generic game (and I think that it could be done with a simple checklist in the same way as when you upload a cover), then the Most Wanted feature could point directly and specifically to the elements that I still need to upload.

This may sound weird, but the games I own are from different regions and in different languages in every region. For example, I live in Italy so I usually have games in Italian that I find in the stores, something in from the UK when I shop online and even something from the US or Japan that pops out sometimes. So I cannot just use the Country selection listbox, because yes that would show me all the game with no Italian covers, but I don't have all those games in the Italian release!

What I am suggesting is that if the system knows that I have that specific release of a game it will immediately know what it's missing about it.

Great suggestion. This way, if the have lists are filled properly, we can track missing regional releases much easier. But I most wish for one or two people to represent their home country and submit every release info, as I've been trying to do for Russia.

I suggest a separate credits entering process for music credits. Since music credits have mostly the same structure (song name, musician, writer, published by, recording courtesy by, licensed from...) it would be easy to have a pre-defined box where the contributor only has to fill in the blanks.

Then those credits could be shown in its own subpage with every song being a group so that they don't clutter up the "real" credits. With all those newer games with huge soundtracks this can become a huge problem, just look at GTA IV.

I hate when after uploading 10Mb of covers it says "Release Country at least one must be selected". It's a good manner to verify forms before submitting too.

Whilst we do list strategy as a genre, it's pretty general, especially if, like i just did, decided to look for how many RTS games (as in command and conquer, halo wars, etc) there are on a platform, only to get games that are strategy in a very general way, unlike RTS's, which is a specific genre in itself.

Well if my genre system revision ever comes through, at least puzzle and strategy games will be split entirely.

The problem with RTS is that it's used both to name strategy games which aren't turn based and as a specific subset of Dune II-style strategy games.

I suggest to add new role "Manual by". I've just found a company with nice (and not full) list of their works. Also, it appears in Homefront credits.

Approver request:

You know how the contribution automatically updates when you change something during ad-blurb or trivia approval? I want that for all other queues, too.

If there is only platform for a game entry you can see when it was contributed. If there are multiple platforms, you can't. And if the description was not revised before you can't even see who wrote the description!

I'd like to see this changed. Credit where credit is due.

give links to show examples of these because I am not quite sure what you mean

Afrika Korps vs. D-Day (one platform): "This entry to the MobyGames database was contributed by Patrick Bregger (45927) on Oct 14, 2009."

The Addams Family (multiple platforms): Only "This entry was contributed by Patrick Bregger (45927)"

Aevum Obscurum (multiple platforms): "This entry was contributed by Patrick Bregger (45927) and Christoph Aschwanden (27)".
Christoph Aschwanden contributed the first platforms and the description; I only contributed additional platforms. There is no way to see this. If you go to the Description Revision History you only see that I revised it twice but not that Christoph Aschwanden originally wrote it.

I'd like to see vendor specific part numbers for the Sega platforms. Sony has this, so I think other platforms deserve this too. I'm not thinking Sega only of course, PC-Engine also comes to mind, and various other platforms...

vendor is different than official game company codes

"Vendor" in this case meaning the system's manufacturer, not the publisher, I'm guessing. Japanese Sega releases all have standard part numbers. International releases not so much.

Take Japanese Megadrive releases, for example. First-party Sega releases all have a code in the format G-4XXX where XXX is a unique identifier for the game. Third-party releases use the format T-XXYY3 where XX is a 2-digit publisher ID and YY is a 2-digit game ID. Mega CD, 32X, Saturn, Dreamcast, and (I think) the 8-bit systems as well have similar systems.

OK, this needs a lot more research. If you guys want it do the foot work.

Each platform needs to be looked.. is there anything specific that denotes that platform and so forth, each different country needs to be looked at... anything specific for each country, are there different codes for re-releases, code break down of what each part means for every platform, where are the codes located, are the codes different from the package and the media... details details details

If you look at just Blue Stinger there are different codes for each country.

There's different codes per country, but as far as I'm aware, only the Japanese codes are standardized. Re-releases, if they have a different JAN, will also have a different Sega code. Satakore releases for example are like this. There are a few other prefixes (Dreamcast has "HDR" for example). Looking through my collection, Mega Drive games have the code only on the package, while Saturn and Dreamcast games have them on both the package and the media (and the same code on each).

Looking at US releases, most (but not all) games have codes. For Genesis, third-party releases use T-XXYY6 (or T-XXXYY6), while first party releases have just 1XXX. In all cases these are printed on the box spine. Not sure about PAL or Asian releases (I don't own any). Media have different codes; first-party are 670-XXXX with a completely different number, while third-party could be just about anything (or, often, nothing at all).

Given a day or two, I could probably come up with a comprehensive list of what kinds of codes are used for each platform in each region. Japan codes are definitely very consistent, though, and worth documenting IMO.

Incidentally, I feel this would be a good time to request the ability to allow Super NES codes with no suffix. Super Famicom releases didn't all have a -JPN suffix, only later releases did. Earlier releases just had the code as SHVC-XX.

There should be somewhere on a game's rap sheet to mention accessibility features. Subtitles, remappable controls, colorblind support, and so forth.

Way ahead of you. Started that idea with game groups so one day it will all be permanently implemented somehow. Somewhat got stuck in official name groupings.

www.deafgamers.com

http://www.deafgamers.com/dgclassification.htm

Now here's a bunch of blokes who understand the meaning of being an authorative source. They came up with something all by themselves.

I'd like to ban useless prefixes like "Disney's...", "American McGee's..." or "Parker presents the awesome new board game..." to the alternate titles. Something similar to "tag-lined title". We don't handle those consistent anyway.

I could also do without those "in-game titles" etc. which only differentiate in something small like an additional exclamation mark or something. Keep it to official and useful alt titles.But that's just me.

I'd like to ban useless prefixes like "Disney's...", "American McGee's..." or "Parker presents the awesome new board game..." to the alternate titles. Something similar to "tag-lined title". We don't handle those consistent anyway.

Amen!

I'm not entirely sure which is which sometimes. In my head, if it's spray painted all over the front of the box and in-game, that's the full title.

Here's an example of Forgotten world titles. I forgot to add the "Official AD&D Computer Product" thingy. :p

I support this too: One way or the other. But actually we have many of them, f.e. Disney's game listed with it, others without. But options are fine for me, but not that mix.

For all this AD&D's (and others), it's stupid imho - and has nothing to do with the game titles, do add the MARKETING thing or however you will call it, imo it has absolutely nothing to do with the game title. As long as we accept/want this we have to accept it for all games, and get tons of additional, totally senseless and worthless titles with "tag-lines" like: XY: A Real-time strategy game", "YZ: The greatest motherfucking Adventure in the World" andsoon. The value and sense of such information is more worthless then the info on toilet paper - that it can clean your ass...

To me these titles are no different than: Britannia Enyclopedia series, Vol. III.

If I were to do a research paper and add a footnote, I would have to include ALL that rubbish...tag-lines and marketing jargon included. The simplified title would not do. Release year, publisher, location of publisher, etc. would also be included. But tell that to wikipedia. :p

What I never understood is why we have:

"Tomb Raider" and not "Tomb Raider: Featuring Lara Croft"
"Tomb Raider II" and not "Tomb Raider II: Starring Lara Croft"
"Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft" and not "Tomb Raider III"

Completely different naming standards used for multiple games in the same series.

Personally, I'd say include the full title for all these games. Because why not include it here, but do include it for "Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation". Just because there's no more number the tag-line becomes part of the main title? Where are you going to draw the line? It's best to be as complete as possible. It's not up to us to determine which tag-lines are important enough to be remembered and which are not.

Independet which ones are correct and which ones not for those Tomb Raider example (personally i would go with all 3 expanded titles, because here they have all at least a connection to the title), in 2011, if you contribute such now:

It should normally result that the Pat-Man aka The Master of Bureaucracy REJECTS the short ones all or wants a title correction for the main title to expand this one:

Sorry, but we don't accept alternate titles if they are a substring of the main title or another alternate title. The only exceptions are official titles from non-US releases or re-releases (for the last sentence i'm still not sure, what it wants to say to us?).

:)

I'm not sharing his opinion so often, but here i'm willing to undersign it too!

If it is on a cover it gets in no matter what.

Probably because the game has always been called Tomb Raider. "Starring Lara Croft" was only added to the NGage version. Likewise "Adventures of Lara Croft" is part of the title of every version of TR3. You're right about TR2, though. That should be fixed.

The inclusion of "tag-lined" titles lead to problems because we have absolutely no guideline how to differentiate a tag-line from a subtitle. This means I usually approve every tag-lined alt title I get even if I personally think it should be included in the main title.

Yes, this is an old topic which was addressed before.

Everything should be editable by users through the regular approval process: genres, titles, release info, MobyRanks. The advantage would be obvious: less exclusive admin work. So admins can concentrate on the stuff that really needs their attention.

Similarly I wished for two separate escalation queues: one for admin issues (e.g. missing tech specs, deleted credits) and one for the more frequent "I need a second opinion" issues. This way admins see faster where they are needed.

Yesplease! These things (apart from actual bugs) is as far as I'm concerned the highest priority change request.

Additionally I'd like to have the approval history of every item open (at least for approvers). This would clear up a lot of problems and obscurities right from the start since we would know why something was approved in the first place.

Some of the why unfortunately refers to clearing up the queue. Would like a separate wiki-like page for each game where users and approvers alike can put in stuff without any approval.

For reference. Then we could move that info from the approver wiki (not that anyone looks at it anyway) accessible to possibly more people with more knowledge.

[edit] Also there must be some kind of way where tricky corrections/submissions may be viewable by normal users...who can help out. Well, without undermining the authority of the approver of course *cough*.

You know how we expanded all those "Comments for the approver" boxes? We missed the one when submitting a new game group.

It may have been discussed earlier, but still - it would be really really convenient to see all currently pending contributions to a game at game's page somewhere. I'm relatively new to Moby, but I've already had a couple or more replies from the approvers like "Sorry, but someone has just submitted the same info a nanosecond before you..." Wish I knew that a moment before I clicked that "Submit" button! Thanx.

We already have that for some kinds of submissions. Ratings and tech specs can't be submitted while there's a submission pending, and you're told when there are credits pending. But surely it would be great to extend the functionality to all kinds of submissions. And I'd go even beyond: it would be cool to have a message like "there is already a submission of this kind pending. Click here if you'd like to be warned by email or PM when it gets approved/rejected". This way you could know if your contribution still is relevant, and it would also prevent you from having to check the game's rap sheet constantly to see the changes.

Yes, but some items can't be viewed. And it's all hidden in different pages.

Furthermore, I'm waiting for some games to be approved. I didn't submit them, but I want to rate them or to add some trivia or whatever. Why do I have to check it every day, when - indeed! - some kind of subscription system could be implemented.

I'd like it if somewhere on the main page there is a:

[There are 14 items pending approval, 12 currently in WIP, for this game]. Please click for further information (which will enable everything to be viewed except commentation)

I haven't read the full list, but I did a quick search and didn't find the following:

Game Browser - Filter by Region: sometimes I'm only interested in finding games released in the US or Japan.

Game Browser - Filter out individually XBLA, XBIG, and retail Xbox 360 games. (This goes triply for Wii, WiiVC, and WiiWare as well as PS3 and PSN.)

Approval Transparency - What exactly is happening with the company I submitted to add in 2008? I'd like to add the game, but I can't because the company that made it isn't on the site. My only option at the moment is to pull it from the queue, but I don't know what additional information would be necessary to get it through.

Have List - Using my have list, I'd like there to be a quick reference to missing information for each game without having to check each page individually.

I don't think not having the company approved yet should prevent you from entering a new game entry. Try adding your new game and see if the company is pending. I'm pretty sure you are able to add pending companies as publisher/developer. I would think submitting a new company with a new game will get the new company approved a lot faster than submitting a new company on it's own.

On a side note, I think the majority of users will agree that the game browser is in need of a serious overhaul.

Oh look, you're right. I could have sworn this wasn't the case 3 years ago.

While I'm thinking about it, and wishing about it, how about a contributor area for new games where the contributors could collaborate on adding new games until there is "enough" info to publish. This could be expanded beyond just new games to new systems and other areas, but I'm thinking it'd be good to get everyone's partial knowledge into the database to build a more complete picture of things than to wait until one person has all the answers. Probably not a novel idea, and I understand this is a bit more of an overhaul and wouldn't really come about until a site redesign, but I thought I'd get it out

Heck, we could just do that through the message forum.

Easier said than done actually. Considering that in the past there has been no collaborative effort for new games via forums. With the exception of a few instigated by yours truly.

Most are usually settled with a little help from approvers.

I think that using a solution separated from the main system (forum or wiki, etc.) defeats its purpose - when the info finally gets approved it would still had to be re-typed. Even this action is quite a lot of work.

I admit I was thinking about a better solution when the subject of creating a list of missing games was in hot debate. The best solution IMO (and the most difficult to implement, mind you) would be integrating it with the database as another "layer" of games: incomplete entries. It would be enough to just enter the title itself to create an entry. People could add stuff in collaborative manner, and when enough data would be gathered an approver could *move* the whole game entry into the proper database.

In a perfect world, yes. One point per title, why not? We've all been point whores in MG one time or another, might as well make it into a respectable profession. *cough*

Though unfortunately again, all of these great ideas will consist of a major re-design, which time has proven we ain't getting.

This sounds like the "stubs" concept, which half of us think is great and half think is terrible, streamlining out the only thing (rigor) which separates us from our wretched brethren in the game database racket.

For what it's worth, I'd really like a way to add games without researching the dang release dates. Or for some other people, to add a game without trying to bullsheeid a game description.

I agree on both points.

Ideally, the stubs would only be visible for those that select a checkbox in preferences to view stub articles or in an entirely different area so that they don't show up in search. I've been told in the past that MG is more interested in quality of data than in quantity of articles, which makes it hard to use the site as a reference for "all electronic games."

I often find the wikipedia is a better source when searching for more obscure titles, even if it's a stub, I usually find enough information on what I'm looking for.

See. Someone finally said, but does anyone listen to me? Noooo...:p

There's a lot of info on games that we seriously lack in documenting. Factual and detailed info. So for the most part, I just lump it into game descriptions and game group descriptions. I suspect gamers want to know more about a game...not less. *cough*

The day we allow stubs is the day I am gone.

There's a lot of info on games that we seriously lack in documenting. Factual and detailed info. So for the most part, I just lump it into game descriptions and game group descriptions. I suspect gamers want to know more about a game...not less. *cough*

Quantity is not the same as quality. Personally I am a friend of good descriptions which means providing the reader with all substantial information he needs to get an overview about the game. We are not the manual. We are not gamefaqs. We are not fanfiction.net.

To make a long story short: There is a distinctive line between a detailed description and babbling.

That's why I described them to be on a separate "layer". Maybe even inaccessible to general public and visible for registered contributors only?

Why such stubs? Rarity and scarcity of info. Supposedly I have few 1980s magazines that describe largely unknown games released only on a local market. Just how many people keep those old magazines? And remember those titles? I thought such rare info is valuable.

Why not adding a full game entry then, Rola? Such old game may be unobtainable, I may be unable to properly describe the gameplay... and plain&simple: it's a lot of work! What do I get for all those contribution points? I may add tiny bits of info when I have moments I want to just kill time, when I have a fleeting fancy, but full fledged entries require painstaking research and scrupulous writing. This is when I come to realization "wait, I'm working hard... for nothing?"

User friendless. Always an issue.

Despite loathing every iota of wikipedia, I must admit their ability to provide quantity over quality allows them to get 20 million bucks or so in donations per year. If that isn't ironic, I don't know what is. :p

Also an important issue that when we're talking about user contributions, well honestly put, people want to contribute whatever the hell they want. Our current stance of constantly relying on a dozen or so insane contributors isn't healthy in the long run. Especially when we're talking about the internet with millions of gamers, you'd think at least half of them would be trolling my infernal arse right about now. :p

A random thought: as wikipedia pretends to be dead-serious encyclopedia, using the quantity over quality rule only undermines its trustworthiness.

While here, Gamefly makes revenue from the ads displayed @ Mobygames, right? So here, the more titles listed, the more site views!

The more game entries without substantial information the more disappointed users. I don't think there was ever a game entry rejected because of a non-substantial description when the contributor trustworthily presents his reasons why he has no more information about the game. Hell, I submitted more than a few games for which I didn't know much more than the name, premise and basic genre.

But there is a huge difference between rule flexibility or making something openly accepted.

What's worse, having a user know a game exists and be unable to find it here, or find a page with very little more than the name of the game? I have about 100 Apple II games that my dad owned that I'd like to add, but I can't find enough information on the release packaging, release date, or game description. So, I'm left with the only option of keeping this information to myself where it has a good chance of dying into obscurity.

If nothing else, I definitely suggest allowing partially completed entries to exist in the database that can be completed by the entire community instead of reliant on one person's body of knowledge. What's so wrong about saying we don't know something? We could use it as an opportunity to reach out to more people to contribute their piece of the puzzle.

Incomplete data can be entered into the Missing Games Google Spreadsheet

but then I don't get my points... ;)

I posted in that thread, but it seems the games weren't added to the doc, so now I'm waiting for my edit request to be approved. It's also not as visible as integrating it with the main site, but I guess it works for now.

PM me your google account name and I'll add you to the spreadsheet.

Supposedly I have few 1980s magazines that describe largely unknown games released only on a local market. Just how many people keep those old magazines? And remember those titles? I thought such rare info is valuable.

Hell, I'd like us to track information on cancelled games, prototypes and ones known only through advertisements also. They help paint the picture of a company's activity independent from what of their output ended up on store shelves.

Five years ago, I would of fought tooth and nail against it. Now, I would think it's probably the only good reason to stay reading on a game rapsheet for more than five minutes...since there isn't much information presented on a single page.

Well, except games with a lot of trivia entries. Yummy.

Wanna bet? Re-check the FAQ. Goal is to document practically everything game-related. If it's fact related, why not? Considering a lot of the factual info we need is swiped off from the manual and readme files...might as well swipe everything else that is factual based.

Despite constant speech rehearsals of this quality over quantity jargon we've been indoctrinating ourselves over the years...there hasn't been much discussion regarding what actually constitutes quality...furthest anyone got was just to the point out that the main rapsheet should have stuff in it. Not really my idea of quality...just having it look not completely empty.

It's a nice idea, this quality over quantity thingy. Not really feasible after years of afterthought, considering the different educational backgrounds everyone here and odd levels of research experience. Not suggesting we just let all the rubbish in. Only suggesting we have somewhere to put the garbage in the mean time, while we pick out the tin cans in Fallout 3.

Though considering I'm more of a conservative than anyone here combined, I wouldn've expected the liberals to be more tolerant in information gathering. Apparently not. Dang liberals. :p

I have found that MobyGames actually does support stub articles! Not really, but close enough:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/xbox360/record-of-agarest-war-the-really-naughty-limited-edition http://www.mobygames.com/game/ps3/littlebigplanet-2-collectors-edition

Seems like a good way to skirt around writing an actual game description: adding a collectors/special/limited edition without adding the original game. Does that mean you're going to leave Patrick? :P ;)

That's an exception to the rule. We don't provide game descriptions for such editions simply because it would be redundant. This should give you a general idea (see under "Game Compilations, Collector's Editions, Special Editions, etc.").

I see the reasoning behind it, but it seems to me the reason we don't have a listing for the original game for these titles is either the original release date was unknown, or they didn't want to write a description for the game since all the other information would be the same.

It's like MG acknowledges the special edition, but not the actual game. Seems strange to me is all and really no better than a stub listing for an actual game that had no (or minimal) game description.

It's more like no user bothered to submit it, being a user contribution-based website and all. If I were to take a more draconian stance, I would advise that no editions should be entered before the original game was. More responsible database-wise, but also extremely inefficient contribution-wise: can't be that picky when it comes to donations...and in this regard, the fault lies in the contributors not MG.

I wasn't trying to place blame. I just wanted to point out that MG does in fact have a few cases where the only reference to a game is the name that points to a search engine that won't find the game, which garners less information than actually having a listing dedicated to the game where the description read, "No description entered, do you want to provide one?"

It's my opinion that it's better to acknowledge the existence of a game than to contain absolutely no information on it. If I wanted to generate a list of all games on system 'x', then MG would be one of the last places to look, which I think is sad.

MG is picky with accepting information though, they don't want incomplete listings. I wish things in the community could be more collaborative. As an example, this listing hasn't been accepted yet: http://www.mobygames.com/game/51429, and I don't see why. It'd be nice if there were reasons for that in case there's information or sources I could link to that would allow it to be added. I don't know anything concrete about the approver process, but I'm guessing it can be slowed down due to it being volunteer work and the need to use good sources.

Currently there's a game in my queue that is stuck because I can't find a source for the release date, but I know the date because I had it pre-ordered and picked it up the day it came out. If a source is never found, then it languishes.

Well, that part is policy. Add a link to a game regardless if the game (or person) is in the database or not. Presumably it'll be in the database sooner or later. Though this may be a tad confusing for the passerby. Not entirely sure whether or not this is a big deal, come to think of it. *scratches head*

If you can't be certain of the exact day it's no problem to just use a month or even just a year of release. I'll be approved without any problems.

I don't see why quality would be harmed in this...

From my point of view I would like to see that all the information that can be added to the database are treated equally.

The main reason for this is that I am absolute crap at writing, so usually I end up not submitting a new game just because I can't put down a decent description, on the other hand if I want to add I game I always have scanned covers, release dates and product codes ready. In addition I usually buy stocks of old games at flea markets, I will never never play some of these games, therefore I won't have any info of how the game is or the story or whatever, but I still have covers to scan, codes, manuals etc... why shouldn't I be allowed to post what I have just because someone has decided that the description is mandatory?

To summarize, all the information should be atomic and independent. If we consider the complete game entry as a puzzle, I don't see why putting one piece should have priority over another and how this can effect quality. After all we are still trying to get out the whole picture, everyone with the pieces he's got.

As I said before, to have those provisional entries and still maintain quality level, maybe a new type of entry should be introduced. As incomplete game entry (say, no description or bogus release date) It could be grayed out (not clickable) to visitors (it would still show up on relevant lists, say, for given developer), but still accessible to approvers/contributors (to finally complete the entry).

I'm still convinced that if those 3000+ titles missing from MobyGames (from Multimedia Mike's list) were fed into the database as "stubs", we'd see them being completed sooner.

I often find the wikipedia is a better source when searching for more obscure titles, even if it's a stub, I usually find enough information on what I'm looking for.

Well, I often use Wikipedia to find info that I later use to revise descriptions here. But here's the deal: Wikipedia game articles are usually either pitiful stubs with next to no info at all, or epic essays that cover everything from the color of the protagonist's underpants to the reaction of America's Assosiation for the Rights of Native Taxi Drivers to the controversial racially-politically-socially sentiments expressed in the game. Our descriptions, on the other hand, are supposed to be just long enough to explain how the game works and what it is about, without discussing possible sexual preferences of the main villain and their connections to ancient Greek drama.

Bottom line, we all contribute to this site because its goal, though lofty, is inspirational, and its standards, though systematically broken and abused, are well-defined and clear.

Hardly. Actually more than 50% of our descriptions here are just short enough to describe the story and vague gameplay. Here's an example of one of my better descriptions on an puzzle game, covering 90% of gameplay.

And this is a description for a puzzle game.

If I were to follow the precedents of MG descriptions it'll turn into this:

Mystery of Mortlake Mansion is a mystery adventure game with a dark alchemical and magical atmosphere, most of which feature Victorian-style oil painted graphics. Depending on the challenge, the game offers different types of puzzle games or puzzle-solving activities involving finding and using items.

Well, one paragraph longer actually.

It's almost impossible to summarize that kind of information in three paragraphs for bigger games or certain genres with a lot of complexity, without completely ignoring or generalizing a lot of basic gameplay concepts...while assuming the reader knows what role-playing games, real-time strategy, beat-em up means...which I have personally asked too many gamers: if you want to know more a game...where do you go? None has answered MobyGames (well, except for some extremely obscure titles). Even our residents. Then again, no one really cares much about the competition.

Round 1.

I agree it's a good description, but it doesn't need to be so detailed. In my opinion, it is still slightly over-written (though less so than many of your other descriptions).

But that's not the point; the point is that it is still a thousand times shorter than the essays they write for Wikipedia. There are some very good articles there, but most of the longer ones are basically rephrasing of what the manual says, or collections of trivia.

Wikipedia doesn't have a standard for game descriptions. Actually, no all-encompassing game documentation site does. Only we have clearly defined standards. We want our descriptions to be of the same quality. We want our descriptions to be of more or less of the same length. Yes, this length can range between two and eight paragraphs, but it's still a much stricter requirement than the "everything or nothing" descriptions on many other sites.

I have personally asked too many gamers: if you want to know more a game...where do you go? None has answered MobyGames (well, except for some extremely obscure titles). Even our residents.

If I want to know a game more, I play it... what does "knowing a game" mean, anyway? If I'm a big fanboy of a particular game, then of course I don't go to MG to find detailed information about the precise damage inflicted on undead enemies by Fire-based spells or the size of the lead female character's bra. But I don't go to Wikipedia/GameFAQs/GameSpot etc., either. I go to wikias and shrines and fan sites and such.

If by "knowing a game" you mean "find out more about a game you've heard of, but never played", you bet I go to MG. I've discovered many obscure games through MG. And I added to MG a lot of games that I discovered simply by buying/downloading them out of the blue, because I could find next to no information about them on the net. Which means that now other people interested in those games will find more about them on MG and nowhere else. That's the goal, no?

[1] You can't really use that argument. Replace "game" with any other purchasable object and you'll see why. It would also depend on the target audience, personal interest, etc. Base on that criteria alone, it would be better to offer more detailed factual information, especially for people who are in the never played the game before want to find out more category. I'm not talking about sites dedicated to revealing every single plot device, hint, cheat, etc. Those sites don't have game descriptions, because they don't have to. Everything there is already a spoiler.

[2] No, we don't. Really. Please check the standards. I don't bitch without probable cause. Hell, a lot of the stuff I've written about standards in the forums and the approver wiki is because it isn't in the MG standards.

P.S. Wikipedia has better policy standards than we do. Not surprisingly, with their 1,700 admins.

[3] We go to MG (among others) because we have a game/genre specific search engine. If google incorporated that kinda stuff, we'd be in trouble. We also rely more on the genre combination+screenshots+occasional game group to know about the game. I seriously doubt the game description is the primary reason a game may be intriguing, since it's usually too vague.

Now considering we have more obscure games than any site in existence, wouldn't that be a better reason to provide more information? You can't go to those wikias or shrines, if it's game from 1939 :p Also when we're talking about documenting games, we'll still be around here for..er...until 2012. Whereas those sites may not exist until..er...2011 (prophecy depending). That said (no, I'm not talking about entire plots), it would even be more reason to provide more factual gameplay information, not less.

Less also tends to indicate that it's not really that important. It would depend on what exactly are we trying to document about games. Everything? Or just some? Some, to my knowledge, was never the original intention of MobyGames.

P.S. that pending revision for Crusader Kings, just made it factually incorrect. Just saying. :p

What I would really like is a way to enter a game whose date of creation is definitely and conclusively UNKNOWN and not likely to be rediscovered anytime soon.

Oh, there's no such thing. There is such a thing as educated guess referring to the last file creation date. Though personally I think we're a bit irresponsible in this regard, considering we make no distinction between an official release date (which I suspect is what you actually mean) and our education guesses via reverse engineering.

Oh, there's no such thing. There is such a thing as educated guess referring to the last file creation date.

Well, there are plenty of cases where the only person who ever knew was the programmer, who could well be dead from old age and natural causes now. Randomly picking a case out from thin air, the TRS-80 game "Space Warp", clarified by the information (19xx)(Author Unknown)[BAS]. Well, we know what language it was written in! The only thing a glance at the file stamp will get us is awareness of when it was converted from TRS-80 tape storage to some modern storage medium. There are tens of thousands of these titles out there, most of which will never warrant being documented -- but if someone wants to, they CAN'T... because of that (19xx). If we don't have the date, we can round down to the month. If we don't know the month, we can round down to the year. But if we don't know the year, we can't round down to the decade... or just assume that the program was made sometime in the platform's commercial lifespan.

The database doesn't require a date to process entries, as I've caught a few dateless ones out there. It complicates Game Browser listing and sorting, but there are a lot of problems with the game browser. It's only an approver requirement, and this requirement mandates that thousands and thousands of games are locked out of mobygames, probably forever.

I can see why we ask for a release date, but if there genuinely isn't one and the contributors and approvers have taken their best crack at finding one, I don't see why we can't just compromise and allow what IS known to be listed.

I think we're a bit irresponsible in this regard, considering we make no distinction between an official release date (which I suspect is what you actually mean) and our education guesses via reverse engineering.

That's not indicated in the game entry for public viewing, but it's hashed out exhaustively with approvers in submission comments.