Kayburt (32465) on 2/7/2024 1:41 PM · Reply · Permalink · Report

Many old games are missing from the database. Motivation is a key factor to dedicating yourself to adding and writing about an obscure game, which in turn lets viewers know what the game is like and its availability in the world. You’re more likely to see those games in a list, rather than in an encyclopedia. However there are a number of reasons why contributors don’t seem very interested in adding a missing game and ways to get around them:

1. No readily available information due to lack of sources. The most valuable source you can use to write a good description is a video because you can write down and summarize what you see happening in the game. Where videos are lacking, you can try to download and play the game yourself or use any relevant cover art to get some inspiration. Lastly any written reviews can be a big source of inspiration in tandem with playing or watching the game.

2. Numerous titles fall under a samey series or category. This applies mainly to sports games listed by year or a famous figure. Differentiating a particular baseball game from others like it can be difficult to put into your words, since most of the time, the rules of the game will always be the same. Keep a sharp eye out for unique content such as the available modes and any improvements a successor may have from a previous game. You can also look up definitions and terms to add as relevant to the game summary. Similar problems may also apply to board games like chess because there isn’t much to say about one game of chess that hasn’t already been said about others like it. Still you might find unique configurations to the game that make it distinguishable. It takes practice to write a good description for one game among several closely similar ones.

3. Foreign languages that you may not be familiar with contained inside a game, such as Japanese might be hard figure out without painstakingly translating the foreign text, especially if you do it screen by screen. More often than not, you will find all the information you need on back cover art and in the gameplay itself. If you have nifty tools like OCR, Lexilogos, a character dictionary, a handwritten character search, and a translator, you can make the legwork of translation a whole lot easier.