Forums > Game Forums > Super Smash Bros.: Melee > Colon (or, rather, lack thereof) in title
Michael Cassidy (21287) on 12/11/2015 11:26 PM · Permalink · Report
My submission to change the title to "Super Smash Bros. Melee" (no colon) was just rejected due to site policy. However, Nintendo itself lists no colon on official sites:
https://web.archive.org/web/20021001093359/http://supersmashbros.com/battle/index.html http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-video-games/super-smash-bros-melee/
Note that this is true for a lot of games on this site. I don't see how it's correct to add a colon to the title if there officially isn't one.
Alaka (106755) on 12/12/2015 12:48 AM · Permalink · Report
The name of the series is Super Smash Bros. and any extra writing after that is considered a sub title so now the colon is needed. This site standards eschew the game's official titles for its own naming conventions. I assume this is done to keep some type of consistency for all titles in the database.
In short, in a battle between site standards vs an official title, site standards win.
Michael Cassidy (21287) on 12/13/2015 1:01 AM · Permalink · Report
Exactly. What I'm proposing is that site policy be changed. The official title is NOT "Super Smash Bros.: Melee." It's "Super Smash Bros. Melee." Colons and dashes indicate, in my opinion, a pause if being said verbally. Recently, Pokemon Trading Card Game Online was changed to "Pokemon: Trading Card Game - Online." To me, that's like saying "Pokemon. Trading Card Game. Online" in three separate sentences.
It baffles me why we're so against the publisher's official naming conventions.
Alaka (106755) on 12/13/2015 1:37 AM · Permalink · Report
Well a lot of this comes down to the site using the cover art as the first resort for naming a game. This leads to a lot of interpretation calls. For example, Melee is written in a different color than Super Smash Bros. thus making it appear to be a subtitle to the game. The problem arises is because the intention of cover art is usually to be eye-appealing so grammar is usually tossed to the side for style and presentation. Thus making the site create its own naming conventions. Anyone looking at a title in the database knows that if a word is after a colon it's a subtitle.
Naming conventions are useful when your dealing with a database covering this many years. What is someone to do if there's a disagreement about a title about a game released in the early '80s. How do you propose an official title is found then?
Pseudo_Intellectual (66516) on 12/13/2015 1:39 AM · Permalink · Report
The problem arises is because the intention of cover art is usually to be eye-appealing so grammar is usually tossed to the side for style and presentation.
Hence: the spine.
Tracy Poff (2095) on 12/13/2015 2:54 PM · Permalink · Report
Frankly, I think that the 'cover title' is just about the worst version of the title we could possibly have standardized on using, for reasons we're all familiar with. In the case of this particular game, the spine clearly reads "SUPER SMASH BROS. MELEE" which should be a really big hint that 'Melee' isn't intended as a subtitle and so we shouldn't be writing it this way.
That said...
It baffles me why we're so against the publisher's official naming conventions.
The problem of course is that it's not that uncommon to see a game referred to by its publisher in half a dozen ways. Judgment is required even when sources are available.