Forums > News > New Alpha feature: MobyGames has video!
Simon Carless (1834) on 5/28/2017 3:31 AM · Permalink · Report
Some of you may have spotted that games such as RiME now have - shock, horror - an official launch/release video embedded on their page! Yes, it's only taken us until 2017 to enter the world of moving images, please don't mock us :P (Some other examples: Grand Theft Auto V, Beavis & Butt-Head In Virtual Stupidity, haha!)
This is an Alpha roll-out of a feature that will be available to all in the next few months, whenever you can start submitting via our new 'Phoenix' version of the website. ('Entry helper' is another Phoenix feature that is already available to all - we've been making great progress of late.)
This new video adding feature - intended specifically for official videos that include gameplay of the title - is now accessible on a contributor by contributor basis. If you're a regular contributor who'd like to get access to it and add videos, please PM me & I'll give you specific instructions and rules. (BTW, we are using embedded YouTube videos, but intend to archive any linked-to videos to our Archive.org collection over time to ensure they don't get lost due to changing accounts or policies.)
Karsa Orlong (151835) on 5/28/2017 3:15 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
Why official videos only? This limits us to the "new" games only, as the old titles (f.e. for Amiga, spectrum, DOS) had no such promos - but still we may find the videos with gameplay on YouTube made by players. Not allowing this is a shame.
And how about the scrapper, will it take the videos automatically from steam and other sites?
And what with the games having a few official videos?
HelloMrKearns (15374) on 5/28/2017 8:15 PM · Permalink · Report
Seems like a good start to me! Especially interested to see what cool, older finds people add on here (converted VHS, ect..)
Simon Carless (1834) on 5/29/2017 12:10 AM · Permalink · Report
Not saying we will never allow gameplay videos, etc, but if we are grabbing these down to Archive.org and they are 'Let's Plays' by other users, there are various other issues with IP rights (or morals!) there that I think we need to talk through first.
We are not currently planning to use the entry helper/scraper to grab Steam videos, although I agree that it potentially could do at some point, especially since we already know the URL we grabbed from.
By 'few', do you mean 'a few', or 'not many'?
Plok (214112) on 5/29/2017 12:15 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Karsa Orlong wrote--]Why official videos only? This limits us to the "new" games only, as the old titles (f.e. for Amiga, spectrum, DOS) had no such promos [/Q --end Karsa Orlong wrote--] I've found things stretching as far as 1993. You'd be amazed what kind of trailers/promos have been preserved.
Foxhack (32100) on 5/29/2017 1:34 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Plokite_Wolf wrote--] [Q2 --start Karsa Orlong wrote--]Why official videos only? This limits us to the "new" games only, as the old titles (f.e. for Amiga, spectrum, DOS) had no such promos [/Q2 --end Karsa Orlong wrote--] I've found things stretching as far as 1993. You'd be amazed what kind of trailers/promos have been preserved. [/Q --end Plokite_Wolf wrote--]And there are Japanese PC game catalogs (usually of the ero kind) on video. I remember renting a pirated anime VHS that had a bunch back in the mid 90s.
Tracy Poff (2094) on 5/29/2017 7:11 AM · Permalink · Report
Why official videos only?
Besides the ethical considerations Simon mentioned, for the moment this feature should be considered as analogous to Ad Blurbs or Promo Images--a place specifically for the official representation of the game.
Supporting unofficial videos in the future is a possibility, but I think it would be fairly difficult to decide where to draw the line on those. It's something we can discuss, though.
And how about the scrapper, will it take the videos automatically from steam and other sites?
Because Steam hosts their own videos, we should probably not embed those, but if some site hosts their videos on a supported platform (only YouTube, right now), then we could potentially add the videos automatically, yes. For now, the videos must be added manually.
And what with the games having a few official videos?
It is supported technically to add more than one video to a game, and we will in the future provide a way to see them all. For now though, only a single video will be displayed on the site (the first video according to the ordering, which may be set by approvers, similar to screenshot/cover ordering).
MAT (240968) on 5/29/2017 10:37 AM · Permalink · Report
Adding gameplay video is more like a textual walkthrough we have in tips & hits, but for older games that didn't have trailers we could allow intro cinematic and TV commercials, most games have those and they wouldn't be like a walkthrough spoilers.
But Karsa, you haven't been following boards, others will probably be allowed, like making-of, cinematics, gameplay videos, video reviews, and unofficial trailers which can be better than official ones. But for now, at the very start, we will only show one so it's most logical to include launch trailer where applicable :)
Victor Vance (18100) on 6/12/2017 3:51 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start MAT wrote--]we could allow intro cinematic[/Q --end MAT wrote--]
We have this feature on IGCD. See here for an example: http://igcd.net/game.php?id=317600
Barbarian_bros (15187) on 6/12/2017 3:32 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Karsa Orlong wrote--]Why official videos only? This limits us to the "new" games only, as the old titles (f.e. for Amiga, spectrum, DOS) had no such promos - but still we may find the videos with gameplay on YouTube made by players. Not allowing this is a shame. [/Q --end Karsa Orlong wrote--]
I have a youtube channel (barbarianbros) where I've uploaded a lot of vidéos : trailers/teasers/making-of/interviews, and most are not so recent : the older one is from 1993. About older DOS games, I also have recorded the rolling/non-interactive demos, which were used instead of video in this times file size was a big concern. In my opinion a record from a loop-demo should be accepted in the same way an official trailer is accepted.
Also concerning my youtube channel : I've spent time to collect this vidéos from magazine covermount CDs, or from my original game discs. More time to convert some exotic outdated codecs in a useable form, upscaling tiny 200x140 videos (I never upload anything smaller than 360lines) ... time to run/config/record or edit loop demos (i.e synch music when using my MT-32 to render it), so I'd like to be the one who add videos from my channer to moby game files... I noticed some game had video on their page when I saw the 'Crimson Skies' trailer... the video I've uploaded on youtube...
Game 'playlists' on my youtube channel (barbarianbros) : -Old games videos (trailers, making-of, interviews...) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzKk42PYDz6GG_D-MScsEpVEhTNp9fh5b
-Retro Video Games Loop Demos (almost only MS-DOS or Windows demos) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzKk42PYDz6H1_dzGicUaXiC_rvjvrjXW
And 3 playlists about game music : Video Games Songs, Roland MT-32 Game Musics, Video Games Complete Soundtracks (no emulation).
Plok (214112) on 5/29/2017 6:04 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Foxhack wrote--]I've been adding stuff, going through multiple company channels and damn, does EA never release trailers with actual gameplay? Most are cinematic or bullshot footage. [/Q --end Foxhack wrote--] They used to...
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
;)