Wikidata talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive/2019

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2018 year in review

Hello colleagues,

I wrote a blog post regarding my Wikidata work on video games in 2018 − I thought you might find it in interesting :) https://commonists.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/wikidata-and-the-sum-of-all-video-games-%e2%88%92-2018-edition/

Cheers, and happy New Year! Jean-Fred (talk) 19:32, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Adding PCGamingWiki IDs to video game articles

I'm currently trying to figure out the best way to go about adding PCGamingWiki IDs (PCGamingWiki ID (P6337)) to Wikidata items where relevant, e.g. in the cases where the PCGW article has a Wikipedia article associated with it, we can pretty cleanly associate the PCGamingWiki ID with the corresponding the Wikidata item. The problem is, I don't know the best way to script this.

Does anyone have experience with this kind of thing? What's the best way to do this in an automated fashion? Are there existing tools for this? I've been using and generally prefer Ruby, but I'm open to JavaScript and other languages as well.

I've already uploaded the dataset to Mix'n'match, but it seems that most PCGamingWiki articles are covering video games without corresponding Wikidata items (should I go ahead and create new items for each of those? My concern is that the only data there would be the name and the PCGW ID). I also exported the dataset without descriptions (I'm trying to get the release date and developer for each game so I can generate a good description for each video game in the dataset, but have run into some problems with the PCGamingWiki API), which has made comparing the suggested Wikidata items with the PCGamingWiki articles more difficult.

The data is also useful for getting Steam App IDs, release dates, developer/publisher info, WineHQ IDs, etc. into Wikidata.

Thanks, Nicereddy (talk) 02:46, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Hey @Nicereddy:
Doing something like that has been on my todo for a while − have not done it yet though ^_^
Python is a popular choice for bot operators, as there are good frameworks for wiki(data) editing (in particular Pywikibot) ; but there are other options too − see Wikidata:Creating a bot for some documentation. For some examples of similar stuff from some folks I know − here and there from User:Lokal Profil or there from User:Multichill.
There’s definitely something odd with that Mix’n’match − it should be providing many many more potential matches. May I ask how you built it? I guess you used the static import, not the scraper? Did you specify a Default type?
For uploading the entire dataset, while also doing reconciliation, you probably want to look into Wikidata:Tools/OpenRefine. I played a bit with it but not for actual edits yet − User:Dispenser has done some good imports of Redump and Steam, he may be able to help.
Importing IDs and adding references do not need discussion ; I’m less sure about importing data (eg developer/publisher) − that may be problematic (copyright and database rights), we may need input from the rest of the community.
Hope that helps! And thanks for your work!
Jean-Fred (talk) 15:12, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
Hey @Jean-Frédéric:, thanks for the feedback and links :)
I've actually already started on importing the dataset via a Ruby script I've written (I can share more info about that here if you want, I'm working on a blog post that goes over my process and scripts as well). I'm not sure if there's a way to have mix'n'match automatically update itself to mark all the items that have PCGamingWiki IDs as completed? The script should be highly accurate (I manually verified the first ~50 items to make sure it was working before letting it run for the rest of the dataset) since it's matching based on Steam IDs plus the game's title (it has to match exactly, albeit case insensitively, otherwise the script won't add the associated PCGW ID).
I'm still in the middle of running the script. It's taking its sweet time and needs to be babysat since it'll fail every few minutes due to a bug I haven't been able to figure out. It's added around 1800 PCGW IDs to items so far.
I indeed used the static import, though I didn't include descriptions as they were too hard to create with the limitations of the PCGamingWiki API, e.g. it's unfortunately fairly difficult to get a list of every game on PCGamingWiki along with its associated Steam ID, release date, and developer. I only managed to get the Steam IDs, so the descriptions didn't really have anything to be generated with. I'm not sure if the lack of descriptions are what's causing the problem? I added a default type, I think, but I'm not 100% sure.
Thanks for the help! Nicereddy (talk) 18:02, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
@Nicereddy: This looks fantastic − great job :)
Yes, you can force Mix’n’match to update itself by going to the Manually sync catalogue action (in the "Actions" drop-down menu top right) − I triggered it a couple of times already.
Descriptions are just (I think) for humans to help with matching − they can be useful but are not mandatory − especially in this case where it’s 'only' PC games, so duplicates (games named the same but on totally different platforms) are less likely.
Looking forward to reading that blog post!
Jean-Fred (talk) 11:12, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
@Jean-Frédéric: Here's the blog post, it's not too impressive but I hope it might help other people wanting to import data like this :) https://connorshea.gitlab.io/blog/connecting-pcgw-and-wikidata.html
Nicereddy (talk) 00:01, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
@Jean-Frédéric: As for the problem with the mix'n'match dataset, I think the URLs are a bit weird due to, e.g. asterisks and ampersands being incorrectly escaped in the imported file. I can probably fix it relatively easily, but I can't figure out how to update the dataset. Am I missing an obvious "update import" button? :) Nicereddy (talk) 05:45, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Place for information about the playability of characters

Currently information about player character (Q1062345)/non-player character (Q466466)/etc. is scattered across three places: as a statement with subject has role (P2868), as a qualifier to present in work (P1441) and at the work item as a qualifier to characters (P674). According to this project's property table one should indicate the playability of a character at the work via characters (P674)/object of statement has role (P3831). As those statements seem to me rather uncontroversial and not in need of further qualifiers this seems to me sufficient. Should the information at other places be moved to characters (P674)/object of statement has role (P3831) in order to avoid redundancy and inconsistencies? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 10:42, 1 February 2019 (UTC);

To give examples of each place:
  1. Elena Fisher (Q730496)subject has role (P2868)player character (Q1062345)
  2. Mario (Q12379)present in work (P1441)Super Mario World (Q853143)subject has role (P2868)player character (Q1062345)
  3. Super Mario World (Q853143)characters (P674)Mario (Q12379)object of statement has role (P3831)player character (Q1062345)
1/ is definitely bad (as playability depends on the work). I guess 2 and 3 are equivalent (just 'inverted') and indeed redundant − I am not sure which one would be the 'proper' way to model it, I’m kind of happy either way. Not too sure what’s in general the Wikidata-way to handle that redundancy vs. consistent data.
(not helping much ^_^')
Jean-Fred (talk) 12:30, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
+1 that option 1 is bad. (For the issue of redundancy between inverse properties in general, there's a relevant RFC currently open on that issue.) --Yair rand (talk) 22:39, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Voxel based games

I was looking around for how to describe (with statements) that a game is voxel based. Has this question come up at all before? Is there any current modeling of this that I missing? Would "voxel game" make for a good instance of video game genre (Q659563)? ·addshore· talk to me! 19:40, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps this should be associated with the software engine (P408) value? --Yair rand (talk) 07:54, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
I think the engine describes a different aspect, for example, Unity is a very generic engine, that a whole range of different style / genre of games can be developed using. I was thinking perhaps genre (P136) makes sense, as open world (Q867123) is used there which I could kind of put in the same sphere as voxel games. People in the real world refer to "voxel games" as if it were a genre, for example this random page i found on the internet. ·addshore· talk to me! 15:01, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Report pages

Hi folks,

With the help of Trade, I have set up a bunch of Listeria-based statistics dashboards and report pages:

(I also made Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Identifiers for statistics on VG-related identifiers but as Listeria does not work well with properties, I had to trick it to use items which only partially work).

Hope these are helpful :) If you have other ideas for statistics, go ahead or let me know :)

Jean-Fred (talk) 08:52, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

I have also set up Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Reports/Year, all linked from Wikidata:WikiProject_Video_games/Statistics/Year. Jean-Fred (talk) 08:08, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Inspired by the Sum of All paintings dashboard, I replaced the Listeria-based Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Statistics/Platform (for now ²the code is on this Jupyter notebook − I’ll put into a crontab at some point I guess :-)). Jean-Fred (talk)

Citing reference when running an import based on data from PCGamingWiki

I want to write a script to import data from PCGamingWiki (specifically, adding WineDB IDs to games that don't have them when PCGW has that information already).

I've seen a decent number of Steam App IDs that have a citation of 'imported from Wikimedia project' 'PCGamingWiki' (e.g. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q955289#P1733). Should I also do this when adding WineDB IDs, or is it unnecessary/unhelpful?

Best, Nicereddy (talk) 03:29, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan :)
imported from Wikimedia project (P143) was only ever meant to be used to tag data taken from the Wikipedias (there’s even a pending constraint violation if you use it with something else than Wikimedia projects (Q14827288)) ; but as it used to be called “imported from”, it got significant use for sourcing data from other databases. :-/
I believe you should use stated in (P248) for this.
Jean-Fred (talk) 08:16, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Maintenance Dashboard

I wanted to suggest an idea I've had in the back of my head for a few weeks now. I've been acting as a kind of 'steward' of PCGamingWiki ID (P6337) and have created a bunch of SPARQL queries that can be used to track potentially problematic data, both directly related to PCGamingWiki ID (P6337) and some others that aren't. The queries are all available in this GitHub Gist.

Essentially, they're all things like 'Video games on Windows with no PCGamingWiki ID', 'Video games on Windows with a GiantBomb ID and no PCGamingWiki ID', 'Items with URL-encoded strings in their PCGamingWiki ID' (this indicates an error caused by a bad mix'n'match dataset I created), etc. They're useful for finding Wikidata items that have bad data, for finding items that don't have PCGamingWiki IDs yet but could/should probably have one, and for finding potentially problematic usage of the property (these don't use the constraint system as I like to see the updated data as I go through it, and because most of these aren't quite usable as constraints).

Essentially, my idea would be to create a dashboard (or set of dashboards), for various external identifiers and other properties relevant to video games. The dashboard would use SPARQL queries to surface data with potential problems, items that could likely be associated with external identifiers, and possibly also constraint violations. The goal would be to have a central place where we can share means of detecting and correcting incorrect video game data, both so that the queries can be reused for other properties and so we can improve our data coverage.

cc: @Trade, Jean-Frédéric: I figure this might fit in with your statistics pages? :)

Thanks, Nicereddy (talk) 18:28, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Classic Mac OS vs Mac OS

Classic Mac OS (Q13522376) vs. Mac OS operating systems (Q43627), the former seems to be what we should be using when we refer to games that are on the older Mac OS (the one from the 90s, e.g. with Wolfenstein 3D), but currently we're using the latter (see the platforms statistics page) and the latter is the family of operating systems that includes both Mac OS and macOS (aka OS X). I'm not sure if we should go through each and replace Mac OS operating systems (Q43627) with Classic Mac OS (Q13522376)? We should probably also mark Mac OS operating systems (Q43627) as not being a valid platform for games, if possible?

Also, macOS (Q14116) is entirely different. Thanks Apple (Q312) ;) - Nicereddy (talk) 02:06, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Actually we also have Mac (Q75687). We should really use a whitelist for possible platforms. >.> Nicereddy (talk) 02:16, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

IndieDB identifier property ?

Hi,

I was wondering if I should propose this website as a external identifier: [1]. There is game, and game engine and different things (so maybe more than 1 property), but I suspect this do duplicate information we already have. --Misc (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

It was on my todo list :-) I think it would be a good addition. By duplicate information, do you mean the coverage is very similar to other properties we have? I’m not too worried about that, as there is also value in aligning different catalogues − so that someone with an indieDB ID can retrieve the GOG ID or the HowLongToBeat or any other :-) Jean-Fred (talk) 19:20, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
yeah, that's what I meant. So i went ahead and did create a proposal, but I am a bit rusty, didn't do that since a few months. --Misc (talk) 19:58, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
It would be nice if we could retrieve the Metacritic ID from Steam, the GameFAQ ID from Metacritic and the GameSpot ID from GameFaq. Trade (talk) 05:15, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
@Trade: I have a script that takes platform info from Steam, you're able to use the same API endpoint to get Metacritic IDs (note that it fakes the client as being Big Picture Mode since this API is more heavily rate limited for other users). You can see the Metacritic URL in the API response for Half-Life 2, for example. I'm not sure how reliable that data is, though. I've never really looked at it. Nicereddy (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Project log: Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Log

Hello folks,

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes have a hard time keeping up with all the cool things you are up to :-) Sometimes I see by chance some edits in my watchlist ; but most of the times, if I did not know for a fact there are active people here hard at work, it could feel like nothing is happening. For example, based on this talk page, one would be forgiven to think that this project is half-dead ^_^. Another problem I have, is that it is easy to fall behind on new properties & new 'building blocks items' that are created, or data modeling decisions made.

I was thinking at some point that we could make a project newsletter − first I thought monthly, then I thought quarterly, and now we’re 1 month into Q2 and I did not get round doing it ^_^'.

On Wikimedia Commons (my home project), we used to have the so-called Commons Log − a very lightweight record of events. It was really convenient to keep track on important stuff, and is also a great historical record.

So, I went bold and started Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Log. I seeded it with some interesting blogposts, some property creations, some item creations I saw flying by that I think are of interest to other participants, a data modeling decision, a couple of QuickStatements batches I made earlier this month… Basically stuff that I think other folks (either project participants or interested lurkers) would be interested in knowing. It’s only meant for 'major' stuff though, obviously if we start logging every Q7889 creation, it won’t be very helpful :)

What do you think? Would you find that useful? Would you be up for updating it when you’ve done something?

Cheers, Jean-Fred (talk) 17:27, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

We can definitely try, yup. Logging every Q7889 wouldn't be good, but what about some stats each month ? --Misc (talk) 07:30, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
What sorta of stats did you had in mind other than the number of items created? Trade (talk) 15:44, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
Exactly that for a start, but maybe also some stats on some specific properties that can be found only on games, and their coverage. For example, how many video games with HowLongToBeat ID (P2816) or Internet Game Database game ID (P5794) month after month, or something like this ? --Misc (talk) 19:23, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
Probably part of the answer between Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Identifiers & Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Statistics/Platform ; also on the talk page of each property, there is also a link “Usage history” which gives you a usage graph over time. Jean-Fred (talk) 08:02, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Identifiers is interesting, but I didn't see it linked from the projet page. But that's monday morning for me, so maybe I missed something. If I didn't, shouldn't we add it somewhere on the page, so it will be easier to find ?--Misc (talk) 10:45, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Good point, these pages are not easily discoverable. I tried reorganising a bit Wikidata:WikiProject Video games, hopefully that’s better :) (in general I don’t like much the home page of the project, could use some refreshing) Jean-Fred (talk) 16:38, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
I like the new structure of the site! I also think the Log seems usefull to keep up to date. I have had difficulties in overviewing some activities so far. Diggr (talk) 10:28, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Looks good to me :) I'd say there should be events in the Log for the creation of the Log itself and also the creation of the Statistics pages. Nicereddy (talk) 19:41, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I haven't found anything about this subject so i'm gonna bring it up now. Should items about clan (Q989470) and professional gamer (Q4379701) be covered by WikiProject Video games? I'm not sure if [[|Wikidata:WikiProject Sports|WikiProject Sports]] is the ideal place. Trade (talk) 15:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Why not both ? --Misc (talk) 19:23, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

WikidataCon 2019

Just to let you know that with Diggr and Envlh we have co-submitted two videogame-related contributions to WikidataCon 2019 − a talk (videogame metadata, success and challenges of this project, relevance of Wikidata in the VG-data ecosystem and for academic research, etc.) ; and a meetup (to try to assemble other participants or potential participants). We’ll let you know whether they are accepted − fingers crossed − and if they are, we will likely seek your input, when we get closer to October, about things we should include that we have overlooked. :) Jean-Fred (talk) 18:20, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi, while adding visual novels to the base, I did see that a few of them are described on TV Tropes (Q2537428). For example, Angels with Scaly Wings (Q63413258) is listed on this page. Would it be better to add a property, or is there one that would be used ? --Misc (talk) 14:40, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

A TV Tropes property would a good idea IMO, not just for video games but all kinds of works plus persons, places, tropes, etc. I've thought about proposing one in the past, but after I unsuccessfully tried to find out whether they have some kind of internal ID we could use (instead of just using part of the URL), I kinda forgot about it. --Kam Solusar (talk) 16:15, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Given that tvtropes seems to use pmwiki, who use filesystem directly, I suspect there is no unique identifier except the file name present in the URL. But I didn't check the source code for that, maybe I am wrong --Misc (talk) 07:22, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
I did poke around on the site and pmwiki's documentation, but didn't see anything about an unique ID we could use. So we're gonna have to use part of the URL - not really a stable ID, but we already have a lot of other properties like that and I'd say it's better than not having a tvtropes property. --Kam Solusar (talk) 14:05, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
This had been on my mind for a while too − went ahead and started Wikidata:Property proposal/TV Tropes identifier.
Not sure yet what would be the best way − one, three or several properties. Looking forward to your opinions on the property proposal page :)
Jean-Fred (talk) 18:24, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
To follow up: see TV Tropes ID (P6839) :) Jean-Fred (talk) 10:36, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Google Stadia

Hi,

Just out of curiosity, since Google Stadia is a cloud-based gaming service, what is the exactly statement of the service? Because Google Stadia isn't an gaming platform, should it be asigned as an distribution format, or there are other statements for his application? Kirilloparma (talk) 13:37, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Example: there is a game, this game is coming for Google Stadia, what is the exactly statement to put in for this service?
Example for distribution format: Doom Eternal (Q55662649)distribution format (P437)Google Stadia (Q60309635) Kirilloparma (talk) 13:50, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
  • In the other side, I was thinking about if we should to to propose a new property in this specific case. For example:
video game streaming service
Normal rank Google Stadia edit
0 references
add reference
Normal rank PlayStation Now edit
0 references
add reference
Normal rank Xbox Cloud Gaming edit
0 references
add reference


add value

Kirilloparma (talk) 14:25, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Personnaly, I would count that as a distribution method, if there is a specific e-shop where you can buy games, etc. Now if you can import your existing games, that's likely different. --Misc (talk) 12:56, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Some more potential properties

Hi folks,

while adding some data, I stumbled on a few potentials properties. I do not have time right now to add them (and try to not add too much while I didn't finish using the ones I did propose), but maybe someone would have a opinion on them, or is willing to propose them faster than me (or think they are not useful):

  • The Cutting Room Floor is a wiki (so like pcgamingwiki) who reference the unused content in game. That's kinda niche, and I doubt this will help for crossreference more than all DB we have, but I guess this could be interesting somehow to some people.
  • Can you run it, huge (6000 entries) list of game, with test on hardware requirements. After checking the website, I am not sure that's useful, but that's why I do ask people here.
  • Uncensor Patch is exactly what the name say. It is referenced from VNDB, and I guess that's one more source of data about visual novel. Of course, that's also kinda NSFW I guess, so I can see that one being controversial.
  • LaunchBox has a gamesdb, with lots of informations. It also have plateforme and genre. Likely the least controversial of the one I found.


Ideas, opinions ? --Misc (talk) 10:28, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Great idea, let us list all the databases we could potentially add before making a proposal. --Trade (talk) 14:18, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
  • The Cutting Room Floor: A very comprehensive wiki. I think a lot of people would be happy if we had it. +
  • Uncensorpat.ch: Yeah, after the mess that was the deletion of the Boobpedia identifier i've been quite worried when it comes to the proposal of NSFW Wikidata identifiers. That was a lot of work that went right down the drain. I know that some of the uncensor patches were created and released by the developers themself in order to bypass Steam censor.
  • Can You Run It:The system requirements listed on systemrequirementslab.com are far more comprehensive than the ones listed at {{|MobyGames}}. There's websites to look up a games system requirements and this is definitely the best. I'll say it's quite useful. +
Potential new properties
If we are looking at steam ID using databbase, I would also add ProtonDB, which would be similar to Wine AppDB ID (P600). --Misc (talk) 07:44, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Okay, i think i've got the most important databases. I've marked my favorites with '+' to show which ones i'll like to focus on. I remember Polygon having a database similar to GameSpot and iGN but i'm not sure what happened to it. Turns out thevideogamesdb. com have been blacklisten. I imagine it's because of the intrusive ads. --Trade (talk) 22:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Just popping in with a few non-English suggestions:
Handy to have more of such links to non-English gaming resources, I think. --Btcprox (talk) 08:40, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for compiling these! As a reminder − I still maintain a todo list at User:Jean-Frédéric/Videogame external databases (although I have some more just in bookmarks).
Regarding the Steam apps: no, if the ID is the same then it should not be in a separate property − and it’s a job for third-party formatter URL (P3303) & formatter URL (P1630) − I now added them to Property:P1733#P1630.
Jean-Fred (talk) 10:34, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Jean-Fred Yeah, i still don't understand how third-party formatter URL (P3303) & formatter URL (P1630) are supposed to help. --Trade (talk) 22:58, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Not sure if I’m going to explain well (I’m not an expert either ^^) but let’s try: Because the point of storing IDs is not per se to provide convenience links, but to provide the data to do so. From a database perspective, there is no value in storing Flower (Q1825218) → Steam ID: 966330, SteamDB ID: 966330 − because it’s the same, and because there is no such thing as a “SteamDB ID” − they just happen to use the same ID (which makes a lot of sense ^_^). Data consumers can then generate all the right URLs (as defined third-party formatter URL (P3303) & formatter URL (P1630)) with the ID. It’s a bit muddied because the Wikidata front-end does make the hyperlink for convenience (not sure which component does actually − it used to be a gadget, but maybe it’s in Wikibase now?) − but I guess it could make more links (it’s more of a UI trick).
To give a more concrete example: A Lua template on a Wikipedia article could generate all 5 Steam URLs with just that one property.
Jean-Fred (talk) 17:42, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
But so, what about databases that reuse a ID, but only if there is a entry ? For example, protonDB use the same ID as Steam, but not all games on Steam have a entry in protonDB, either because it doesn't make sense (native linux game), or because it wasn't entered (or just unsupported). The same goes for IndieDB and ModDB, where they are coming from the same group and reuse ID, but not all entries on one are in the others. If we want to express that something is present in one database, but not the other, having a separate property with constraint seems the simplest. --Misc (talk) 18:28, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
That’s a good point, not too sure about that. Would be worth raising on the Wikidata:Project chat I’d say. Jean-Fred (talk) 15:38, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
I think this issue came up a few times in property proposal discussions when people wanted to create similar new properties that were basically just a subset of an existing ID. And IIRC, at least some of those properties were indeed created. But I don't think there has ever been a big discussion how Wikidata should handle such cases in general. Would be nice if Wikidata had a standard way to model such cases without the need to maintain the same ID values across two or more separate properties. --Kam Solusar (talk) 12:08, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Given how much unique information SteamDB contains i think it would be okay to make an exception. The property would be very useful for games that are no longer available on Steam and who's storefront are no longer to be found. Tho, given the large amount of identifiers and properties waiting for approval (100+) we might wanna take a pause from creating new video game identifiers and properties. --Trade (talk) 21:51, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
So, I just saw on Reddit this website MicroTransation.zone, which seems to reuse part of Giant Bomb ID (P5247). Like steam/photondb, only part of the data are in the 2nd base, but even more interesting, the identifier is a subset of the one we have in wikidata. Not sure how to handle that one. --Misc (talk) 01:57, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
The Polish film database Filmweb (Q2090445) also has entries for video games (example) and the existing property Filmweb.pl film ID (P5032) could be used for them, as it also works for the game entries. We'd just need to change the property accordingly. I've suggested it on the property's talk page a couple of months ago, but got no replies and then kinda forgot about it. --Kam Solusar (talk) 15:39, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

date of commercialization (P5204)

I just discovered date of commercialization (P5204) (as linked from the recent announcement date (P6949). For platforms: Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Properties currently advises to use publication date (P577) for consoles (eg Nintendo Switch (Q19610114)publication date (P577)2017-03-03). I think P577 is really made for works, and P5204 is really what is meant for hardware products. Thoughts? Jean-Fred (talk) 15:38, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

I have been using it to indicate the date that a product is available for sale, which is often some time after it's announced. I don't really think of publication date (P577) applying to hardware. Ghouston (talk) 11:28, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
'I don't really think of publication date (P577) applying to hardware.' How come? --Trade (talk) 20:55, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Because of the usual meaning of "publishing" in English, e.g., from en:Publishing: Publishing is the dissemination of literature, music, or information. I see that a number of aliases have been added in Wikidata, but I'm not sure if they are sensible. It's usage according to constraints depends largely on what work (Q386724) is supposed to mean, and that's a real mess of an item that varies in different languages. Ghouston (talk) 21:00, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Adding constraint for Google Play Store app ID (P3418) and App Store app ID (P3861) ?

Hi, while adding a game, I realized that neither Google Play Store app ID (P3418) or App Store app ID (P3861) seems to have constraints (or rather, not at the same level as Steam application ID (P1733). For example, I would expect that adding a value to Google Play Store app ID (P3418) would requires to have Google Play (Q79576) as a value for distribution format (P437), and Android (Q94) for platform (P400). I am not sure where to ask, as the discussion page say "ask to project that use the property". I think we are people who use the value, so I can start here, but does someone see a reason to not add thoses contraints ? As I assume it would trigger KrBot who would do some massive changes, I prefer to ask before. --Misc (talk) 00:05, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I like the idea. I say, go ahead. --Trade (talk) 20:43, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
So, looking at F-Droid package (P3597), I see that this one is enforcing operating system (P306) instead of platform (P400). Which is the first discussion on that very project chat (and not very conclusive, IMHO). For now, I did modify Google Play Store app ID (P3418) to copy the behavior of F-Droid package (P3597), but that seems kinda incoherent with the others identifiers. Shouldn't we restart the discussion about difference between the 2 ? --Misc (talk) 22:34, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
As a follow up, I did the change for Google Play Store app ID (P3418). I will see what happen (since it seems my last change got modified, but the wikidata history is not exactly clear to me), and do the same for App Store app ID (P3861) (not sure however if there isn't more than just software on itunes store). --Misc (talk) 10:17, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Unreal Engine cleanup

Most video game items have their game engine imported from English Wikipedia (Q328). On English Wikipedia (Q328), both Unreal Engine 2 (Q13156650), Unreal Engine 3 (Q13156651) and Unreal Engine 4 (Q13156652) redirects towards Unreal Engine (Q608276).

Because of this we have a lot of items which states the wrong video game engine. For example, according to Mirror's Edge (Q526350) Mirro's Edge were made with Unreal Engine 1 which is clearly wrong.

I've started to clean up the list in order to change the engine to the correct version. Assistance would e greatly appreciated.

This also servers to an remainder as why we need to be careful about importing information from link that redirects to other articles. --Trade (talk) 20:49, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Unreal Engine (Q608276) could be changed to refer to all versions, treated as a series of works, with a new item for version 1. That would make it more consistent with the en:Unreal Engine article that it's linked with. Currently, Unreal Engine 2 (Q13156650) has been made a subclass of that item, but I think part of the series (P179) would be better, unless there's something better for software versions. Ghouston (talk) 21:08, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure how we should deal with Postal 2 (Q1974968) and Duke Nukem Forever (Q962129). Despite their old age, there seems to be a lot disagreement about what engine they are using. I don't have a link, but i remember a Steam post where a staff member from Running with Scissors (Q498812) who mentioned that Postal 2 (Q1974968) uses the same engine as Unreal Tournament 2004 (Q913536) (aka Unreal Engine 2.5 (Q65559773)) --Trade (talk) 21:13, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
I suppose if the version isn't known, leave it at Unreal Engine (Q608276), which represents the Unreal Engine in general, all versions. Ghouston (talk) 06:21, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

VisualNovelDB using wikidata !

Hi,

While adding yet another visual novel, I stumbled on this forum post on The Visual Novel Database (Q16646841). I kinda wonder if there is something to do, like, welcome people officially, or tell them to look at mix and match. In all cases, I think that's quite cool, even if I feel that's database duplication. --Misc (talk) 22:55, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Database duplication? Anyways, i agree with creating a Mix'n'Match for VNDB, Anime Characters Database and HLTB --Trade (talk) 23:13, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
(Quick answer, I’m on vacation with limited Internet :)
Nice find Misc :)
So, I met Yorhel (the maintainer of VNDB) a couple of months ago at a workshop “Videogame and Visual Media Data – Community-driven Initiatives and Research Avenues” organized by the nice diggr (Q65921763) folks from Leipzig University(I have a summary blogpost in my drafts about this that I really need to finish >_>).
Yorhel also pinged me last week to let me know he has a dump for us in order to create a Mix’n’match catalogue (scraping the HTML is big no-no :-) − will get to it next week.
(Re:database duplication: I don’t think there’s any duplication here? They link to Wikidata as we link to them, and they can then use Wikidata to harvest a bunch of additional links − which is in my view a great Wikidata use-case. Of course, they need to keep these links in sync with us but that’s doable.)
Jean-Fred (talk) 08:02, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
I guess I wasn't clear, the duplication is because they copy the data from wikidata to their DB. It do make sense since that mean their website will be up if we are down, they can continue to use sql on the website side (instead of sparql + sql), and they do not hammer wikidata, but fundamentally, that's information duplication (even if, given there is a sync, that should cause trouble, unless the sync is broken). --Misc (talk) 14:05, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to the team and community here

thank you for doing video games

I am writing to say thanks to the community of contributors here at WikiProject Video Games for the continuous creative production of Wikimedia culture, policies and precedent. Many of the practices which everyone else in Wikimedia projects follow have origins in developing content about video games. The originality out of Wikimedia video game projects stands out. I wish that someone would do a round of brief interviews and compile some of the narratives, because what happens here is a global influence on media.

Before I go on about what brought me here, I want to share the memory that an early challenge of English Wikipedia was modeling the coverage of Pokemon. The video game community made the notability policy what it is today, which consequently set a rubric for what is deleted and what Wikipedia keeps, which in turn is the foundation of Wikipedia's design as media.

I just asked a question at Wikidata:Project_chat#Modeling_the_ratings_and_reviews_of_critics. @Jean-Frédéric: thanks for referring me to the answer at Wikidata:WikiProject_Video_games/Properties#Reception_properties, and it seems to be the correct answer and precedent for my question. I am really impressed to be able to start from an existing practice. My question was about modeling ratings, and I am not surprised to find that there is an early experiment here based in video game reviews and ratings. Here are the relevant proposals which were based in video games but applicable universally -

I know that this data modeling is a relatively small thing, and this particular data model is not so developed, but consistently over the years when I need something, someone who was documenting video games has created the technology and had the discussion and created the model. The video game WikiProjects are an engine of product and workflow testing. To everyone here, thanks for doing whatever you do. I hope everyone here is enjoying themselves, and thanks for your indirect contributions to library science, medicine, politics, statistics, quality control, civility, and making the cultural exchange among individuals, pop culture, institutional partnerships, and science so seamless. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:00, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: Oh, whoah, thanks! ^_^ Jean-Fred (talk) 11:01, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Wikimania poster

Wikimania poster

Hi folks,

Last month was Wikimania 2019 (Q48010913) and with the help of Envlh and Diggr I presented a poster about the project. Here it is :)

Jean-Fred (talk) 15:39, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Great work! Esteban16 (talk) 16:40, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
And we are also submitting a similar one for WikidataCon 2019 (Q42449814) :-)  → File:Sum_of_All_Video_Games_Poster_-_WikidataCon_2019.pdf Jean-Fred (talk) 09:22, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Project pages

Hey folks,

As you may have noticed I have tried to reorganize the project pages a little bit, drawing inspiration from other WikiProjects.

At top of several pages there is now a navigation aid Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Tabs, which link to some helpful (I think) pages. Among which two are new:

  • /Queries to list some showcase SPARQL queries ;
  • /Tasks to list potential things to do, for example for a newcomer.

Of course, feel free to add to these pages!

Jean-Fred (talk) 09:26, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I've made a small list of games that links to their trailer. Perhaps we could fit that in somewhere? --Trade (talk) 14:54, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
(only seeing this now) I guess you can add it to the cool queries page :) Jean-Fred (talk) 18:51, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Video game magazines

Hey folks,

I saw this fly-by on Twitter, and it got me curious whether I could answer that with a SPARQL query :)

So I created video game magazine (Q69662460) (which somehow did not exist yet), and a some QuickStatements batch #19738 (EditGroup) #19740 (EditGroup) later, tada: Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Magazines. :-)

(The dissolved, abolished or demolished date (P576) data is too patchy [for now] to answer the tweet question − would need to move lots of the badly tagged end time (P582).)

Jean-Fred (talk) 21:49, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Blog post

Hello colleagues,

As mentionned in passing above, I participated in July to a workshop “Videogame and Visual Media Data – Community-driven Initiatives and Research Avenues” organized by the nice diggr (Q65921763) folks from Leipzig University, to talk about Wikidata. I wrote a blog post retelling in prose what I said (or wanted to say ^_^) − I thought you might find it in interesting :) https://commonists.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/my-message-to-video-game-databases-wekidata-come-in-peace/

Cheers, Jean-Fred (talk) 17:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

itch.io ID as an external identifier

Shouldn't itch.io ID be an external identifier? Currently, it's not listed as such. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P7294 Nicereddy (talk)

I have added Wikidata property for an identifier (Q19847637) to it ; but if you mean, being listed in the separate “Identifiers” section (eg Q6392377#identifiers) then that can’t be done because it was created as a “URL” data-type, not the “external-id” data-type. Jean-Fred (talk) 21:45, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
What's stopping us from making it an “external-id” data-type? --Trade (talk) 14:17, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
See Wikidata:Property_proposal/Itch.io_ID. The rationale is that Itch.io has two variable parts, //<author>.itch.io/<work>, so using an external-id would mean 1/ coming up with some arbitrary syntax, such as author:work and 2/ to be able to resolve it back to a working URL, relying on a stiched-together resolver like toolforge:wikidata-externalid-url. Both of which are considered undesirable.
(Per Wikidata:Identifiers#Properties_to_store_external_identifiers it’s not totally uncommon)
Jean-Fred (talk) 14:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Role-playing video game vs role-playing game

I was working on my website vglist and noticed I had two separate video game genres for RPGs, so I dug into it more and found that games were using two separate Wikidata items to represent the video game genre 'RPG': role-playing game (Q160738) and role-playing video game (Q744038), the latter being much more popular for video games (for obvious reasons).

Should we change all games that have the genre 'role-playing game' to use 'role-playing video game'? It seems like it should be a relatively simple change. Nicereddy (talk) 20:57, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I've made a quick query for convenience. I'll like to replace them all but unfortunately i'm i don't know hot to remove statements with QS and the guide aren't very beginner friendly. --Trade (talk) 21:31, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Ah indeed, both pop-up in Wikidata:WikiProject_Video_games/Statistics/Genre. Let me give it a shot with QuickStatements. :-) Jean-Fred (talk) 21:50, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Would you kindly share what exactly you pasted into QS when you are done? --Trade (talk) 00:14, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Sure thing, added the first few lines to User:Jean-Frédéric/QuickStatements notes. :-)
✓ Done with #20839 (EditGroup). Jean-Fred (talk) 11:57, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

genre vs. subclass

There are over 100 genres (which are also subclass of video game (Q7889)) which are used as a class: 

SELECT ?class ?classLabel (COUNT(?item) as ?cnt) (SAMPLE(?item) as ?example) WHERE {
  ?item wdt:P31 ?class.
  ?item wdt:P31/wdt:P279+ wd:Q7889.
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
}
GROUP BY ?class ?classLabel
Try it!

Which property (P31 or P136) is better for them? --Infovarius (talk) 14:19, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

(Added an example column to the above query)
Thanks for raising this!
Using (sub)genres (for example mahjong video game (Q9318902) or visual novel (Q689445)) as P31 is, as I understand it, wrong and should be moved to P136.
That said, in that list there are also many legit P31, like expansion pack (Q209163), video game compilation (Q16070115) or downloadable content (Q1066707). Is there any ontology issues with the class tree of these items that I am missing?
Jean-Fred (talk) 14:29, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
No, I believe that these 3 are completely ok. --Infovarius (talk) 14:16, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Added a video game template to Cradle

I've added a template to Cradle for video games, in case anyone finds that useful. It can be used to easily create a new video game item :) https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/cradle/#/ Nicereddy (talk) 03:39, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Nice! Thank you! Diggr (talk) 14:28, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

GameRankings is shutting down

https://www.gamerankings.com/news.html

It'll shut down on December 9th and start redirecting to Metacritic.

Not sure how much this'll effect Wikidata, but there are a decent number of rating scores from GameRankings, e.g. on Half-Life 2 (Q193581).

Nicereddy (talk) 00:54, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

So yeah, this is actually bad news (and also for Wikidata). One of the oldest review aggregators GameRankings seems to be closed after 20 years of existence. The site will be shutdown and unavailable from December 9, 2019. Links to reviews will be redirected to a subsidiary site Metacritic, however, it is not clear what does it mean, whether old reviews will be completely inaccessible (only through archive copies) or they will be redirected and available actually on Metacritic, who knows, by the way we will see that on later right after the closure of a site. Meanwhile, we need right now to replace the current links to archival copies by batch (through the bot) or something like that, so yeah, we will have a lot of work here ... Kirilloparma (talk) 01:04, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
😱
IDs are shared with GameFAQs which presumably will not be closing any time soon… So from our side we won’t have deadlinks? (Wikipedias are in more of a pinch)
I sure hope the Internet Archive has a full copy of GameRankings…
Jean-Fred (talk) 10:13, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
According to Wikidata:WikiProject Video games/Statistics/Review score, there are 96 review score (P444) from GameRankings. Jean-Fred (talk) 10:21, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
@Jean-Frédéric: It seems like all the reviews have been moved to Metacritic. The only think we lost were the GameRankings % score which many items use --Trade (talk) 00:51, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

art style of video games

how can I express which art style a certain video game has. i.e.:

--Shisma (talk) 11:23, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

do we want a separate property for that? --Shisma (talk) 12:49, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
For other artworks, movement (P135) is used for style, like Autumnal Cannibalism (Q167082) -> surrealism (Q39427). Ghouston (talk) 22:13, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
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