Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Platform game/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 21:28, 30 August 2007.

Platform game

Self Nomination: Nominated this last January, addressed most or all of the objections since then. The article is very stable, exceptionally well rounded, reflects a worldwide historical context for the genre, and offers a detailed history of its evolution, including many lesser-known games.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Frogacuda (talk • contribs) 11:18, 2007 August 17

Suggestion. Just an idea that came up when I first saw the article. Is it possible to replace the lead image with an animation sequence showing how characters run and jump... It would be cool and would make the article a bit clearer for the reader that have never played a video game. CG 08:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that animated gifs are really big. I've created an example here: Image:Super mario world.gif, which is 3 megabytes. JACO PLANE • 2007-08-18 23:04

To see what it would look like on the article, see this revision which includes the image. The thumbnailed image here is 1.6MB, too big no? JACO PLANE • 2007-08-18 23:12

Yeah, definitely too big to do that way. Maybe doing an original hand-animated one without the moving background would be reasonable in size, but I don't think it's neccessary, nor do I feel motivated to put in the effort to do that.Frogacuda 23:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've raised the question here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games#Animated screenshots. JACO PLANE • 2007-08-18 23:44

Using some creative optimization, I've gotten a decent size animation down to around 300k. I think it's a very clear illustration of platform jumping (taken from the same sequence as the current shot, which was chosen for the same reason). Image:Wonder_boy_platform.gif I think that should work nicely. Frogacuda 01:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can you elaborate on your "creative optimization"? I'm curious what you did. JACO PLANE • 2007-08-19 01:16

Well I used a source that was well suited to the kinds of optimizations gif offers. I did a lossless screen dump using an emulator, the game itself only has a palette of 64 colors so there's no need to reduce or dither (dithering is the enemy of gif optimization), the backgrounds are mostly empty space so the frames are largely redundant from frame to frame, and I could merge it into a global palette so each frame didn't need its own. I'm having trouble inserting it into the entry, btw. The caption seems to disappear when I do it. Could you help me out with that?Frogacuda 01:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation. I fixed your usage so it includes the caption. JACO PLANE • 2007-08-19 01:31

Whee, that looks pretty good, thanks. Frogacuda 01:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Object, now, I hate to be a stickler about fair use images (I love them too and I always wish I could include more) but 15 is way too many. Take a hard look and decide which ones are absolutely necessary and remove the rest. It would be great if the images showed a clear evolution of the genre, not that they don't already but the surfeit of images dilutes this progression. Axem Titanium 05:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Response: It's an exceptionally long article, on an exceptionally broad subject matter, though. The Nintendo Entertainment System article is Featured status and has almost 20. The Chrono Trigger aticle is half the length and only covers a single game and it has 11 images. How are those ok to be featured but not this? It's funny, too, because I have so many images in part because the peer review thought they were needed. No pleasing everyone :/ Frogacuda 06:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Standards change over time. Fair use is way more strict now than it was when those articles were featured. --Mika1h 16:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, the Chrono Trigger page was promoted over a year ago and seems to have slowly degenerated as well. For NES, I don't think every single image there is necessary but each one does illustrate something different, whereas, say, the "Shadow of the Beast" and "Jump Bug" shots don't seem too different from the others (in the case of the latter, it's because the picture doesn't show the scrolling feature). Another concern, several sections have zero citations. Axem Titanium 20:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support Video game history articles are difficult to write, with so much misinformation out there. This is very detailed, and accurate as far as I can tell. Fair-use images seem comparable to other CVG articles of that length. RaidOverHoboken 06:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above user's first edit is supporting this article. M3tal H3ad 14:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Brave effort, but there are too many unsourced claims and the focus is a bit shaky. For exaple, who says that Sony, Sega, and Nintendo were under pressure to release something before the 1996 holiday season? Who says that Sonic the Hedgehog cemented the view that platformers would make or break a console? The section on failed or forgotten experimental 3D platformers like Bug! is longer than the section on the titles which finally got the genre right. Finally, I've never heard of 'hop and bop' sub-genre. Is it really a popular term?--Nydas^(Talk) 17:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The section on the origins of 3D platform games is more storied because, as you would expect, it was a time during which there was a great deal of change and experimentation. There is more to talk about. To call these games "failed" or to say the article should spend more time talking about the games you think are more fun is not very encyclopedic. I'm not going to list every unimaginative Mario 64 ripoff that added nothing to the genre just because they were more commercially successful.

The Sonic the Hedgehog claim is just an intuitive one. It does not say that the view is correct, nor universal, as certainly that is not the case. But it a major factor in the system's success (a claim which IS sourced) so therefore, it would have to support that view. I don't know that that needs any additional sourcing, nor am I sure precisely what kind of reference would make that claim stronger.

Hop and bop was a very common term during the subgenre's peak years. It's not used today, but that's because the genre isn't particularly vital at this point.Frogacuda 01:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article should concentrate on games which have had the greatest impact on the world. At the moment, Bug! merits an entire paragraph whilst Tomb Raider only gets mentioned in passing. The article assumes that the reader will know about the big games.

The Sonic claim sounds authoritative, and shouldn't be in there if it's just what you think. One could easily argue that Mario cemented the view, or that there never was such a view.

I do not remember 'hop and bop' being used by the gaming press during the early nineties, is it an American term? I can't find any convincing uses of the term on Google, compared to say, the European meaning of 'beat 'em up'.--Nydas^(Talk) 06:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's an American term. Dig through enough old magazines and you'll see it used much more commonly than the term "platform game" actually. The term "Platform game" actually didn't become common until the genre had been around for many years. It's rare to find the term "platform game" on marketing materials earlier than around 1990. I tried to find out where and when the term originated for the article, but no one seems to know.

And, yes, one could easily argue that Mario cemented the view. In fact, I thought it was fairly obvious that I was saying as much. Or rather that Mario established that view in the first place, and Sonic's success seemed to be further evidence (hence "cementing" an existing view). That's not really a matter of opinion, it's intuitively true that it would support that claim.

Also I would argue that the games that defined and refined the genre are the ones that had the greatest impact on genre, moreso that the ones that simply sold well. In the same way that Die Hard 3 isn't a hugely important work of cinema compared to, say, Citezen Kane, despite being a more successful movie. The history section is an attempt to explain how the genre came to be, and not just chronicle releases. Frogacuda 20:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment, the article closely ties the hop and bop 'sub-genre' to the 16-bit era, even though it seems the term had died out by them. A google search for 'hop and bop' + mario gets only 77 unique Ghits [1].

The article shouldn't be advancing arguments, it should just be reporting what published sources tell us. If there is a Citizen Kane of games, then Mario 64 is good candidate. It has much more published material discussing its impact than Bug!.--Nydas^(Talk) 13:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's why the article spends much more time discussing Mario64 than it does Bug. Bug only has 5 sentences about it. There's more about Mario64 in there than any other game. There's a huge section dedicated to Mario 64 and its impact.

Also, the sites you're googling weren't written in the 80s. Are you arguing that "hop and bop" isn't a unique subgenre with hundreds of games adhering to its conventions? Or is there just another term for it you think is more common?

And I hate to say it, but in the CVG history domain, it can't just be about compiling crap reported else where, because so much of what's been written about game history is badly researched and patently untrue. I'm not saying you want to publish OR, either, but you have to do it differently. You can't just find a source that says "Such and such is the first game to yadda yadda." You just need to source credible information about when it was released and make sure that that date is earlier than anything else making the claim. There's not really a publication out there that is consistently reliable in the area of gaming journalism.

It's very possible to write a well sourced article using only major sources that wiki would consider credible which is completely and utterly false. CVG is a tough area. Frogacuda 00:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Video games are not living organisms, they don't all need to be in a sub-genre. Mario, Sonic, Bubsy etc are just platform games, not 'hop and bop' platform games. The term is hardly used nowadays, there's no need to try and resurrect it. One recent usage is in IGN's review of Alex Kidd and the Enchanted Castle [2], contradicting the article's definition of hop and bop as involving killing enemies by jumping on them.

Sourcing credible information is all very well, but a lot of the claims in the article are not sourced at all. Who says Sonic the Hedgehog (video game) was intended to 'fend off' Super Mario World? How is Super Mario World a 'conservative' design? Who says PC platformers helped to fuel the shareware model?--Nydas^(Talk) 11:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Look, I write for IGN myself (freelance), and they have a lot of talented people writing for them, but they have printed so much garbage printed on the subject of gaming history that them screwing up hop and bop is just a drop in the bucket. They've also claimed that Jumping Flash was the first 3D platformer, that Zelda was the first action adventure, and a lot of other crap.

You can source things all you want, but since none of these sources are sourced, it's more or less a pointless excercise, but I will go through the motions to meet wiki standards. Added a source for the Sonic thing. The mario design being conservative is elaborated on in the next sentence. It doesn't need further justification.

As for who says that platformers feuled the shareware model, I'm going to say "You", since all I said was that Commander Keen was a successful shareware game, and other shareware platformers followed.Frogacuda 01:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.