User talk:-Majestic-/Newsletters/WikiProject Video games

Project at a Glance

As of 2008-06-04, the project has:

Changes to Featured and Good articles, lists, and topics

News

There were 203 new articles in May 2008

Current proposals and discussions

• Well, gee, thanks 1up!
  1UP.com has recently changed their rating scale. A list of affected articles can be found here. See discussion for details.
  • About 28% of the articles on the list have been checked and updated.
• Inactive project cleanup
  Proposal to consolidate inactive projects and taskforces. Project page can be found here.
  • WikiProject Dragon Quest has been redirected to WP:VG.
  • WikiProject Massively multiplayer online games Guild Wars task force has been deleted.

Interested in a specific video game series or company? Check out some of our task forces to help improve the related articles.

Feature

Writing about Development

Development content is very important to include in an encyclopedic video game article. It provides a history of how the game came to be and provides real world information needed for an article to claim comprehensiveness. However, writing this section can be difficult because the amount and type of information available will vary for each game. One of the best sources for such information is a developer interview. These can provide insight into the thought process of the designers and give examples of influences and obstacles encountered. Previews can also be helpful by giving a snap shot of the game before it was released and may mention development issues that were still being addressed.

When writing about development, common sense should be used to organize content to maintain a sense of flow for the reader. Most times, it is best to give the information in a somewhat chronological order—though information can also be grouped by topics like audio, promotion, graphics, etc. If one such topic gets large enough, it can be split off into its own subsection or regular section. For example, Kingdom Hearts#Audio is a separate section from the rest of the development information because it focuses on the game's musical score and voice acting. Portal (video game)#Soundtrack, however, does not have as much content and is a subsection of the main development section.

What to include about development

• Who are the developers? Which company or studio developed the game, and are there any prominent designers involved?
• When did development begin?
• When and where was the game first announced? (e.g. Tokyo Game Show, E3 Media and Business Summit, etc.)
• What influenced the game's story, characters, music, and/or gameplay ? (e.g. past games, movies, books, etc.)
• Were there any delays?
• Was anything excluded because of time or technological constraints? (e.g. extra levels, game modes, characters, story arcs, etc.)

Things to remember

• Avoid proseline. Though maintaining a sense to chronology is important, this section should not read like an ordered list of events.
• Images in this section should be relevant to the information given and should add on to it.
• Source everything to avoid information being tagged as original research.

Things you can help with:

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