Discussions on Video Games
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I would suggest that there are three main subcategories of videogames: - entertainment games (games for entertainment) - advergames (games to develop a brand or market a product) - serious games (games for learning)
some would add "persuasive games" to this list, as in cause-oriented games, and "games for health", like Wii health and sports games.
Once this layer is inserted, pretty much everything else falls out the same way.
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You can model this kind of relationship by the phylogeny pattern used by Media Genre, which is included by Video Game Genre. It's not extensively filled in at the moment, but please feel free to do so.
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I've run into quite a few instances where a version of a game runs on a multiple number of consoles through means other than backwards compatibility. This includes the King Games (which has binaries for both Xbox and Xbox 360 on the same disc) and the PSOne Classics releases on the Playstation Store (which can run on both PS3 and PSP). Does anyone have objections to making the Platform property non-unique for Video Game Version?
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I think I'd model that as two separate versions: they could have different developers, different peripheral support etc and find a different way of modelling the fact they were released as one package rather than saying it's one version for two platforms.
Possibly best to take this to the data-modeling list as this is a schema breaking change?
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If you're going to do what Phil suggests, a good model to look at might be the other types of media releases (video, music) where they model the contents separately from the packaging. Even if both binaries are on the same disc instead of separated discs, it's effectively a packaging strategy.
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I agree that the packaging should be modeled, especially for stuff like collection tracking. I can't think of any instance where multiple versions on the same disc had different developer's, but I'm sure it could happen.
It doesn't address the problem with modeling PSOne Classics, where it's the same file that runs on both systems, though. Are they really two versions if it's the same file?
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I'm quickly getting out of my depth here, but does PSOne Classics depend on software emulation? If it's the same binary which is now available via download instead of pre-packaged in a retail cartridge, I think it's one piece of contents with two different release vehicles (think Hulu vs DVD in the video world). If it's not the same binary, for example if it's the result of a binary-to-binary translation process, then you've got different content as well as different release packages.
For software emulation, there may also be functional/feature differences depending on the version of the software emulator. A certain game may not play at all to start with, then may play only in certain modes or with certain peripheral support in a later emulator version, then play with full functionality after that, and finally play at improved frame rate. Capturing this emulator version vs. game version compatibilty matrix is probably beyond what you want to try and model unless you really need it.
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Good point, a rating should be linked to a board not a country - Im just not thinking complex enough. (-:
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Alright, I've come up with something on sandbox, modeled after the film ratings types:
Rating: http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/schema/user/vtalwar/default_domain/video_game_rating
Rating system: http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/schema/user/vtalwar/default_domain/content_rating_system
Some examples:
ESRB
ESRB's Teen rating
Please let me know what you gamers think :) This is the first time I've done any real modeling... -
These have probably been wiped away by the refresh. Because of the present lack of a community interested in the cvg domain (at least I think there is...if I'm wrong, please butt in!), I'll hold off recreating until there's some more activity.
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When the rating related types get recreated, perhaps they should be attached to versions of a game rather than the main game article itself, especially now that there's a region attached to each version.
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Sorry for the delay in recreating the types! I will try to get to doing that tomorrow. I have yet to investigate the Computer Game Version type in detail but it seems like one would have to make a new instance of this type for every {Region,Platform} combination there is for a given game?
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Is it frequent that the same game is rated different on different platforms? I don't know any such game off the top of my head, but I bet they exist or you wouldn't suggest that ratings be attached to versions instead of the main game. If it's an anomaly maybe ratings can be attached to version ALSO instead of only to the versions.
Here is the revived set of types on sandbox, accessible through this game:
http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000008f68d -
I was think more along the lines the since different regions have different rating systems, the versions would carry the rating field, since each version will be region based as well, but I can see how it would make more since to attach all ratings to the main field.
One instance, though, where I can think of attaching two different ratings to different versions of the game is, of course, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. There are basically two versions of the game out on consoles; one with "Hot Coffee" and one without. Those early versions would have to be marked as AO for the ESRB rating and M for the later versions. -
Bump.
Don't know if there has been anymore talk about this or if vtalwar still has the types he worked on somewhere. Seems like something that should be added, especially if Computer Game Version gets changed to a Standard type.
I remember trying to model this a while back here with a few examples in my Computer Game Release type. I would make a possible suggestion of making the evaluation non-unique and adding a date for times when games are re-rated.
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I don't still have those types around, unfortunately. I had attempted to model content rating systems (boards) as well, but I REALLY like the addition of content descriptors. One can easily add the ratings board as a property to your rating CVT, though, and at that point it's got even more than my original type did.
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OK, I have a few examples in the sandbox. Here are the types:
- Computer Game Rating System models the ratings boards for different countries.
- Computer Game Rating represents the actual age range-based rating, like Teen or Mature for the ESRB and A or Z for CERO.
- Computer Game Content Descriptor is for the phrases that detail the actual content of the game (Strong Language, Comic Mischief).
- Computer Game Evaluation is the compound type that is attached to a version of a game.
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Sorry, the San Andreas example is here.
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I think this is a good model. I (of course!) have a few thoughts, though:
I think the incoming links from Computer Game Evaluation should be reciprocated on Computer Game Rating and Computer Game Content Descriptor so you can see a list of games with a given rating/descriptor.
The Computer Game Evaluation CVT could have a property for rating system, so that you could tell that the two ratings on San Andreas are from the same system, although it would be a bit of a denormalization since the rating system is already explicitly linked to the rating. (Actually, now that I look at the model, it isn't explicitly linked: the property "Rating System" on Computer Game Rating should be unique.)
And on Computer Game Rating, we have a choice: use "integer range" for Age Range, or create two properties for high and low values. Creating two properties has the advantage that you can make them disambiguators so that the ranges show up in a table view on the Rating System Topic: http://www.sandbox-freebase.com/view/en/entertainment_software_rating_board
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Oops. Forgot who I was logged in as. That last post is from me.
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Agreed on the reciprocation. Added links to the sandbox, though it still looks weird 'cause CGV is a CVT.
Rating System definitely should be unique, something I'll have to do right this time when I remake the types. I am kind of weary of making a redundant connection to the rating system, though it wouldn't be the first (Content Descriptor also has a connection to it's rating system).
Age Range is an interesting problem. Looking back, there is only one instance I can find of a rating system using ratings with both a low and high age value, the defunct ELSPA system. Even then it can be modeled in the same matter of other boards (with low-end-only age values). I would vote to keep Age Range as an integer range though to preserve the connection between the two number and to properly model the rare exception.
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K, time to finish this up.
Changes from the previous update: - Rating System is unique on VG Rating and Content Descriptor - Return links added on Evaluation for Rating and Content Descriptor
I'll add these types to the commons in the next couple of days unless some objections come up.
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I think these look good. Please don't forget to add descriptions to each type before moving them to the Commons!
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Types updated and ready for move.
I don't know if there's an behind-the-scenes way to do it, but if there's an easier way to move these types other than recreating them, let me know.
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I've added the PEGI ratings in.
One very minor point: the documentation for the age range on Video Game Rating should specify it is in years.
A more serious problem I see here is the data entry one: if I want to link a game version to the ESRB "Violence" content descriptor, currently I'm offered a choice of three options by Suggest, Violence, Violence and Violence with no way of knowing which is the right one, and this problem is only going to get worse as we add more rating systems. Would making Video Game Content Descriptor/Rating system a disambiguating property help? I can still see us ending up with the wrong content descriptors being attached to things though.
As for moving types, it certainly can be done. Jeff will be able to point you in the right direction.
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I believe that disambiguators are being displayed in the autocomplete flyout now, so making "Rating system" property a disambiguator should should with that.
I'll create a task in JIRA to move the types (you can do it yourself if you ever need to do it again -- just assign it to "Freebase Commons and Schema", and we'll move them for you.
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Am I able to do the type moves myself? Is there more to it than:
- assigning the new key (/cvg/video_game_rating, etc.)
- changing the domain property on the type
- deleting the old key?
I just realized I have enough access to do all these things, but I'll gladly sit on my hands if you're afraid I might break something.
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I believe that will lead to breakage due to things like views which need to be kept synced with the types.
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pak21 is correct, there is a bit more involved with promoting types, such as removing the base type included type from the type instances and changing permissions of the type and properties.
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pak21 is correct, there is a bit more involved with promoting types, such as removing the base type included type from the type instances and changing permissions of the type and properties.
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K. Sitting on hands.
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The Virtual Console is really a distribution system, not a gaming platform itself. I propose changing every video game version which currently has its platform set to "Virtual Console" to be "Wii" and setting the distributed through property to "Virtual Console". In some cases, this will result in some merges with existing game versions, and there's also Lode Runner which I think is just wrong to say distributed via WiiWare.
I've done this on Sandbox already; see eg Super Mario RPG and Ogre Battle there. If there are no objections, I'll do the same here later this week.
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So I've been curating a LOT of musical game songs, (we're up to 755!) and added "composers" to more than 700 of them... but I've found that very often, the game songs are more like tracks, in that the performer of the track is often different than the original composer/lyricist, or the song is credited towards someone specific like "John Lennon and Paul McCartney" but on albums by The Beatles. In fact some games even have "cover" versions of tracks ("Tom Sawyer as made famous by Rush") or even more confusing, songs that have no original composer, like La Bamba, but are covered by specific bands in Rock Band, like Los Lobos.
I'd like to get accurate information in, and I'm willing to do the gardening, for one of these two ideas:
1) add a field 'performed by' to the Musical Game Song Relationship CVT
2) Change the included type from /music/song to /music/track so that we can use the "Recorded By" property there
I lean towards 2) because its slightly less denormalized and in fact there are often specific album tracks that appear in games.
On top of this, I'd like to get the release date added to the CVT - I can get lots of release dates in.
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I like #2 as well. Adding a release date seems like a reasonable thing to do as well.
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so this seems fairly uncontroversial - anything else we need to do to add /music/track as a included type to musical_game_song and adding a "release date" to musical_game_song_relationship
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Changing the expected type is a breaky schema change, so it should be run past the developers and data-modelers email lists. Beyond that, there are 1204 musical game songs that will have to be converted to the appropriate tracks (and because lots of them are in multiple games, it may require linking to multiple new tracks). Will new tracks be created for these, or will there be an attempt to reconcile them to existing tracks?
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I'll propose the schema change, but can we get release date added to musical_game_song_relationship? I have hundreds of release dates to add as soon as this is added.
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I've added the property.
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We have both these marked as video game genres. I propose moving all games to simulation.
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+1
Do you think we'll need to keep doing this, i.e. that people will keep adding games to the other simulation topic?
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Once the "other" topic is detyped, people should be automatically pointed to the one still typed as a genre, so I don't think we'll get too many coming across. We can always move them if they do :-)
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Good point.
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This is another pair of video game genres which are very much the same thing. I propose moving all video games from role-playing game to role-playing game unless anyone objects.
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Towards and after the end of the ZX Spectrum's commercial life, there were a number of "unofficial" conversions done of games, for example Prince of Persia and Wizard of Wor. Any views of whether these should be modelled as Video Game Versions linked to the original game, or as a Video Game in their own right linked to the original by Adapted Work/Adaptation?
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I was recently forwarded an email by a potential freebase API user (a company), where they didn't think Freebase had games for the sony playstation 3. The type name "computer game" that appears on the topic page seemed to cause the confusion, since playstation games are often thought of as "video games".
I'm wondering if we should change this type name to "Computer/Video game". Of course by doing so, we would probably have to update the other types in this domain that start with "Computer game".
A simplifying alternative would be to simply use "Video game" or "Videogame"
What do all of you think?
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I'm happy with "Video Game". Should the base also be renamed to "Computer and Video Games"?
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Happy with either "Video game" or "Video Game" (insert broken record comment about lack of standardisation between "Foo Bar" and "Foo bar" for type names in Freebase here). The common usage seems very much to be that "computer games" are a subset of "video games" (see eg Wikipedia), so I don't think we need the ugly "Computer/Video game X" everywhere.
Although my personal suspicion would be that if you can't work out there are PS3 games on Freebase, you're going to have trouble using the API...
I'm away for the next week, so please don't wait for any more input on this from me before making any changes here.
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What about "Electronic Games"? It's shorter, and it leaves the door open in case we want to include other types like pinball machines and such.
Then again, I don't know if that fixes the whole computer/video game confusion issue for people…
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I think "Electronic games" would have a very different schema than video games. Not to mention that there is already a pinball machine type:http://www.freebase.com/view/base/pinball/pinball_machine
Unless I hear a strong counterargument, I will update the display name for all types in this commons starting with "Computer game" to "Video game". I'll also see if it's possible to create secondary keys (eg: /cvg/videogame) for each of these as well.
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And yes, I think we should also rename the commons. I'll chat with Kirrily about that.
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I made the changes to the types. I'm waiting to hear back from Kirrily (skud) about changing the commons name from Computer Games to Video Games.
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I just noticed that the automatically generated views are still named "Computer Game *". I'll run through the ones part of the base and fix them.
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I just updated the commons name to "Video Games" as well as the description which appears on the commons homepage.
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Would it be possibly to generalize Soundtrack so it doesn't expect a Film. There are soundtracks for TV shows and anime, and I could deprecate the Anime OVA Soundtrack type.
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That is a bit odd. The description explicitly says that a soundtrack is for either a film or tv show, but the property is only for film. It seems to me that the options are:
- add a "TV show" property to soundtrack
- create separate types for Film soundtrack and TV soundtrack
- completely generalize the soundtrack type, and create a new type "Media with soundtrack" that will link to it (instead of Film)
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Yup, 3, generic soundtrack with enumerated soundtrack types would be my favorite, or 1.
TV/Film/Game/Boardgame/Advertisements...
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Just wondering if there's any reason that Input Method applies only to Musical Games, not to Computer Games in general - modelling (eg) which games could use the Dreamcast's "Fishing Rod" accessory seems moderately "important" to me.
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I agree. Input Method can easily to other games. I wonder if it might be necessary to introduce a new type (Computer Game Peripheral?) for specific models of peripheral (GunCon, Ion Drums, etc.) and reserve Input Method for general categories (microphone, controller, etc.) Thoughts?
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Actually, there's a type called Computer Peripheral, which is one of pak21's types. It was even recently promoted to the Computers commons. Since consoles are computers, the Dreamcast itself can definitely be linked to the Fishing Rod peripheral. I'm fully in support of adding Input Methods property to the base Computer Game type. I also like the idea of generalizing the property to class of input method rather than a particular peripheral (see the bottom-most fielf in the infobox for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Band_(video_game) ), and defaulting to the peripheral itself when there's some proprietary thing going on, like the EyeToy.
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Can I suggest that a different name than Input Method be chosen? Â
This already has a pretty specific meaning in computer land (ways of entering ideographic characters using a western keyboard).
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It could be very specific like "gaming input device". Clinical, but accurate.
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So a plan (as I understand it):
- Â Computer Game Version acquires a new "input devices" property (or some similar name), which links to a list of Input Method topics (Input Method is possibly renamed along the way).
- Input Method is used for generic things like joystick or guitar controller.
- Input Method gets a new "instances" property (or some similar name) which links to a list of specific Computer Peripherals which provide that Input Method.
- Unique input devices, like the EyeToy, would be typed as both an input method and a peripheral.
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I think Computer Games should also acquire this new property. As for naming, wikipedia uses "Game Controllers" to refer to the subset of Input Devices specific to gaming, but I'm not sure you'd call the EyeToy a Game Controller. I also think Input Devices can be a subset of Computer Peripherals. Based on this and a few other things I didn't think through carefully enough the first time around, can I amend pak21's list and suggest that we
- Rename Input Method to Input Device
- Move Input Device to /computer
- Have Input Device inlude Computer Peripheral
- Computer Game and Computer Game Version acquire a new "Input Devices Supported" property (or some similar name), which links to a list of Input Device topics
- Peripheral is used for things like printer, scanner
- Input Device is used for input Peripherals like mouse or joystick or guitar controller
- Peripheral gets a new "instances" property which links to topics of type Peripheral, creating a phylogeny pattern
- Unique input devices, like the EyeToy, would both be an Input Device and an "instance" of the webcam Input Device
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That's also good (in fact, better than version 1).
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Generalizing to Computers sound like a good idea. Do we what to create a way to relate peripherals to specific consoles, possibly by adding the Computer type to the relevant Computer Game Platform topics?
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Good idea. In fact, is there any reason Computer shouldn't be an included type of Computer Game Platform?
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I was thinking about that. The only problem I see is with topics like Microsoft Windows where the platform is not a computer itself, but an operating system.
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Ahhh ok, that makes sense. I filed a bug against myself for the changelist I posted above:
 https://bugs.freebase.com/browse/DA-849
 Stay tuned!
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Follow the links from http://www.sandbox-freebase.com/edit/topic/en/time_crisis_4 to explore the types I've set up. I didn't move the Input Device type to the Computers domain yet since that's a bit of a chore, but the schema modifications are complete:
 http://www.sandbox-freebase.com/type/schema/cvg/computer_videogame
 http://www.sandbox-freebase.com/type/schema/cvg/game_version
 http://www.sandbox-freebase.com/type/schema/computer/computer_peripheral
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Maybe we can cut out the Input Device type altogether and just use Computer Peripheral, since I can now think of a few devices that are supported by games and aren't input devices, like the Game Boy Printer, the Rumble Pak and Rock Band Stage Kit.
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Good call, I think we could use some pruning. There's little left to be done, then. These changes can go live right away without affecting much:
- Rename Input Method to Input Device
- Move Input Device to /computer [postponed]
- Have Input Device inlude Computer Peripheral
- Computer Game and Computer Game Version acquire a new "Peripherals Supported" property (or some similar name), which links to a list of Computer Peripheral topics
- Peripheral is used for things like printer, scanner
Input Device is used for input Peripherals like mouse or joystick or guitar controller- Peripheral gets a new "instances" property which links to topics of type Peripheral, creating a phylogeny pattern
Unique input devices, like the EyeToy, would both be an Input Device and an "instance" of the webcam Input Device
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If we're doing this, it would presuambly make sense to at least deprecate the "Games Using This" property which currently exists on Input Method, which would make Input Method (de facto) a propertyless type.
At this point, should we be considering the complete removal of the Input Method type? It seems to me that could then just be handled by the phylogeny pattern:Gun Con 3 is an instance of Gun Con is an instance of Light gun is an instance of Input Device, or is that taking things too far?
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Ok, I had a slight hiccup while doing this on OTG. I realized Computer Peripheral includes Consumer Product, which means it can't be treated as a phylogeny. I asked Jeff and Bryan for some help with this and they suggested the following:
- Make a phylogenetic Computer Peripheral Class type (w/ the usual instances and instance of properties)
- Link the most specific and relevant Computer Peripheral Classes to their Computer Peripheral+Consumer Product instances via a separate property called Products
The Input Method type can indeed be removed but I'll save that for last, at least until the data is migrated. -
Also, for Computer Game and Computer Game Version, there will be two properties:
- Peripherals Supported
- Peripheral Classes Supported
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Ok, here are some links detailing the latest round of changes:
View for Peripheral Classes that are instances of Game Controllers (ignore the key, it's wrong)
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Did sandbox get refreshed since you posted these? I don't see anything new on these.
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Darn, yes it did. I'll recreate the stuff a bit later tonight.
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Sorry for the delay. The types are live on sandbox again:
- Â create Computer Peripheral Class
- add Instances property -> Computer Peripheral Class
- and Instance of property -> Computer Peripheral Class
- add Products property -> Computer Peripheral
- Computer Peripheral:
- hide Instances property
- hide Instance of property
- reciprocate incoming Products property as Peripheral Class
- Computer Game + Computer Game Version:
- add Peripherals Supported property -> Computer Peripheral
- add Peripheral Classes Supported property -> Computer Peripheral Class
Rock Band supports the Guitar Controller peripheral class. - Â create Computer Peripheral Class
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As a very small point, the other properties on these types have only the first word capitialised, whereas the new properties have every word capitialised; it would be good to be consistent.
Should we also be hiding the input method property on Musical Game?
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Computer Game Version doesn't have a property for Computer Peripheral Class.
Should Peripheral and Peripheral Class reciprocate the incoming properties from Game and Game Version? (E.g., to answer the question: I bought this dance pad, now what else can I do with it?)
Otherwise, looks good.
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I didn't create those properties yet because I meant to ask whether or not the updated Computer Game Version type would include Computer Game or not, but I completely forgot. I was thinking about the reciprocation issue but I don't know how much of a pattern it is to reciprocate across domains in that fashion. That is, we'd be linking a very general /computers/computer_peripheral type to the /cvg/computer_videogames that support it. Is that ok?
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Yes, that's just fine (reciprocation across commonses is pretty common). I had forgotten that the types were in different commons, actually.Â
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Took a while, but I've finally gotten everything live on Freebase.
Here's the topic for Guitar Controller highlighting the reciprocal links:
I've hidden the "Games Using This" property on Input Method and its reverse for now until it can be migrated to the appropriate properties on Computer Peripheral. Please feel free to poke around the types and add data and let me know if anything is lacking, but I did try to be as complete as possible regarding the feedback in this thread.
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Final last bits of tidyup: I edited the descriptions for the now deprecated properties to make it clear they're deprecated, and have copied all the Input Method data to Computer Peripheral (Class) as appropriate. I think that's it, and we've done it without quite needing the longest discussion thread in Freebase history :-)
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I just added "Drum Controller" and cotyped "Microphone" though I'm now regretting that - I wish I had made it "USB Microphone" or something. I also just imported another 80+ musical game topics...Â
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The article has changed from pointing to the overview of the series to a specific title (Rotohex). Is there a way to fix this?
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Post a comment and wait for someone with rights to edit the Wikipedia namespace to deal with it is I believe the only way :-)
For anyone with appropriate rights:
- Please make this article have the Wikipedia ID 19531205
- The current ID here (19958035) should be moved to /en/art_style_rotohex.
- And more than that if you fancy fixing up the other games in the series!
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It seems like it might be beneficial to change the display type of Computer Game Version from Combined to Standard, for a few reasons:
- Computer Game Version topics can be co-typed with "Consumer product" and "Software" when appropriate.
- The number of properties being proposed for Computer Game Version is quickly growing (Peripherals supported, Distributed through, etc.) and I can think of many more than can apply to a version and not the whole game, content (ESRB, CERO) ratings, for one.
- There are a few properties that exist for Computer Game that can have different content for different versions (platform exclusive characters come to mind.)
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I think it makes sense; it would bring the Computer Game/Release model more into line with the Book/Book Edition and Album/Release models.
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I've no problem with moving Computer Game Version from a CVT to a normal topic (one other advantage would be that we could lose the slightly hacky "Version specific name" field from Computer Game Version), but I think that potential co-typing with Software could open a fairly large can of worms. We've essentially got two parallel sets of types for modelling some of this, one in /cvg and one in /computer: compare Compare Game Developer and Software Developer, release dates on both Computer Game (Version) and Software, and Computer Game Platform and Operating System are also very similar. How are we going to handle the almost-but-not-quite duplicated data this could produce?
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You're right, there is quite a bit of overlap. I was just throwing out some possibilities. Personally, I'm not as worried about co-typing with "Software" as I am with "Consumer product".
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If this does go through, I think the to-do list would look something like this:
- Migrate Version-Specific Name to Name
- Change Computer Game Version from CVT to Standard
- Deprecate Version-Specific Name
- Delete Version-Specific Name
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I'm not sure that deleting Version-Specific name is necessary; that will cause queries to fail and I don't really see the need if it's hidden, but I'll bow to those with greater expertise on this one.
Other than that, will "we" need to cotype every current instance of Computer Game Version as a topic? If so, I suspect that's probably best done internally by someone at Metaweb.
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Hiding "version specific name" and changing the property hint to say that it's deprecated is a solution that's been used before.
Co-typing as /common/topic can be done by Metaweb; just create a JIRA task when you're ready and assign it to "Freebase Commons and Schema."
I can't think of any other tasks for this. It's a pretty big change, so I'd recommend running it past the developers and data-modelers lists, especially since we're deprecating a field. (I wouldn't expect changing something to a standard type to break anything, but you never know what people will try.)
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So:
- Migrate Version-Specific Name to Name
- Change Computer Game Version from CVT to Standard
- Co-type all Computer Game Version instances to "/common/topic"
- Deprecate Version-Specific Name
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+5
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One additional step:
- For all instances where there is no version-specific name, copy Name of the parent program to Name
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Jira tasked: DA-871
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Virtual Console is typed as Computer Game Platform. Should this be used as the platform VC releases or should we stick with just Wii. Furthermore, should WiiWare be typed as Computer Game Platform and used in the same regard?
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This is an interesting problem. You certainly wouldn't want people to have to add Virtual Console to hundreds of old games.
Assuming that VC is fully compatible with old platforms, we may need to have a property such as "compatible with" that asserts VC is compatible with other consoles. When somebody queries freebase, then, they would be able to see what directly supported platforms as well as what compatible platforms the software would run on.
And WiiWare seems more like a distribution channel/brand. I'm not sure it's really a platform.Â
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Definitely a distribution channel. The platform is the Wii. Wiiware is a delivery mechanism to allow on e to purchase/download to play on the Wii.
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I would probably make the platform Wii, since that's the system that the data is tailored for. I think stuff like Virtual Console would be best described as a distribution mechanism. Perhaps a property for that would be advisable.
As for WiiWare, I would agree. Xbox Live Arcade is listed as a platform, though, and should be changed if WiiWare is also not a platform.
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Looks like before you remove/move the WiiWare and Xbox Live Arcade, some sort of reworking of the version property needs to happen.
And furthermore, is the Frogger available as an Xbox Live Arcade game really the same Frogger that is an Arcade game or an adaptation of a later console version? Galaga...Is it the same software just adapted to run on a new console/emulation?
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Both games are different from their respective originals, so they could be considered different games.
It really brings another problem into focus: do enhanced versions of a game count as separate topics or versions of the same game? Is Resident Evil for Gamecube a different topic from Resident Evil for Playstation?
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Thought I'd make a suggestion about this:
- A new type, something along the lines of Computer Game Distribution Channel/Method/etc., for services like Steam, XBox Live, WiiWare, etc.Â
- A new property for Computer Game Version, "Distributed through"
- Removing the Computer Game Platform from Virtual Console and the like and using Computer Game Distribution Channel, instead.
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+1
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Just to give everyone a heads up, I've begun modeling a type for distribution systems (mailing list thread here) and have a prototype up in the sandbox:
http://www.sandbox-freebase.com/view/cvg/computer_game_distribution_system
Let me know if you have any suggestions. I'll probably move it over this weekend.Â
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I'm not sure that currency is the right expected type for the Payment System property, since the Currency type seems to be designed for official currencies of countries and the like. A new type ("CG Distribution Currency" or something) would allow you to reciprocate the link, so it would be easy to see all the places you can use your Nintendo Points. Just a thought. You could also reciprocate the property on the Computer Game Platform type, I think. But this basically looks good to me.
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Yeah, I had a hard time decided whether or not I should use Currency, but due to precedence (albeit from a single topic) and the fact that Wikipedia models Nintendo and Microsoft points like other currency, I ultimately went will the standard type.
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Do we have any thoughts on where the distinction between a "genre" and a "subject" occurs? Some things are easy ("Sports game" is a genre), some things currently typed as genres I think almost certainly aren't (say, Karate), but I'm really not sure where the line should be. Any thoughts?
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I think this is a good question and affects all subject/genre pairs (books, films, for instance.)
I agree that genres should be more lumpy and represent an actual phenomenon. It's possible that "Karate fighting" could be a game genre were there enough of them. Karate, however, is a subject.
The real question is how to clean up what's already been done and guide data in the right direction.  Possibly we could create a "Typewriter"-style application where users can decide if something is a genre or subject and then update data appropriately. Of course these operations could be pretty involved as maybe hundreds of links are moved from one property to another.
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The convention for video games seems to be that genre refers to the gameplay (shooter, strategy, role-playing, etc.)
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I'm probably going overboard here, but a while ago I was thinking about a deeper schema for categorizing games at http://www.freebase.com/type/schema/base/adventures/adventure_game and created properties for Perspective (first person, third person, top-down, isometric, etc.), Graphics (text, 2D, 3D), and Theme/Subject (karate, pirates, urban planning, etc.). Not here yet is a way to talk about talk about the Temporal element (real time, turn-based, etc.). Genre would then be left for the usual small set of gameplay styles: strategy, shooter, puzzle, etc.
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I think there's value in including a way to model the perspective and graphic type of a game. The question is whether those should be a part of genre or made their own property/properties. The way I see it so far:
- Limit genre to definitions of gameplay (RPG, RTS, etc.)
- Limit subject to the themes, setting (sci-fi, high fantasy, western, etc.)
- Make a new property (Computer Game Presentation) to include perspective and graphics type like those suggested by alexander
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I've seen a bit of inconsistency in this, so I thought I'd pose the question.
Seems like the practice from Wikipedia is to make remakes a version of the main game. There are some weird cases were a remake has its own page due to its current status on Wikipedia (like Twin Snakes for Metal Gear Solid) or an old import (like the DS remake of Final Fantasy III.)
Another weird (and MGS-related) problem is same-system re-releases, like Substance for MGS2 and Subsistence for MGS3. Should they be typed broken off and typed as Computer Game Expansion like Integral is for MGS?
Any thought?Â
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I think it's a judgement call, based on how similar the remake/rerelease is to the original. I'd say Arkanoid Plus! is a version of Arkanoid, but Towering Adventure is different enough from Rainbow Islands to be a game in its own right, and there are probably some difficult cases somewhere in the middle.
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That's a really good question... It seems that MGS2:Substance was released both for PC and the XBox, and if we created them as separate versions of MGS2, there'd be no way of connecting the two except by giving them the same version-specific name. If MGS2: Substance was its own Computer Game topic, it could have its own two versions, but it is debatable whether the versions even need to be connected like that. On the other hand, if it IS a topic rather than a CVT, at least we could explicitly capture Substance as being a remake of the original game. That could make a nice type+view...
I don't know if Computer Game Expansion makes sense; I think it has a pretty clear definition as being add-on content,and even when standalone, I don't know of any expansions that include the entire original game.
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I think that tying in remakes as versions is probably best for a comment of reasons, primarily for narrative reasons. It would group together releases that share the same story, fixing instances like MGS2's "Previous in narrative" property.
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That's fair. One thing I forgot about was the Adaptation type, which I believe is being used to model remakes. For those remakes you mentioned that have their own topics and aren't computer game versions, this type could be attached.
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See this as an example of film remakes:
http://www.freebase.com/view/user/vtalwar/default_domain/views/films_adapted_from_films
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This is just a matter of semantics and not that big of a deal, but has there been any talk about changing properties that use the name "prequel" to something else? It should refer to works that are published after a work, but occur earlier in the narrative.
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I agree with this -- I used "next in series" when I added this pattern to the Written Work type, and I think a similar nomenclature would work for films and computer games.
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I presume that this is intended to capture the order in the narrative as opposed to the order that they were written/published in, but that's not clear (at least to me) from the description for the property in Written Work.
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I've updated it a bit; I don't want to be too prescriptive, because there are some series (Naria, for example) in which the order of the books doesn't necessarily follow the internal chronology, but it should be clearer now.
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I wonder if it would be better to name properties like this "previous/next in narrative" or "previous/next in chronology" to make it less ambiguous. Referring to series could suggest that it should follow series numbers (xxx 1, xxx 2, etc.), even when the narrative might not follow the same order.
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Updated the Computer Game property names of prequel/sequel as next/previous in narrative. Don't know if I should change the actual property ids or leave them as is, though.
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I've added some potential documentation for all the Computer Game properties on sandbox. I'll move them over here unless there are any objections before Friday.
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That documentation got blown away in a sandbox refresh I didn't expect... I've put them here anyway. Please let me know of any errors/omissions/suggested improvements etc.
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OK, I think there is now documentation for every type and every property in /cvg. Let me know if I've missed any, and feel very free to make suggestions for improvement.
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I second that emotion. I think we need a CVT with:
- release date
- platforms
- whether or not it is the original, or a "made famous by"- i.e. "is this a cover?"
Because I'd sure like to see stuff like:
- timeline of game song releases by a band
- "original" songs for rock band 2 (i.e. not covers)
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I'm far from an expert in this subdomain but I'll do what I can to make everyone happy.
Anne: Is it possible that some songs are only downloadable for certain platforms? Currently songs are linked directly to the game topic, so that would be difficult to model.
Alec: Just to be clearm, are you suggesting replacing the link between a song and a musical game with a CVT containing those properties?
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Hi Vishal,
Yes, some songs are only downloadable for certain platforms. Here's what I've researched so far.
Rock Band series - Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii
Guitar Hero World Tour - Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3
Guitar Hero II - Xbox 360
Thanks,
Anne -
Seems I'm taking over this task (DA-688). If downloadable songs are sometimes only available for certain platforms, the next question we have to ask is: Do the non-downloadable songs vary from platform to platform?
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I think the non-downloadable songs are the same for all platforms except for 5 songs in Rock Band I which are only available in the Wii version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_in_Rock_Band -
Oy. Looks like song should maybe be a property of Version, rather than Game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_in_Rock_Band#European_version.Â
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Keep in mind there is also "Musical Game" which just keeps track of songs in a game...independent of whether or not its downloadable..
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Right -- I've taken this thread to be about the refactoring of that type. Although, as you probably noticed, my last comment implies that "musical game" as implemented doesn't work for Rock Band (which has different songs in different releases).
Since versions are handled as a CVT, there's not an easy way to do this. If we made Version into a standard type (and there was some discussion about this on the data-modeling email list recently), we could either a) make "songs" be a property (or "musical game" a co-type on) Computer Game Version, or b) keep the "songs" property at the Game level, turn it into a CVT, and include the release as a property of the CVT. But that's a big "if".
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OK, maybe I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be, and we don't need to try to stick the song data directly on the Release object. What if we had two properties on Musical Game instead: the existing one for songs that come with the game, and a second one for songs that can be downloaded? No refactoring required, and also no boolean.
See http://www.sandbox-freebase.com/view/en/rock_band_2 for a stab at this on sandbox.
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Personally I actually don't like two properties, because what *I* am usually looking for is "what game lets me play Fortunate Son"? And then I can find out later, "oh it's a download" or what have you. So I'd personally lean towards making "Songs" be the CVT and have a boolean for "downloadable"
But Maybe anne8 had different goals... anne8?
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The schema looks okay, but maybe it would be simpler to include a Boolean property instead?
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Here's a new attempt: http://www.sandbox-freebase.com/view/en/rock_band_2#/cvg/musical_game, with just one property and a boolean. (The properties are called "new style"; I haven't hidden the old-style properties, so that they're available for comparison). I like this approach -- it allows us to show some complexity, like "Roam" is native to the Wii verson of Rock Band 2, but only available for download for Xbox and PS2.Â
I've left off the release date value this time, since I think it might be confusing -- for those songs that come with the game, it would be the same as the release date of the game; if the song is not released simultaneously to all platforms, it would require separate instances of the song, which might be annoying. (Or it might be what people want, I dunno.) It's easy enough to add it if folks want it.
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I'm not really an expert but I think that's better.
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Hooray! We have consensus. I've uploaded the CVT type, and created a task to have the existing songs migrated (DA-753). The CVT won't be available for use until after the migration.
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Just in case anyone isn't following the data-modeling list, I asked what I thought was a relatively innocent question there about the denormalised data produced by the computer game and computer game version schemas, and the discussion has moved into possibly changing the schemas.
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Similar to Book subject, Film Subject, etc, it would be nice to have a looser way of specifying a "subject" or at least an area.
In particular I'm interested in games that are about or at least in the universe of, or influenced by, Alice in Wonderland.
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Game Subject sounds like an appropriate parallel to make. I'll create the type after this post.
You can use the Work of Fiction type to model universe/setting for games where that would apply.
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Hi Alec,
 Try this out for size: http://www.freebase.com/type/schema/cvg/computer_game_subject
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Also, since the person included type has been removed from the influence type, you could type alice in wonderland as an influence node and then add the computer games that were influenced by alice in wonderland.
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For some of the stuff I'm working on (particularly ZX Spectrum games) I think it would be nice if /cvg/computer_game_version included a release date field of its own; this would let us show the differences between when (say) a game was released in the arcades and when it got converted to home computers.
Consider also (say) Okami, released in 2006 on the PS2 but 2008 on the Wii.
Any views?
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I completely agree. Another related modeling issue that should be considered is that of different release dates for different regions. Currently the Computer Game Version type has a Regions property which allows for just a list of regions that version was released in. The only solution I can think of is if we consider every region-specific release as a different version. This is not as denormalized as data here normally is, since Platform would be copied across, say, the PS2 version releases for the regions JA, NA, EU, and AUS. It also means you can't easily ask for the release date of the PS2 version since there is no "THE PS2 version". For now I will go ahead and add Release Date to Game Version but if you have any ideas about this issue, please follow up.
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I've been working on a "Computer Game Release" type that works kind of like the album/release model for Musical Albums. The differences between different versions can be drastic, so I've been trying to make a type from a collector's point of view that takes these differences into account. Tell me what you guys think.
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I don't know if this would be better as a property or a seperate type, but I think there should be some way of identifying a game as canceled.
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I've been using a draft trype of my own which was supposed to parallel the Deceased Person type:
 http://www.freebase.com/type/schema/user/vtalwar/default_domain/cancelled_game
Please let me know if this is adequate for now.
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Pretty much what I was thinking. The only other addition I could think of is maybe a "Reason for Cancellation" property.
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I was thinking of that too, but I wasn't sure how best to model that. Should it be a string or should there be a type "Reason for Cancellation". I don't know enough about cancelled games to know if the reasons are common and finite or quite varied. Any ideas?
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I would think that a string would suffice, since reasons can be so varied. Maybe we could do a "Cancellation Reason" type (off the top of my head, I can think of finances, controversy and quality) and a string property for a detailed description of the reasons.
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Thinking back, I think maybe "Unreleased Game" would be a better and more general type name then canceled.
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Good point. How about:
- Â Unreleased Game
- Date Announced [/type/datetime]
- Reason for no release [/type/text]
- Â Unreleased Game
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Is this including the property of "unreleased game" or replacing?
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Is there a practice in place for episodic games and their episodes? I would think that each episode would be typed as a computer game and the overall game typed as a series, but I can't find a consistent practice.
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That sounds like a perfectly good way to model it. The Penny Arcade game-related topics might break this, however. For example, Penny Arcade Adventures is apparently a series of episodic series, the first being Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, which is currently typed as a game rather than a series...
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Games are very often influenced by other games, and I'd like to capture this with an "Influenced/Influenced by" pair of reciprocal properties. Any objections or suggestions?
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I've gona head and added these properties, since I didn't hear any naysayers ( or even yeasayers for that matter).
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You might like to also post questions like this on the data-modeling mailing list, if you want to reach a wider audience.
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Good point, I'll start doing that from now on.
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On a related point, I just asked the Data Modeling list whether or not we should make Influence Node more abstract (i.e. to not include Person as a type), and if we end up removing that included type from it, we could simply use that type for games influencing or influenced by other games (or things), rather than adding those properties to the game type.
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Units available in strategy games...
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This property is specific enough to strategy games that Strategy Game and Strategy Game Unit types are probably in order. If you create these in your own domain for now (on sandbox.freebase.com), then you could add Units as a property of the Strategy Game type. That property would have an expected type of Strategy Game Unit. From there, you could augment both types with any other properties you want, such as a property that specifies whether the game is turn-based or real-time. Hope this helps, and if you need help getting started, I can create the types for you in my domain.
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I see that there's some duplication between those two types (and also some other types--for example, I just added all Computer Games into Software).
I just don't know how to fix this. There is a Linux Game Platform, and a Linux Computing Platform. I was thinking of just adding all Game Platforms into Computing Platform, but maybe that would cause duplication?
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Yeah. There are two Linux objects. One is a Game Platform, Software, Topic, etc. The other is an Operating System, Computing System, etc. The second one should be assimilated into the first one because the first one has a short URL (the other one uses a large ID). This could happen with other platforms, too, although I haven't checked just yet. How can one fix this?
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If they're really just duplicate topics, you can flag them to be merged by clicking the little arrow button that appears next to the "edit" button to the right of the the topic's title.
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This specific problem is addressed here: .
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What! The website errased the URL! Oh well. It's freebase.com /discuss/threads/en/linux
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I think it might be useful to add a "Playable" property to the Computer Game Performance to distinguish between characters that merely appear in the game and those who can be controlled by the character.
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How common is this, do you think? It certainly could be added, but there is a tradeoff between complexity and completeness.Â
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I can think of a few examples.
Fighting games can sometimes have characters that are encounterable, but not playable. The most recent example I can think of is Ridley, Meta Ridley, Master Hand, and Crazy Hand in Super Smash Bros Brawl. Sometimes boss characters (like Geese in Fatal Fury) will be unplayable, though they might become playable in a later installment of a series.
Some character are known to make non-playable, cameo appearances, like Link and Samus in Super Mario RPG, or Mario in Punch Out.
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Typing DS Lite as a Computer Game Platform seems kind of confusing, as there are no technical differences between it and the original DS. Should this really be a platform, or should we consider a new type for console revisions?
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There are two approaches to this I think:
1. Don't treat DS Lite as a distinct game platform. Instead, assert that the platform is DS. That is, if all games that work on DS work on DS lite, then this is probably the right answer
2. If not all titles are compatible, then keep DS Lite and for all games that are compatible, add this to their platform property.
Also, to support option 2, we could better possibly create a relationship between DS and DS Lite. This could be called "similiar platform".Â
Do you know of other examples of this kind of problem?Â
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The DS Lite is just a newer form factor for the DS. There should be no difference in compatibility as far as software goes. It's pretty much the relationship between the Game Boy and the Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Light; different form, but runs the same software. Another example would be the Sega Genesis and the Sega Nomad.
From these examples alone, I could see the virtue in somehow identifying the different hardware revisions of a given system. There are also multiple incarnations of the NES, Super NES and Genesis. From a collector's standpoint, it would be useful to distinguish between these separate hardware designs. Perhaps another type is in order?
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Would it be possible to add a Soundtrack property to provide a link to songs found in a computer game? This would be very useful for rhythm games (Dance Dance Revolution, Rock Band, etc.) and games with licensed music (Madden, Tony Hawk, etc.)
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Take a look at the "musical game" type linked in the previous post. I think that has what you're looking for.
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I figured there was one for the Musical Game type. I guess I'm thinking it should be part of the main Computer Game type to accommodate the games that have licensed songs but aren't music games. Of course it could also be extended to original songs in more traditional games, as well (Final Fantasy series, Super Smash Bros soundtracks, etc.)
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That makes a lot of sense. There's tons of games that aren't "musical games" in the same sense as Guitar Hero or DDR. I guess the real question is whether the property should be a link to a soundtrack or a list of songs like the Musical Game type has.
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I think that a list of songs makes more sense, primarily because I can think of a couple of instances where songs in the game aren't on a released soundtrack. That way, the true list of songs can be kept as well as a link to a released album, if need be.
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I would love to use date from Freebase to write a program to manage my video game collection. To that end I would want to use the Computer Game Version type for it's platform-specific approach. One thing I'd like added, though is a sort of "region" field for Computer Game Version, as there can be major differences between the same game in different territories. Also, if the rating types are used. You could attach them to a game version instead of having multiple ratings attached to the main article. What do you think?
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Duncan -- sorry for the delay. I added a "Regions" property (that expects the type "Computer Game Region") in the Versions type.
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The region property looks good. I was wondering if it was possibly to expand the Computer Game Version type to the same level of the main Computer Game type. The Computer Game type works for general information about a game but for a collector, there are so many nuances between version that it would make sense for each version to maybe have its own page. This would also be nice for Collector's/Limited Edition of games, where the extras can be detailed in that version's page. Would that be possible?
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Hey, I have a type in my domain, Musical Game that is for games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, etc.. I've got a 45 games co-typed and have songs entered on a bunch of them. Anyone interested in including it in this domain?
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Looks good to me! Another interesting property is the kind of "input method" (as wpedia calls it) used to interact with the game (such as guitar, bongos, dance pad, etc).
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Oh, nice. I like that.. though I wonder if "input method" is unique to Musical Game or it might make sense at the video game level? I'll add it to Musical Game now and we can always move it later...
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I'd suggest an ESRB Rating property for games, probably as an enumerated list.
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Probably a property that can contain Country & Code. In fact a Computer Game Rating type wouldn't be a bad idea since different countries have different rating systems - not to mention the fact that each country asigns codes individually.
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This is a really good idea and is something we should readily be able to get right out of Wikipedia. I disagree that countries be tied to these ratings in any way; rather, ratings boards (there seems to only be a handful of them) are responsible for the ratings given, but I'm not sure what domain a Ratings Board type would fit in, since in some cases they rate more than just video games. Ideally all this would be modeled in a way that shows off the controversies often linked to game content and the resulting ratings.
As for how the ratings themselves would be modeled, I think a ratings type is definitely necessary. One question is whether these should innately be tied to a particular ratings board (via some property) or whether that board should be supplied through a cvt. I'm leaning towards the former, so I'll try some of this out on sandbox :) -
I just now noticed the Film rating-related types we've got. I guess the answer is to create parallel types for Video Game ratings.
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So yeah, work computer, XP I think. IE6. All the computers around here do the same thing, I haven't tried it at home.
Separate issue; do you think you can modify the Character input so that we can put in characters without voice actors?
Characters like Mario, Link, Samus- old school characters- don't necessarily have voices, but just inputing the character doesn't
save.-
IE6 could be the problem. We've just got that one working, so it may have a couple quirks. I'll have our QA team look into it.
Also -- I have a feeling that the character without the voice actor problem is also related to IE6, since it appears to work fine on Firefox. I'll have that looked at as well.
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From Freebase home page
1. Searched for "half-life" and selected Half-Life (already typed Computer Game)
2. Double clicked Character and wrote Michael shapiro; clicked on resulting voice actor in autosearch
3. Typed "barney cal" and selected Barney Calhoun from resulting autosearch
Result: Michael Shapiro showed up in my Created Topics
Hope that helps
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From the Freebase home page.
1.Searched for "50 cent bulletproof"
2.Selected "50 Cent: Bulletproof"
3.Double clicked and added type "Computer Game," then saved
4.Double clicked Character and added Character "50 cent"; typed '50 cent' and clicked on the first autosearch for
said Musical Artist
5.Selected Voice Actor and repeated previous step
6.Clicked save
Result: 50 Cent showed up in my Created Topics
Additional Info: So far this has been a sixty percent bug out of around ten attempts
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When you say 'hit enter before autocomplete,' I'm assuming you mean on the keyboard?
Because I was selecting the autocomplete subject with the mouse, then selecting save.
Otherwise, if you mean clicking on the autocomplete subject before the rest of the autocomplete is finished I'll have to remember
to give the system more time. Thanks.
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I entered God of War as a new Computer Game, with Kratos as its character, then God of War II. Added Mario Bros.
Added GTA: San Andreas as a Comp Game, with Carl Johnson as a character played by Young Maylay.
The result was God of War, God of War II, Kratos, Mario Bros., and Young Maylay all wound up in my domain as topics I'd created,
each with a blank page even though I'd picked existing topics from the list.
Of course I just tested it with Blasto, adding Capt. Blasto and Phil Hartman (had to create Capt. Blasto,) and Phil didn't show up.
So I'm not sure what's going on.
I also had an issue adding D+D to the RPG type; wound up creating a Dungeons amp; amp Dragons topic... ?
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Just added GTA Vice City as a game, inputed Tommy Vercetti as the character, and Ray Liotta as the voice. (Tommy was already
in the database, just clicked the auto-search.) Now I've got Tommy Vercetti in my created Topics. Hope that helps-
Given how prolific you are, I'm assuming you are a fast typist. We have a known bug (currently being fixed) that if you hit enter before autocomplete happens, a new topic is created. Others have noticed this as well.
Try slowing down a bit for the time being to see if that helps until we get the fix rolled out. I apologize for the inconvenience.
I'm very happy you're so into this and I look forward to any more feedback you have.
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