MobyGames Standards

Game Standards

Focus

Currently MobyGames is focused on documenting most aspects of information related to electronic games (mostly computer/console/handheld but this scope is always expanding). We track pretty much anything that has been "released". A game is considered "released" if, at some point in its life, it is distributed in the manner intended by property owner. Some examples:

Homebrew policy: Homebrew games are accepted. Homebrews are new games, commercial or free, that have been released beyond the usual lifecycle of a platform and can be played on the platform's original hardware.

Noted games we do not currently document:

Summary

Main Title

Alternate Titles

The main title, as described above, should be the title of the earliest US release, or the earliest UK release, or the earliest English release, or the original release, in that order.

Any other official titles may be added as Alternate Titles. An official title is a title that is used by the developer or publisher, on something under their control. For example:

If a game is widely referred to by some unofficial title, such as Resident Evil: Village being called "Resident Evil 8", that title may be added as an Informal title. Evidence of the informal title's use must be provided!

The word "title" or "spelling" in an alternate title starts with a lowercase letter.

Any other titles not used officially should not be added. In particular:

New Entry

Basically we're documenting how you can obtain a game, ie the game was released as a vanilla version and a collector's edition, and later in a compilation. Each of these should have its own entry except the one included in the compilation which needs to be listed in that compilation.

Therefore, add a new entry for a game if:

Different game: When either game play, perspective, and/or storyline are different than the existing entry. Graphics/Sound that are merely improved are usually not a different game. This is of course evaluated on a case-by-case basis in comparison with other versions. Particular cases to be aware of are handheld versions of console or PC games which usually are different. In general, licensed titles (like those based on movies) often are different for different platforms, especially those released in the late 80s/early 90s. If you are not sure that a certain version of a game is the same as another, don't assume it is - always try to confirm it by playing it yourself or reading reviews.

If a game is ONLY released in a compilation it does NOT get its own entry. It is only listed as an included game. If the game is later released on its own then it should have its own entry. Budget re-releases do not warrant a new game entry either, even when it is slightly different because it has been patched. This can be submitted as trivia.

A game that contains multiple executables, but is sold or otherwise released as a single item, counts as one game.

If a game has 'episodes' or 'seasons' which are available (for purchase or for free) separately, then those episodes each get their own game entry. If the episodes require the base game to run, then they should be entered as DLC. If the episodes are added to the base game over time, but are not available separately, then they do not get separate entries.

Additional Platform (aka Port)

Descriptions

Example Description

Lots of games are bland and simple. But many of them can still create a good description with a little effort. More than a few people have trouble writing informative descriptions for their favorite games. Part of the problem might be becoming so familiar that one can forget individual elements. Along those lines, here are some good questions to ask when writing the description:

The following is a description for the game Super Mario Bros. This is a game that's very well known and is considered "simplistic" by many, amounting to basically jumping over enemies and collecting power-ups. Watch how that's expanded into two paragraphs:

"Plumbers Mario and Luigi discover a mysterious doorway into the Mushroom Kingdom. Once there, they discover a world in peril as King Bowser has been terrorizing everyone with his band of monster and even kidnapped Princess Toadstool. Bravely setting off to rescue her, the plumbers only know that the princess must be in one of eight different castles.

Mario Bros is a side-scrolling platform game. where Mario's (or Luigi in a 2 player game) primary weapon is his jumping ability. By landing on the heads of enemies, he can dispatch most foes. Finding Question Boxes unveils power-ups such as the Magic Mushroom which makes him grow twice the size, a Fire Flower which gives him the ability to shoot fireballs, a 1-Up which will add an additional life or a Starman may also be found for invulnerability. Mario also collects coins during his adventure, 100 of which will gain him an extra life. Touching an enemy (or falling down a hole) while original size will defeat Mario. If Mario has a power-up, touching an enemy will cause him to lose it and shrink him down to his original size. Mario will travel across 8 worlds on his quest to find the princess. Some of these levels will take him underground or underwater. The third level of each world is a castle where Mario must confront and defeat King Browser on a bridge crossing over molten lava."

Genres

Here is a current Genres Listing

Credits

Giving credit where credit is due.

Overall

Groups

Titles

Title or role is what a person was credited as for contributing to the game.

Break down credits from a larger title if possible. Sometimes you may encounter credits in the form: - Animation - Name 1 (Lead Animator), Name 2 (Senior Animator), Name 3, Name 4...

This should entered into the system as:

A person credited for multiple titles, such as "Design and Programming by John Doe" should have that broken down into two titles:

Combine credits that separated. In many cases there are other folks credited for the same position such as:

These can be combined into:

(This is especially true when credits are listed alphabetically throughout)

If no credit title is available (usually the game was programmed by a single person) or if it only says "By xxx" or "Copyright xxx" (xxx referring to developer's name), then you can do the following:

Names

The name of people associated to a title/role.

If we can distinguish a name from other developers, it should be marked as a new person. For example:

If we cannot reliably distinguish a name from other developers, it should be marked as not an identifiable individual instead. For example:

Order

Order the credits to make them match as close as possible to the actual manual/in-game credits.

Classification

The system cannot decipher each and every title/role listed, so it is placed upon you help further separate them into our classification scheme.

Release Info

Product Codes

Cover Art

General Guidelines

Covermounts

Covermounts (e.g. games added to magazines or books) are somewhat of an exception to our normal rules for documenting releases and cover art. Since covermounts can contain multiple games but we do not generally add them as compilations the same cover art could be submitted to multiple game entries.

The most typical covermount is a CD or DVD distributed together with a magazine containing one or two full games. The cover art group should be added as the "Magazine" type. The media as media. If the media comes inside another piece of packaging such as a jewel case or a cardboard folder. The art of that case or folder is included and is consider the front (and/or back). Only if there is no additional packaging and the medium was directly attached to the magazine (or a type-in game contained in the magazine) is it allowed to include the cover of the magazine as a fallback.

Electronic Cover Art

Package Description

Comments about the package are optional. In most cases, comments are never needed so don't feel obligated to use the field. Most often the comments field is used to describe differences between different packages. If you are adding scans to a package that is already in MobyGames, you will not have the opportunity to update the package comments.

Things that should not be put into the package comments field include cover specific comments, geographical information, platform and video standard (NTSC/PAL) information.

Examples of acceptable comments include:

NOTE: Release means another release other than the original with no basic change. Version refers to a specific change in the game, an updated version or specific to a piece of hardware it came with.

Platforms

Sometimes you will be asked to select which version of a game is included in the package you are uploading scans for. If a game only has one platform or if you are adding scans to an existing package you will not be able to select the platforms. Most often packages only come with one version of the game, so 95% of the time you will only need to select a single platform. In the case of console systems (SNES, PlayStation, etc) this is almost always the case. Some games for computer systems would come with multiple releases inside, and in these cases you would select all of the platforms that are applicable to the package.

Packaging

Packaging describes how the overall product was packaged. Games are released in many different types of packages such as:

Video Standard

For console systems you will probably be asked if the package is PAL or NTSC. PAL and NTSC refer to video standards used with televisions. Select the appropriate format. Usually this is printed right on the cover.

Release Country

MobyGames has a large collection of scans from different geographical regions around the world. In order to keep the information in MobyGames organized, we track geographical information about the package. When you upload scans of a package, it's important that you mark what countries that package were released in. Similar to Platforms, Release Country is most often a single country. In these cases, you should only select one country. Sometimes, games will be released in multiple countries with as a single package. This is most commonly the done in Europe where a multi-lingual package will be released in several countries. This is also done sometimes in North America.

If the package you are uploading is an imported game, make sure you select the country that the game was released in (i.e. imported from), not the country that you purchased it in.

If the country is not listed please mark Other and list the country in the Package Description.

Scans Of (Types)

Scans are classified by a scan type. This describes what part of the package is being scanned. Most commonly, scans are only submitted for the Front Cover, Back Cover, and Media.

Cover Comments

Like Package Comments, cover comments are also optional, and in most cases should not be used. The comments field is intended to store information that is not represented for this cover. Things like geographical information, platform, packaging, scan types and video standards should NOT be put into the Cover Comments. Try to keep the comments as brief and concise as possible.

The typical comments that are used are:

Screenshots

Please refer to Resolution Table for acceptable resolutions.

Promotional Art

General Guidelines

Promotional Art is official artwork, generally released to promote a game, such as official screenshots from the game's publisher, concept art, official wallpaper, or images from press kits.

In general, the highest resolution version of an image should be submitted. If, for example, a game's homepage has thumbnail images of screenshots that link to full-size images, only the full-size images should be submitted.

Many different kinds of images may be submitted. The criteria for inclusion are that images must be published by someone officially associated with the game, and they should be used to promote or describe the game. For example, a banner promoting a game's upcoming release would be appropriate to submit; a random interface element from the game's homepage would not.

Remember when contributing images to put a link to where you got the images in the box labeled "Notes for approver" so the source can be verified.

What is Promotional Art?

Several different types of Promotional Art are accepted. The following outlines what kinds of art may be submitted under each type.

What isn't Promotional Art?

Not all game-related images should be submitted as Promotional Art. Some belong in other sections of MobyGames, while others are not accepted at all.

Image Groups

When submitting Promotional Art, you will be asked to created a group for it. An image group should contain images from a single source. For example, the following would be good image groups:

These examples are intended to be illustrative; choose whatever grouping makes the most sense. If, for example, the game's developer makes a blog post with many images showing off the game's current development status, images from that single post might be added to one group. If the developer posts one screenshot each week, all such screenshots might be grouped together.

When creating a group, you'll be able to give the group a name and optionally add comments. The name should be a short description of the source of the images to distinguish it from other groups. For example, "Steam store page" or "PlayStation.Blog, 2014-08-12". The comments may be used to give more details about the source, such as a link or a description of the provenance of the images.

Describing Promotional Art

Once you've uploaded images, you'll be able to select an image type (described above) and add a title and comments to each image. The title and comments are both optional. The title field should be used only if the image has an official title, for example given in the image's caption or as its filename. The comments field should be used rarely. "This image shows the main character." is not a useful comment. "The boss shown was removed from the game before release." is a useful comment. When in doubt, do not add a comment.

MobyRank

See the currently separate MobyRank FAQ page.

MobyScore

See the currently separate MobyScore FAQ page.

Reviews

Tech Specs

Rating Systems

Trivia

Advertising Blurb

Match the original advertising as closely as possible, including text size and case.

Acceptable sources:

Needs to pertain to the game.

Acceptable sources:

Developer / Person Standards

We support adding sites, portraits, and biographies to developer entries, subject to the rules below. However, these are secondary information, and will be removed by request of the developer. Submit a developer correction to make this request.

Game credits will not be removed. Our policy is to reflect the historical record.

If you've been credited on a game with a name that you no longer use, and would prefer us not to display both your current and former names on your developer profile, you may submit a correction and the name(s) will be removed from the public profile.

Name

Biography

Sites

Sites directly related to the person in question (not just a company they work for) may be added as related sites. The following are examples of acceptable sites, and suggested titles and descriptions:

Portraits

Company Standards

Name

Overview

Example of a good detailed overview:

http://www.mobygames.com/company/atari-europe-sasu

Example of a good short overview:

http://www.mobygames.com/company/digital-illusions-canada-inc/overview

History

Logos

Notes to identify company logo dates:

Trivia

Sites

After reading all this, if you still questions or concerns you can visit the MobyGames.com message board or our Discord.