Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Games considered the worst ever

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. Reasoning as follows:

• Discounted are (from the bottom up, just because that's how I did it):

1. The anon
2. werty8473, since that username never edited the page and the IP associated with that edit has not edited werty8472's userpage, so this edit was effectively by an anon. Sorry.
3. Headcase88, too new
4. Ewlyahoocom 30th edit, new, and this is their only edit to Wikipedia: space
5. VC3 (Vcthree), user's only edit
6. Orioneight, user's 6th and 7th edits
7. Spriggo, only edit

Nearly discount are "Last Malthusian" and "I kant spel", but I kant spel is the nominator so, imo, gets a free comment irrespective of newness. Last Malthusian had only been here a week at the time of entering this discussion which is short but not hypermegashort.

On the raw numbers, then, I count 18d, 10k, 1m. It is unclear if Natejji77's conditioning is activated one way or the other, but considering the addition of some referencing, it might lean towards a keep. The problems, specifically NPOV and OR, cited by the deleters are very serious in this article, despite the (rather thin) referencing carried out. The enthusiasm of the keepers often stems largely from "but other articles with different titles and different subjects are still around" which is rarely a useful comparison since we are talking about this article, not the others. So I find the deleters more persausive than the keepers by a fairly wide margin. However, the raw numbers are somewhat below two-thirds. Since there is a lot of participation here, even dropping those listed above, I'd expect a consensus to be fairly clear: the quantity of comments should see to that. Since we're below the minimum guideline and the consensus is hard to determine, I'm going to call a no consensus.

I do not think this AfD should be considered binding if, in future, someone wants to renominate this on the basis of lack of references and NPOV if those problems have not been addressed. They are key parts of writing an encyclopedia, and trump anyone's loving enthusiasm for an article they do not plan to contribute to. For future reference then, note the title of the article: it is not "games that someone rated with 1/10", but "games considered the worst ever" and it is that that needs sources citing. -Splash^talk 21:01, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Games_considered_the_worst_ever

Providing neutral information here is nearly impossible. I kant spel 00:55, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

• Not at all; if this article needs to be removed, then the "Worst Movies" article will also have to go. Dariustriplet 01:09, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

...and your point is? :-) MCB 06:42, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

... And there's the rub: the "Worst Movies" article has been up for deletion a couple of times, and always ends up being kept. I'm not keen on it because it's (a) POV and (b) just a list ( which "Wikipedia is not..." ), but equally, it's a great article to read, and we'd be poorer if we lost it. The nice thing about the "Worst Movies" article is that it tries to be NPOV by citing things like the "Razzie" awards - still just opinion, but opinion in the same way that an Oscar is opinion. What's the equivalent to the "Razzie" here ? WMMartin 10:47, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

• Comment the npov issue here is who considers these to be worst games ever. if it's wikipedians, delete. if it's published professional video game reviewers, if game pro for example has published a "worst games ever" list we can cite, then cleanup. Nateji77 01:24, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete: Inherently POV list. For whatever it's worth, I felt the same way about the "50 Worst Films" list, and that one was a report on Medved's list/book. The passive voice "considered" is way too wiggly, and the contents are unreferenced. (I think Jarts was the worst game ever. It involved throwing weighted lawn darts at a circle and the neighbor kids. This article, though, seems confined to computer video games and video game system games. None of them would enter into the top 500 of actual worst games ever played.) Geogre 01:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep. Needs a move to List of poorly-reviewed video games or somesuch and serious cleanup to add and cite credible sources. I'm not fond of these kinds of lists; their suitability for an encyclopedia is questionable, and they usually degenerate into unsourced POV, but this might be salvagable. android79 01:59, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as inherently NPOV, until such time as there is some official body that determines these things. This is not at all like the BBC list of 100 most famous Britons or whatever it was called, on AfD last week; that issued from a highly notable mass media outlet and was sourced as such. MCB 06:42, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. An list like this might be interesting and useful to people interested in computer games in general. Unfortunately, this article is unsourced, and without references as to who has declared these games the worst ever, it looks like original research. No prejudice against a list backed up with references though. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:31, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. POV. Marskell 09:58, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Obvious delete, as cannot be NPOV. WMMartin 12:51, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. I liked the list of the films considered the worst ever, and don't believe such a list is inherently POV. Saying that a man, film or game is universally considered 'bad' is not POV, and by extension a list of such people, films or games is not POV either, as long as it's sourced like anything else. Consequently I believe there is room for a 'worst games ever' list. However, this particular list is OR and has a misleading title. Last Malthusian 12:57, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. POV Spriggo 13:19, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. The topic could be covered, with documentary evidence of some outside discussion on it — as is the case with the first rock and roll record — but, unless that discussion exists, this list is just a message board thread. I could only find a list by a sixth-former called Poo Poo Pooey [1]. Flowerparty 13:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Add "WP:AfD" to list, then delete. Not encyclopedic topic, not NPOV, and if it were replaced with a similar list from a major publication I'd still vote to delete. If kept, would need renaming per Geogre; I've played cardgames and boardgames that had better reasons for listing than some of these computer games. Barno 14:14, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Clear delete. I cannot see how this list (and that title) could ever be written with a NPOV. The suggestions that it might be okay if the claims are sourced to external reviewers seem to me commendable for their concern for good references, but rather miss the point. Let's say you have game X under consideration, and you find 4 reviewers who say "X is the worst game in the world." Being a good WPn, you also find a source for a different view; this one says "X is certainly not the best game ever, but I felt it's pretty good; it's at least a reasonable buy." Like most things in life, there are gradations of views about games. So would you or would you not place X under a title that said "Games considered the worst ever"? There is no way one can do this in an NPOV fashion; for the list to exist, you'd have to take sides, either for or against. That is to say, lists like this are an inherently non-NPOV construct. One cannot treat the subject in a fair, neutral manner (like one may be able to do in an article about a subject, for example), because the mere act of placing the game in the list (or deciding not to) is a non-neutral action (and that, you will notice, is because the title is a judgement). The attempt to soften this by adding "generally" to the title is spine-tingling in the assumptions it makes over what the majority may say about the minority. As an illustrative exercise, try populating the list Countries considered the worst ever in an NPOV manner. (Add "generally considered..." if you wish). Lists like this are very damaging to WP, and I hope they do not become prevalent.—encephalonέγκέφαλος  16:02:58, 2005-09-09 (UTC)

• Delete. Agree wholeheartedly w/Encephalon. Dottore So 16:14, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. - Orioneight 17:13, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Any list like this would be subjective at best. However, this list seems to derive from one person's POV, and it lacks depth or fact-based consensus. It assumes that the reader believe what the author tells them. And it seems like all this information on these specific games on the list a piecemeal Google search project, with pieces of articles plagarized and then rewritten. Get rid of it, or replace it with a list with actual sources and consensus. VC3 18:37 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect applicable content to List of commercial failures in computer and video gaming, which has the ability to be a more substantial and reasoned list. Lord Bob 17:47, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

• KEEP. This is great stuff and it's great stuff like this that keeps me coming back to Wikipedia! Ewlyahoocom 18:59, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

• Delete this excuse for pov-pushing --TimPope 19:14, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

• I apologize for the weak line in my first edit; I'll expand here.

There are some games created that are universally loathed; games that have been for years the punchline of jokes about bad games. In some cases, the fallout in the gaming community alone is enough to merit a game's discrediting - Derek Smart instigated one of the largest flamewars in the history of the Internet by proclaiming the greatness of his game, promising the impossible, and eventually releasing a half-finished game. John Romero did something similar with his advertisement, in which he threw down the proverbial gauntlet only to wield Daikatana as his weapon. Other games truly have zero redeeming qualities - In Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, the game is more akin to an exceptionally poorly-done tech demo than a game. Some were created half-heartedly for corporate reasons; Shaq-Fu began life as an awful fighting game not planned for release that the developers put out just to use the Shaq endorsement. If you want me to, I can find dozens of references from reviewers about games, and point to all sorts of "Worst Ever" lists such as Gamespy's (featuring Action 52, Custer's Revenge, and Bebe's Kids). There are also GameFAQs review pages, where some games have dozens of 1/10 and 2/10 reviews. On top of that, gamerankings.com takes an average score from a number of sites; games with very low scores on that site can very easily be considered awful. On a side note, some lists really should be ignored; previously, many of this article's entries came from Seanbaby's list, which while humorous is a very poor listing of bad games. While this article could in theory be abused, with people saying "Game X is terrible, and should be listed!" despite that game's known quality, it is mostly here for games that are mind-boggingly terrible. All mediums of entertainment have their bottoms of the proverbial barrels; television had Turn-On and movies had Plan Nine from Outer Space - and Wikipedia has lists for all these media. There's no reason gaming should not have a similar one. Therefore, I strongly vote to keep this article. Just give me time to get citations.Dariustriplet 19:35, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

• Delete, most of this is going to be plagiarized content from Seanbaby, content is available elsewhere, and there ought to be some objective criteria to belong on the list. Tempshill 23:10, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, as long as each entry is sourced adaquately ala the movie page. Encaphelon, note that there are some games which indeed are regarded as truly horrible by every single reviewer in print and reporting a POV is not the same as endorsing it. Also "[Barbie House Adventure]] was featured in a segment on terrible games on X-Play. It is a game where you play as Barbie and ride horses and features the line, "You're running out of trust on the friendship meter!"" I suggest we add a friendship meter to AfD. Sdedeo 01:18, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

• ...some games which indeed are regarded as truly horrible by every single reviewer... Hi Sdedeo, thanks for commenting. Your point is a very fair one. The issue for me I suppose is in the reliability of such claims. I admit to taking WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V rather seriously, and so titles and lists like these quickly raise alarm bells. A neutral way to treat these claims is to note them in articles (you could say "X has recieved many poor reviews [ref1,2,3,4,5] which pan it for so and so reasons"). By placing them in a list with the above title, however, you are taking the POV of the reviewers you cite. Is there a national or international organization dedicated to appraising games objectively? If so, and there is no violation of copyright, starting a list along those lines may be acceptable, as MCB suggests. Even so this is a stretch, unless this organization collates review data from every single source, world wide (much like the way the Cochrane Collaboration collates medical trial data from every single available source). Placing these claims in articles however avoids all the NPOV problems, and is a much better way of recording that information in an encyclopedia.—encephalonέγκέφαλος  08:45:43, 2005-09-10 (UTC)

• Encephalon, the closest thing in gaming to a worldwide collection of reviews is GameRankings. As an example, the GameRankings Big Rigs page (http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/919220.asp) lists many sites giving the game 1/10 and such as reviews, with links to said reviews. While it's not an "official" source, it's the closest thing in gaming. Dariustriplet 04:59, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

• Dariustriplet, thank you for providing that link. I appreciate what you're trying to do, I really do. (If the List is kept, I hope that at least this sort of change will be made to it). I remain unpersuaded, however, that the List as constructed is of a NPOV (I've explained why I believe so above). This website page contains links to just 6 reviews; it is quite apparent that this is not a systematic assessment of the product (this must be a fraction of a percent of the available reviews). And this is the closest thing. If you wish to start a list along the lines of MCB's suggestion, using this website's data and an appropriate title, there may be something to it (although I strongly suspect copyright difficulties), but otherwise the construct is not NPOV, in my humble opinion. There's a good reason why you'll never find this list in a paperless Britannica. best wishes—encephalonέγκέφαλος  19:46:16, 2005-09-11 (UTC)

• Encephalon, thanks for the support. I can understand your issue with the lack of reviews for games; while a movie may be reviewed by every media outlet in a market, games only have five or six professional reviews at most. For older games such as Action 52, there simply are no online professional reviews. Sites like [www.gamefaqs.com] do have amateur reviews, and while a conclusion can somewhat be drawn from those, it should be taken with a grain of salt (a 4/10 review of Big Rigs exists, with the author basing the score on the game's hilarity). For games lacking professional reviews, and thus having near-impossible citations, NPOV will always be an issue as games such as Action 52 and Custer's Revenge - while universally regarded as awful - have no official reviews. The closest thing I can think of off-hand would be GameSpy's Ten Most Shameful Games of All Time, or perhaps an article from GameSpy's sister site [www.classicgaming.com]). Dariustriplet 23:18, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, it's the same thing as the bad movies page. It does need cleanup, though. -james_anatidae 05:22, September 10, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep But I suggest a trimming of the list. It's short as it is, but we should really be focusing on the really popular ones like Superman 64, E.T., Big Rigs and the like. A renaming might be neccessary... i'm thinking more like "infamous" rather than "worst".Headcase 06:04, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep, although the title should be changed at least to something like "Games widely considered among the worst ever." This is not inherently POV; a statement like "Daikatana is widely considered a terrible game" is a matter of objective fact. In fact, if you don't know that, you're ignorant of pretty much the only thing worth knowing about Daikatana. Penelope D 06:33, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep: change it into either List of poorly-reviewed computer and video games or List of infamous computer and video games and possibly reference flops. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 10:11, 2005 September 11 (UTC)
• Delete. POV cruftessay. Include salt. / Peter ^Isotalo 16:39, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete unless unsourced entries are removed or sourced to notable reviews, magazines or programs. -Sean Curtin 19:22, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep This is just as necessary as the multitude of examples of jokes.-[[User:werty8472|werty8472]
• Delete unless entires are sources/cited and the article NPOVed. Gamaliel 20:42, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per Encephalon. Inherently POV, vandalism magnet, and improperly named since the intent appears to be to limit the list to video games rather than all games. Quale 06:51, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, POV cruft Proto t c 11:47, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, not inherently POV, but unsourced material (which is not all of it) can be removed. Kappa 18:26, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
• NOTE: I went back and gave sources for all entires, removed stuff I couldn't find references on, and overall improved the quality. I hope that those calling for deletion takes another look; I tried to make it as NPOV as possible. Dariustriplet 22:58, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, if List of films that have been considered the worst ever hasn't been deleted then the same policy should be applied to the list of video games, it's only fair. 64.251.182.80 03:35, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as per Sdedeo, Penelope D and 64.251.182.80. Doidimais Brasil 00:43, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.