Talk:List of indie game developers

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Inclusion criteria

Discussions in May 2007 resulted in a consensus for a new format for this list, and stricter rules for which Indie developers get listed here. From now on, a developer should be listed if and only if:

  1. There is an existing Wikipedia article about that developer, or
  2. There is an existing Wikipedia article about at least one of that developer's games.


Contents

[edit] Articles Merged 13-Apr-2006

While doing a search, I found both this article and List of independent game developers, which mentioned only Flying Lab Software and PopCap Games. I added Flying Lab to this list and made List of independent game developers into a redirect to this article. —Chris Chittleborough 07:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cornutopia

Does Cornutopia (http://www.cornutopia.net/) meet the criteria for inclusion here? They've been around since 1991. —Chris Chittleborough 07:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I've added Cornutopia. Cheers, User:Chris Chittleborough alias CWC(talk) 11:42, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for Inclusion

The paragraph just before the list says "Only financially stable indie game developers who have been around for some time are listed here". I strongly suspect this page will attract link-spam, so I've created this section as a place to refine our criteria. Cheers, CWC(talk) 11:42, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Should we list only developers who have released at least two games?
Sorry man, I put Hamumu in there because thery're also indie game developers.
Now, if i vandalised, i'm sorry. RocketMaster 12:42, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
No worries. Hamumu clearly belong in the list. You did nothing wrong. Cheers, CWC(talk) 13:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria- reply

  • I think listing just companies would be a mistake: there have been quite a few indie games that have "notability" but are not created by companies. Surely excluding non-company indie developments, whilst helping to keep the list concise, would actually devalue this list, as a large proportion would

I think I agree with the 2 game minimum though- this would help to weed out the less notable links, but would this allow a "studio" which has released, say, 2 very basic games (everyone who programs games has probably created a basic Space Invaders clone and Tic Tac Toe, preference over a studio which has developed just one larger project, but which has been more popular?

Other than that, the list is pretty useful, and I thought the article was great too!

Feel free to leave your thoughts here or on my talk page.

EvocativeIntrigue 12:59, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Specific Cases

This section is for discussing whether individual developers should be removed from the list (and possibly moved to a more appropriate article).

[edit] Rampant Games

http://www.rampantgames.com

Have only developed one game so far[1], Void War (see http://www.voidwar.com/); the other games on their website are not theirs. CWC(talk) 11:42, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Team Chaos

http://users3.ev1.net/%7Evictory2112/index.htm

Have only one game, Total Chaos: Battle at the Frontier of Time, which is Amiga shareware, released 2004-04-17. CWC(talk) 11:42, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Persistent Realms LLC

http://www.persistentrealms.com/

Our article on this company was deleted a few weeks ago: see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Persistent_Realms_LLC. They are developing Ilyrias, the Aegadian Isles, a MMORPG which apparently will be their first game. See the developers blog at http://ilyrias.blogspot.com/. They have a forum going, but both http://www.persistentrealms.com/ and http://www.ilyrias.com/ have "coming soon" notices.
Deleted for now. CWC(talk) 01:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Legend Games and LegendGames

(1) http://legendgames.net/

Legend Games sell Age of Heroes, a non-computer family game.[2]

(2) http://legendgames.uni.cc (also http://legend-games.net/ (!), http://legendgames.co.nr/ and Link Removed as it was black listed)

LegendGames was founded by "Tanzim" and "Roger"[3] in November 2006.[4] No completed games yet.
I've edited the article to list (1) but not (2). (I predict that I won't be the only one to find this name clash confusing.) CWC 18:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hamumu Software

Somebody forgot to add Hamumu Software to your indie games list.

Thankfully, you have The Rocket Master to save the day.

[edit] Advertising vehicle

A user added Funkitron (a broken link) to the list, but Peephole removed it, claiming it was "advertising." I'm the first to object to inappropriately using Wikipedia, but I don't see how adding a link to a list is inappropriate. I have no idea who Funkitron is, but looking at their website, they look like a legitimate developer and as deserving of an article as any other developer on the list. Broken links are not spam, they are the starting points for new articles. I, therefore, think Funkitron deserves a place on the list. Anyone oppose? Why? — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:10, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Support. This article is inherently a linkspam magnet, so we should establish and enforce a policy about who gets listed here; like User:Frecklefoot, I think that policy should err on the side of inclusiveness, meaning redlinks are fine. CWC(talk) 10:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Just take a look at user Dave his contributions, they consist of little more than advertising for his company funkitron.[5] The actual funkitron article has been deleted several times. I think it would be best to restrict the list to only include notable developers that have a wikipedia article. Listing every single indie developer would just make this list ridiculously long.--Peephole 12:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree that this article could be a HUGE target for people wanting to promote their personal business/side business/whatever. And I think those types of links should be vigorously discouraged. But it seems like Funkitron is a legit indie game developer, so I though (and still think) it should be allowed. Maybe it shouldn't be written by Dave635, but someone else who isn't connected with the company. Including a broken link for the article could encourage someone to write an article on it. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support The problem is that guys like Peephole are going around deleting stuff knowing nothing about the game industry or the context of what is posted. For example, I learned Wiki the hard way, I wrote on article on Funkitron that was similar in nature to Popcap's in terms of style and content, and someone deleted. I tried to repost, addressing their concerns, but as soon as the delete wagon gets going, it gets really tough to stop it. So even though Funkitron has put out many top ten games in the casual/indie business, Scrabble, Scrabble Blast, Boggle Supreme, Slingo Deluxe, Poker Superstars II, I am unable to write an article on them because people like Peephole are 'delete crazy' without even knowing about the field they are deleting things in. I have since given up trying to include Funkitron on the wiki with its own article about the company, having not figured out a way to get through to the delete page crazies who patrol and are quick to speedy delete anything that comes back without even reading what has changed. On a page like this, with a list like this, I can't imagine why you wouldn't have a company like Funkitron listed. It is as noteable, and even more so, than many of the companies listed. I would just ask, that if you are going to delete things, don't just be a delete nazi and blanket delete things, but understand and consider the reason why something is on the page it is on, and if it fits. Okay, I've had my say, thanks for listening. Cheers. --Dave635 13:23, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Maybe if your contributions to Wikipedia were less focussed on your site's products and were more inclusive in nature, people would be less suspicious about your contributions. Just my $.02... — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The article for Funkitron was deleted as a non-notable company and failing WP:CORP; the article for Funkitron, Inc. was speed deleted as a duplicate of the former (it was not deleted as advertising, per Dave635's claim). --Dennis The TIger 16:44, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
But the problem was that Funkitron is a notable company in the casual game space. As notable or even more notable than many companies that are in this space and are listed in wikipedia, for example [Silver Creek Entertainment] or [Flying Lab Software]. It does not fail the WP:CORP test by anyone who knows the space. The problem may be, that if you look at the criteria for the WP:CORP (which is limited in the sense it applies to huge companies, but not to the many smaller companies that exist in the game developer world, and that are very important to that world), a way to apply it so it is meaningful to the Casual/Indie Game space would be: "The company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself." would be applied by asking "The company and games have been reviewed by multiple game review sites, game press and game portals." and "The company or corporation is listed on ranking indices of important companies produced by well-known and independent publications" would be applied with "The companies games are or have been on the top ten on many game sites." This is how I would apply the criteria to indie game companies. This sort of technique can be used to judge companies that appear on this list, and companies that should have a page on wikipedia.Dave635 17:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
In which case, this talk page is probably not the most appropriate place to discuss and/or lament the deletion of Funkitron's articles - little more than bitching and moaning will be accomplished here. The reason for my opposition is in my own observation: Dave635 had allegedly recreated an article that had been previously deleted, and that alone is criteria for a speedy delete. Had it gone through deletion review, this wouldn't be so much of a problem if the deletion were overturned; and as such, that is my suggestion, is to bring the deletion of Funkitron (rather than Funkitron, Inc.) up for such a review, then do a redirect on the latter article - or something like that. See the RfD for either article for the appropriate link to bring this up. --Dennis The TIger 23:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I think we should separate the general issue of how we decide whether to list a developer from the specific issue of Funkitron. On the latter: now that I know the background (thanks, Peephole and Dennis The TIger), I say we should definitely not have a redlink for it. On the former: see below. Cheers, CWC(talk) 12:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Policies

An article like this needs a fairly clear policy on who should be listed to avoid getting swamped with linkspam, IMO. Our old policy, as set out in the article itself, was:

[S] List only financially stable indie game developers who have been around for some time

with an implicit requirement that they should have released at least one game.

User:Peephole recently applied a much stricter requirement, something like:

[A] List only developers about whom Wikipedia already has an article.

I implicitly softened this to

[C] List only developers who have a Wikipedia article about them or a game they developed.

Another possible policy is:

[M] List developers only if
  1. we have an established article about them or a game they developed, or
  2. they are financially stable and have lasted at least two years.

(By "established article" I mean one that does not meet WP:CSD, is more than a basic stub, has lasted at least a month, etc.)

A slightly stricter version of [M] is:

[K] List developers only if
  1. we have an established article about them or a game they developed, or
  2. they are financially stable, have lasted at least two years and have released at least two games.

I've labelled the possibilities with letters that indicate strictness: "A" = strictest, later in alphabet = less strict.

What do you think about these possible policies? (Feel free to suggest more alternatives, too.) CWC(talk) 12:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Votes

  • [M] CWC(talk) 12:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  • [A] As they do in the List_of_multiplayer_browser_games article. --Peephole 15:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  • [C] This seems to fit more closely with List_of_multiplayer_browser_games, Peep, as many of those games don't have separate articles for the developer. For this list if neither the developer nor their games are notable enough for articles, then they're not notable enough to warrant a list entry regardless of financial state. --grummerx 16:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  • [M] There may be cases where you have a developer with known games but no wiki yet. As with Sandlot, which I added but has no wiki pages yet, though they are a well known and successful indie developer. Dave635 19:53, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  • [A][C] The current state of the list is little more than spam. If they're not notable then they shouldn't be on the list, and there shouldn't be any external links here - if the dev is notable then they'll have their homepage as an EL in their own article. If the dev isn't notable, then their weblink being listed here is just leeching. QuagmireDog 22:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC) C is quite reasonable, please see topic below. QuagmireDog 19:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • [C] Seems the most reasonable to me. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

I see there has been no further discussion on this topic since September. I plan on removing all red links in about a week if the articles are not created. Please realize that some of these comapnies may wind up speedied or AfD'd once created, I have no idea what notability any of them have. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I voted [M] last September, but I now lean towards [C]. That translates to telling people to create an article about the company or game (and have it survive any AfD challenges) before adding it here. I think that's a reasonable rule.
There are lots of good websites covering indie games, so I'd like to see this article list only the notable developers. Cheers, CWC 16:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with 'C' too, I'd mixed two seperate issues together. I see two issues with the list as it is: 1) the spam external links and 2) the notable games of devs without articles need to be listed underneath the redlink.

The ELs shove readers away from WP instead of towards articles which would answer their questions. The websites for redlinked devs are spam. Devs with articles already have their homepages listed within those articles. Devs without articles will have their homepages listed on the notable game articles which will hopefully be here. IE they'd all still be there but in a non-spammy way and readers would have seen what WP has to offer first.

Listing the notable games beneath devs without articles will identify candidates for the list as being legit. It also means as the dev creates games which then have articles written for them, the weight of cites etc. means that a dev article is more likely to happen. Thoughts? QuagmireDog 19:46, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea. I like it so much I've tried it out.
Before: 67 developers, 66 off-wikipedia links, 34 redlinks.
After: 35 developers, no off-wikipedia links, no redlinks.
I found: dead links, companies that are publishers rather than developers, companies that haven't released any games yet, and even a non-computer-game developer (my fault; see #Legend Games and LegendGames above).
The only developer I had any doubts about including or excluding was Funkitron. We do have a stub about their publishing arm, Blue Ribbon Games, and someone ought to check whether any of Funkitron's games, or Funkitron itself, is notable enough for an article.
Now would someone check my edit very thoroughly, please? I may have made any number of stuff-ups.
Also, the presentation (alignment, background color, etc) could be improved. Cheers, CWC 08:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Great work, thanks for that. No idea about tables, but I'll keep combing through this and the previous version checking the devs and the games, but you seem to have struck the balance very well.QuagmireDog 15:22, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
The great thing was that there was no balance to be struck. The rule is clear, fairly easy to apply and produces a good "List of ..." article. (See also WP:NOT#LINK.) Thank you, QuagmireDog, for suggesting it. Cheers, CWC 09:09, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus

I've BOLDly assumed that the new approach has consensus and put a notice at the top of the page. Would anyone who disagrees please discuss it here? (Remove the notice if you object strongly enough.)

There's one question we should discuss: should we allow redlinks? When doing my big edit, I quite arbitrarily delinkified the redlinks. Probably a better policy would be to redlink developers and games iff they seem notable enough for an article, but that's more work. What do other contributors think?

Talking about redlinks, the article on the game "Forgiveness: The First Chapter" has been deleted. Cheers, CWC 09:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Defunct companies

What are your thoughts on linking defunct developers that otherwise fill the proposed criteria for inclusion above? – i.e., have a Wikipedia article, were financially stable for several years, released multiple notable games, etc. --Muchness 04:38, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd include them. Encyclopedia articles cover the past as well as the present. (But I'm biased: I find older games, indie or otherwise, as interesting as new ones.) Cheers, CWC 11:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I've added a couple of defunct companies; feel free to revert and/or continue this discussion if these additions are problematic. --Muchness 12:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I'd say include them if and only if they published several (or at the very least one) successful game. Preferably, one that has a decent article. Otherwise, this list would get filled up pretty quick: lots of indie developers go under without releasing anything, or anything worth mentioning. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 19:50, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Osiris Games

Can Osiris Games be included they have programmed a lot of successful games

Gamebiz The Magical Years
Gamebiz 2
Chart Wars
Chart Wars 3

And many more 121.217.231.135 (talk) 04:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd say "no" given that none of their games that you listed have articles about them except one, which looks like it was written by the author of the game (which could have been you for all we know). Though having article about their products does not necessarily demonstrate notability, it's one of the best ways we can gauge a developer's importance. So unless they ever release something really noteworthy, I'd say leave them off the list. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 13:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Chart Wars 4 starsDownload.com Chart Wars 3 3 and 1/2 stars Download.com Gamebiz:The Magical Years 3 stars Download.com Gamebiz 2 4 stars Download.com Insider TM 3 stars Download.com Bestseller 3 Stars Download.com Gemstones 2 1/2 stars Download.com 121.217.138.192 (talk) 07:19, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Your links don't prove that any of Osiris's games are worthy of an article. And they'd have to be authored by someone other than you. Don't take my word for it. If they don't take the initiative, ask some other editors for their opinion. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 15:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

None of these games were programmed by me I only found the website in August. Infact they are programmed by Damien Russell,Nino Arndt and Rob Cooper. Also none of these reviews were done by me 58.166.123.102 (talk) 21:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)