Wikipedia:Notability (toys and games)

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This page in a nutshell: Toys and games are presumed to be notable if one or more of the following is true:
  • They are the subject of multiple, independent non-trivial sources
  • They have won a notable award
  • They are included in a notable collection
  • They have otherwise demonstrated significance or importance according to reliable sources

Articles about game expansions should be treated independently. Articles about fictional elements of games should be treated as described in the notability guidelines for fiction.
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A variety of toys, children's electronic gadgets, board games, and video games have been developed, published, and sold. The purpose of this proposal is to help come up with a definition of what makes a toy, game, or video games notable beyond the general guidelines in WP:N and WP:CORP. These guidelines also apply to expansions to games.

Your input is welcome. Please feel free to discuss changes on the talk page, or even be BOLD and edit the brainstormed guidlines below.

Contents

[edit] Criteria

A toy or game is generally notable if it verifiably meets through reliable sources, one or more of the following criteria:

  1. The toy or game has been a subject[1] of multiple, non-trivial[2] published works whose sources are independent of the game or topic,[3] with at least some of these works serving a general audience. This includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries and reviews. Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a summary of rules or in-game information.[4]
    • The immediately preceding criterion excludes media re-prints of press releases, flap copy, or other publications where the author, its publisher, agent, or other self-interested parties advertise or speak about the game.[5]
    • Coverage from an online review website can be considered non-trivial for the previous criterion if the coverage includes work by at least one professional reviewer or staff writer. Multiple reviews on a single website do not impart additional notability, so online reviews must come from multiple sources or be supported by additional coverage.
  2. The toy or game has won a notable award or a commendation from a recognized national or international educators, parents, medical, or consumers group or some other similar body.[6]
  3. A copy of the toy or game is included in the collection of any notable gallery, museum, or other educational institution such as the Smithsonian or British Museum.
  4. The toy or game represents a significant milestone in the development of toys or games, or has demonstrated some form of historical, cultural, or technical signifiance, or has had a major impact on culture or pop-culture, as referenced through a notable documentary or retrospective. [7]
    • This criterion includes the first game to use a game mechanic which was later widely adopted; the first to be published in a certain way, for example online or print-on-demand; or which is otherwise described as a significant step by multiple reliable sources.

Toy and game articles should be edited in line with Wikipedia's other policies and guidelines. In particular, all content must be verifiable by reliable sources.

[edit] Other evidence of notability

A toy or game is not notable simply on the basis of being produced, sold, or marketed. Without significant coverage, it can be deleted through the proposed deletion process, or if not a clear cut case via articles for deletion. However, some toys and games that don't pass the above tests may still be notable, and should be evaluated on their own merits. Some inclusionary criteria to consider are given below.

[edit] Toys and non-electronic games

This includes board, card, dice and miniatures games including wargames, as well as traditional role-playing games and LARPs.

It is likely that a toy or game is notable if:

  • The toy or game has been in production and commercially available continuously for 20 years or more, through a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators.[8]
  • The toy or game was a top selling product during a given year or holiday season as documented in secondary sources.[9]

[edit] Video games

Thanks to the large volume of coverage given to console releases, any licensed console game that has been published and widely released is likely to be notable, but that coverage must still be found for the article. Unlicensed games are less likely to receive the required coverage, but those that do are presumed to be notable.[10]

Unlike console games, where a license from the console manufacturer is typically required to publish a game on their proprietary platform, games for home computer systems can be programed literally by anyone, and therefore the requirements for inclusion should be viewed more strictly. Multi-platform games released for a personal computer platform as well as a major console are likely to be notable, but typically all releases of the same game should be included under a single article unless the storyline or gameplay on the home computer version is substantially different from the console version, and both versions are verifiable in detail through citations to reliable sources.

Online games are likely to be notable if they have a particularly large paid or free subscriber base.[11] Browser-based games, such as those based utilizing Adobe Flash, are unlikely to be notable. Generic online versions of puzzle games are not notable.

Homebrew games, shareware or freeware games, individual MAME cabinets, and bar-top touchscreen type games (containing several games like Poker, Reversi and Tetris) are not likely to be notable.

[edit] Other considerations

[edit] Self-publication

Self-publication and/or publication by a vanity press is indicative, but not determinative of non-notability. By the same token, it should always weigh against an article's inclusion if the author or other interested party is the creator of the Wikipedia article. See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Autobiography for more information.

However, not all self-published games are non-notable, and some early independently published games are notable precisely because they were among the first to be published independently.

[edit] Online stores

A game's listing at online stores such as Barnes & Noble.com or Amazon.com is not by itself an indication of notability as such websites are non-exclusionary, including large numbers of vanity press publications. There is no present agreement on how high a book must fall on Amazon's sales rank listing (in the "product details" section for a book's listing) in order to provide evidence of its notability, vel non.

[edit] Game expansions

Publishers of games sometimes release expansion packs for games. For the purposes of determining notability, these should be treated as separate games; they do not inherit notability from their parent. If the expansion does not meet the above criteria independently of the parent game, then it is best to create a redirect and cover the topic of the expansion in a section of the game's article. If the expansion is independently notable, it is appropriate to create a separate article for it, leaving a concise summary in the parent article. See Wikipedia:Summary style for advice on how to create such summaries.

[edit] Game settings and characters

Role-playing games and video games often include fictional settings and characters. These and other fictional elements do not inherit notability from the game in which they appear; they should be treated according to the notability guidelines for fiction.[12] As with game expansions, it is appropriate to create redirects for non-notable fictional elements, and to create concise summaries for notable fictional elements.

[edit] Not yet published games

Since Wikipedia is not a crystal ball articles about games that are not yet published are generally discouraged. Games that have not been released yet are notable only if the title of the game and its approximate date of publication have been made public, the game is in the pre-production, production, or post-production phase by a major game studio, and these facts can be documented by sufficient reliable sources, not by speculation.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The "subject" of a work means non-trivial treatment and excludes mere mention of the game, its author or of its publication, price listings and other nonsubstantive detail treatment.
  2. ^ "Non-trivial" excludes personal websites, blogs, bulletin boards, Usenet posts, wikis and other media that are not themselves reliable. An analysis of the manner of treatment is crucial as well; Slashdot.org for example is reliable, but postings to that site by members of the public on a subject do not share the site's imprimatur. Be careful to check that the author, publisher, agent, vendor. etc. of a particular book are in no way interested in any third party source.
  3. ^ An "independent source" is a source which describes a topic from a disinterested perspective. Independent does not mean independent of the publishing industry, but only refers to those actually involved with the particular game. Releases by the publisher of a game do not establish notability; for example, reviews in Dragon magazine cannot be used to establish notability of products released by TSR or Wizards of the Coast. Third-party sourcebooks on a topic are in general not independent references for the topic they cover, since their authors have a financial interest in that topic.
  4. ^ It is not sufficient to show that a topic is notable within a particular game; sources must establish that the topic is notable from a real-world perspective. Hence, unless a source contains a non-trivial amount of coverage of a game from a real-world perspective, it does not count towards this criterion. In particular, in-game and game-mechanical descriptions of a topic do not meet this criterion.
  5. ^ Self-promotion and product placement are not the routes to having an encyclopedia article. The published works must be someone else writing about the book. (See Wikipedia:Autobiography for the verifiability and neutrality problems that affect material where the subject of the article itself is the source of the material). The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or of its author, publisher, vendor or agent) have actually considered the book notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it.
  6. ^ For example Mr. Bucket receiving a commendation from Occupational Therapy Associates for helping with hand/ eye coordination in young patients.
  7. ^ For example Rubik's Cube was featured in I Love the 80s
  8. ^ Trivial distribution such as hosting content on personal blogs and entertainment-like sites such as GeoCities or Newgrounds is excluded.
  9. ^ For example Tickle Me Elmo was the number one toy of 1998.
  10. ^ For example, Wally Bear and the NO! Gang and many of the unlicensed games produced by Wisdom Tree have been the subject of multiple print and online articles.
  11. ^ This guideline does not offer a numeric threshold for how large is "particularly large". Rather, reliable sources must have described the subscriber base as particularly large, or used some eqivalent phrase.
  12. ^ This does not preclude their mention in an article on the game itself; it only applies to articles on the settings and characters themselves. For guidance on how to write about fictional elements, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction).