"Personally, I'm a fan of the 'if it's big enough for a user to put the time into adding it, and it IS a game, it should be in." That's certainly not going to be every browser game out there... "
The problem with that rule is that every game has at least one person who is fond of it. Even if it's just the developer. What is to stop the developer of a crappy flash game signing up to Giant Bomb and adding their game? What's to stop thousands of developers of thousands of crappy flash games coming on and cluttering Giant Bomb with their games? And that could happen. They'll essentially
Ultimately, I agree that we should include certain browser games. The landscape of gaming is changing, and major developers/publishers are starting to see the web browser as a viable distribution option, and we should reflect that on the site. But we can't just open the flood gates to all browser games being allowed on the site. A set of rules like @Not_Rage suggested could work. I'm thinking if a browser game meets any one of these criteria, we should allow it:
Was released by a developer or publisher who has developed for another platform on Giant Bomb (excluding flash games that were ported to iPhone, since that is relatively easy to do)
Is an officially licensed instalment in an already existing franchise (although I can't see any games falling in this category that doesn't fall into the previous one. It might be unnecessary)
Was nominated for an IGF award.
Has a payment model (e.g. microtransactions)
That should cover most of the bases. While the "The game has multiple news coverage from reliable sources" rule seems good, the definition of "reliable source" is too subjective for my liking.
But as much as I'd like to click my fingers and make that the rule, it's not my place to make rules, I only enforce them. Any rule change has to come from the top. So go shout at Jeff and co about it. They have the final say on what we allow and don't.
"Personally, I'm a fan of the 'if it's big enough for a user to put the time into adding it, and it IS a game, it should be in." That's certainly not going to be every browser game out there... "
The problem with that rule is that every game has at least one person who is fond of it. Even if it's just the developer. What is to stop the developer of a crappy flash game signing up to Giant Bomb and adding their game? What's to stop thousands of developers of thousands of crappy flash games coming on and cluttering Giant Bomb with their games? And that could happen. They'll essentially
Ultimately, I agree that we should include certain browser games. The landscape of gaming is changing, and major developers/publishers are starting to see the web browser as a viable distribution option, and we should reflect that on the site. But we can't just open the flood gates to all browser games being allowed on the site. A set of rules like @Not_Rage suggested could work. I'm thinking if a browser game meets any one of these criteria, we should allow it:
Was released by a developer or publisher who has developed for another platform on Giant Bomb (excluding flash games that were ported to iPhone, since that is relatively easy to do)
Is an officially licensed instalment in an already existing franchise (although I can't see any games falling in this category that doesn't fall into the previous one. It might be unnecessary)
Was nominated for an IGF award.
Has a payment model (e.g. microtransactions)
That should cover most of the bases. While the "The game has multiple news coverage from reliable sources" rule seems good, the definition of "reliable source" is too subjective for my liking. But as much as I'd like to click my fingers and make that the rule, it's not my place to make rules, I only enforce them. Any rule change has to come from the top. So go shout at Jeff and co about it. They have the final say on what we allow and don't. "
"Personally, I'm a fan of the 'if it's big enough for a user to put the time into adding it, and it IS a game, it should be in." That's certainly not going to be every browser game out there... "
The problem with that rule is that every game has at least one person who is fond of it. Even if it's just the developer. What is to stop the developer of a crappy flash game signing up to Giant Bomb and adding their game? What's to stop thousands of developers of thousands of crappy flash games coming on and cluttering Giant Bomb with their games? And that could happen.
Technically there's not anything currently stopping them doing that with the tens of thousands of crappy free iPhone games. Just something to keep in mind.
I think the list of criteria you propose will unfortunately prevent some potentially interesting, more niche indie browser games from making it to the site. Which would suck, but at least it would be an improvement to the currently situation.
"Personally, I'm a fan of the 'if it's big enough for a user to put the time into adding it, and it IS a game, it should be in." That's certainly not going to be every browser game out there... "
The problem with that rule is that every game has at least one person who is fond of it. Even if it's just the developer. What is to stop the developer of a crappy flash game signing up to Giant Bomb and adding their game? What's to stop thousands of developers of thousands of crappy flash games coming on and cluttering Giant Bomb with their games? And that could happen.
Technically there's not anything currently stopping them doing that with the tens of thousands of crappy free iPhone games. Just something to keep in mind. I think the list of criteria you propose will unfortunately prevent some potentially interesting, more niche indie browser games from making it to the site. Which would suck, but at least it would be an improvement to the currently situation. "
Wouldn't it better to just implement something resembling the Wikipedia notability clause with the mods/staff having the final say on what should be allowed on the GB wiki ? The users can also create a thread on that game's forum to discuss it's viability. It's worked pretty well for Wikipedia until now and there is no shame in copying something that works well.
I don't understand the rigid stance against browser games when we have free iPhone games, old pinball machines, DSi shovelware and Hentai Games. In contrast to all these, browser games are actually relevant right now and a lot of people spend a significant amount of time on them. The biggest argument for me is Farmville's 80 million userbase. If someone wants to know about the most played game in the world right now, they can't find anything about it on GB. We instantly fail in our aim to be the world's largest video game database.
As for the Lord of Ultima page in particular, someone has really filled it out. And it would be a loss to delete all that info.
PS: Can you please poke the staff about this issue? The browser and facebook game scene has grown significantly since their initial stance two years ago. Maybe it's time for them to discuss it again.
"As for the Lord of Ultima page in particular, someone has really filled it out. And it would be a loss to delete all that info. "
Yeah. Even if it's not within the site's scope, it does suck destroying stuff people have worked hard to create. I have a guide that I use to hold onto that information and allow people to reuse elsewhere it if they like. I expect it to grow rather large.
Not copying this one into there yet though. Hopefully we can finally convince the staff to allow browser games, and then I won't have to.
Personally, I've always been a proponent of allowing browser games on to the site. They're just as relevant as other types of games and in several cases they're even better than full retail releases. Having bad games come up shouldn't really be problem because we've got bad games on every other platform and that's just a consequence of allowing any platform on to the site, there'll be some great games and there'll be crappy ones. As always, the final decision is with the staff and as long as they don't feel that browser games deserve a place on GB then I guess there's not much we can do besides asking them to reconsider their position.
" Personally, I've always been a proponent of allowing browser games on to the site. They're just as relevant as other types of games and in several cases they're even better than full retail releases. Having bad games come up shouldn't really be problem because we've got bad games on every other platform and that's just a consequence of allowing any platform on to the site, there'll be some great games and there'll be crappy ones. As always, the final decision is with the staff and as long as they don't feel that browser games deserve a place on GB then I guess there's not much we can do besides asking them to reconsider their position. "
As long as you do not allow " Evony" here anything else I have no personal issues with.
Still, I think there needs to be a distinction between something like a Farmville and your average Space Invaders or weird fighting game cross-over knock off Flash game that someone is uploading to Newgrounds. Kind of like why we don't want people who write about games in the database unless they are credited in a game, leaving the system open leaves it open to abuse. I feel like we need to come up with some rules to protect the database from getting flooded first.
" Personally, I've always been a proponent of allowing browser games on to the site. They're just as relevant as other types of games and in several cases they're even better than full retail releases. Having bad games come up shouldn't really be problem because we've got bad games on every other platform and that's just a consequence of allowing any platform on to the site, there'll be some great games and there'll be crappy ones. As always, the final decision is with the staff and as long as they don't feel that browser games deserve a place on GB then I guess there's not much we can do besides asking them to reconsider their position. "
But the difference is allowing hundreds of bad games for platforms, And MILLIONS of bad browser games
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