Game distinction policy

I need a clarification of when a new game page is motivated. After quite a lot of searching, the best source I could find was this forum post from 2008. Some kind of policy document is mentioned to be in the making, but I am unable to find it.

Last month, I tried to add Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers - 20th Anniversary Edition as a new game. For some reason my attempt was removed without a trace, instead of just denied. I did not know how to interpret that, but initially thought a similar request was already pending. Since everything but the story was remade more or less from scratch, I considered it to be a distinctly separate game from Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. As a comparison, IMDb would definitely list a remake as a different movie but a remastered version as the same. It felt especially obvious since I had seen some remastered games here with separate pages. My main argument for separate remake pages is that the difference is so big that a review of one in no way applies to the other. I do however realize that reviews here can be addressed at specific releases.

A related question is how to handle episodic adventure games, especially those from Telltale Games. Series like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us have one page per season, while others like Sam & Max and Tales of Monkey Island have pages both for seasons and individual episodes. The perfectionist in me wants to either expand or collapse all seasons. But what is the policy?

Yeah, as I've understood it, separately named releases/editions of games are not supposed to have separate pages (that's what the releases section and aliases should be for?), but there are still plenty of examples of this on the site. Clarification would certainly be useful.

There's also stuff like handheld games bearing the same name as a console game actually being an entirely different game but still sharing the same wiki page. An example of that would be Tom Clancy's Endwar, whose console and DS/PSP versions have little in common - the PS3/360/PC game is a 3D RTS in the vein of Ground Control, the PSP/DS versions are 2D turn-based strategy games in the style of Advance Wars and Battle Isle.

Thank you. If those two releases of Tom Clancy's EndWar actually are supposed to share a page, there is no doubt that a remake of an adventure game should be added as a new release of its original. I will create combine requests when I find remakes or remastered releases with pages of their own. An exact definition of where the line is drawn would still be good to have though, so that I do not risk creating unnecessary work for administrators.

My question regarding episodic adventure games still remains to be answered.

Because the wiki has basically been abandoned by all but a dedicated few (even the mods don't seem to be paying much attention right now), the rules of what goes for most things is pretty fast and loose. There's no 'official' policy for much of anything on the wiki these days. As far as making multiple pages for the same game, I've always treated it as such:

If a game gets re-released with an additional amount of content and/or is adjusted/remixed in such a way where it differs from the original release, then it deserves its own page. Games that simply undergo a bit of spit shine ala most HD remasters are instead cordoned to releases, as are episodic games. We have a concept page depicting a list of games that have received enough of an alteration in whatever way here!

Thank you for sharing your experience Yummylee. This lack of consistency makes me a bit uncomfortable, due to my somewhat obsessive need for order. My interpretation is however that individual episodes of episodic games should not have separate pages, even though they might be released gradually. Since one page per season seems to be the norm, I will create Delete & Combine Requests to try to correct some of those with pages for episodes.

What Yummylee said. (Well, except maybe the part where the mods aren't paying attention.) It's a hard line to draw, but we usually allow separate pages if the new revamp has some significant changes or work done to them. That portable games are often very different from their console equivalents despite usually being released around the same time is another issue that's come up in the past. Some would even consider that we should split up the Aladdin game into multiple pages, as the Genesis and SNES versions have significant differences.

It's clear we're going to have to codify what versions/rereleases would qualify for a new page, but any distinction we make right now would have to be incredibly specific to the point where it'd be too byzantine to be useful to anyone. It'd help if the basic drop-down search engine was a little better at distinguishing different games with the same title.

A combine request testing my interpretation of how to handle episodic games is now pending here.

I guess it was a bit naïve of me to think that the line could easily be drawn. My interest is mainly in adventure games, where the focus on story makes distinction between works more or less obvious. The only thing in need of clarification for them is whether or not a complete remake, like The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, should be considered a new game or not. It seems to me now that as long as the story is intact, adventure game remakes should not have their own pages. Be aware though that even very faithful adventure game remakes usually have everything but the script remade. The screenshots below are from the original and remake I tried to give a separate page. Any idea of why my wiki edit request was deleted instead of just denied?