Gotcha. I think I messed that up when I added the first Super Fire Pro Wrestling a while back. It's fixed now.

What's the ruling on discussing likenesses (homages, parodies, etc.) on that character's page?

Would such appearances fall under the Guest Costume page maybe? Though I guess homage/parodies aren't quite the same as an official costume cameo.

So, how about Saddam Hussein in Soldier of Fortune? I think they even named him, but I assume they didn't get the rights to use his likeness.

Developers don't always get explicit permission to use a person's likeness for their game. Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror features Osama Bin Laden as the final boss. Yes, it's stupid. I know. But it is him and not a parody character. (And yes, the game was released before he was actually found and killed.)

Sure that makes sense.

So for parodies how should these be classified? Should there be a separate catchall character page say for all Randy Savage parody appearances?

e.g. a "real" Randy Savage character page and a "fake" Randy Savage character page?

@slag:

Maybe a Parody Character page would make more sense. Or "Characters Based On Real People." Although in that last case, you'd have to define real hard what you mean by that.

Or an individual page for each parody character, with a note in the article that states it's a parody of Randy Savage. That seems the most logical, seeing as they're technically individual characters, not just some singular parody character across all games.

Having a "real" character page and a "fake" character page for any and all parody characters of that "real" one might also add confusion to things like characters inspired by the "real" character.

I'd think that might be too broad to be useful. Certainly would easy to create though

Well that would be the ideal way to do it from an accuracy standpoint, but on the other hand is it a good thing for discoverability to have say one real Randy Savage page and maybe half a dozen Parody ones? I'd think that might be confusing to a reader of the wiki, especially since most parody appearances of a person/character probably aren't notable by themselves.

You bring up a really good point about inspired by the "real" character, e.g. What is Balrog/M. Bison? Is he a parody of Mike Tyson or just heavily inspired by him?

@slag: That's a fair point. Perhaps there should be a "real" Randy Savage page, then a "fake" Randy Savage page that serves as a hub to link all parody characters (each of whom have their own pages). Keep the main page clean, treat parody characters appropriately with their own pages, and increase the efficiency of navigating the wiki with a hub-esque page for those "fake" characters.

I think if the character in question is literally just a foil for a real character it should be considered a parody instead of an inspiration. All the characters from Broforce for example would be parodies, while most characters from old action-shooters (Commando, Ikari Warriors) would be inspirations. Balrog at this point, or even just after the name switch, seems more like an inspiration, but it's hard to argue with "M. Bison". Edge cases, edge cases.

There could easily be a concept of "characters based on real people" rather than a real character and then a parody/fake character page. This would prevent any confusion for someone who finds the fake page and attaches it to games the real character was in.

As for the Hussein question (never thought I'd type those words) he's a real, non-copyrighted, person. His likeness is different than that of say Randy Savage. Savage's likeness in most games, especially wrestling games, are based off the WWE character which is owned by the WWE. So when he's in a game it is always that character and this should be linked to that page. Hussein could be his own character page, since his likeness and portrayal isn't actually him, and then just link him to whatever he appears in. He could also be a real person page if he developed any video games or he himself appeared in a video game.

To add to this, there are also the many, many pages for professional athletes that are in the wiki as character pages. Even if Joe Shmoe Basketball only ever played in the NBA for one season, if he appeared in NBA 2K15, then he's entitled to a character page.

So I guess here's a question. What about "President Ronnie" from Bad Dudes? Currently, the character's name is attached as an alias to the page for Ronald Reagan (who he is very obviously based on), and the default image for the character page is taken from Bad Dudes, but he's never explicitly called Ronald Reagan in the game.

I would assume that whatever character they made in Fire Pro Wrestling has a name of its own. That would be a separate character page.

Understood Chief

Ah ok gotcha

So if it's a parody character with a unique name it should get a unique page. Makes sense.

And then presumably any appearance of a person using their actual unaltered name even if said appearance is unauthorized would count as appearance of that person as a character?

You're an unlicensed appearance

@mento: Would Fake Diesel and Fake Razor Ramon be considered for the Fire Pro Characters?

@mcchitman: Going by what Jeff said, it'd be best if they had separate pages with the actual names used in-game. After which they could be attached to a "parody character" concept, and have "this wrestler is based on Donny 'Dumptruck' Dankowicz" or whatever in the overview text.

What complicates things is that almost all the Fire Pro games are exclusively in Japanese, including wrestler names. It'll have to be a labor of love for someone who is really obsessed with that series and reads Japanese (and considering I've had to add two of its wiki pages myself, I'm not sure we have anyone that fits the bill).