Talk:Space Encounters

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 05:36, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

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• ... that Midway's 1980 Space Encounters video game was the first they offered in the smaller "mini myte" caberet-style arcade game cabinet? Source: Midway's new mini myte video games - flier can be found online but not URLed here

• Reviewed: Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Jean-Paul_Jeannotte

Created by Maury Markowitz (talk). Self-nominated at 14:20, 17 September 2021 (UTC).

Interesting flop game, on good sources, offline sources accepted AGF, no copyvio obvious. I'm not happy with the hook, but may be the only one who thought Bally Midway is a person, and a cabaret cabinet a piece of furniture ;) - Do we really need Midway twice? ... four words for the cabinet? - How about giving a year and saying it was a flop because of black&white? Just an idea. I can approve the hook if you think it's good, but then we need the "first" in the body, where the ref is. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:43, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: I like all of these suggestions. Hook modified, cite added (the original flier says first). I too would rather go with it being a flop, that was my original intent, but I failed to find any good refs for that statement - one can verify its the last by looking at a list of Midway games, but nothing I found simply states that flat out. I suspect it would be easy to cite to the 1980/81 editions of the industry magazines, but I don't have access to those.

Question, and I think you're the person to ask: a user I know put one of these machines back together (no small feat of engineering) and sent me some images of the gameplay. Would it be possible to use these in DYK or does the original copyright forbid this? I'm not entirely clear on the rule here. Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:12, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! Next time, please don't change the original because now my comments seem to make little sense ;) How is this?

ALT0b ... that Midway's 1980 Space Encounters was the first video game they offered in the smaller "mini myte" cabinet?

I mean if it Mini or cabaret, one might be enough? - My expert in image copyright is User:GRuban.

unless you come with better ideas. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

The game graphics are almost certainly copyrighted by the game company, I'm afraid. The machinery inside the cabinet is probably not protected as a "useful article", so if you want to show how your friend disassembled and reassembled the cabinet itself, we probably can, but the gameplay is mostly showing pixels, right? That's pretty clearly going to be artistic expression. --GRuban (talk) 16:45, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@GRuban: what about the cabinet itself? It's fairly unique - especially it's controller - and would make a good addition. But the cabinet has graphics (not the computer kind, the peel-n-stick kind) on the box... is that kosher? Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:02, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

That's ... debatable! I'd say a picture focusing on the controller would be kosher and on the stickers ... treif? Follow the link I gave there, useful article, the defining case discussed there is about a cheerleading uniform, and the judge said that even though the uniform itself is a useful article, so can't be copyrighted (you can't stop someone else from making a cheerleading uniform that has that shape, fabric, etc.), the designs on the uniform are separable art, you can put just their design on something that isn't a cheerleading uniform, so can be copyrighted. I'm reading that precedent as meaning the stickers on the box are clearly separable art - you can have a perfectly fine working box without the stickers, and you can put the stickers somewhere else. So, I would think a picture that focuses on the graphics on the box would be a copyright violation. However the controller would be a useful article since the game would not work without it, and it's not a lot of use not attached to the game, so not copyrightable, so a picture focusing on that, or the sunlight screen, or the power cord, or something utilitarian like that, wouldn't be a copyright violation. Of course I'm not a lawyer, just a guy who has uploaded a few thousand Wikipedia images (and reviewed a similar number from other people), so it's theoretically possible someone else could make a different argument. Copyright stuff is hard! --GRuban (talk) 18:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I could not find anything useful that showed zero copyright, so we're going with this boring hook. Tweaked for GR: Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:58, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

• ... that 1980's Space Encounters video game was the first that Midway Games offered in their "mini myte" arcade game cabinet? Source: Midway's new mini myte video games - flier can be found online but not URLed here

ALT to T:DYK/P3