Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Assessment/A Class Guidelines

General

These general guidelines apply to all articles types within the Video Games project.

Overall

The article is a Good Article, implying that it meets site-wide guidance for format, presentation, content, and other policy and guidelines. If assessing for A-class and it appears the article does not meet the requirements for a Good Article, either these should be corrected, the concerns noted on the article's talk page, or, in worse case, sent to Good Article Review for demotion.

Sourcing

The article follows the guidance for sourcing as listed on the project's sources guidelines, specific avoiding (except where appropriate) the use of situational and unreliable sources as listed. The GA process should have verified all sources for being reliable, but the reviewer is not necessary required to follow project-specific guidance. Inappropriate sources should be noted and replaced, if possible.

Video game

These guidelines apply to any general video game article. Note that there are common sense exceptions to be applied here, such as in the case of a never-released game that otherwise had received significant attention.

Infobox

A {{Infobox video game}} template must be present. At minimum, the fields for "name", "developer", "publisher" (if separate from developer), "release date", "platform", "genre", and "mode" should be filled in. If available, "ratings" should be included. Video games with hardware requirements should either have "requirements" filled in here, and/or use the {{video game requirements}} in the Development section.

Cover art or an equivalent (title screen, gameplay screen, picture of an arcade cabinet, etc.) should be present.

Lead

The lead should re-identify the game's name, its genre, its developer and publisher, and release dates/periods.

The lead should briefly summarize the plot in a sentence or two, if needed.

The lead should briefly summarize the gameplay in a sentence of two. (For some genres, this will be unnecessary, like "Point-and-click adventure games")

A brief overview of the Development of the game should be provided (if possible)

A brief summation of the game's reception, sales, and awards should be provided.

Gameplay (required)

The gameplay section covers how a game is played but does not tell how to play the game.

The gameplay section must be sourced; typically for any released games this can come from reviews, but finer points may need to come from other sources.

A screenshot representing gameplay nearly always should be included. It may not necessarily need to appear in the Gameplay section (if a screenshot can be used to support the section on Development, it can be used there instead).

Plot/Synopsis (generally required)

The plot/synopsis section summarizes the game's work in ~700-900 words, roughly. Reviewers should take into account the complexity of the plot, but also consider if there's ways to further shorten it.

Though not required, plot/synopsis sections are strengthened if references are provided. Preferably these should come from secondary sources, but in-game dialog or references may be used as well via {{cite video game}}. Note that generally, the lack of references will be called out at WP:FAC if the article should proceed there.

Plot/synopsis sections are not usually required if the game has no substantive plot to begin with (such as Pac-Man or Guitar Hero (video game)); if the plot is simple enough, such as for Super Mario Bros., it can be included with the Gameplay section.

Plot/synopsis sections should follow the gameplay section, but for select cases, explaining the plot may simplify the gameplay section (such as for The World Ends with You).

Development (strongly recommended)

The approach of the development section will likely vary from game-to-game, and thus difficult to set specific requirements for. Regardless, the section should be organized in a reasonable chronological fashion. Some common sections include:

• Concept/Creation - How the game's idea came about
• Technical development - Aspects of the game's development from a technology standpoint
• Story / Character Development - Aspects of developing the game's plot and characters
• Art Development - Aspects of creating the game's graphics and art style
• Music - Aspects of creating the game's soundtrack, or other factors regarding music.
  • Specifically, if the game has had a published soundtrack (for retail or digital distribution), this should be formatted using {{infobox album}} and {{track listing}} templates.
• Announcement - Details about the announcement of the game
• Promotion - Details regarding the distribution and release of the game, including media tie-ins, various editions, etc.
• Post-release - Support for the game following release, downloadable content.

Some games may not be able to support a development section due to age, lack of sourcing or the like.

Reception (required)

Note that while the use of {{video game reviews}} is very common, it is not required. Older games that preceded current video game journalism, smaller games that receive only a few reviews, and other scenarios may make this table unnecessary. It is not required in cases of games that even would have enough reviews, as long as the same typical information is covered within the prose of this section

If the template is used, every entry needs to be referenced. Furthermore, this should not be used just to dump review scores; ideally, each cited review should be used as a reference in this reception section. References used within the template should be callbacks to named references, with the full named reference used in the body of the article.

If it is listed at these sites, a reference to the game's page at a review aggregator like MetaCritic or Game Rankings page should be provided, whether as part of the {{video game reviews}} table or in the prose.

The review section is appropriately balanced and sourced appropriately. A review section that only lists out the positives or negatives for a game is likely unbalanced.

Awards and nominations of non-trivial nature are listed.

Any type of sales information is strongly recommended, whether it comes directly from charts like NPD Data, from developer or publisher statements, or other reliable sources.

Other sections

Most content of a video game article will fit into the above four major sections and lead. Consider if other sections not listed here may fit better as a sub-section of a larger article. Some other possible sections that should be present, if appropriate, include:

• Legacy / Cultural Impact - for games with long-lasting impact on the culture; "Cultural Impact" is better suited if the game's influence goes beyond just the video game field.
• Controversy - for games where some type of controversy or legal challenge has occurred, generally near- or post-release.
• Sequel(s) - for games that have existing, pending, or possibly cancelled sequels. In lieu of a page on the game series, this can serve as an overview of the series when used on the first game in the series.