Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Indie/Archive 1

Scope

Currently it says: "The Indie Task Force covers articles about: All flash, iOS, Android, XBLIG, Playstation Minis, WiiWare, and more." Is this the actual intended list? It does not even mention PC games. It seems much easier to say "Indie video game related articles". That will automatically include games (Minecraft), developers (Markus Persson), topics (Independent video game development) and whatever comes. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:22, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

It should include PC games too. (I think that line was taken from the WT:VG comment I made about what this project should cover, but I would definitely include PC games too in the list). --MASEM (t) 20:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it should include indie developers for XBLA/WiiWare/PSN and their games so long as those games were created and designed by the developers entirely - in other words not part of a franchise (such as Hydro Thunder Hurricane, Snoopy Flying Ace or Bionic Commando Rearmed). Games like Monday Night Combat, Shank and Planet Minigolf are good examples of games that were created by an indie developer for XBLA/PSN, but were the creation of that developer, so would fit the bill. Thoughts? --Teancum (talk) 16:23, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess a good question here is : what is an indie developer? Who draws that line? Is there some metric we can use for that? --MASEM (t) 16:45, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Seeing a we're a task force and not a policy the choice should be made by the members of the task force. I don't see why we need a clear-cut line. If we feel it should be included in the task force, we include it. If other members disagree, we bring it up for discussion. Seems pretty clear cut to me. There's no need to have a hard-edged line. --Teancum (talk) 17:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree, that this should be on case-by-case when a specific company is disputed. In any case, I would draw the line at least at having a publisher, who is willing to provide support from the start of project. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Remember, all being an indie game, for our purposes, is whether we tag the article's vjproj template with "indie=yes".

I'm less worried about the high end than the low end for games - the ones that are borderline notability that get attention in some media but since they aren't AAA titles, not a lot. Even if some can't have full articles, I feel we can at least write to them in list form as noted below. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Do we consider companies/individuals that were initially Indie but are now huge multi-million studios in the taskforce (not that I can think of any off the top of my head)? I would assume so. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

If they were indie at some point and had some significance then, then yes, they were an indie developer and should be included. Same with studios that were indie and because !indie later. --MASEM (t) 17:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Participant list

Surely, we can keep a list like the main list and like every other taskforce here does. Not everyone wants this userbox/category on their user page. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:22, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• Added. SixthAtom (talk) 20:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Cool. Just a note that we shouldn't be adding timestamps to user list. Also, it may be should be alphabetical. Not sure how many editors will sign up though, so may not be needed. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:33, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I've changed it to suggest the use of three tildes so there's no timestamps. Reach Out to the Truth 21:03, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I tried. I failed.

User:Bws2cool/Creeper World. Yah. idk. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 04:13, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's another short IGN press release. Cool game btw. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:19, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

One thing I would like to see...

One of the issues with indie games is coverage and notability. Obviously, we have to watch for self-published sources, COI, etc, but there are indie games that get brief but significant mentions (eg such as the recent "One Chance" flash game, where I see at least three comments on it). I think that what we should do is design lists - possibly based by platform - where games that achieve weak notability - not enough for an article but enough to pass WP:V/WP:NOR/WP:NPOV - can be listed and sources. We would want to set a minimum standard of course for these games, but I think it is possible to create such. --MASEM (t) 22:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I like this idea. I searched "top flash games" in WP:VG's "RS search engine", and found lots of stuff. Then I searched some games I saw on those lists and got this. User:Bws2cool/flash. I got bored after around 10 minutes of searching though. Feel free to add to my list, or even move it to Wikipedia :WikiProject Video games/Indie/Flash game list or something. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 00:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I just finished going through 1UP's 2006, 07, 08, 09, 10, and another 2010 list. I only did the games I knew of, so there are bound to be more with a good number of sources. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 01:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good concept for a list. But as long as there is at least a rough consensus what the inclusion criteria are, otherwise it will become unmanageable. I suggest drawing up a list of minimum inclusion criteria and make dubious additions be discussed first. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:26, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I would say that the minimum inclusion for such lists is at least two non-trivial reviews (or critical mentions) from our main VG sources (IGN, Gamespot, Eurogamer) or reliable non-gaming sources (Wired, Ars Tech, Time , NYTimes, etc.), or at least 3 critical reviews that include less-than-optimal sites (situational sources) which would include things like Destructoid, Pocket Gamer, Siliconera, Kotaku, Joystiq, Rock Paper Shotgun, etc. The review must be more than a simple "you have to play this!"-type endorsement.

Note that games that can get their own articles should be included on these lists, but with just a brief summary and point to the main article. --MASEM (t) 18:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

So is anybody going to work on this, and would it look like the example I made or be in list format instead of sections? _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 19:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

May be we can keep it to a bullet-point list? Sections imply that there will be content, but I suspect most games will be 2-3 sentences. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:04, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I would recommend:

• No infoboxes - or if we think we need them, let's find a way to get one that's like 4-5 lines at most, so that when put next to a short para, there's no overlap to the next section
• top headers by letter, next level headers for games.

Alternatively, we could use tables (for each alpha letter) similar to tv episodes or something similar. --MASEM (t) 20:14, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Indie=yes added to WikiProject Video games template

The {{WikiProject Video games}} now supports |Indie=yes and categorizes articles into Category:Indie video game task force articles. Article alerts are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Indie/Article alerts. Have fun tagging pages! ^^ —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:45, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Just went through and hit all of the games that ever won an award at the IGF. --PresN 19:15, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Would International Game Developers Association qualify? Apparently they support misc. Indie organisations and such. If there was and Indie-IGDA related stuff, it would probably go into this article. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:40, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Would software/development tools qualify too? For example, Adventure Game Studio or Game Maker? I would think so. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I would assume both would qualify. SixthAtom (talk) 12:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies ?

Is Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies really indie? First of all, Ideaworks Game Studio are backed up by a large publisher (Activision). Secondly, they seem to have a largish multi-man team. And finally, they are under committee design and publisher creative control restrictions. They fail 3 most important indie title points. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:08, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, definitely not indie - the fact that it's a franchise title alone is enough. At best the developer could be indie, but as you stated above that's unlikely. --Teancum (talk) 00:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Indie game created

I created Indie game article today. I believe enough material has accumulated in recent years for a proper stand-alone article on the (main) topic of this task force. Part of the info is essentially a sourced version of Independent video game development minus original research and speculation. Plus additional material, mainly defining "indie game".

Hopefully it will be understood why I did not instead expand/source Independent video game development, as it is much easier to create a sourced article from scratch than attempt to trim/source/de-POV/de-OR an article like IVGD. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

So, somebody needs to rewrite Independent video game development to actually cover development, or just merge relevant information and redirect the article. Ideally, that article should have been moved and then rewritten(not necessarily in that order) to better track history and whatnot. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 21:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Project tag

I was actually going to write up some articles about Xbox Live Indie games that have adequate reception for stand-alone articles... I was wondering, is there like a "|indie=yes" tag or something like that for Template:WikiProject Video games? Nomader ^(Talk) 00:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, just add exactly that to then end of the template call on the talk page. -MASEM (t) 01:29, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. Nomader ^(Talk) 04:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Capital I Indie, actually. --PresN 06:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Filibusti

Of course, it must be made positive that this is not canvasing against the user or his edits. However, under this user name, his edits have been almost exclusively based around marking independent video games as non-notable, in spite of a significant amount of reliable sources (most evident in Mighty Jill Off). He has also nominated a good number of articles for deletion. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 08:54, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Would Ogame classify as a indie game?

I discovered this game while browsing the Newgrounds forums, and I just now had the thought of asking you guys if it would qualify as a independent video game? Thanks, Takeo 14:00, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Given the apparent size and impact of Gameforge, I don't think I would. They don't seem like an indie developer for this project. --MASEM (t) 14:06, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Throwing in the towel.

I decided I have become too inactive to continue to lead the Indie Task Force. I still consider myself a member, but I want to hand over the torch to somebody responsible. Rainbow Dash 12:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't really see why we need a leader, frankly. The project's just here so that we can talk to each other easily and swap ideas about Indie game articles. --PresN 16:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Heck, wouldn't the spirit of this task force be that there be no leader? - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 19:45, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I Am A Complete Chicken Noob

UPDATE: I checked out some of the official ways to have someone do an article for us and am following the procedures listed there. I would still like to contribute to the indie task force as we would like to create a significant database for everyone of indie games. I'll be looking into how to go about doing that in the future as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AaronRighter (talk • contribs) 20:59, August 9, 2012

Redirect this talk page as part of task force cleanup

I've proposed a comprehensive cleanup of WP:VG's inactive task forces (which would include redirecting all task force talk pages, including this one), if you'll take a look czar ♔ 01:48, 6 May 2014 (UTC)