Question: Can you think of a gamer service that you wish existed, or was much better than the options available?

[RH | 4,905]

I posted this request to reddit on a couple of subs but I definitely want to post it here too.  Anyway, after 15+ years of software engineering, I really, really want to engage the itch of creating "something" for the vintage gaming and collecting community at large.  I know around here I've batted around creating a "better" pricing tool, maybe create a trading site geared toward collectors or even creating a solid wiki/database for all of the lowest nerdy details we all may want to catalog and share.  VGS is a great place for community engagement but we also know it could use additional features for it to be like NA, but should it even do that?

Well, I love this place and I want it to be the best gaming community out there. I also think the mods would agree that if they can't make something and do something well, they'd rather not tack it onto the site.  So, I'm not looking to compete with this place, but I do want to make "something" and I want people to actually be hyped to use it beyond just myself.

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of ideas.  However, since this will be a hobby project I often lose motivation by simply not knowing if people will want to even use what I'm making.  I've made stuff in the past and as cool as I thought it was... no one ever used those services so with time I just shut them down.  That's why I'm asking you all for ideas.  I'd like to work with the community and start to build something that people will actually be excited to use because it's filling a missing gap in our needs.

So, spitball with me.  What's missing as a service that we would like to see or use?  What services out there are maybe old and dated but could be improved upon?  Feel free to dream a little and discuss.  I want to catalog all of the ideas and get a general consensus of what most gamers and collectors wish existed and would help them on their quests.  Thanks guys!

[phart010 | 1,707]

Gametz is awesome, but would be better if it was an iPhone app and you could upload photos of what you have. Maybe also suggest pricing for items so that you could settle any major differences in cash.

Even better if you could link it to PayPal/Credit card and print shipping labels right from the app like you do on Mercari. Beware though, this would probably put Gamestop out of business

Edited August 19, 2020 by phart010

[ThePhleo | 2,185]

I dream of a tool that can help you build lists automatically.

Imagine you want to instantly know which SNES games are multiplayer, or which Xbox games have XBOX Live enabled content....normally you’d have to hope someone compiled a list like that already and hope they were thorough enough.

But what if there was a database that stored each and every unique aspect about each game. There can be different types of tags classified as a “collectors” tags (eg Hangtab, Black Box, 5-Screw) or “gamer” tags (eg RPG, Multiplayer, Online Features) or even historian tags (eg Mario, Mushroom Kingdom, Coin)

Now let’s say you want to know every game that someone like Hideo Kojima was involved in. Just simply type in “Person:Hideo Kojima” in the tool and out pops a list of every game that has some sort of reference to a person named Kojima.

Or what about two parameters like “Platform:SNES” and “Genre:Role Playing” now you have a list of every SNES game with role playing elements.

What about complex ones where you want to see something EXCLUDED like this “Character:Mario” -“Person:Shigeru Miyamoto” now you have a list of every game where Mario makes an appearance that he zero connections to Marios creator.

[RH | 4,905]

@ThePhleo One-Database-To-Rule-Them-All is definitely an option I've considered but that is... hard.  These are the main issues you have to contend with.

- Data maintenance.  This is to much data for one person to manage, so you need a team or alternatively, you need to make it a wiki.  Both could work, but a wiki would need serious validation.  Joe Shmoe could come around and screw the data up because he missed something.

- Data consistency.  You are talking about an attribute-based data system.  You basically have something like a "game" which has consistent similarities, but depending on the type of game, it could have many attributes that are only similar to a small portion of other games.  You can put that data in a big blank field (not easily maintained or cataloged) or you can maintain it in an attributes table.  Think of an attributes table as a side-table to the games table, but each game can have many attributes like "series", where you specify something like "Paper Mario Series".  I'll not go into the greater details but this scales even further the requirements for proper data maintenance and a wiki-approach could get ugly due to user error. If we want consistent data, trained data enterers need to know what to do and need to do it right.

But, can it be done? Yes, and I'd be up for the job!  That said, I'd need significant community assistance curating a very large, accurate list of games, consoles, hardware (anything else) with all respective attributes mostly known to date, and the commitment to update these lists properly as new information is found.  I am not opposed to something like this.  Not at all.  However, it would take significant community work.  Honestly, I'd probably start with a couple of console specific databases and build out from there.  Maybe the NES for vintage stuff, the PS2 for something about 20 years old, and all three of the current major consoles.  Once that is established, we can have a site voting mechanism for newest consoles and I'd want to vet people who would construct the data for any new systems and hardware.  People who really, really know and care about that stuff and may already have thorough and well documented lists.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

32 minutes ago, RH said:

@ThePhleo One-Database-To-Rule-Them-All is definitely an option I've considered but that is... hard.  These are the main issues you have to contend with.

- Data maintenance.  This is to much data for one person to manage, so you need a team or alternatively, you need to make it a wiki.  Both could work, but a wiki would need serious validation.  Joe Shmoe could come around and screw the data up because he missed something.

- Data consistency.  You are talking about an attribute-based data system.  You basically have something like a "game" which has consistent similarities, but depending on the type of game, it could have many attributes that are only similar to a small portion of other games.  You can put that data in a big blank field (not easily maintained or cataloged) or you can maintain it in an attributes table.  Think of an attributes table as a side-table to the games table, but each game can have many attributes like "series", where you specify something like "Paper Mario Series".  I'll not go into the greater details but this scales even further the requirements for proper data maintenance and a wiki-approach could get ugly due to user error. If we want consistent data, trained data enterers need to know what to do and need to do it right.

But, can it be done? Yes, and I'd be up for the job!  That said, I'd need significant community assistance curating a very large, accurate list of games, consoles, hardware (anything else) with all respective attributes mostly known to date, and the commitment to update these lists properly as new information is found.  I am not opposed to something like this.  Not at all.  However, it would take significant community work.  Honestly, I'd probably start with a couple of console specific databases and build out from there.  Maybe the NES for vintage stuff, the PS2 for something about 20 years old, and all three of the current major consoles.  Once that is established, we can have a site voting mechanism for newest consoles and I'd want to vet people who would construct the data for any new systems and hardware.  People who really, really know and care about that stuff and may already have thorough and well documented lists.

May I recommend that if you test this concept out do it for the 32X or Virtual Boy first. Their libraries are so small it would help establish the manner in which to go about things without there being a threat of a small mistake or change of idea, requiring a ton of work, to fix/implement.

Edited August 19, 2020 by LeatherRebel5150

[ThePhleo | 2,185]

No doubt it’s too much for one person to handle, but you can do it in a way that one person can instruct multiple trusted persons on how to get it done.

Start with just one, and only one platform. If that platform is large then split it into chunks, for NES you can go by publisher...start small and just go for the 70+ first & second party titles first....maybe even split it up again and do the 30 black boxes first.

Or maybe start at the beginning with Odyssey and work your way up the list, Channel F, Odyssey 2, 2600, etc. and work parallel with PC and arcades as not to lose a detail of what games are “arcade ports” or “pc ports” or “console ports”

Ive been contemplating this very idea for almost a decade now and I still haven’t gotten all the details laid out yet because of how gargantuan of a task it really is, and every time I lay down a solid white paper of what I want to see made it suddenly turns either into “well since there’s a Hello Kitty, GI Joe, or Pokemon game out there now I need to document every piece of Hello Kitty, GI Joe, and Pokemon object and media that exists too” or “The line of video games is blurry because arcade games include pinball which is really just bagatelle from the 1700s, also casino machines and cigarette dispensers count because they’re all coin-op..I guess that $10 car wash drive thru counts too” Or even “Sure there are VIDEO games, but aren’t board games and sports considered games? Don’t you have to document those as well, even the STRONG museum shows that there isn’t really a line between them”

My best attempt at laying down a solid white paper just involves documenting everything that’s directly associated with a video game, and draw hard lines as to where to start and stop...no cathode ray tube amusement device, but Spacewar is a good place to start.

[ThePhleo | 2,185]

Also, in “non archival” settings you can have discussions about start points. Like a forum.

Debate whether you should include Famicom and NES together or separately, which can turn into whether PAL A, PAL B, NTSC count separately, which can turn into Asia, HK, Korea, India, etc.

Or start a pre-list like “hey guys we’re going the 72 Nintendo published games, let me know if I forgot something” and then someone brings up devil world and mah Jong.

[RH | 4,905]

18 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

May I recommend that if you test this concept out do it for the 32X or Virtual Boy first. Their libraries are so small it would help establish the manner in which to go about things without there being a threat of a small mistake or change of idea, requiring a ton of work, to fix/implement.

That could make sense, but it would only be for a "soft open", hammering out the details. There's no reason why I'd want to make a site public like that with JUST that data.  First impressions are lasting ones, so if people just thought it was a "Virtual Boy" site, they might come, look and not come back because it's irrelevant.  A small system series like that does make sense for good testing.

[RH | 4,905]

18 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

Ive been contemplating this very idea for almost a decade now and I still haven’t gotten all the details laid out yet because of how gargantuan of a task it really is, and every time I lay down a solid white paper of what I want to see made it suddenly turns either into “well since there’s a Hello Kitty, GI Joe, or Pokemon game out there now I need to document every piece of Hello Kitty, GI Joe, and Pokemon object and media that exists too” or “The line of video games is blurry because arcade games include pinball which is really just bagatelle from the 1700s, also casino machines and cigarette dispensers count because they’re all coin-op..I guess that $10 car wash drive thru counts too” Or even “Sure there are VIDEO games, but aren’t board games and sports considered games? Don’t you have to document those as well, even the STRONG museum shows that there isn’t really a line between them”

Feature-creep is very real.  The best you can/should do is start with a very broad definition of what you want to do.  That's your end goal.  Maybe it isn't ever finished, but you have something that's broad enough to encompass a lot of useful information, but it also clearly outlines everything that does NOT fit in there.  For me, it'd be a "a database for video game consoles and their respective games."  Great!  But what about PC titles?  I might have to draw a line there.  Yes, I do collect some PC games and I'd love to peruse a killed PC game database, but that's not my passion and it is a bit fringe.  What about stuffed animals, board games, or other materials.  Um... also fun to see in a database, but I'll pass.

So, after you've set your scope, then you can ask, what are the features you want.  Blue sky it.  Make it long.

Next, prioritize them.  After that, take the top 2-3 features (depending on how difficult each one) and build a site that does all of those very, very well.  Keep in mind the process that you want to design your front-end and back-end to be expandable to your complete feature set.

This is a design and implementation approach I'd want to take for probably anything.  A thorough database, a collection tracker, a price checker.  I'd rather start out with a site with 2-3 features that implements those features far better than any competition, than to create a gate with "more features than anyone has seen!" but only provide half-baked or buggy solutions.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

2 minutes ago, RH said:

That could make sense, but it would only be for a "soft open", hammering out the details. There's no reason why I'd want to make a site public like that with JUST that data.  First impressions are lasting ones, so if people just thought it was a "Virtual Boy" site, they might come, look and not come back because it's irrelevant.  A small system series like that does make sense for good testing.

Oh, no no. I didn't mean like use that as an opener. I mean to develop for information gathering/organizing/fact checking methods as well as try out templates for what you want it too look like. I think they would be the systems you could use for doing the beta work. Say if you found out that half of your info was wrong, or something you only need to change 7 games on a virtual boy database vs like 400 for the NES. Or if you want to change the layout, etc. Then when that is figured out you have the information for the Virtual Boy or 32x or whatever in your back pocket ready to put up whenever AND your methods refined to use on larger libraries.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

1 minute ago, RH said:

Feature-creep is very real.  The best you can/should do is start with a very broad definition of what you want to do.  That's your end goal.  Maybe it isn't ever finished, but you have something that's broad enough to encompass a lot of useful information, but it also clearly outlines everything that does NOT fit in there.  For me, it'd be a "a database for video game consoles and their respective games."  Great!  But what about PC titles?  I might have to draw a line there.  Yes, I do collect some PC games and I'd love to peruse a killed PC game database, but that's not my passion and it is a bit fringe.  What about stuffed animals, board games, or other materials.  Um... also fun to see in a database, but I'll pass.

So, after you've set your scope, then you can ask, what are the features you want.  Blue sky it.  Make it long.

Next, prioritize them.  After that, take the top 2-3 features (depending on how difficult each one) and build a site that does all of those very, very well.  Keep in mind the process that you want to design your front-end and back-end to be expandable to your complete feature set.

This is a design and implementation approach I'd want to take for probably anything.  A thorough database, a collection tracker, a price checker.  I'd rather start out with a site with 2-3 features that implements those features far better than any competition, than to create a gate with "more features than anyone has seen!" but only provide half-baked or buggy solutions.

Basically I was suggesting what your saying here just testing it with the smallest of libraries so that any changes are quick to view/implement.

[phart010 | 1,707]

The database would be so big it would probably work best as an open source project in similar fashion to Wikipedia. Any registered members can contribute, any changes are always reviewed by  moderators, inaccuracies can always be contested with proper sources cited etc

[MiamiSlice | 3,095]

I can tell you the idea I had, I even bought a domain for it and spent a few days working on it only to give up. 

The idea is similar to the NES CIB contents thread, tracking everything that came inside a game box to help CIB collectors track down the accurate inserts. Essentially it would be some kind of database driven, maybe wiki driven, library of box contents, where you can click on a release (like first print RC Pro Am NA region, or Nintendo Selects Star Fox 64 3D NA region, yadda yadda) and see a list of all the contents. Each item would have its own page (with pictures) that would then link back to each of the releases it was included with. So some items might have a lot of link backs, like the health & safety insert (keep in mind just for DS there's like 8 different health & safety inserts, if you were to catalog each one uniquely). If this service could track everything, you would never again have to ask "which inserts did this game come with?" But it would be a lot of work to build up something like that. 

Edited August 19, 2020 by MiamiSlice

[MiamiSlice | 3,095]

3 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

But what if there was a database that stored each and every unique aspect about each game. There can be different types of tags classified as a “collectors” tags (eg Hangtab, Black Box, 5-Screw) or “gamer” tags (eg RPG, Multiplayer, Online Features) or even historian tags (eg Mario, Mushroom Kingdom, Coin)

Now let’s say you want to know every game that someone like Hideo Kojima was involved in. Just simply type in “Person:Hideo Kojima” in the tool and out pops a list of every game that has some sort of reference to a person named Kojima.

Or what about two parameters like “Platform:SNES” and “Genre:Role Playing” now you have a list of every SNES game with role playing elements.

What about complex ones where you want to see something EXCLUDED like this “Character:Mario” -“Person:Shigeru Miyamoto” now you have a list of every game where Mario makes an appearance that he zero connections to Marios creator.

This sort of thing has been attempted: 

• https://vgdb.io/ 
• https://www.igdb.com/discover
• https://www.mobygames.com/
• https://www.giantbomb.com/games/

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

17 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

This sort of thing has been attempted: 

• https://vgdb.io/ 
• https://www.igdb.com/discover
• https://www.mobygames.com/
• https://www.giantbomb.com/games/

But it can always be done better!

[ThePhleo | 2,185]

42 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

This sort of thing has been attempted: 

• https://vgdb.io/ 
• https://www.igdb.com/discover
• https://www.mobygames.com/
• https://www.giantbomb.com/games/

It has, but not *my* way! This comic best explains it.

https://xkcd.com/927/

 

[RH | 4,905]

25 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

It has, but not *my* way! This comic best explains it.

https://xkcd.com/927/

 

Yes, its relevant but I think it's also part of the problem with a master database setup.  We all have a very specific "dream" of what we want but nothing does (or can!) make it happen.  All of these services are very much like the standards in the comic.  It's also a reason why I've shied away from making a db site.  Also, there's nothing worse with speccing out and planning a site, trying to do your research to see if it exists and then, oh muh guh... when you start talking about it to people, someone points out the ONE site you missed in your research that does 98% of what you want!

This is why collaboration is key.

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

22 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

It has, but not *my* way! This comic best explains it.

I thought your way is a mess of nested folders and disparate Excel documents. If only someone had all the data to make a database. If only!!

[ThePhleo | 2,185]

1 hour ago, DefaultGen said:

I thought your way is a mess of nested folders and disparate Excel documents. If only someone had all the data to make a database. If only!!

HEY now....nested folders are awesome!

You just have to know exactly (and I mean EXACTLY) what you're looking for, and everything you might want to know about some hyper specific thing might be there.

...

Unless of course it's somewhere else, in which case you idiot, you lost it and where the hell IS that damn NWC trophy folder....why didn't I name the damn pictures individually instead of saving them as button mashed JPGs.

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

20 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

HEY now....nested folders are awesome!

You just have to know exactly (and I mean EXACTLY) what you're looking for, and everything you might want to know about some hyper specific thing might be there.

...

Unless of course it's somewhere else, in which case you idiot, you lost it and where the hell IS that damn NWC trophy folder....why didn't I name the damn pictures individually instead of saving them as button mashed JPGs.

The future is now old man. Although this example doesn't work because it's bringing up games with cardboard box releases and Canadian releases, not cardboard box Canadian releases  

Edited August 19, 2020 by DefaultGen

[Splain | 2,570]

I'd love to have crazy details about GB games, I compile my own spreadsheets in my spare time on the following GB game info:

All releases, dates, variants, product codes, boxes, manuals, developers, publishers, yada yada same ol same ol
Genre/sub-genres
Linked multiplayer? How many players max?
Local multiplayer? How many players max?
Are there ROM variants across regions? Sticker variants?
Save feature? (battery/password/none)
All region codes
Super GB compatibility Y/N?
Separate Super GB manual Y/N?
Game-specific GBC palette Y/N?
is GBC release of the same name a different game?
If JPN release, how playable is it to a non-speaker? (probably too subjective to be loggable)
Info about completion (requirements, different endings etc. Also not practically loggable)

Obviously there's info here that doesn't apply to any other game system, and we could think of system-specific features for every system. Looking at those "game DB" sites, the amount of collaboration, time, and probably the sheer number of contributors makes me see double. But unless we're going crazy like this, it doesn't seem like there's anything we could offer that those other sites don't already have (although I found some missing/wrong info on all of them)

[JVOSS | 1,762]

17 minutes ago, Splain said:

 (although I found some missing/wrong info on all of them)

yep i tried to help on the DB and he was not having it.  i guess the cart only data was to little.  some of the Cardboard data is way way off.  and even the cart data is bad or just smoke....

[JVOSS | 1,762]

@splain,

and i thought i was the only one going down the deep rabbit hole with the data sheets

[ThePhleo | 2,185]

2 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

The future is now old man. Although this example doesn't work because it's bringing up games with cardboard box releases and Canadian releases, not cardboard box Canadian releases  

:V

Gimme the secret, what is that magical listing apparatus.

Also, grody! Im totally not old yet! I’m still wicked rad, and totally with it! Fer sher.... I collect 30 year old nintendo cartridges for Christ sake! If that’s not the peak of cool and at the corner of awesome and fantastic then I just don’t know what is.

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

20 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

:V

Gimme the secret, what is that magical listing apparatus.

I use Notion. It's not as fast or powerful as Excel (there's no simple count function or easy way to reference a cell for example), it's more like a personal wiki that you can drop a database into. Not as good for organizing pure rows of data, but for wholesale organizing all my knowledge I love it.