Talk:List of Video Game Fandoms

Organization/categorization overhaul

Taking a look at this page, I don't think many of the distinctions/divisions here are consistent or timely. I'd like to suggest that this page be organized by genre alone, such as first-person shooter, dating simulation, roguelike. I'm willing to put in the work myself, but I want others' opinions before I go and make such a drastic change.

The primary methods of organizing games on this page currently are between platforms and then if a game is Eastern or Western. Organizing by console made sense when console exclusives were the norm and ports would take years. But with exclusives largely dwindling outside of Nintendo, PC ports of console exclusives coming sooner, and Microsoft abandoning console exclusivity altogether for Xbox, it's outdated. The organization may result in confusion for people skimming, even with the notices on the page.

The second distinction is between if a game is "Eastern" or "Western". Again, while this may have applied more in the past, development teams have gone worldwide and it is possible for game dev teams to straddle both sides. Someone who doesn't know where the development team for the game they're looking for is based may not find the distinction clear or useful. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 04:42, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I think a reorganization in that vein could be a good idea! Before reorganization work starts, I have some questions/things to think about!

First, I think maybe it could be worth keeping genres very broad when possible. For instance, the visual novel genre has a lot of gameplay subgenres such as stat-raisers and dating sims, as well as technical subgenres like ADV vs NVL, sound novels and kinetic novels etc etc etc. This might also head off nitpicky edit wars over whether any romance VN with multiple story paths counts as a dating sim or not. (I know people have strong opinions about some VNs' categorization and can think of a few I would want to nitpick about too haha)

But then there are ALSO subgenres that have a super distinct identity such as Metroidvanias (action platformer with an emphasis on exploration/mapmaking, requiring specific upgrades to access new areas; eg Hollow Knight) or bullet hell (spin-off from shmups where the core gameplay is dodging attacks/hazards; eg Just Shapes & Beats) and it may be worth having those as distinct categories... thoughts, anyone???

Also there's the question of how to categorize games with cross-genre gameplay. For instance the Zero Escape series are equal parts puzzle game and visual novel; Undertale is an RPG but the bullet hell combat is one of the things that makes it distinctive. Would we want to list such games multiple times under every relevant category??? I feel like the latter is better because some games are a lot harder to give a "primary" genre than others but... what's everyone's opinions...... how much does everybody care Feralphoenix (talk) 21:59, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I do think the Eastern/Western distinction might still be relevant -- although maybe it's more "games that have big fandoms in two or more language spheres" than specifically "Japan vs. Anglosphere" at this point. I dunno, my perspective is probably pretty weird here b/c I mostly thinking, like, people who dissect all the translation choices in the old Final Fantasy games, and that might not be a very central example of fandom activity. Quaelegit (talk) 23:42, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Also, re: games being in multiple categories, I was trying yesterday to put things in the category that they are *most* known for (especially like franchises with multiple kinds of games, I'd put it in the category for the first/most prominent game according to wikipedia/the games fan wiki/how i usually see people discussing the game). I realize this is.....not at all a rigorous solution though, and very much open to debate...but i can't think of a more rigorous way to do it right now, as you point out a lot of games really do fit into multiple categories! Quaelegit (talk) 23:42, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Purpose of this Page

I'm a little confused at the purpose for this page; it serves the same purpose as a category, but we already have a games and video game category. On top of that, we also have a Video Game page where more detailed information about video games in fandom is located. I will place an attention gardener tag on this talk page since both of you are looking for opinions, and I also question the page's purpose. It's possible more categories for video games could be made (similar to how there's a whole category for Disney Channel media, as a branch off of the animation cat) but organizing categories isn't my strong suit, so an attention tag may help. Patchlamb (talk) 22:39, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I think it's supposed to be an example page for listing some prominent video game fandoms?? Like, if someone just wants to get a brief overview of "what are some video games that have generated notable fan activity", I'd find a page like this more comprehensible than the categories page that has EVERYTHING. Maybe I shouldn't have started adding so many examples yesterday, then, but i wanted to include some more recent & prominent ones. Quaelegit (talk) 23:36, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Even though Fanlore does not have a notability rule, only listing fandoms with notable fan activity brings into question what counts as a notable fandom or not. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 01:09, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I did a little digging into Fanlore's list pages. All pages using the list template can be found at this link. Most of the "List of" pages on Fanlore are fannish lists but there also a lot of pages like this one - most of them have very little content compared to this page, and are just bullet-pointed lists. Some examples include; List of Edutainment Fandoms, *List of Witch Fandoms, List of Military Fandoms. So what should we do with this page now that we're questioning its purpose?

1. We could merge this list with a more general discussion page. Our Video Game page does need expansion, but I'm not sure adding a very large list of fandoms with little discussion is the best idea right now. Not on its own anyway. The Video Game page would need to be further expanded to discuss the different types of genres and subgenres. And there are discussions above about how video games fandoms have changed over the years. Those would be great additions to the page!
2. However, we could also reorganise this list by genre as proposed above. We could also make it clear on the Video Game page that this list we're linking to includes examples of the various genres and subgenres. So this page would serve to point readers in the direction of specific genre of games, without cluttering up the Video Game page, which should be much longer than it is.

I think it should be up to editors on each individual list page to decide how to move forward. There might be a third option I haven't considered. What do people think would be the best way forward? --Auntags (talk) 00:38, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Based on this and the previous discussions, my personal proposal is to: keep this page, don't merge with the main page; organzine primarily by genre; focus on, but do not be exclusive to, genres that have distinct communities; keep genres broad when possible; include a brief overview of each fandom/community and link to the main page for that fandom. For example, using fighting games, rhythm games, and Nintendo games:

• Games By Gerne
  • Fighting Games
    • Community overview
    • King of Fighters, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat
  • Rhythm Games
    • Community overview
    • Stepmania, Dance Dance Revolution, Pop'N
• Games By Other Community Type
  • Nintendo
    • Community overview
    • Mario, Pokemon, Kirby

In this organization style, there may also be a need to have games by publishers as a third top-level category since Nintendo, Bethesda, etc. all have distinct fandoms. This will more than likely result in games being listed in multiple places, but I think that's fine. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 11:36, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I like this (or something like it), and I'd like an additional bit at the top, explaining that this isn't "all video games on Fanlore" (see the Video Games category for that), and some info about which games are being listed here. Most popular/well-known? Ones with the most active fandom presence? Iconic samples in each category? We probably need some discussion about what categories to use - are they going to be mutually exclusive? Or will there be games that fit in multiple categories? (If we have "Nintendo Games" as a category, obvs some of those will also work in genre categories.) I'd also be happy for half this page to be red links for now, for games we know we want to cover but don't yet have pages. (I like red-link heavy pages. They give new editors a good place to start.)

I might also like this to be limited to video games that started as games, rather than conversions from other media. (Which would exclude Witcher games, I think, but I'm willing to be overridden on that--I know a whole lot of people have no idea that the books exist.) ...Will there be a category of "AAA games?" (WTF are AAA games? Are there A games? B games? ...maybe we need a page about AAA Games.) - Elf (talk) 18:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Addressing everything point by point:

What categories should we use?: Genre, publisher, and activity fandoms/communities (emulation, speedrunning, let's play etc.) Do note with the latter, it'd just be a list of activities- otherwise, it may become an indiscriminate list of people/sites/etc.

All video games?: A good limitation would be to avoid every entry for a franchise, and instead just link to the franchise/series page if applicable. For example, just link the Legend of Zelda page instead of linking every single page for Zelda. This avoids long lists for games with lots of entires- Zelda, Dance Dance Revolution, etc. That's better covered by the franchise/series page. Other than that, I do think we should post links for franchises that didn't start as video games, but have notable video game adaptations. Cyberpunk is probably the biggest example off the top of my head.

Should games be in multiple categories?: Yes, it's inevitable. I think it's fine.

AAA/AA/indie categories?: No. What counts as AAA, AA, and indie has been significantly watered down over the years, both with large corporations supporting indies, former indies being purchased/owned by those large corps (e.g. Double Fine & Xbox), the presense of indie publishers (Devolver), etc. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 02:09, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Redlinks?: Yes yes yes. The video games section of the Fanlore Wishlist is my personal "stuff I want to see" list and half of it is red links. I think video games could be covered so much better on Fanlore; anything that encourages folks to add more. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 02:13, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I like Pinky G Rocket's proposal. I also think it's kind of inevitable that games will be in multiple categories, since as people have already pointed out there's a lot of overlap and crossover between genres and fan communities. Quaelegit (talk) 01:38, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I think another distinction that needs to be made with my proposal is whether or not to include fandoms that revolve around fangames, and fandoms that revolve around particular activities rather than a given source material, publisher, etc. (e.g. speedrunning). It's something I'm willing to go either way on.

I'll wait to hear if anyone has any other suggestions or objections, but I'm willing to do the overhaul to the page myself if everyone is on board with this proposal. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 16:16, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

I was going to add something similar to this on Talk:Horror but then thought I would add it here so as to keep the discussion all in one place. Bearing in mind Fanlore's purpose to document fandom as in fannish activity of all kinds, I'm not sure what "List of X" pages add. What are we documenting here that can't be documented more effectively on full pages for those fandoms? And if we are just creating these for navigational purposes, why not just use categories? To me, categories are best suited to navigation and if we want to improve how those are organised/make more, we absolutely can. Pages are for the actual documentation of fandoms and so a list page that's just fandoms (even if it contains a summary of each) doesn't strike me as adding anything. And if we want redlinks, that's what the Wish List is designed for. If we want to think about more ways to put redlinks in front of people, or creating subpages of the Wish List so it's easier to digest/navigate, I think that's a great thing to brainstorm. But then I think we should approach things from that angle rather than creating list pages that duplicate the role of the Wish List. Or to put it another way, what purpose would this serve that's not being covered by either a) a category, b) a dedicated page about each fandom or c) the Wish List? --enchantedsleeper (talk) 10:03, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Personally I find the "Category:" pages hard to navigate. It's a tossup whether things are in the top section b/c they are their own subcategories, or in the second section b/c they only have one page. If I'm looking for something specific I can use "ctrl-f" just fine, but if I'm trying to look for multiple things, or look for several examples of a class of things, it gets annoying to jump back and forth. So I'd vote in favor of keeping this List Page. (though I also think the prominent "see also [link to Category: page]" message at the top of the page is a very good idea, and more list pages should have that.) Quaelegit (talk) 04:06, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Additionally, I worry that the porting the genre/publisher/etc. categorization (that Pinky and Elf discussed further up, in March 2022) would lead to confusion between these "type" subcategories and "specific fandom" subcategories (for fandoms like Ace Attourney that already have lots of pages). Basically, if instead of this list I have to go to the "Category:Video Games" Page and see "Ace Attourney, Action Games, Action-Adventure Games, Arcade Games, Assassin's Creed" listed at the top, that will make it even more annoying for me. I guess we could lose the genre categories, but I'd rather keep this list page. Quaelegit (talk) 04:29, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Update: If anyone is following along the conversation (or backreading from the future), the conversation moved to Template talk:List.

I am going to copy-paste one point back over here, though, because I think it applies specifically to this page rather than to other list pages being considered for deletion: "as a reader trying to learn things from Fanlore, I like those genre categories. I don't think they belong on a Wishlist (which should be organized by what kind of work is needed probably?) and I don't think they should be elevated to Fanlore Categories b/c it would be a nightmare to organize. I guess that's an answer to your question of "what is this [the purpose of this page]" -- it gives a sense of how the media is organized in the minds of fans, in these genre groupings that aren't always specifically defined, have a lot of overlaps, and even change a lot over time, but are still useful for driving fan discussion and getting an understanding of the medium." I guess this ties into Patchlamb's and Auntag's earlier discussion about whether this page should be reworked and folded into the main Video Game page. Quaelegit (talk) 10:35, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

It seems like we have agreed to continue hosting curated lists of fandoms, and that there are also other curated list pages outside of this one. If that's so, are we in agreement that I can go ahead and remove the attention gardener flag? Patchlamb (talk) 20:58, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Just from re-reading this page and the talk on the List Template's talk page (see my previous comment from 15 April 2022) I'm not sure if it's agreement or just that everyone kind of forgot about the discussion for a while (...or at last I forgpt about it, maybe everyone else was keeping a better eye on the pages). I was arguing for keeping things (or at least this page) as-is, so I'm definitely fine with removing the attention gardener flag here, but if people do still want their points addressed or have further comments I will do my best to followup on both pages. -- Quaelegit (talk) 00:46, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Doesn't look like there are any other concerns or points on this page (I see now it moved to Template talk:List), and since I added the flag I will go ahead and remove it. Patchlamb (talk) 15:09, 6 December 2022 (UTC)