MobyGames

JohnnyWalker · 23 July 2006, 23:19

Has anyone else noticed how poorly set up MobyGames.com is in terms of the Amiga? I mean, what the hell?! Are they trying to make it difficult to catalogue the history of the Amiga there?

Let me give you an example. You can enter a game and say it was designed to be played in the A1200. Fair enough. The website then asks you which Kickstart the game required and what video mode it used....? Not only where games written for machine models, and not Kickstarts or Video Modes, but this zany system allows you quite happily to enter things like:

Quote:

'Game X' - System requirements:
Minimum CPU Class Required: A1200 (cpu class?!?)
Min. OS Class Required: Kickstart 2.0 (os class?!?)
Video Modes Supported: OCS/ECS

I bet games written to those specifications would have sold like hotcakes!

So why does MobyGames even allow us to enter it in the first place?

When I've pointed out to the powers that be at MobyGames (and gawd bless 'em for trying to create such a comprehensive website in the first place) they've balked at my suggestions to simplify it!

Let's think about this: How many of you, when you were younger Amiga game players, were aware what Kickstart a game required? As far as I'm concerned games were written for either A500s/+s, A600s or A1200s. Even if a game was written specifically with a Kickstart in mind, it would still only have been written FOR (and that is the important thing) stock Amiga models.

Now of course things were a little more complicated at the Amiga's beginning and end (before the A500 came out and after 020 and PPC came out) but for 98% of Amiga games, they can be split into these catagories of compatability: A500, A500+, A600 and A1200.

MobyGames's response was that old games like 'Archon' required Kickstart 1.0, so therefore they need people to go through all their options (Kickstart 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.0, 3.0 or 3.1!) when adding technical information for an Amiga game.

When I pointed out that the model number was tied to the 'video mode' and (for the most part) the Kickstart anyway (apart from in a very few rare cases like the first gen of the A2000), I got the following reply:

Quote:

Sorry, wrong. I had a stock A2000 with Kick 1.2, then I upgraded to Kick 1.3, then later to 2.0 and finally to 3.1. Also, I upgraded from OCS to ECS somewhere in the middle. Kickstart and chipset are completely independent.

Ok, technically correct. Well done, Mr. MobyGames. Slight problem: No game in history was ever specfically designed to run on an A2000 with ECS and KS3.1 -- So why bother giving the option to enter it into a games database as the specification a game was written for?!

Despite a slightly politer version of the above, I recieved no reply. End of discussion. MobyGames has spoken. (etc)

Thank god for the HOL!!!

JohnnyWalker · 23 July 2006, 23:32

Edit: sorry for this, there's some seriously weird issues with the formatting on this forum!

Edit: Found it! For some reason the following lines mess up any formatting in a message... how weird is that?

minimum cpu class required: a1200 (cpu class?!?) minimum os class required: kickstart 2.0 (os class?!?)

Ironclaw · 23 July 2006, 23:37

"???" what?

... expected a reply after just 13 mins?

EDIT:

Oh "Today at 23:36. Reason: Something SERIOUSLY wrong with the software on this forum!"

synchro · 23 July 2006, 23:47

I thought mobygames was pretty good myself ....

Found loads of covers for some startrek games that are totally unobtainable now.....it was the only place on the net that had them.

JohnnyWalker · 23 July 2006, 23:49

MobyGames is an excellent idea, and in a few years it might well be what it has set out to be: The iMDB.com of videogames! But the issues I've mentioned have nothing to do with availability or lack of availability of Star Trek covers.

synchro · 24 July 2006, 02:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyWalker

MobyGames is an excellent idea, and in a few years it might well be what it has set out to be: The iMDB.com of videogames! But the issues I've mentioned have nothing to do with availability or lack of availability of Star Trek covers.

LOL !!
Ye i know covers had nothing to do with your question sorry about that !!
To be honest i dont know why they bother with the configs at all ???
If its just a history of games why go to all the trouble of amiga versions that ran it.....Maybe its just me but personally seeing they cover such a wide spectrum of games and machines i myself would have....ie

Alien Breed
Commodore Amiga
screenshots
A review
the covers i feel are an added bonus

As the site is really a history of games i dont think specs are needed...But thats my opinion ...We have HOL for Amiga stuff !!

Paul · 24 July 2006, 10:36

Moved to Amiga websites reviews

Retro-Nerd · 24 July 2006, 20:00

Besides HOL i'm using The Legacy for amiga pics & infos:

http://thelegacy.de/Start/english.html

JohnnyWalker · 31 July 2006, 15:29

Quote:

Moved to Amiga websites reviews

Is this really an "Amiga Website Review" or a comment on how the Amiga is represented by the gaming community as a whole?

DrBong · 31 July 2006, 18:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyWalker

Has anyone else noticed how poorly set up MobyGames.com is in terms of the Amiga?

Without trying to be overly-harsh or biased, Moby Games like many multi-platform databases tries to bite off more than it can chew. It tries to be the jack of all trades, but unfortunately ends up being the master of nothing! The admin hasn't changed the interface in any major way for some years now and replies like the one you got with respect to suggested improvements are not uncommon from what I've heard.

Making major improvements means either overhauling the code for the user interface or coding something from scratch, which is a hard thing to come to grips with when a game database is a hobby that costs you time and/or money. The alternative is to deny that there's much wrong with the existing database set-up, which I'm guessing is the "coping strategy" the Moby Games admin has chosen

Fortunately for HOL users like yourself, the HOL Team regularly harrasses (and horsewhips) RCK to code improvements to the user interface......and every now and again he comes up with the goods!

BippyM · 31 July 2006, 18:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyWalker

Is this really an "Amiga Website Review" or a comment on how the Amiga is represented by the gaming community as a whole?

It's about a website so is moved!

RCK · 01 August 2006, 15:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrBong

Fortunately for HOL users like yourself, the HOL Team regularly harrasses (and horsewhips) RCK to code improvements to the user interface......and every now and again he comes up with the goods!

haha

DrBong · 02 August 2006, 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrBong

Fortunately for HOL users like yourself, the HOL Team regularly harrasses (and horsewhips) RCK to code improvements to the user interface......and every now and again he comes up with the goods!

Quote:

Originally Posted by RCK

haha

Get back to your computer and code, code, code for HOL goddamn it!!!

Retro-Nerd · 12 September 2013, 17:16

Aargh! They ruined mobygames.com. Looks awful now.

http://www.mobygames.com/

Forum comment from the ex website designer or contributer (i don't know). Very true. I hate this updates in smartphone/tablet look.

Quote:

Wow. 12 years of my work on this site ended with this hideous piece of shit with half of essential features completely removed.

Not a pretty good-bye, but one filled with sadness and powerless anger.

thevoice · 12 September 2013, 19:27

to make it even more worse is dbgl cant fetch screens and game infos anymore.

but at least generation iphone will be happy with this ummm design

lilalurl · 12 September 2013, 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Forum comment from the ex website designer or contributer (i don't know). Very true. I hate this updates in smartphone/tablet look.

YID YANG is one of the major contributors and an approver (quite recently though).

More importantly, from the Redesign feedback and Redesign bug threads, I have learnt that the approvers had access to the new design for quite a while and they gave feedback (they have a private forum).
Nothing (or almost nothing) seems to have been taken into account, including things that appear obviously broken.

It is a bit as if RCK redesigned EAB (or HOL), asked the moderators (or HOL members/supercontributors) for feedback and in the end changed the design without taking any feedback into account and left it broken.

Let's see how it evolves, but IMO if in one month major improvements are not seen, there will be a large departure of contributors and approvers.
There was already a departure of some when the site was bought by Gamefly.

Last time I checked (earlier this afternoon) Sciere, who is the most important contributor and most active admin (not from the original team and henceforth not responsible for the decisions on such changes) had not posted. I am sure many people are waiting to hear from him.

RCK · 13 September 2013, 13:43

The new design is quite bad

Retro-Nerd · 18 September 2013, 17:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by lilalurl

YID YANG is one of the major contributors and an approver (quite recently though).

More importantly, from the Redesign feedback and Redesign bug threads, I have learnt that the approvers had access to the new design for quite a while and they gave feedback (they have a private forum).
Nothing (or almost nothing) seems to have been taken into account, including things that appear obviously broken.

It is a bit as if RCK redesigned EAB (or HOL), asked the moderators (or HOL members/supercontributors) for feedback and in the end changed the design without taking any feedback into account and left it broken.

Let's see how it evolves, but IMO if in one month major improvements are not seen, there will be a large departure of contributors and approvers.
There was already a departure of some when the site was bought by Gamefly.

Last time I checked (earlier this afternoon) Sciere, who is the most important contributor and most active admin (not from the original team and henceforth not responsible for the decisions on such changes) had not posted. I am sure many people are waiting to hear from him.

Looks like mobygames was already sold in 2010 to GameFly. One of the 3 guys in charge, Corn Popper, said he can't comment anything yet (there could be legal action). I would be pissed too, if i had contributed thousands of pictures and database entries for MB.

http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/dgm,181117/

lilalurl · 18 September 2013, 18:13

Yes. Iggy made a post recently that sums up the messy events up till today:
http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/dgm,180655/

The worst thing about the sale to GameFly is that we (contributors and most/all approvers) learnt about it only when we saw the GameFly logo appear at the bottom of MobyGames (it has disappeared recently...).

That was when some major contributors/approvers left (such as Foxhack, who is the one who started the thread about the logo that is listed in the thread by Iggy I linked to).

In the end, there weren't any real change, except the logo, so I think many people stayed because things actually had not gotten worse.

What Corn Popper refers to is more exactly that he could not have told anything to the community about the sale back then (2010) before it was concluded because he was under an NDA (non-disclosure agreement).

But more or less the same thing happened with the redesign (approvers could have a preview but not the community which only actually told it would be effective the day before)

I won't comment about the personalities because I think most people were dedicated to the site at one time. For instance, you could quickly get typos fixed (post by me and reply by Corn Popper):
http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/dgm,119220/

But little by little it got harder to communicate with people who could make changes and even major changes such as new platforms happened randomly only.

It is understandable that founders or administrators decide to take some distance from the project with changes in their lives. And even making some profit by selling the site is OK I guess (I don't approve but well they put money in it).
The real issue is the lack of communication and that feeling of backstabbing that the community got from the redesign.

PS: For those who don't know (I didn't either before 2010

) , GameFly is a video game rental service in the US.

Retro-Nerd · 18 September 2013, 18:21

A video game rental service (just checked it, never cared who they are) bought a database site for old games? Me wonders what their exact future plans might be.

23 July 2006, 23:32	#2
JohnnyWalker aka ThunderPeel2001 Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: UK Age: 45 Posts: 303	Edit: sorry for this, there's some seriously weird issues with the formatting on this forum! Edit: Found it! For some reason the following lines mess up any formatting in a message... how weird is that? minimum cpu class required: a1200 (cpu class?!?) minimum os class required: kickstart 2.0 (os class?!?) Last edited by JohnnyWalker; 23 July 2006 at 23:43.

23 July 2006, 23:37	#3
Ironclaw Banned Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: ... Age: 45 Posts: 3,313	"???" what? ... expected a reply after just 13 mins? EDIT: Oh "Today at 23:36. Reason: Something SERIOUSLY wrong with the software on this forum!"

23 July 2006, 23:47	#4
synchro Sending You Back In Time Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: UK Age: 61 Posts: 986	I thought mobygames was pretty good myself .... Found loads of covers for some startrek games that are totally unobtainable now.....it was the only place on the net that had them.

23 July 2006, 23:49	#5
JohnnyWalker aka ThunderPeel2001 Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: UK Age: 45 Posts: 303	MobyGames is an excellent idea, and in a few years it might well be what it has set out to be: The iMDB.com of videogames! But the issues I've mentioned have nothing to do with availability or lack of availability of Star Trek covers.

24 July 2006, 10:36	#7
Paul RIP Friends Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: UK Posts: 2,157	Moved to Amiga websites reviews

24 July 2006, 20:00	#8
Retro-Nerd Missile Command Champion Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Germany Age: 52 Posts: 12,438	Besides HOL i'm using The Legacy for amiga pics & infos: http://thelegacy.de/Start/english.html

12 September 2013, 19:27	#15
thevoice Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: germany Posts: 149	to make it even more worse is dbgl cant fetch screens and game infos anymore. but at least generation iphone will be happy with this ummm design

13 September 2013, 13:43	#17
RCK Administrator Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Paris / France Age: 45 Posts: 3,091	The new design is quite bad

18 September 2013, 18:13	#19
lilalurl Global Moderator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: France Posts: 3,289	Yes. Iggy made a post recently that sums up the messy events up till today: http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/dgm,180655/ The worst thing about the sale to GameFly is that we (contributors and most/all approvers) learnt about it only when we saw the GameFly logo appear at the bottom of MobyGames (it has disappeared recently...). That was when some major contributors/approvers left (such as Foxhack, who is the one who started the thread about the logo that is listed in the thread by Iggy I linked to). In the end, there weren't any real change, except the logo, so I think many people stayed because things actually had not gotten worse. What Corn Popper refers to is more exactly that he could not have told anything to the community about the sale back then (2010) before it was concluded because he was under an NDA (non-disclosure agreement). But more or less the same thing happened with the redesign (approvers could have a preview but not the community which only actually told it would be effective the day before) I won't comment about the personalities because I think most people were dedicated to the site at one time. For instance, you could quickly get typos fixed (post by me and reply by Corn Popper): http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/dgm,119220/ But little by little it got harder to communicate with people who could make changes and even major changes such as new platforms happened randomly only. It is understandable that founders or administrators decide to take some distance from the project with changes in their lives. And even making some profit by selling the site is OK I guess (I don't approve but well they put money in it). The real issue is the lack of communication and that feeling of backstabbing that the community got from the redesign. PS: For those who don't know (I didn't either before 2010 ) , GameFly is a video game rental service in the US.

18 September 2013, 18:21	#20
Retro-Nerd Missile Command Champion Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Germany Age: 52 Posts: 12,438	A video game rental service (just checked it, never cared who they are) bought a database site for old games? Me wonders what their exact future plans might be.

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