Game titling

[MZ per X]

Giving games its titles wasn't ideal at MobyGames, to say the least. Kevin posted his thoughts about this issues in another thread:

Some stuff I would like to see implemented in this project would be a more organized titling system than MG. At MG English is the main title and others are a bunch of loose and separated 'alternate titles'. A system where you can enter multiple titles and then select "English Title", "French Title", "Japanese Title" for each title from a drop down list or something would be far more efficient and can make searching for a localized title more easy. With little flags next to them if possible . For the non-alphabet languages (Japanese, Chinese, Korean,...) a subfield should be available too for the romanized title. This way the non-alphabet title and it's romanization are always connected. If the data is available a contributor should be able to select the original release title from that list as well, instead of English 1st like MG.

While this issue already was on our radar, I still optimized our data model a bit for it, and now want to give an overview about how it's planned to be at Oregami.

First of all, titles will be its own data object and will (at least) have the properties of native spelling, transliteration and language attached to it.

Second, we will be able to link titles to both games and releases. Why that?

The linking to a game entry will have more of an informal character. Here, we can save a main title for each language for easy searching, common abbreviations, or inofficial titles like The Bard's Tale 4 for the game Dragon Wars.

The linking to a release will be the formal (i.e. with source) saving of titles. If someone contributes release data, he will be able to link titles to this release, but needs to specify where he found this exact title within the release.

Using the given languages for each title, we will be able to show the contributor the title he knows. If he/she specified his preferred language or country of origin, that is.

[Patrick]

We should also allow the user to set "show original title" (i.e. the title of the earliest release in the database) as preferred title. Personally I don't really care but this was one of the most requested features at MobyGames.

[MZ per X]

Moved this thread to new board "Features".

[idrougge]

I have spent some time thinking about how a new title system should be implemented at MG. It turns out to be a system of several planes or axes that define every title.

Der Titel is (German) (original release) for (Amiga).
The Title is (American) (rerelease) for (PC) and (Apple II).
Working Title is (pre-release title).
タイトル is (Japanese) (spelling) of (original release) for (all platforms).
Taitoru is (Japanese) (transliteration) of (original release) for (all platforms).
Taitoru FM is (Japanese) (transliteration) of (original release) for (FM Towns).
Titluschka is (Russian) (transliteration) of (nickname).
TTL is (English/German) (official) (abbreviation).
題名 is (Chinese) (traditional) (spelling) of (Taiwan) (pirate release) for (Super A'can).
Cheap Title is (European) (Kixx) (budget release).
Super Title is (worldwide) (SNES) release.
Mega Title is (PAL) (Mega Drive) release.
Title Carnage is (American) (Genesis) (title screen).

This way, by defining a set of attributes which may be combined, most titles can have a clear definition and be applied according to the user's locale and platform.

The attributes I can foresee are:
Platform
Re-release
Budget
Pre-release
Country
Region
Business territory (Nintendo region codes, Africa and Middle East part of Europe)
Language
In-game
On-disk
Time period
Abbreviation
Nick names
Transliteration

A title could very well have one or several of each of these attributes, and hence adapt the display. And attributes have certain priorities, so even if one title is defined as "world-wide", it will not apply if the user comes from Iraq, where it as sole exception was called "Glorious Saddam Game" instead of "Super Soccer".

[MZ per X]

I have spent some time thinking about how a new title system should be implemented at MG. It turns out to be a system of several planes or axes that define every title.

After some thought, I like your idea very much. I think we should go for it, thanks. Main reason is that the contribution of titles becomes independent of release data.

The attributes I can foresee are:

Let me group and comment these a bit for introduction into the UML model.

Transliteration
Language

These two are game-independent attributes of a title.

Abbreviation
Nick names

These are game-specific attributes, collected here.

In-game
On-disk

These are game-specific attributes, too, collected here.

Re-release
Budget
Pre-release

These are game-specific attributes, too. I'm not sure whether these can be obtained by linking to other parts of the data model. I guess we just need a new data list for these.

Country
Region
Business territory (Nintendo region codes, Africa and Middle East part of Europe)

In the Oregami data model, we have only one table "Region" where we collect all territorial data. (It is not fully implemented, yet.)

Platform

This one shall be linked to the available platforms in the database.

Time period

Do you have an example for this?

[Patrick]

Time period

Do you have an example for this?

I don't have a specific title, but I know of a few games which originally had name X and changed the title to Y a few days or weeks later. This would apply when the name change occurred during a patch (or without any other change) instead of a new release (which would make it a re-release title). Games which are distributed online.

[Ultyzarus]

We will also have to define standards for transliteration. I am only familiar with Japanese, so I'll bring my input about it:

The game Shin Dynasty Warriors Gundam:
Japanese title: 真・ガンダム無双
Official transliterated title (on cover): Shin Gundam Musou
http://global.mediagen.fr/shin-dynasty- ... 395141.jpg (tried using a href tag, didn't work)


This could be transliterated in many ways: "Gundam"(right) could be "Gandamu"(wrong) and "Musou" could be "Musō".
In MG, we used to have the "ō" rather than "ou" as a standard, but they are equally correct, we just have to be consistent. What I suggest is using the "ō" standard, but add the official transliteration when available (if it uses a different system).

So we'd have:
Japanese title: 真・ガンダム無双
Japanese transliteration: Shin Gundam Musō
Official Japanese transliteration: Shin Gundam Musou

I think we should at all cost avoid the likes of Fainaru Fantajii (Final Fantasy) and Gandamu...

[MZ per X]

We will also have to define standards for transliteration. I am only familiar with Japanese, so I'll bring my input about it:

I know some Russian.

What I suggest is using the "ō" standard, but add the official transliteration when available (if it uses a different system).

Hmm, does that mean two attributes to a title? One game-independent Oregami transliteration and one game-specific official transliteration?

[Ultyzarus]

We will also have to define standards for transliteration. I am only familiar with Japanese, so I'll bring my input about it:

I know some Russian.

What I suggest is using the "ō" standard, but add the official transliteration when available (if it uses a different system).

Hmm, does that mean two attributes to a title? One game-independent Oregami transliteration and one game-specific official transliteration?

Yes, because not all games have official transliteration, but every title needs a transliteration. We will have to provide those, and be consistent with how we do it. I'm no expert, but if we can get Jotaro Raido to participate, he'll easily sort that out. I do however have enough knowledge to provide a good transliteration to any title (with a few exceptions when they create new words using katakana, like the game Weltorv Estleia, which is spelled roughly Berutōbu Esutoreia. Anyway these usually have an official transliteration...)

[MZ per X]

Ah, okay. I will implement it this way, then. Thanks!

[MZ per X]

Ah, okay. I will implement it this way, then. Thanks!

Done.

I changed the title types (abbreviation, nick, budget release, etc.) and the title locations (in-game, front cover, etc.) to tag lists, so we will be able to choose more than one of each for a title-game link. Furthermore, I developed the region model a bit further, now we can assign countries to non-country regions, to build continents or business regions, for instance.

All in all, this looks much better than what we had before. So thanks again to Iggy, Patrick, and Ultyzarus.

[Ultyzarus]

Here is another question about titles. While managing my collection for future Oregami purposes, I started noting the different titles that appeared on the Game Case, Official websites, etc. I came upon on that had a different title of the Front cover and on the top/sides, etc.

Which one would we keep as main title in this case?
Front: 3-D WorldRunner
Sides/Top: The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner

There are also the instances where the title can be interpreted because one part is written bigger, above the other part:

A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV Online
or
Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn

If we go with how it is publicized, then we'd go with the latter, but wouldn't both be acceptable?
http://na.square-enix.com/us/games/fina ... alm-reborn

[Tracy Poff]

Which one would we keep as main title in this case?
Front: 3-D WorldRunner
Sides/Top: The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner

I'd say "The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner", especially given that this title is on the title screen of the game, too. Given that even publishers aren't always consistent about the titles of games, there are likely to be plenty of cases where we'll have to make a judgment call. Personally, I'd lean towards using titles on spines over titles on covers, since the titles on covers are very often stylized for the sake of a pretty logo. Certainly we wouldn't consider the proper spelling of "The Incredible Machine" to be "The Incredible Mach[BOLT]ne", just because the cover art sometimes puts it that way.

There are also the instances where the title can be interpreted because one part is written bigger, above the other part:

A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV Online
or
Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn

If we go with how it is publicized, then we'd go with the latter, but wouldn't both be acceptable?
http://na.square-enix.com/us/games/fina ... alm-reborn

If the publisher is consistent with calling it FFXIV:ARR in promotional material, then that's a pretty good indication of what the proper title is.

Evidence in favor of FFXIV first: the official website is at http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/; the official material regularly calls it simply "Final Fantasy XIV", even when referring to the new release; the copyright lines on the screenshots mention "Final Fantasy XIV" but not "A Realm Reborn".

Evidence in favor of ARR first: bigger text on the logo; the footer of the page mentions "A REALM REBORN is a registered trademark or trademark of Square Enix Co., Ltd." but doesn't mention FFXIV.

In this case, I don't think that the bigger text on the logo is a good enough reason to consider "A Realm Reborn: Final Fantsy XIV Online" to be a title of the game, if it's never referred to in promotional material using that title.

[Ultyzarus]

From the Game talk thread:

Yeah, saw it, nice. Please note that we switched from linking the titles to an R to linking them to the G. That would mean all the titles you collected would be added to the respective game's page, ideally along with the attributes we discussed in the titling thread.

Couldn't the titles be linked at all the levels that apply? Meaning we would have all the different titles stored with the G, with a list of all that apply to the specific R (scrolling list with checkboxes ((X)), maybe)

At G level:
Main Title: The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner
Main Title (2): 3-D WorldRunner
Common Spelling: 3D World Runner (might be possible to add different spelling, if only for search purposes, I often have trouble getting this game as a result because of the hyphen in "3-D" and the fact that "World" and "Runner" are in one word.
Japanese Title: とびだせ大作戦
Japanese Title Romanization: Tobidase Daisakusen

At R level, we'd have something like:
(x)Front cover: 3-D WorldRunner
( )Front Cover Subtitle
(x)Back cover: The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner
(x)Sides / Spine: The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner
(x)Title screen: The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner
(x)Manual: 3-D WorldRunner
(x)Medium: 3-D WorldRunner
( )Installer
( )Publisher Website
( )Official Website

[MZ per X]

Okay, I think we have two different problems to solve here:

1) Title variations

This is the case of World Runner vs. WorldRunner, or 3D vs. 3-D. This is game-independent, I think, just like the official Oregami transliteration.

It could be solved by giving users the possibility to add variations/misspellings to a title, but only if these variations have been spotted at an official source like website, title screen, or covers, I guess.

I'd even go so far in saying that ARR:FFXIV could only be a variation of FFXIV:ARR.

2) Main titles

This is the thing that brought Mobygames so much critique: US titles were shown everywhere. IMHO, the whole concept of a main title for a game is somehow flawed.

Maybe we should try to get rid of the concept as much as possible, which is at the core of Iggy's idea above. Do we need to define a main title at all? Would it be possible to adjust all data displays based on the user's country of origin, or preferences, and according to the attributes with which different titles are linked to the game (see above) ?

Couldn't the titles be linked at all the levels that apply? Meaning we would have all the different titles stored with the G, with a list of all that apply to the specific R (scrolling list with checkboxes ((X)), maybe)

This sounds like a good idea. The titling of the individual release should be documented, despite the new concept. Will think about this a little further.