[game_preservation] Game Database question

[Jan Baart]

Hello Billy,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Yeah, I own such gold editions for a couple of games. Imho there are two 
useful ways to treat them a database.

1) You include them as a "version" (whatever that is exactly) of the 
actual game and specify the extra content in the description

2) You treat them as a compilation consisting of the original game and 
its add-on packs

You could of course also link to the add-ons additionally if you chose 
the first way.

The language variants are not a problem as far as the database design is 
concerned. Collecting them all and adding them to the database is of 
course a different matter entirely.

The online add-ons can be treated like boxed ones just with a different 
retail method. I actually remember downloading the Prophecy add-on, not 
sure if I played it though.

What exactly do you mean with multi-packs? Compilations of games? Those 
aren't too hard to implement even if a game or add-on was only included 
in this package and not sold separately.

, Jan

On 14.03.2010 22:47, Billy Cain wrote:

> One thing I can add to the mix is that many games we made at Origin

> had add-ons that were first sold separately and then wewre later sold

> as a "gold" product.

>

> For instance, Wing Commander: Prophecy was a boxed product (in a ton

> of languages - which also makes for a huge headache), then we released

> a series of add-on missions online, and then we released them all as a

> gold edition.

>

> I have no recollection of fixes/changes that occurred to the gold

> product, but I am sure that there had to be some.

>

> So, there are a lot of issues for sure and I just wanted to point out this one.

>

> And another fun one is the "multi-pack" games that came out after the

> originals. Sometimes those had special new stuff, too.

>

> Best of luck everyone - this project is vital!

> Billy

>

> On 3/14/10, Jan Baart<jan_baart at yahoo.de>  wrote:

>    

>> Hi list,

>>

>> as some of you might know I'm currently working on a new game database

>> and while most conceptual problems have already been solved and lots of

>> data entered there's still one nagging unsolved question. How to handle

>> "version" of pc games. And I'm not talking about 1.01 or whatever. What

>> I mean can be best explained by examples:

>>

>> King's Quest V (EGA Release) / King's Quest V (VGA Release)

>> Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (Floppy) / Indiana Jones and the

>> Fate of Atlantis (Enhanced Talkie CD-ROM)

>>

>> Looking at the bigger pc game databases out there (mobygames,

>> thelegacy.de, ogdb.de) they all take a different approach and none of

>> them is really satisfactory. Mobygames basically ignores the concept of

>> game versions and just throws it all into one kettle. thelegacy.de has

>> them (well, Indiana Jones, not King's Quest) as editions but does not do

>> a good job at pointing out the differences and ogdb.de puts these

>> versions (as well as the Steam version, the 5.25 floppy version and the

>> re-releases) on the same hierarchical level as the amiga or mac

>> versions. That doesn't make much sense either.

>>

>> What I'm basically wondering is this. Do you guys think of these as

>> different games or just versions of games? After all, as food for

>> thought, these often differ more than ports from one system to another

>> and such ports always get separate entries in game databases.

>>

>> thanks for your feedback,

>>

>> Jan

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>>      

>