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Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:26 am
by Velvet Crowe
I've tried to add games from Newgrounds and other flash games, but I really don't get the crtieria that's accepted here. Why is Pico's School and Dan'N'Me consider acceptable but not something like Disorderly or Johnny Rocketfingers? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

Re: Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2018 8:42 am
by mpowell
We have a criteria similar to the "IMDB Rule" we use for movies and TV shows. In order to ensure that it's a valid entry, we look the game up on a couple external database sites, GameFaqs being the main one. If it doesn't appear here, we generally don't accept it into Criticker. Sorry for not making this more clear earlier... we didn't want to set any firm rules too early in the life-cycle for Criticker Games.

Re: Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:08 am
by Velvet Crowe
mpowell wrote:We have a criteria similar to the "IMDB Rule" we use for movies and TV shows. In order to ensure that it's a valid entry, we look the game up on a couple external database sites, GameFaqs being the main one. If it doesn't appear here, we generally don't accept it into Criticker. Sorry for not making this more clear earlier... we didn't want to set any firm rules too early in the life-cycle for Criticker Games.


That still doesn't make much sense to me - why is Gamefaq's the foundation for whether or not something should be added? I don't see how that makes Pico's School more valid than Johnny Rocketfingers, especially when the former is much more barebones by comparison.

Re: Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2018 10:49 am
by mpowell
It's just that we need a line in the sand, which we're not in charge of arbitrating. We don't have (nearly) the manpower to evaluate every game and determine if it's legitimate. The IMDB rule has served us very well for films, and GameFaqs seems to be the most valid alternative for games. The only games w/out GameFaqs entries which we've been letting through, so far, are those that have Wikipedia entries.

Re: Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2019 5:43 am
by Zaltys
That's a poor standard for freeware-focused genres such as Interactive Fiction and roguelikes. Most of those are not allowed on GameFAQs, not even the competition/indie award winners, because GameFAQs focuses on commercial games.

For example, most of the XYZZY Award winners are not on GameFAQs. Many free Android/iOS games are also excluded.

And on the flip-side, every single trash game that got listed on Steam are on GameFAQs, because those get synced automatically. That includes games that nobody bought, and even many to-be-released games that got cancelled.

Checking MobyGames might be better, since it doesn't exclude free games. Adding new games to Moby is a complicated process, so anything that's listed there is either popular or has strong niche following.

Re: Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2019 8:29 pm
by Velvet Crowe
Why not, like, just google. lmao. It's not hard to tell if a flash game is legitimate or not since the overwhelming majority of them are featured on various host websites, most notably Newgrounds.

Re: Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2019 3:12 am
by Zaltys
Nah, that'd be like having no filter at all.
Most flash game sites are clones of each other. Any new flash game gets instantly mirrored to hundred other sites, regardless of how popular the game is.

Re: Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 9:02 am
by Velvet Crowe
Zaltys wrote:Nah, that'd be like having no filter at all.
Most flash game sites are clones of each other. Any new flash game gets instantly mirrored to hundred other sites, regardless of how popular the game is.


That's irrelevant when you can just google "Pico's School" and you'll instantly get Pico's School. This applies to every other flash game.

Re: Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 3:04 pm
by Zaltys
Velvet Crowe wrote:That's irrelevant when you can just google "Pico's School" and you'll instantly get Pico's School. This applies to every other flash game.

So what?
Obviously there must be some filtering beyond "this game exist", and how many results you get when Googling for any given flash game gives no indication of its popularity or quality. Since, like I said, flash games get mirrored all over the web.

Criticker wouldn't benefit from adding all the thousands of terrible Commodore 64 clones of Pong/Tic-Tac-Toe/Hanoi's Towers/etc - and same goes for a lot of Flash games. Just because it exists, doesn't mean that it should be added.

GameFAQs doesn't list free games, which filters out flash among other thing. Therefore, using MobyGames as the filter would be a better alternative.

Re: Games from Newgrounds(and other flash games)

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 8:47 pm
by Velvet Crowe
Considering we have shit like "Depression Quest" and "Ethnic Cleansing" on this site, I don't think quality control is something that matters insofar as additions go. :lol: I know of plenty of flash games that are far more technically polished than that garbage. Who says we can't add thousands of Commodore games? Why not? I don't see the issue there.