Template talk:Infobox game

message: Here's my two cents' worth.
*Name - good as stated.  
*Category - good as stated.  
*Number of players - also good.
*Age range - This should only be stated explicitly for explicitly juvenile games.  Games for adults usually don't have an age requirement other than the minimum intelligence demanded by the difficulty and strategy level. 
: Many games come with recommendations like "Ages 3-6". These are usually learning games which tend to bore older children and adults, although those ages could play technically play it. People will know this, so I don't think we need to say it explicitly. I'd say keep this for all games, adult and juvenile alike. The idea would be to mimic the stated age guidelines (if any) or to designate a reasonable minumum age. -- Netoholic 21:39, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Of course, for proprietary games, the obvious course of action is to quote the age range given on the box.  This would be the same whether it's something like "3-6" or something like "12+".  But for games that are public domain, there's no defined age range; moreover, different commercially produced sets of the same game are likely to give different age ranges.  In any case, we would have to avoid guesswork or original research. -- Smjg (talk) 01:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

text: I don't like interval time because its often too hard to judge. Modifying my original proposal, I'd prefer less granularity in favor of a general scale, something like <5 min, 10 min, 20 min, 30 min, 45 min, 1 hour, >1 hr. Games that take over one hour are very hard to narrow down to a specific range, and the distinction will often not matter. -- Netoholic 21:39, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Okay, but maybe ditch the 45 min classification. --Smack 18:30, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: Good suggestion. -- Netoholic 21:39, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: I don't think people could gauge the levels based on your chosen words. Prefer something a bit more relatable. Perhaps a simple scale of 1-5 for all these "level" definitions? -- Netoholic 21:39, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: 1 to 5 could be done, but I think that if we adopt any arbitrary classifications at all, we'll need a sort of glossary page in the Wikipedia namespace, regardless of how we do them. --Smack 18:29, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion 

message: May I use this Infobox as a starting point for my own infobox?
:Sure, go ahead. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:03, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
----
SoulLady MiLich27 (talk) 14:07, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  May I... 

message: For commercially produced, proprietary games, one can put in the age range that is printed on the box.  But who decides the age range of a classic board game such as chess, or a playground game such as Chinese whispers?  For example, at the moment chess is "Recommended for 8 years or older".  Recommended by whom?  On the other hand, xiangqi has "Any" down here.  It would seem that this attribute is largely, if not completely, a matter of opinion. -- Smjg 12:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Age range 

message: Down10 has recently been making some edits which Aldaron has brought to my attention as they break the look of the template in various ways for him.  I have reverted some of these changes, though not all - some of them have been great edits, such as adding the template to the Game templates category.  I think it would be a good idea for the two of you to discuss what you think should be done here, before more changes are made to the article. Percy Snoodle 08:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Percy's recent edits address most of my concerns. One concern that remains is that Down10's changes have introduced padding around the infobox image that creates too much whitespace, which is not only unappealing, but prevents that image from lining up vertically with same-sized thumbnails farther down the page on the right. AmbientArchitecture 12:30, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Board and table games#how is rules complexity and strategy depth calculated? Percy Snoodle 13:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complexity and depth 

message: Listed in the info box is the heading "random chance" (Such as the text "random_chance= High" in Mordheim). This makes no sense whatsoever. I vote that this part be removed; it gives little information, if any and is confusing and makes no sense (random_chance= High or random_chance= Dice rolling???? What is that???). Thoughts? Spawn Man 04:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah - it's original research and should be removed, so I shall.  It's possible "skills used" should too. Percy Snoodle 09:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not OR (The fact that the random chance for Mordheim is High may be OR, but that is not relevant here.) There are plenty of boardgames that have some kind of chance rating on the box. There are games that have random_chance = None (eg Chess), which is relevant information and is normally well sourced. Some pages include the element introducing the random chance (eg Acquire has random_chance = tile drawing, Backgammon has random_chance = Dice), and such information is also easily sourced.  HermanHiddema 10:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For some games, it may be easily sourced, though I can't remember ever seeing a game article do so.  However, most games that use the parameter have something like "high", "medium", or "low" - meaningless and OR.  Those articles are improved more by removing that nonsense than the minority of sensible articles are harmed, and the sensible articles can very easily mention it in the prose.  Indeed, most of them do because they link to abstract strategy game in their lead sentence.  Percy Snoodle 10:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that editors do not properly source the random chance component of games is not the fault of the template. Removing random_chance from the template may be the easy way to remove unsourced material from a lot of board game pages, but is it the right way? IMO, board game pages that do not source this rating should either remove the random_chance component or reference it (eg: reference http://www.boardgameratings.com/game/2/ which gives Settlers of Catan a 'Luck' rating of 3/5) HermanHiddema 11:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

text: True, but it makes no sense. If someone randomly said to you "Random chance. High." you'd be very confused... If anything like that is used, it should at least be renamed to something that makes sense. Spawn Man 01:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Perhaps something like 'Luck' is a better term? HermanHiddema 11:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Luck: High" is no less a POV call than "Chance: High".  The parameter would still cause more harm than good.  Percy Snoodle 06:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: IMHO, this is a good field for the infobox.  In the two extreme cases, the amount of random chance in  a game is pretty straightforward (War (card game), for example, is completely luck-based, while Chess has no luck component.)  Between the two extremes, I agree that rating the amount of random chance between "low" and "high" is difficult, but could we not just list the luck based components?  For example "dice-based movement", "initial card-shuffling", etc?  Perhaps that's too long for an infobox entry... --216.86.105.213 (talk) 04:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random chance??? 

message: I was trying to determine how to use the templates within the Wikipedia as part of a scratchpad wikia that some friends and I are working on, but so far I haven't been successful.  Do I need to duplicate each template in the scratchpad (ideally I'd just like to point at the Wikipedia templates)?  If they all need to be duplicated, is there an easy way to cut and paste them?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jrboeke (talk • contribs) 20:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there a way to use Wikipedia templates within a scratchpad wikia? 

message: Every single time I've seen a game infobox, the information in these two lines strike me as pointless and uninformative, and almost always WP:OR (except, I suppose, when the random chance level is none).  Can we just remove these?  None of the game articles attempt in the text to classify a random chance level for the game that I have seen; they simply describe the game and the level of random chance is thus described directly.  Similarly, game articles talk about strategy but never about required skills; you would certainly never see a claim that "strategy" is a required skill for any game.  This kind of line doesn't seem to exist in other infoboxes; rather, the most subjective lines are always at least backed up directly by text in the article.  Instead of trying to correct individual articles, I think it's best to adjust the infobox.  Mangojuicetalk 05:29, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would certainly support removing these OR-baiting lines. Percy Snoodle (talk) 09:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

text: I also support removing these lines, and I would also include setup time and playing time, as these are equally likely to be OR. Ham Pastrami (talk) 21:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree about the random chance and skills entries, but think we should preserve setup and play times if these are provided by the manufacturer.   — Aldaron • T/C   15:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Removing the item in the template is not the right course of action.  The fact that some pages use "High" for Chance means that THOSE articles have OR in them, that doesn't mean the template can only support OR in that part as you have already acknowledged (and has been stated above).  There are plenty of articles where having "none" would be very useful, and I in fact have looked through games looking for ones with that tag on it.    Having "none" is not often OR, and is very useful and editing a template to fix a problem on one article, while harming others seems counter-productive when we can just edit the articles which are using it poorly.  If it MUST be removed the easy, but in my opinion lazy way, by editing the template, it should be edited so the line only appears if it is set at "none", or something equivalent. :) Chris M. (talk) 14:50, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skills, Random Chance 

message: I've added a width field to allow for control over the width of the box and improve page layout.   — Aldaron • T/C   22:33, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Width field 

message: I was hoping that something could be added to this to categorize all games that have "none" in the "random chance" section.  I personally would find this information extremely useful and I don't think I'd be the only one.  The change would also be very minor.  Comments? Chris M. (talk) 14:52, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random Chance category 

message: I have added "label_width" to allow control over the width of the labels. Gerry (talk) 04:54, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Also added actor and voice-over for video board games. Gerry (talk) 06:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  label_width added 

message: Could we get some guidance on some of the fields? I am trying to copyedit an article that uses this infobox, Axis & Allies: Europe 1940.
*Genre - what goes here? Is it "board game" or "wargame" or "board wargame" or "WW II game" or "Strategic-level game" or what???
*Years active - what is this? It is a game, it is not alive, it is not active by itself. Do you mean "Date of first publication to date it went out of print" or what?
Also the "random chance" and "skills" params seem kind of iffy - how are we supposed to know this? But that's a different issue. Herostratus (talk) 00:26, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is "genre"? What is "years active" 

message: Currently the Infobox does not automatically italicize the titles unlike , for example. However, game franchises like Monopoly should be italicized (see MOS:TITLE). User:StAnselm tried employing the  | italic title = parameter and defaulting it to "yes", thus giving all pages using this Infobox an italic title. However, traditional games like chess, Go, tag etc. should not be italicized. Both of these categories use this infobox.
There are two conflicting facts that I found out while browsing this template's list of transclusions (of which there are 1300+):
# Most articles using this Infobox are articles about game franchises (copyrighted, commercial game titles), and should be italicized.
##Most of those in this category italicize the article title in the lead, but not the page title ...
##... but some do neither.
# There are a considerable amount of pages using this Infobox that should not be italicized.
I consider it more severe error that a page shows an italicized title when it should not (a false positive), than a case where the title is not italicized while it should. I successfuly identified hundreds of pages in the former category, and added | italic title = no to stop them showing the italicized title, but I have most certainly missed many articles. 
I have to admit that it's technically more sensible to have the italicized title as opt-in than opt-out, and I have now changed it back so (ie. you must write | italic title = yes to get the italicized title now.)
If there is enough interest to clean up the transclusions of this template, we can try again later. I don't have the time and resources to individually categorize all the 1300+ transclusions of this infobox to those that should and should not be italicized.. --hydrox (talk) 02:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italic titles: opt-in or opt-out? 

message: Should 'Other name(s)' and 'Synonym(s)' for the game appear at the top or the bottom of the infobox?  I feel they should appear near the top, since they appear in the lead of the article.  please discuss here if you don't feel this should be the case.  thank you. Frietjes (talk) 16:01, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Label position 

message: This infobox seems to be the preferred one used for gamebook entries. The problem is that it contains neither an author field nor a writer field (some gamebook articles have these, but they aren't displayed). Gamebooks aren't designed, they're written by authors: they're games, but more like "interactive novels" than something you design. (Gamebook systems on the other hand, like fighting fantasy, are designed. But here I'm talking about infoboxes on individual gamebook entries) Therefore I propose the addition of a writer field or at least an author field. If you feel that is not appropriate, please suggest an alternative to "designer", or perhaps a better infobox to use for all gamebooks. CapnZapp (talk) 09:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Author or Writer label/field 

message: In addition to the author field (which is useful for gamebooks), could we please have a "Line Developer" field, since this is also the template used for RPG game lines? The line developer, rather than the original game designer or book author, is the continuity person who steers the long-term success of the line, and it would be very helpful to present this in the infobox in a standardized way. Newimpartial (talk) 12:43, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Line Developer field 

message: I have seen concerns about the "age range" parameter raised above but my opinion is that they do not go far enough. First, it is not clear what the source is when we list an age indiscriminately. Given that game boxes with age ranges and game boxes without age ranges are both common, it is perfectly valid to think that a statement like "ages=10+" was made up by a Wikipedian who decided to rate the game himself on the spot. Second, even if we made the parameter specify "age range as recommended by the original company", it would sound a lot like a piece of trivia. Someone who wanted to objectively decide what game to buy for her son or daughter would be much better off to read the prose in the article which describes the game's content. Film ratings are kept out of infoboxes and for good reason. Is this not an analogous situation? We should not be in the business of pretending that some universal parenting advice exists for all cultures, so I propose removing the parameter. Connor Behan (talk) 21:30, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think this is analogous to film ratings and so even if the age range is estimated by the editor, it's pretty harmless. However, it would be much better to show the source for the information. Age ranges are not just listed on the box, but also by gaming sites and reviewers and they are all reasonable sources. Bermicourt (talk) 07:38, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Saying what is age appropriate is not appropriate 

message: The infobox for this WikiProject currently has a parameter named |other_names= ("Other name(s)") and |AKA= ("Synonym(s)"), their descriptions say "Other name(s) for the game" and "Game name synonym(s)", respectively. So what exactly is the difference? Should the latter param be removed? Lordtobi (✉) 18:14, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Weird. It does seem like "synonym" is a strange choice of word for alternate game names and titles. Ibadibam (talk) 04:41, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

text: Agree, this is a strange way to use the word synonym. I think Other names makes much more sense and we should consider migrating usages of AKA to other_names. ThisPageDoesNotExist (talk) 00:56, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox: "Other name(s)" vs. "Synonym(s)" 

message: It seems odd that the "Manufacturer" tag is as high up as it is, since it is often just a company paid by the actual developers to get the cards on paper. For example Secret Hitler was developed by Goat, Wolf, & Cabbage LLC (a collective of three designers), but the manufacturing was done by Breaking Games, which is unrelated to the company. Yet, it fills the top spot in the infobox, just below the image. Why does it? Shouls it be moved down? I think yes, and it best fits just above distributor. There should also be a parameter to denote which company developed the game (as is here GW&C LLC). Lordtobi (✉) 09:46, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Manufacturer should be moved down 

message: Was going to propose merging the four-line  infobox here, but this template doesn't have any kind of equivalent to the "region" field. This seems quite glaring for traditional boardgame articles like Shogi or Go (game), which use this infobox but don't mention in there where the game originates. Should this be added? --Lord Belbury (talk) 08:30, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add a "region" field? 

message: Can we please update the documentation for this template to make it explicitly clear that the Random chance field should not be populated unless a source can be provided, either along with the value or in the body of the article? Otherwise it seems to be an OR magnet. Or is there a common understanding that any editor can delete the value for this field if they're satisfied that the value provided isn't verifiable? DonIago (talk) 04:56, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: If editors delete everything they aren't satisfied with, there'll be little left of most articles. Clearly it is better if parameters in infoboxes are cited, but harmless parameters like this one should not be deleted on a whim unless they're obviously wrong. Bermicourt (talk) 07:44, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems to fly in the face of WP:V, and nobody's suggesting that editors should be able to make deletions just because they're not satisfied with what's there. DonIago (talk) 21:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random chance and OR 

message: Today the short description is "Game". I see this overridden on a lot of articles. Is there any interest in constructing a dynamic short description that might require fewer overrides? —¿philoserf? (talk) 14:38, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  short description 

message: I have removed the parenthesized "(s)" suffix from the labels that used it.  For example, "Genre(s)" is now simply "Genres," "Skill(s) required" is now simply "Skills," and so on.  "Publisher(s)" is now "Published by," which works for both the singular and plural.  The "(s)" construction, known as a "parenthetical plural," is visually and grammatically awkward, and most style guides recommend avoiding it (AMA Manual of Style, EIA Style Guide, Lawyer's Style Guide).
—Ka-Ping Yee (talk) 02:53, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parenthetical plurals 

message: I see a lot of Infobox Games have the unsupported tags: complexity and strategy. 
Please could we either support those tags or hire a kindly bot to go round removing them. Slimy asparagus (talk) 16:07, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complexity and Strategy 

message: Using the |parent_game= parameter gives Parent games (plural) in the infobox. Was this intentional or in error? Sciencefish (talk) 13:57, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  parent_game 

message: Should this infobox be changed to allow two images, one for the logo and one for a photo of the game? The Monopoly (game) article no longer matches the example at the top of this page, as it includes the logo rather than the board. --Lord Belbury (talk) 09:55, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. A similar issue has come up with tête-bêche books such as The Statue of the Sorcerer & The Vanishing Conjurer where two images needed to be combine into one.Sciencefish (talk) 10:03, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I've today added a "logo=" field so that commercial games can use two images if desired. Existing articles that use the "image=" for a logo won't be affected. --Lord Belbury (talk) 10:54, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  Also , ,  and . I have added these to the list of valid parameters — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 18:35, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks! I thought I'd caught that but must have been pressing the wrong button. --Lord Belbury (talk) 18:48, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

text:  The tracking category  seems to be OK now, although my watchlist does not yet reflect this — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 19:14, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Only a single image in the infobox 

message: First off, please make this field say Designer in singular when a single data is detected. 
Second, please unlink Designers. It looks off and that's not how we do it. If an article wants to explain by linking to a page like Game Designer that's fine, but this way it is unavoidable. Please delink. 
Especially since for Infobox RPG (which is a redirect to Infobox Game) you're linked to video game design, not tabletop roleplay design.
Plus, Game Designer is not its own article - it is currently a redirect to Game Design. This is just not useful.
CapnZapp (talk) 10:02, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Designers" 

message: I have added some parameters to the documentation: , , , , , , ,  and .
In passing, I see that  and  seem to be incorrectly coded as alternatives for the logo/image name rather than as article links, but I have not dared to correct the template code.
Also,  seems to accepted as an alternative for , which seems rather strange to me — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 17:12, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing parameters