A substantially better GameCube database.

[SupraKarma]

The 'official' GameCube database was driving me crazy. I don't mean to step on any toes, now that I know how much work it is to put together a database, but it was inaccurate. Very inaccurate. The publisher of the game should be the standard for the 'manufacturer,' not the developer. People notice the name on the box. The developer, while nice information to have, is secondary.

So I made it my mission to redo the entire <manufacturer> section. The database I've completed is very accurate now. The name on the box is the name in the manufacturer field. If the name is EA Sports, I don't list it as Electronic Arts, I list it as EA Sports. If it is listed as Ubi Soft Entertainment, I differentiate from their other logo (all one word) Ubisoft.

It's kind of annoying to have to write the same publiser 2-4 different ways but accuracy is more important than anything else with something like this.

After I was done, I included a 'developer' field, and began work on that - only to realize that most of the data out there is wildly inaccurate, which is probably why the original database was so flawed.

So I got through the B's. After that I made it a point to only add developer information for games that were easily and quickly verifiable (Nintendo & Sega games primarily). I'd rather have no data than incorrect data.

Then, I wanted to add a <players> and <Co-op> field, because it turns out, thegamesdb.net has that information for most games.

So, I got started on that, and made it through the D's, and decided to randomly check a few games. I had this sickening feeling that the data was bogus like so many other sources, and, sure enough, the very first game I tried, Die Hard - Vendetta, was not actually a 4 player game. How utterly annoying.

So now I'm asking for help. I want a respectable, *accurate* database, that is hand tested by actual users. I don't want anyone looking up data from someone else's sucky database. Wikipedia is *terrible*. They give information on the Gamecube game is if it was the exact same port as the PS2 version. It isn't. A lot of times the developer is different, and maybe there isn't even a multi-player mode (as I found out with Die Hard).

I'm going to post what I have so far. I can say with confidence that at the very least, the manufacturer field is 98% accurate. I'm sure I've made one or two errors. But it is significantly better than what we had.

If you're looking to contribute, that would be great. If I could get 10 people to test 60 games for multiplayer functionality, the existence of a co-op mode, and the developer, this would go very quickly. But accuracy is key. Please do not speculate on details you are not sure about. Any data contribution should be personally verified, and not relied upon another source.

A good database is the foundation of everything you try to build. Let's make this thing great.

 

Nintendo GameCube.xml

[Aorin]

Hey man, I agree with you, I mean, the publisher, while in most cases it's not the developer, is the name we recall in the end of the day.

However, manufacturer, it reminds me of people who really developed the game.

Anyway, I think the databases should focus on the publisher, like you said, it makes more sense than having a SEGA, Ubisoft, etc., in the game box and we read a different name in the game description.

[SupraKarma]

There were 239 different Companies when I went to do a 'split hyperlist' before, and I hadn't heard of 2/3s of the names. Now its below 90, and they're all names you've heard of.

I'm pretty sure I butchered the implementation of the new fields also. It looks good in notepad++, but it doesn't in regular notepad. I'm not sure if that even matters or not, but I don't know how to fix it. It's working with HyperSpin at least.

[Aorin]

8 minutes ago, SupraKarma said:

There were 239 different Companies when I went to do a 'split hyperlist' before, and I hadn't heard of 2/3s of the names. Now its below 90, and they're all names you've heard of.

I'm pretty sure I butchered the implementation of the new fields also. It looks good in notepad++, but it doesn't in regular notepad. I'm not sure if that even matters or not, but I don't know how to fix it. It's working with HyperSpin at least.

It's nice that you fixed it, so to speak, but, fact is, all other databases I know has the developers names, not the publishers. So I really want to know if something will change, officially, regarding this.

[SupraKarma]

The main reason I prefer publisher over developer is, I like to make 'manufacturer' genre wheels with Don's Split Hyperlist tool.

It's almost impossible to do that when the database used the developer.

For example, a lot of the Sega games in the official database have 'Sonic Team' listed as the manufacturer. I happen to know that yes, that is Sega, but for many other examples, I'd be clueless. And there's no way I'd be able to invest the kind of time and effort it would take into making wheels for every single developer. A lot of the developers only developed 1-2 games.

With the publisher, everyone knows who Activision is. Not everyone knows who 'Toys for Bob' is. If  you saw a 'Toys for Bob' wheel, you'd pass it right up.

I hope it does change.

I talked to bleasby about this same issue over on the rocketlauncher forums, and he told me that the publisher *should* be the standard. 

[Aorin]

1 minute ago, SupraKarma said:

The main reason I prefer publisher over developer is, I like to make 'manufacturer' genre wheels with Don's Split Hyperlist tool.

It's almost impossible to do that when the database used the developer.

For example, a lot of the Sega games in the official database have 'Sonic Team' listed as the manufacturer. I happen to know that yes, that is Sega, but for many other examples, I'd be clueless. And there's no way I'd be able to invest the kind of time and effort it would take into making wheels for every single developer. A lot of the developers only developed 1-2 games.

With the publisher, everyone knows who Activision is. Not everyone knows who 'Toys for Bob' is. If  you saw a 'Toys for Bob' wheel, you'd pass it right up.

I hope it does change.

I talked to bleasby about this same issue over on the rocketlauncher forums, and he told me that the publisher *should* be the standard. 

Yeah, I agree, like I said, problem is, a lot of work was put into the manufacturer (developer over publisher), unfortunately.

I was adding some exclusive Japanese PS1 games last year in the database, and there are some totally unknown developers, like you said, some developed one or two games, at best.

Personally I don't use a brand to filter games, but I do understand it may be useful for some people.

Maybe the databases should have both, publisher and manufacturer, RocketLauncher could present us both info, while Hyperpin or another frontend should just show the publisher.