Category talk:Video games

Deletion debate

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Category:Video games

The description of Category:Video games is:

• The following is a list of words related to video games.

The description of Category:Gaming is:

• The following is a list of words related to gaming terminology.

I suggest deleting Category:Video games and keeping only Category:Gaming in its place.

These two categories often overlap. Both may have a boss, a player, a party, a dungeon, "level up", etc. There are more than few terms with an apparent context of eletronics, thus strictly related to video games, such as cut scene, netplay and cheat code, but I don't think they justify an individual category.

Notably, the name of Category:Video games implies that it contains names of video games, not video gaming in general.

Also, here are some alternatives that don't contradict my idea of deleting Category:Video games as a poor place for keeping video gaming terms. I would not object keeping it to categorize only Tetris, Pokémon, Sokoban, and occasionally other names of games, but this would be a rather underpopulated category by today's standards. In addition, if we do need a category for terms related to video games, it might possibly be Category:Video gaming.

That's it. --Daniel. 18:13, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Delete.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Dunno. It may be more worthwhile to separate these properly, and keep Category:Gaming only to board games and pen-and-paper RPGs etc. -- Prince Kassad 18:44, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it might be even broader than that. Don't mainstream family games (Scrabble, Clue/Cluedo) and casino games (roulette) also fall under "gaming"? Equinox ◑ 21:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not that bothered, but IMO we should keep this. The terms you mention that also occur in (e.g. tabletop) gaming are only a subset. There are plenty of other terms specific to video-gaming, like (deprecated template usage) attract mode, (deprecated template usage) autofire, (deprecated template usage) gamepad. Why lose the useful distinction? (I agree that "Video gaming" might be a better name, but then why not propose a renaming rather than a deletion of the category?) Equinox ◑ 21:35, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, keep as a subcategory. Lmaltier 21:40, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought gaming always refer to video games. I've never heard of Scrabble or chess players (and I've done both in the past) called 'gamers' or that they participate in 'gaming'. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:08, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I have found some uses of "gaming" referring to chess and others non-video games; see Citations:gaming. Nonetheless, according to my searches through Google Books and Google Groups, the word "gaming" is indeed more closely related to electronic games (that is, more often used in context of eletronic games). --Daniel. 09:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I read a load of (British) computer games mags in the '80s and it was never called "gaming" then, nor were computer-game players called "gamers". It would have been "game-playing", I suppose. Equinox ◑ 17:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Please correct me if I am wrong, but apparently the only explicit reason to possibly keep :Category:Video games is the "useful distinction" between certain types of games. With that in mind, I would like to maintain my original request of deleting Category:Video games as a poor place to have what it contains. It may simply be replaced by one or more categories whose names display more accurate groups and their distinctions.

Notably, Category:Coffee is one example of topical category whose name is a single singular noun and whose members are variants and components of coffee. Two categories named Category:Game and Category:Video game whose members are variants and components of games and video games would be consistent with that one.

It should also be noted that boss, party, dungeon, mana point, character class, JRPG and hit point are able to beautifully populate a category named Category:Role playing game (or even Category:RPG). Similarly, special attack, special defense, finishing move and beat 'em up may be members of Category:Fighting game. --Daniel. 09:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Kept as no consensus. "Category:Video games" is a member of a messy yet complex category tree. Presumably, many categories should be discussed and cleaned up as a whole eventually. --Daniel. 21:08, 15 February 2011 (UTC)