Talk:Adventure (1980 video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 14:34, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Always nice to see a classic up for review. Comments to follow. Indrian (talk) 14:34, 7 April 2016 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines

Article Title

Right off the bat we have a problem here. By calling Adventure a "1979 video game" right in the title we are tacitly accepting a 1979 release for the game. That release date is almost certainly wrong, taken from a single interview with Robinett, who was not only no longer an Atari employee in late 1979, but was actually not even in the United States. All secondary sources take the remembrances of a single person completely detached from the release of the game -- and who has more recently admitted that he has no specific knowledge of the game appearing "before January 1st, 1980" -- and have ignored the numerous primary sources that point definitively to a 1980 release date. Wikipedia is, unfortunately, bound to the secondary literature to a degree -- even when said literature is uniformly shoddily researched on a particular point -- so the handling of this discrepancy in the article itself is appropriate. The name has got to be something neutral, however. While we should come up with a solution before the conclusion of this GAN, I would avoid making the change until after it is closed so as not to inadvertently break transclusion.

The article was original called Adventure (Atari 2600). I moved it to the year disambiguation years ago before realizing there was a dispute about the release date. I moved it to Adventure (Atari 2600 video game) just now, to match the original but make it clear it's a video game, but moved it back until the GA review is over. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:22, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I've tagged the VG project for suggestions if we can just drop this to Adventure (video game) (IAR for the VG guidelines for naming) or use the console name, or another solution. I definitely agree we should move it off the 1979 name if this date is not definitive. --MASEM (t) 16:56, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. I am personally fine with either solution -- just plain "video game" or "Atari 2600 game" -- so we'll see what the community thinks. Indrian (talk) 17:22, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Lead

•  Done"Adventure introduced a number of innovative game elements" - This should probably be qualified as introducing these elements to console games, as they had already existed in computer games for some time.
•  DoneThe final paragraph of the lead, dealing with legacy, should maybe say something about the easter egg's place in pop culture (i.e. Ready Player One and the like).

• I expanded this a little more. Feel free to tweak. Indrian (talk) 17:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Gameplay

•  Done"The player can move across various screens, generally bidirectionally but with some exceptions, described as "bad magic" in the manual" - This sentence is confusing. I assume the "bad magic" refers to the exceptions to the player's usual movement, but as worded, this could also be interpreted as referring to the player's movement in general.

  I added back the original wording. This is intended to explain that the player could exit one room and enter another, and the return to the first room via the same connection. However, in a few cases, there were one-way connections, such that the player could be trapped with no way back to the first room. Does the way it's written now make sense? —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:30, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, that's much better. Thanks! Indrian (talk) 17:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Development

•  Done"Around the time of Adventure's development, Atari, now owned by Warner Communications, had hired Ray Kassar as the CEO of the company" - Ray Kassar was hired as a consultant and general manager of the Consumer Division of Atari in March 1978. At the very end of December 1978, he was promoted to Atari president and CEO. As Robinett began development of the game in May or June 1978, this statement is not accurate.
•  Done"Kassar made changes in how the company was handled; according to another former Atari programmer, David Crane, Kassar considered game programmers as "prima donnas", and several of the changes made treated the programmers with indifference" - Yes and no. Kassar was apparently indifferent to the unique talents required to create a good game on the VCS and therefore did not afford the programmers the level of respect they deserved. He was not, however, indifferent to the need of having design talent, and the "prima donna" quote was a supposed-to-be-off-the-record remark taken out of context. I would keep the part about treating the programmers with indifference, but lose the Crane quote, which is unnecessarily inflammatory in this context.
•  Done"Robinett was initially discouraged from working on Adventure by his supervisor at Atari" - Said supervisor was an older engineer named George Simcock. See the Robinette interview here. Two other things worth taking from that interview: he claims a May start date rather than June and discusses how he was basically done by Fall 1978 but was unhappy with the finished product and shelved it for six months while working on something else. Then he came back to it and finished it by June 1979 (the development timeline is sort of hinted at in the article already, but not stated explicitly).
•  Done"Robinett recalled the release date as being Christmas 1979, and a 1979 date is also listed in various other sources" - While we do, as I said before, have to mention the 1979 release date, I think for balance we need to impress here that Robinett was no longer at the company and that in a later interview he conceded that the 1979 date may not be accurate.

  I don't think that source is considered reliable. It's a blog post written by someone who was deeply involved in the dispute here. I feel like the mention of the catalogs is pretty balancing. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:41, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• I admit this falls into a bit of a grey area. Hard Core Gaming 101 is considered situationally reliable depending on author and the blog in question is an extension of their regular site and is, I believe, subject to editorial oversight. Sam Derboo is not specifically highlighted as a reliable HG101 author, but he is one of their most prolific contributors. In this case, he provides direct quotes from Robinett. I doubt HG101 would allow him to publish false quotes on the blog (nor do I think he would ever consider doing so himself), and the info itself is direct from Robinett rather than Derboo, meaning his burden of reliability should be less. Therefore, I think this is admissible under HG101's status as a situational source. The fact that Derboo took part in the dispute here and that his post becomes polemical at times does not specifically undermine the direct quote from Robinett. The edits made so far have helped, but I would still prefer the Derboo source be used to demonstrate that Robinett does not actually know for certain the game was released in 1979, though I will not fail the article over this given its admittedly questionable status under wikipedia policy. Indrian (talk) 17:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• The linked sources requoted in the HG101 article are already present here, so we don't have to turn to HG101's article, but instead simply reiterate details that Robinett thinks it was late 1979 but confirmed he was out of the country at that time, and knew by early 1980 it was clearly released. --MASEM (t) 20:15, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

• That works then. Indrian (talk) 20:39, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

•  Done"after the Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders was released in January" - A whole other can of worms not directly related to this article, but Space Invaders was probably not released in January: Herman pulled his info from materials sent to dealers and the January 1980 date was apparently when it was available for ordering rather than the street date. Other sources point to a Spring 1980 release. None of that has a bearing on this article, but I would change "in January" to "in early 1980" which avoids this situation all together without harming the article.

  I just removed the month and replaced it with nothing. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:43, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

•  Done"One of the changes made by Kassar was to remove the names of game developers from their products, seeing it as a means to prevent competitors from identifying and luring away Atari's programmers" - Atari never credited its programmers. Look at the original nine VCS cartridges: not a credit to be found, and Kassar would not join for several more months. We can't pin this one on him.
•  Done"Kassar's changes led to several programmers leaving the company; notably, David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead all left Atari due to lack of recognition and formed Activision" - Again, Kassar did not change one thing. The Activision guys asked him to implement a royalty program, which Atari did not have under Bushnell and Keenan either, and when he said no, they left. They left due to a lack of fair compensation, though they claim they were willing to settle for recognition as well. It was the lack of both that drove them away.
•  Done"Steve Wright, the manager of the video game department within Atari" - Wright was director of software development of the Atari Consumer Division.
•  Done"Wright made it an official policy at Atari that all future games should include Easter eggs, often limited to being the initials of the game developer" - I believe Wright also coined the term "Easter egg" in an interview.
•  Done"This Easter egg became a cornerstone of the hunt for the Easter egg hidden in the fictional virtual reality game OASIS in the novel Ready Player One." - This is really part of the game's legacy and should therefore be moved to that section.

Legacy

•  Done"Atari's Adventure yielded sales of one million copies, making it the seventh best selling Atari 2600 game in history." - That IGN list is a complete joke. Reliable sources have Space Invaders at over 5 million units and both Defender and Asteroids -- neither of which are even on that list -- at between 3 and 5 million units. There is no comprehensive list of VCS game sales. Please remove this.

And that's it. A lot of notes up there, but most of them are small fixes. Overall, the article is in great shape and provides a comprehensive look at a classic game. Therefore, I shall place this nomination  On hold while changes are made. Indrian (talk) 16:15, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

In considering the article title, there is only one other video game with "Adventure" as the precise title, that being a little-known 1982 game for the Acorn. While VG title naming suggests that we use the year, this might be an IAR reason to use the no-year "(video game)" since this clearly is the more recognized video game of the two, and adding the necessary hatnotes for the Acorn game, to Colossal Cave Adventure (since that's regularly known as Adventure) and to the disambig page for "Adventure". --MASEM (t) 16:19, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I've made most of the changes (and tried to make sure the intermediate edits with @Torchiest: were brought forward, but haven't added the legacy stuff to the lede yet. --MASEM (t) 16:49, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

That takes care of just about everything. I want to see how the name debate plays out just in case it spirals into other article changes, but we are mostly good to go. Indrian (talk) 17:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@Masem:It looks like consensus favors "Adventure (Atari 2600)" for the name. If that sounds good to you, we can go ahead and promote and then move the article. Indrian (talk) 13:59, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm fine with that, there's a good point why "Adventure (video game)" is potentially problematic. But won't move until after this is promoted. --MASEM (t) 14:06, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Masem:I gave the article one final copy edit, and I am now ready to promote. Once that goes through, go ahead and move the article to the new name. Well done! Indrian (talk) 16:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

And all moved, thanks ! --MASEM (t) 16:47, 8 April 2016 (UTC)