Talk:Haruhiko Shono

Zeddas Servant of Sheol

The claim that Shono worked on the 1995 PC game, Zeddas Servant of Sheol (as director), has recently been called into question by an anonymous IP editor. There is evidence both for and against this claim. On the one hand we have sources such as Al Giovetti's 1996 Zeddas review for thecomputershow.com (itself citing T. Liam McDonald, PC Gamer, volume 3, number 7, July, 1996; and Kevin J. McCann, Computer Player, volume 3, number 4, September, 1996.) and a Four Fat Chicks review of Alice archived at tap-repeatedly that claim Shono worked as director on Zeddas. On the other hand, MobyGames purports to contain a full list of credits for Zeddas and this list fails to mention Shono's name. The game's style also appears to be quite different from many of Shono's other works.

The best evidence I suppose would be if anybody could obtain the credits listed in Zeddas as a primary source rather than secondarily through MobyGames. The game itself can be cited as proof of Shono's involvement if he appears in the game and I would say that if the credits list another person as director then we could safely assume that Shono was not the director of the game. At any rate, I have tagged the section in the article that related to Zeddas as "disputed" and if anyone can come up with evidence either for or against then this would help greatly. I think that discussions for the removal of this title should be postponed for a period of at least a few weeks to give editors an opportunity to present evidence one way or another. Thanks. -Thibbs (talk) 12:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Confirming that Zeddas Servant of Sheol is not a Haruhiko Shono creation

Please make any corrections to this submission if necessary, I'm not well versed in Wikipedia formalities. I have interviewed Haruhiko Shono some years ago and maintain regular contact with him. The article posted at Coregamers, referenced in the Wikipedia entry, shows the complete list of his multimedia works until the date of its publication in what I may say was a very thorough investigation guided by Shono-san himself. The Synergy game "Zeddas: Servant of Sheol" was not created or directed by Haruhiko Shono, which should have been evident enough, nor does he even make any mention to it in his curriculum to which I've had access at the time. It has been misattributed time and again in websites and databases, now here in Wikipedia as well. As such, I will remove that entry from the list, referring to my own article - approved by the author - for any further clarifications. Thank you. - Bruno de Figueiredo, Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

Thanks for your post, Bruno. Sadly this still doesn't settle the matter since there is no proof that you are who you say you are and that the details you described above are accurate, but I assume in goodfaith that you are and I agree with the removal of this claim since it seems to me very unlikely. I still think that the best evidence would be if someone can actually find the credits for Zeddas. If Shono's name appears there then it should be re-added to the list. Otherwise I think it's a good idea to leave it off for now. -Thibbs (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much. This sort of confusion likely originated in a magazine article or some such reference and then transpired to the internet where it has remained, for too long I may add. If you know his work it's evident that he had nothing to do with Zeddas, nor does he ever mentions anything to that regard anywhere, including the article I composed which is without a doubt the best resource online together with his own personal page. - Bruno de Figueiredo, Feb. 7th, 2013

Yeah, but of course the root of the problem here is that just because Shono failed to mention the game doesn't mean that he denies having taken part in it. It's evidence perhaps, but not proof. And it's difficult to prove the negative since it's unlikely that anyone would have ever asked him this exact question. So it's quite possible that he would deny it if he was asked, but since Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, things like the PC Gamer and Computer Player articles mentioned earlier would carry a lot of weight. If they claim that Shono was involved with the game then we'd need countervailing evidence that Shono denies it to refute this. Evidence that his name fails to show up in the game credits would only be supportive evidence.
Currently there's no problem because all we have is reference to the PC Gamer and Computer Player articles by possibly non-RS sources (thecompputershow.com, tap-repeatedly, and Four Fat Chicks). If the PC Gamer and Computer Player magazines don't actually say anything about Shono then we can forget about them, but if they claim that Shono worked on Zeddas then they'll be hard to refute. -Thibbs (talk) 17:13, 7 February 2013 (UTC)