Talk:List of video game publishers

List split

Venerable editor H3llkn0wz is in the process of splitting this list into (at least) two separate lists: one for active publishers and one for defunct or absorbed publishers. I don't agree with this split, and I didn't see it discussed anywhere beforehand.

It is much easier to find a publisher in one list and then find out it's defunct rather than have to know before-hand whether it's defunct or was purchased first. I'd prefer to keep all these publishers in one list. If this list is getting too big (and it is pretty big), there are other ways to split it up, such as by alphabet. Anyone have any input on this matter? — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 18:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I have put all defunct companies back up, except Coleco, and Mattel Interactive, for which I cannot find mention of game publishing. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  18:51, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I have put ALL defunct companies back up and made a commitment to read the full article texts. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  19:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind as well, publishers can be defunct but not brands. For example, Atari is a long running brand. But the actual company that published Missile Command for instance, Atari Inc., is defunct. The company that published Tempest 2000, Atari Corporation, is defunct. The group that did Centipede 3D under Hasbro Interactive, Atari Interactive, is defunct. All carried the Atari name brand. Truthfully, I wouldn't just have one entry called "Atari" because of this. For further example, under the new company (Atari S.A.) the classic IP and name is held under a newer Atari Interactive company (different company from the previous two Interactives). Games are published by either Atari Interactive (retro properties) or the new Atari Inc. (modern titles), or sometimes by both. So a listing of actual publishers would be Atari Inc. (the original defunct company), Atari Corporation (defunct), Atari Games/Tengen (bought by Midway/defunct), Atari Interactive (PC publishing division under Atari Corporation), Atari Interactive (holding company/retro division under Hasbro Interactive), the new Atari Inc. (Formerly GT. Interactive/Infogrames NA), and the new Atari Interactive (formerly Infogrames Interactive). --Marty Goldberg (talk) 20:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, there's Mattel Electronics (the actual publisher of the Intellivision games), and the much later Mattel Interactive (The Learning Company). --Marty Goldberg (talk) 20:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Atari will have entries for each development house they had. Similarly to Blizzard, for example. It would be appreciated if you added those directly or listed them here with dates/locations; so that they can be integrated.

I am still thinking through of how to do the whole list, so I am not proposing anything yet. But I will. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  20:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

That's the point, that's wrong. "They" didn't have multiple development houses, there is no "they". There is no one company to refer to as "they" that's been running all this time. You basically have many different companies all using an Atari name over time. Perhaps that's where the miss-communication is coming in, maybe (like a lot of other people) you're under the mistaken impression that there's just been this one "Atari" around all these years, with a bunch of development houses under it. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 21:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I phrased that ridiculously incomprehensibly. I'm just bringing in more confusion with my hastiness. What I mean - If it is a company and has developed/published games; it will be listed. The current list only lists 1 company with Atari name, which is obviously wrong. Every company, whether it was called Atari Inc., Atari Games or Atari Interactive is a separate entry as long as they are indeed different companies due to merges, splits, acquisitions or otherwise. Again, don't take my misphrasing and unfamiliarity with the brand as indication of anything besides good faith. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  21:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed structure

After some thoughts, I have come to agree with Frecklefoot on the matter of defunct company inclusion. They should be listed in the main list for readers' sake. However, defunct companies should be clearly identifiable. Since I have learned that best presentation is by implementation, below is the preview of what I believe is the best form for the list:

Company	Location	Est.	Notable games	Notes
1C Company	Moscow, Russia	1991	Some Game Another Game Some Game II	Also game developer
2K Games	Novato, California, USA	2005	Some Game Another Game Some Game II	Also game developer; Publishing label of Take-Two Interactive
505 Games	Milan, Italy London, England, UK California, USA	2006	Some Game Another Game Some Game II	Publishing division of Digital Bros
Accolade	California, USA	1984	Some Game Another Game Some Game II	Acquired by Atari, SA née Infogrames in 1999, name retired
Indie Built	Salt Lake City, Utah, USA	1982	Some Game Another Game Some Game II	Founded as Access Software and acquired by Microsoft in 1999. Sold to Take Two Interactive in 2004 and renamed Indie Built. Closed by Take 2 in 2006.
Activision	Santa Monica, California, USA	1979	Some Game Another Game Some Game II	Merged with Vivendi Games to form Activision Blizzard in 2008. Activision exists as a subsidiary and continues game development and publishing.
Activision Blizzard	Santa Monica, California, USA	2008	Some Game Another Game Some Game II	Also game developer; Formed by merger between Activision and Vivendi Games in 2008

See Indie Built and Activision as more fleshed out version of individual entries. In my opinion, the upside of this method is clear extrinsic association of company states. Given that a legend will be provided at the top of the article, no user should have a problem identifying company state. Additional company status details are always listed in Notes section.

Awaiting your thoughts on the matter. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  23:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I really like the color-coding approach. Make it so! :) — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 12:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

keep the color, but make defunct company as a bullet or a expand-unexpand under the company that it merged with or was acquired by, it makes the list smaller and/or easier to read. There should also be a header for key developer companies.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.232.247 (talk) 08:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like an interesting layout. The table can be transformed to this when the list is filled out. I, personally, have my doubts and will need more convincing.

Key developer companies is something I have considered. This will make the list very cluttered though, so I have not done this for now. The problem is some of the publishers have had 20-30 developers throughout the years, all more or less notable.—  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  11:36, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

If you want to keep it consistent with the structure already established with the studios for each different video game publisher you would have to separate the list into Current and Defunct or go back into each individual video game publisher and merge the current/defunct/sold style that was established to look similar to this structure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.232.247 (talk) 09:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Consistent with which established structure? Could you provide the article page names, please. I have not yet encountered any other list besides the ones that are in remake process. I may have misunderstood you. If you mean separating defunct companies into a separate list and putting it, say, underneath the main table—then that was my initial plan. But I have reconsidered and it appears to improve readability if the entries are all together. Hence the color-coding. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  11:36, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Look at EA for example see how the studios are separated by Current and Defunct, all the video game publishers have the same style, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#Studios_and_subsidiaries —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.232.247 (talk) 23:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but that is not a sortable table. That is a relatively short list. Even without knowing whether company is active or defunct, it is possible to find entries very quickly. Separating the publisher table into parts kind of a defeats the purpose. There are active, subsidiary and inactive companies. It would feel unintuitive to a reader to not find, for example, Blizzard in the list, who everyone knows is active. Hence keeping it all together. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  23:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

VG industry box

The VG industry box is significantly reducing the list width. Basically, the table cannot go in whitespace under the box because the table cannot "extend" its rows at the top. I have a 16:10 with always open Firefox bookmark panel and the table is very cramped. I am not sure how this can be countered. I can only imagine either adding about 15 line breaks or removing the box. Any thoughts? —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  20:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

No. Too bad they deleted the footer I originally developed. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 21:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that one when I was reading the archives. Not sure whether I do or do not agree about it. Current box is certainly too large. I might stir up some discussions about some later day.—  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  21:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

How many games per company?

This would apply to developer list in particular. How many notable games is enough for a typical entry? This would not limit exceptionally notable games/series, such as Warcraft, Starcraft, where we should list more than 3. And what would determine which games to include? Rating? —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  21:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, does including game release dates improve the information or just adds clutter?—  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  21:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, clutter vs. informative is a very tricky balancing act. As soon as you add a few, some fanboy will come along and add all his favorite games, whether they're notable or not. I would say 3 is a good number as a max. If they have fewer that are really notable, don't clutter it up with their obscure titles. And use "series" where possible, so we don't have to list, for example, WarCraft I, WarCraft II, World of WarCraft, etc. That's just my $.02... — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 22:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh well, there goes my hope for listing every FF title... Anyhow, I have been adding 4 rows per entry for now without dates. I suppose it could be trimmed further. Fanboy issue is an issue; but then again—it is always an issue for any selective listing. I will just keep this on watchlist and trim stuff whenever someone pops up with his favourite Meteor Strikes Back XIV: Revenge of the Asteroid. Besides, given the time it will be needed to fill this in, random editors will often pop in with misc issue fixes, and the page will end up in their watchlist. That would be my own $.02... wait, I'm in UK — £.02 —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  22:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any objection to 4 per company. I just threw 3 out there as a suggestion. Yeah, listing every FF game would've been fun. : ) — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 17:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Limit should be 6 but it shouldn't really go over 3 or 4 games unless the game is really a key game for the company. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.232.247 (talk) 05:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

There should not be a limit for when it is not necessary. If Blizzard published 10 more franchises that crushed all sales; then Blizzard entry would have 13 games. Because that is what is notable. "Regular" companies can have 3 entries. 4 does sound like an overkill as I did not realize that every second company here would have developed games. After all this is a list of publishers.—  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  13:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Alphabetical

I populated most of the list, took me a while to do, can someone please make sure all the categories are in alphabetical order? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.232.247 (talk) 05:30, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Great job! —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  12:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I do urge you to be slightly more pedantic in the future about checking the edits. Several cities, games, and many of the sort keys have broken values. Nevertheless, thank you a lot for taking your time.—  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  13:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Major Omission

I know the list is in the middle of a huge revamping, but right now, the colors aren't really helpful (they're helpful to us', but not the public at large). A legend was promised, but as yet is missing. Anyone have an idea for one?

Also, some publishers are listed as (defunct) when the color is supposed to imply that, so the label is just redundant. If you color a defunct publisher, please remember to remove the (defunct) label. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 15:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Below is my attempt at a legend.

Legend

Active

Defunct

Acquired

Here is an obvious alternative:

Legend

Active

Defunct

Acquired

I know they suck, but I never claimed to be a graphic artist. Any other suggestions? Comments? — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 16:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I prefer rows and a bit longer explanation:

Legend

Active independently

Active as subsidiary

Defunct and no longer active

—  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  17:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks goo to me! — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 18:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• I also like the legend, but I find these colors very distracting. What about a less saturated version? Something like this:

Active independently

Active as subsidiary

Defunct and no longer active

— Rankiri (talk) 18:19, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

He-he, I put those colours mostly at random and then totally forgot about them. And, yes, lighter tones do look better. Good catch! —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  18:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I implemented Rankiri's color theme and cleaned up the lead to better explain what the list is about. Besides the need for cleaning up and filling the actual entries, the article is shaping nicely. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  18:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't like Ranki's use of the light/almost transparent powder blue. It's going to cause issues with vision impaired people, because it's to close to the base white color. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 19:14, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I filtered the table through all the colour blindness filters already. The blue is too light, yes, but that is not an issue specific to colour blindness. Stupid LCDs, when you sit back in the chair, all the colours look darker... Now I have to change everything again. So:

Legend

Active independently

Active as subsidiary

Defunct and no longer active

—  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  19:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• I don't mind. I mainly objected the bright dark orange. — Rankiri (talk) 19:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the orange was the one too dark. I saw your post and trigger happily copied the colours. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  19:50, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I changed the color of the defunct games to FF9966, see what you think. I think it might clash with some of the flags, but you want the defunct publishers to stand out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.232.247 (talk) 07:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It is definitely too dark. There has to be significant contrast between fg/bg for two reasons. One, colour blindness. Two, non-full color monitors and devices. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  11:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

A shade or two darker, this is still a little too light. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.232.247 (talk) 05:17, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, about legend's position. It is positioned before the table. It is intended to be read before the table entries. There are a lot of entries and thus the table is very long. Placing this after the table with no link or explanation from lead is confusing to the reader. As the table colouring is a core part of its structure, so should the legend present this clearly. Also the legend should specify it is a legend, I am unsure why you removed the title. In fact it should probably reside in a separate section to conform with other examples.

Secondly, the legend's wording was not chosen at random. You renamed it to "Head publisher" which is never again seen anywhere in the text and is not referenced. You also removed additional activity explanation from Subsidiary and Defunct. The purpose of legend is to explain the things clearly, it does not waste space or reduce readability in this case.

See Cheese_Shop_sketch; Comparison_of_netbooks; List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers; Dominika_Cibulková; Wang_Nan_(table_tennis) for legends used before long lists. In short, no short list/table placed legend underneath.

Also, don't forget to sign your comments with ~~~~. —  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  12:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Merge

I removed the list of former notable publishers from the video game publisher article, but quite a few former publishers from there weren't in this list. I added many, but here are the ones I didn't have time to check the all.

• Melbourne House (computer games and books)
• Microprose (acquired by Hasbro Interactive)
• Midway Games (most assets acquired by Warner Bros.)
• Mindscape, Inc.
• Muse Software (defunct)
• Ocean Software (acquired by Infogrames)
• Origin Systems (acquired by Electronic Arts)
• Penguin Software
• Psygnosis (acquired by Sony, now known as SCE Studio Liverpool)
• Spectrum Holobyte (acquired by Hasbro Interactive)
• Square Electronic Arts L.L.C. (Owned by Square and Electronic Arts. Folded back into Square Soft, Inc. and changed to Square Enix, Inc.)
• Taito (acquired by Square Enix)
• Technos Japan Corporation (defunct) (assets acquired by Atlus)
• U.S. Gold (acquired by Eidos Interactive)
• Virgin Interactive Entertainment
• Westwood Studios (acquired by Electronic Arts)

If you have some time, check to see that these are in the list and add them if not. Then cross them off this list. Thanks! — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 21:23, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed New Column Could we list also the total revenue of each company to date? it would be helpful information on each company. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.58.252 (talk) 15:40, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Help

Can you guys help me edit the Theatrical Film Production Company page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_theatrical_film_production_companies to follow the same format as the distributors page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Theatrical_Film_Companies , It is a lot of work and I would appreciate your help. It is also similar in style to the this page and the video game devlopers page.

Looks like it's been deleted. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 12:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Tim Song deleted it for no reason other then I retitled it as a move. Can you guys please ask him to undelete it. this is ridiculous. All the hard work and time for nothing wasted.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Misterix (talk • contribs) 06:03, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

This is probably the wrong place to appeal for help: the list of video game publishers article. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 01:08, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games#List of video game companies inclusion criteria czar 18:54, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Alphabetical sort

Please check alphabetical sorting occasionally. I have fixed several cases, but may have missed a few. GermanJoe (talk) 06:03, 9 February 2019 (UTC)