Template talk:Infobox video game

Staff in Infobox

I believe this has been discussed before several times but I feel like this needs to be asked again: Should lead staff be listed in infobox only if they're discussed in the article or should they be listed regardless? I lean towards listing them regardless of article mention, albeit if there's too many then we can omit them. A game's lead staff - art director, lead writer, etc. - hold those roles regardless of whether they're discussed in the article. The lead staff is relevant information. The game credits already act as the (primary) source. Similarly, film and TV infoboxes list key staff regardless of article mention. Suppose a game has three writers but the article only mentions one. So do we only list the mentioned one and omit the unmentioned two? This is misleading since it suggests this game only had one writer. Wrath X (talk) 06:40, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE explicitly says information should "ideally should also be found in the main body of an article" and the purpose of an infobox is to summarize, but not supplant, the key facts that appear in an article. [...] The less information that an infobox contains, the more effectively it serves its purpose [...] information should be presented in a short format wherever possible, and should exclude unnecessary content. More specifically to video games, "creative director" in one studio doesn't necessarily equate to creative director in another; many personnel are credited in ways that our fields would make misleading. For example Josh Holmes is not a producer for Halo 5, he's credited as studio head, internal development and there's not a field that is going to match to. Likewise there's a bunch of personnel who could be called "director", from the Creative Director to Campaign & Sandbox Director to Multiplayer Director. Who gets to be credited as "Designer"? That revision credits Chris Haluke, but there's ten campaign design leads, six sandbox design leads, eight multiplayer design leads, two progression design leads and a user-generated content design lead.

The problem is especially pronounced with modern game development, but even with an older game you're going to run into issues. Jason Jones you can credit as director of Halo 2 but his actual title was project lead. The executive producer Pete Parsons is not listed under the producer field. Okay, you say, 'producer' is not for 'executive producer', just for people with explicitly 'producer' as their titles. But then why is the "Designer" field just Griesemer, who was "Game design lead", but not the three-plus people also credited as solely designers? Marcus Lehto was art director, not just an artist, so why aren't we counting the lead effects and 3D artist? There's virtually no game where you won't have to play this kind of game about, and consistency across games will be impossible. Wikipedia is not the IMDB of video games, and infoboxes cannot be credit lists to even the extent of films, where there's far fewer and far more clearly defined roles. Limiting the infobox to information actually discussed and relevant to the body of the article and notable names, places, and things is how infoboxes are supposed to work in general, and it's the only sane way of making them work for video games. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:01, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I think tying infobox inclusion strictly to whether a name happens to be mentioned in the prose creates unnecessary arbitrariness. Whether someone appears in the infobox shouldn’t depend on whether another editor added a sentence like “X was the lead writer.” In fact, I’ve seen articles where staff members are literally only mentioned in a single sentence stating their role - by that logic, simply adding a sentence like that would suddenly make it acceptable to list them in the infobox. That’s simply a reflection of how much an editor has written in the article, not a factually significant difference about who actually contributed to the game.

MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE says an infobox should “summarize, but not supplant, the key facts that appear in an article,” and that the article should “remain complete with its infobox ignored.” It doesn’t prohibit verifiable facts that aren’t in the prose - it emphasises conciseness and relevance. The same section (MOS:INFOBOXEXCEPTIONS) even allows exceptions where "key specialised information may be placed in the infobox, but is difficult to integrate into the body text." This clearly applies to key staff roles that are verifiable but not always discussed in the article text.

A concern of mine is about potentially misleading information. For example, if a game credits three writers but the article text happens to mention only one, listing just that one in the infobox misleadingly implies that the others didn’t contribute. This is just inaccurate information.

To handle ambiguous or variable job titles, we list only the overall lead of each department, regardless of the exact title used in the credits. For example, the head of the art department is listed whether they're credited as “art director” or “lead artist,” and the head of the design department is listed whether credited as “design director” or “lead designer.” Sub-specialty leads (e.g., environment art director, lead character artist, combat design lead, etc.) are not included per Template:Infobox video game. Roles that don’t clearly map to template fields (e.g., “studio head, internal development”) are similarly excluded.

Staff fields generally have a practical limit of about three names per role, so if a department has many contributors (e.g., six writers), then they are omitted from the infobox. This approach preserves accuracy, avoids misleading omissions, and prevents infobox bloat. Also regarding sourcing, the game itself serves as the primary source via its official credits.

Seeing as how not too many editors have joined in, I doubt a consensus will be reached. Ultimately, I've noticed that the contents of the infobox depend on the "owner" of the article (the one who significantly contributed to it and maintains watch over it). If I add to "your" infobox you'll revert me, but if I remove from someone else's infobox they'll revert me. Oh well. Wrath X (talk) 11:34, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

The problem for video games, particularly with any AAA-level game, is that the individual contributors are rarely discussed by RSes, beyond key people like the project lead or narrative director, so if that's only information buried in the game's credits, we shouldn't be covering it on WP. Unlike film or televsion, the bulk of developers on video games are non-notable individuals so we'd just be including lots of names without linkage, which gives no context. Masem (t) 12:58, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Honestly, I’m open to removing the individual staff fields entirely and only listing the developer and publisher. As you've pointed out, the game industry does emphasise companies rather than individuals, unlike film or TV. Many game websites (IGN, GameSpot, Steam) pretty much only list the developer/publisher. Metacritic, for example, lists individuals for films and TV, but only the developer and publisher for games. My main concern is that including some individuals in the infobox but not others can be arbitrary, misleading, and inconsistent. Limiting the infobox to developer/publisher does seem to address both my concerns and the other editor's. Any particularly notable staff can still be mentioned in the article body. Wrath X (talk) 13:47, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like something worth running by WT:VG for broader input, then. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 21:31, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Cover art question

The instructions for cover art state that "The ideal image is an English-language cover or, in the case of an arcade game, a promotional flier. Secondarily, use a logo or foreign-language cover." Some games seem to be released in a few multiple languages, but no English release with obvious English text on the cover such as Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden 3. The game was released in Japan and in France. The current cover appears to be using a French title. The Japanese cover uses basically the same amount of English text (as seen here) with the "Dragon Ball" logo being most prominent. What's the preference for that here? I'm leaning towards using the Japanese one in this case as (presumably) a predominalty Japanese game for the Japanese market that happened to get a small release in Europe. Andrzejbanas (talk) 09:31, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Since there was no English-language release, I would default to the original region which in this case was Japan. It's a better version of the same cover artwork anyway, without the framing from the EU cover. TarkusAB^talk/contrib 17:27, 1 December 2025 (UTC)