Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of CryEngine games

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's
talk page or in a deletion review
). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. After reviewing this discussion, I see a strong consensus to delete both numerically and policy-wise. Deletes put forward

WP:SUNKCOST. Additionally, I did not find the lack of an RfC on the particulars of video game engines to be persuasive. Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 11:13, 21 October 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

List of CryEngine games

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NOTE that there’s also a discussion on deleting the categories of games by engine:

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2022 October 13#Category:Video games by game engine

It’s logical to discuss list articles too. Moreover, the engine of the game is often poorly sources as discussed in video games project, and lists tend to stay incomplete.

I am nominating these list articles:

--Respiciens (talk) 11:58, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment List articles do not fall under the same
WP:NEXIST for why "poorly sourced" isn't an argument in AfD. I am leaning delete due to their nature as forever incomplete lists for some of the ongoing engines. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 13:22, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply
]

Delete. These are non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations, and can never conceivably be complete, given the sheer number of games made with popular engines. (Disclaimer: I was notified on my talk page about this discussion, probably because I once nominated a related category for deletion.) Sandstein 13:27, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, I notified those who participated in this discussion, as well as creators and largest contributors of these list articles, if they are still active on Wikipedia. --Respiciens (talk) 17:34, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Video games, Software, and Lists. Skynxnex (talk) 14:00, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Sandstein. Sergecross73 msg me 14:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, especially due to the growing proliferation of third-party engine licensing. If a game has an engine with a notable name and article, it can be listed in its infobox and/or the article text. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:02, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or Merge I am in favor of keeping at least the list of Ren'Py games, although for more popular game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine it seems rather difficult to keep the lists of notable games that use them up-to-date. A game engine that has fewer notable games such as Ren'Py is easier to maintain a quality list of that includes all the games on it that are notable according to Wikipedia. I think the list of Ren'Py games is fairly complete as far as all the notable ones go (there are many times that number of games made in Ren'Py but none of the others are notable on Wikipedia as far as I know). For similar reasons (regarding the list being fairly complete and the article quality being good) I am in favor of keeping the list of Sierra's Creative Interpreter games, which is also a historical list for a game engine no longer in active use for new games that is part of an earlier era of video game history. Additionally, Sierra Entertainment is/was a video game developer/publisher and this is closely associated with them as a developer/publisher, and there are many lists of video games by various developers or publishers, so I think the Sierra's Creative Interpreter games list ought to stay in some form even if we get rid of lists of games by game engine, perhaps merging it into List of Sierra Entertainment video games. It seems that CryEngine and GameMaker are somewhere in between as far as how many games use them, not as popular as Unity or Unreal Engine but still might possibly be used by more notable games than are listed, and CryEngine games include a lot by Crytek so if we get rid of that article, we should at least preserve a list of Crytek games (which does not exist as a separate article right now since they are all on the list of CryEngine games currently), but such lists exist for other game developers and publishers. Additionally, RenderWare seems like it used to be somewhat popular but mostly stopped being used in the late 2000s and hardly anyone has used it in years, which means maintaining the article listing games made with it ought to be fairly easy since new ones are not being made.

Of course this only answers the questions of article quality and completeness for the articles, not whether the articles themselves are notable or not. I think regarding notability, if the game engine is notable and the games themselves are also notable, it logically follows that a list of games using that game engine would also be notable too, most likely, unless I am missing something. There is of course the issue of sourcing/citation, i.e. coming up with a source to cite that says that this game is based on this engine. Personally I think that for a notable game, the game itself is a source and if you run the game and it says what engine it uses, or take a brief look at the game files and it is obvious what game engine it uses, this ought to implicitly count as a verifiable source that anyone can independently verify as factually correct, and would not be original research because anyone can do it to verify it. In the case of Ren'Py games for instance, they all have very similar user interfaces and huge numbers of other similarities such as all having similar main menus and different options in those menus and looking the same when you play the actual game. In fact, although Ren'Py games are almost all visual novels, it is usually fairly easy to spot a Ren'Py game and distinguish it from another visual novel, because other visual novels tend to have much more variety in their user interfaces while Ren'Py games tend to all have a very similar look that is immediately identifiable. The same is true of the NScripter engine listed at List of visual novel engines#NScripter, regarding it being quite easy to spot and identify based on having a unique appearance different from other game engines (e.g. if you know what Tsukihime looks like, the other NScripter games all have the same look too as far as the main menu interface and how they look during gameplay itself). However a list of NScripter games does not exist (most likely because NScripter does not have its own Wikipedia page and is only listed on another page, making the case for such a list being notable less strong, because we are not sure if NScripter itself is notable or not). Also regarding the Sierra's Creative Interpreter games, there is a popular emulator that can play all of them known as ScummVM and they are similar to a game platform such as games for a specific historic game console of the 1980s or 1990s like the NES, Sega Genesis, SNES, PlayStation, etc., in that they can all be emulated quite well by a game emulator that supports the Sierra Creative Interpreter platform, but other games using platforms not supported by the ScummVM platform are not playable in ScummVM. The list of SCI games is thus useful for people who use ScummVM as well as interesting for historical reasons of the early history of video games, and obviously new games using that engine are not being made except perhaps minor noncommercial projects by hobbyists which would make the new ones not notable (similar to how occasionally hobbyists make new Atari 2600 or NES games even now but these minor games are not even remotely notable and hardly anyone is aware they exist).

The list of articles nominated for deletion above, regarding lists of games made by specific game engines, is incomplete, so in the event that we are going to be deleting some or all of these lists rather than keeping them, here are some others that you could potentially create a separate AfD for if this AfD is successful at deletion (some of these I think ought to be deleted even if this AfD fails):

) (this is just a redirect but still exists as an article title and links to a section of the article on the Source engine listing them)

List of games with support for high-fidelity image upscaling (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (again this is a redirect and there isn’t even a list where this links to, and actually I think this redirect should be deleted because there is no possible way to list games with support for high-fidelity image upscaling since that is a common thing and such a list does not even exist and this redirect is not an accurate redirect and does not redirect to what it says it does and the thing it is supposed to redirect to does not even exist on Wikipedia, so it should be deleted)

List of games with DLSS support (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (this is just a redirect, but the page it links to does not have a list, also DLSS is a relatively new technology but more and more games will support it in the future until the list of games supporting it will be very very long, technically DLSS is not a game engine but this is similar enough you might want to consider it, anyway this list does not exist so it should be deleted for being a misleading redirect)

Frostbite (game engine)#Games using Frostbite (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (this list of games using the Frostbite game engine is on the page for the Frostbite game engine as a section rather than being a separate article, you could consider it as a list that has been merged into the article on its game engine, actually I think this sort of thing should be kept and if we delete these articles we should try and merge these lists in the same way as this one, I am not in favor of deleting this, this is an example of what to keep... while this doesn’t exist as a separate article, it is linked to from the List of Lists of video games in the By engine section so this is relevant)

above, anyway this redirect ought to suffer the same fate that these other lists of games by game engine all get, personally I think it should stay and that we should keep it, I am just listing all of these for completeness}}

List of GoldSrc mods (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (this is a list of mods to games that use the GoldSrc game engine and is one of the lists listed on the List of lists of games in the By engine section, personally I think this article is good and should be kept, but if you delete all these other articles the consistent thing would be deleting this one too)

List of Source mods (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (this lists mods to games that use the Source game engine and is one of the lists listed on the List of lists of games in the By engine section, although I like this list and think it should stay, some of the mods listed in it are not notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles, anyway if we are being consistent, this article should be considered along with the others)

) (this is a redirect to the page on the Yaoi genre, and that page does not even have a list of yaoi games, and while this isn’t related to a game engine, I think this redirect ought to be deleted since what it claims to be, a List of yaoi games, does not exist on Wikipedia, and yaoi is such a common genre of game now, it would be impossible to list them all, plus most yaoi games are not notable, so I think this should be deleted regardless, even though technically unrelated to the game engine topic here)

There are many other lists of games but I think that about covers it.

Anyway I would like to keep or merge lists of video games by game engine, in general, although there are some cases of lists I think should be deleted and some of the lists are better quality than others or make more sense to keep than others. Supposing for the sake of argument that those of you who do not want to keep these lists do not find my arguments to keep them convincing, and assuming that I end up on the losing side of the argument and the lists end up being deleted, I suggest a compromise. The content of those articles could at least be merged into the articles about their game engines, so the articles about their game engines would have lists of games made in those engines, as a section. This is how things already work on the article about the Frostbite game engine, for instance. So my compromise proposal, if my favored proposal of keeping the articles in question is declined, is that we merge the content into the articles about the game engines. This makes sense for various reasons: first of all, the game engines are notable, secondly, the games listed in the lists are also notable, third, this is useful information about the game engines and which games use them that is relevant to the subject of an article, if the subject is a game engine. So in the event that these list articles are deleted, I am of a very STRONG opinion that they should be merged into the articles on the game engines as sections, and that the lists should be turned into redirects to those sections. And perhaps if you add in a comment in the articles in that section, as well as a comment in the redirect, saying that turning those lists into separate pages would require consensus on the talk page for the game engine in question, and putting a little note on the talk page of each game engine explaining this situation, about how you all decided to delete articles listing games by game engine, and so they shouldn’t be restored, but are being kept as redirects to sections of the articles on each game engine.

Anyway I am willing to compromise on letting these articles get deleted and turned into redirects to sections of the articles on the game engines, but, regarding article quality, I think this would make the articles on the game engines get a bit longer than I would prefer, and I think ideally, these lists do better as separate pages, in terms of having the content of an article not be excessively long and how, for example, on an article about a TV show with, oh, say, 13 episodes, typically those episodes are listed on a separate page in order to improve readability and not make the TV show article too long. So my preference is still to keep all these articles. If they are just deleted without even merging the content into the articles on the game engines, I have no doubt people will try to list games made using those engines on the articles about those game engines, but this will be made much more difficult if you just delete without merging, and result in worse article quality for all the articles on game engines, and make the lists that are on the game engine pages themselves be much more incomplete, losing all the time and work that people put into compiling these lists. Anyway, I don’t see how it is useful to delete these lists, because people who are interested in games and game engines and want to look up that information ought to be able to find it on Wikipedia, at least if the games and game engines are notable. Wikipedia is full of all sorts of lists like these, they don’t do any harm, everything on them as well as their topics is notable, given that the game engines and games are both notable, and deleting these lists doesn’t accomplish anything except removing useful information from what is supposed to be an online encyclopedia that covers all notable topics. This proposed deletion makes no sense to me, deleting useful information that is clearly notable, and I oppose it, and urge people to either keep or merge this content, preferably keeping it the way it is rather than having to merge it onto the articles for the game engines. Simply deleting it entirely, in all of these cases, would just be a senseless act of destroying information, akin to burning the books of a library although to a much much smaller degree, I don’t mean to be overly dramatic here, I am just trying to make an analogy to illustrate my perspective. Of course I respect the opinions of the other people in this discussion and think you are also trying to make Wikipedia the best it can be, in good faith, just like me, I just differ on whether I think these lists should continue to exist or not. Apologies for writing such a long comment but I thought it was necessary to go into more detail on a number of specific cases and discuss different options we have and what I thought were the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Also make sure to consider what to do about those other cases I mentioned not in the original AfD, and if this one is successful at deletion despite my opposition, please try to be consistent about applying this new precedent in a fair way to the other articles in a way that makes sense, so that whatever decision is made here, it is applied consistently in a way that maximizes article quality, gets rid of deceptive redirects to content that does not even exist on Wikipedia, and so on. I realize those other articles I linked to are ones that would require a separate AfD and cannot be done in this one, but I thought listing them here would be useful as a reference to use in the future if any AfD(s) ever are made for the others. Thank you for considering my thoughts and sorry I did not specifically cite Wikipedia policies, I have a general understanding of many of them but I wanted to have a more practical discussion rather than just trying to make an argument by citing stuff like

WP:NOTPAPER that is in keeping with my arguments here (especially since the Wikipedia is not paper thing is often used as a last resort to keep non-encyclopedic content, but I still think it is a good policy that is probably the most relevant one for me to cite here, especially given the part about splitting articles to keep things more accessible, that is a good argument for keeping these lists as separate articles from the main articles on the game engines, because realistically, the articles on the game engines are going to list games that use them if we do delete these articles, which could result in some of them becoming excessively long, which is not good for accessibility for mobile users or users with slow Internet connections or so on). Like realistically, if we delete these list articles, do you really think the editors of the CryEngine or Ren'Py etc. articles will just NOT have any list of games that use those engines, not even on those article pages themselves in a section like how is done on the Frostbite game engine article? Of course that content will get added back there, since it is relevant to the subjects of the game engine articles, and about notable games, and verifiable by anyone who downloads and installs the games to see what engine they use. But it will be added back here in a worse form than the current form of these separate lists, less complete, contributing to excessive page length, etc., which would be especially bad for the pages on the Unity or Unreal Engines. They would get way too long if that happened, there is an article size limit after all. I think keeping all these lists as-is is the most practical solution for avoiding excessively long pages about the game engines. Because if we did delete these pages and then this information got recreated on those game engine pages, people would try separating those lists of games using those game engines into separate Wikipedia pages again, re-creating what we would be deleting here, and then you would have to delete it again, citing this AfD’s decision to delete, and it would just be an endless cycle, people would keep trying to re-create these articles, in other words, and they would not find the arguments against these articles even remotely convincing, leading to future AfDs and an endless cycle of controversy and arguments, which can easily be averted by just letting these articles stay. They aren’t hurting anyone or ruining Wikipedia’s reputation, their content is quality encyclopedic content which ought to stay on Wikipedia in some form, ideally on the current articles, but if not that, at least on the articles about the game engines. If you really do not think this content should be on Wikipedia, do AfDs on the articles for the game engines themselves, rather than just these lists. Those AfDs would probably fail, of course, because those game engines are notable and are cited as such by multiple reliable independent sources. Obviously I am in favor of keeping the articles on the game engines, I am just saying that these lists are of equal notability to the game engines themselves and if you delete one it is logical to delete the other (and both are bad ideas that I oppose). —yetisyny (talk • contribs) 17:29, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

- Regarding the articles about mods (List of GoldSrc mods, List of Source mods), I deliberately omitted them from this nomination, as that would be better in in a separate discussion.

Regarding your arguments, I think that we should keep Ren’py list in some form (possibly merged) - I had doubts about it, but included it for sake of completeness.

Maybe we should keep Sierra Creative interpreter list too. If it’s correct that all games in this list were made by Sierra and not third parties, then it can be merged into List of Sierra Entertainment video games. But it should be reworked - there’s too many unnecessary (and unsourced) details like exact version of engine for each version of each game. --Respiciens (talk) 18:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. (and if not kept, userify so the information remains accessible for export to Wikidata) I added sources to various entries on
WP:NODEADLINE. Unless we delete them now, which will guarantee they will never be complete, but that would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
@Masem, you mentioned adding engine information to Wikidata. That could be an alternative, but until that export has been completed we shouldn't destroy the information itself here. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:01, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply
]

Delete Agree these are non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations and are much better served (as a ton of these lists are) via categories in virtually every way. There aren't sources talking about specific game engines and specific details of them to a degree they meet LISTN (even stuff like Unity where "Unity jank" gets thrown out as a criticism of games that use it and are poorly optimized) and what you're left with are lists that cannot ever be reasonably complete. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 20:01, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete on the basis that these lists do not seem referenced. I agree with the comment about that categories are better. I note however a related categories for deletion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2022 October 13 that feeds into here. I think we need to come to a conclusion about what needs to be deleted and why. Or should we just keep? Or just purge the categories and lists at the same time, although I think this may upset a few people. - Master Of Ninja (talk) 20:41, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations. Woodroar (talk) 21:25, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as given above. I would also point out that even for games using one of these engines, using categories is not a suitable replacement as most games are not recognized by their game engine...they are non defining cats, at least as cats are now currently used. Wikidata is a better location to store engine data and make that usable for database purposes. --Masem (t) 23:10, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Masem, but the information on Wikidata is incomplete. For example d:Q94671 does list Renderware, but not the source that List of RenderWare games provides. What about moving these lists to userspace?
  I personally don't care that strongly about keeping these as articles, but I strongly oppose deletion which makes the information inaccessible altogether. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 04:43, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - Would also agree with above - I've edited d:Q94671 to give a reference to the information that this is Renderware, but I am not totally versed in WikiData structuring. Masem - from your writing I wonder if you are more versed in storing and extracting information from Renderware? In that case is it worth keeping the lists and categories for a while, whilst the information is moved over to WikiData? And a VG project WikiData guide can be made on how to store data consistently, and how to do a WikiData search for this information. - Master Of Ninja (talk) 06:35, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  There is no
  WP:DEADLINE. I don't think there is any automated scheme that can be used here, so it will just require time to complete the date in Wikidata. Masem (t) 13:23, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  Masem, but if these lists are deleted (and not moved to userspace) the closure of this discussion would be the deadline as non-admins won't be able to access the lists after that. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:30, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  WP:REFUND exists for that reason. If a user intends to lede the effort to bring the content to wikidata, then they can request userification to access the list. Masem (t) 15:43, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  That's just an additional hurdle and a waste of admin's time. I might consider chipping away at it at some point, perhaps Master of Ninja too, perhaps others. The deletion of these lists isn't being discussed because the content is harmful (like spam or misinformation), this is about scope. Deletion doesn't have any technical benefit either, so why not userify? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:32, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  you can ask for userification now, that's an option too. But there's agreement (so far) that we don't feel these need to be in the mainspace of WP. Masem (t) 23:00, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  Hi all. Apologies for delay as I had other things to do. *If* there is consensus for deletion, I am more than accepting that the articles are moved to my userspace if no-one else wants to take this over, and as long as there are no significant negative consequences of doing so (I am not so versed in this part of WP). I don't have lots of time to do it, but I can slowly move things to Wikidata if neither categories nor list are acceptable on a consensus basis. This will be a slow project, and I would want the support of the relevant Wikiproject. I think once you understand what Wikidata is doing, you can get something like this - the link is run through the Wikidata Query Service and is a list of all articles tagged as video games, with the engine listed as Renderware. You could likely link it to the relevant WP page as a query, so avoids lists and categories. The way I think WikiData works is that the game and the software engine need to be notable enough to have their own WP page, so it gets around a lot of the notability issues. In fact the WikiData branch of the WikiProject video games already has a page that generates statistics - I think it just needs more reports to be constructed and generated, that can then be linked to from wikipedia. Thoughts? - Master Of Ninja (talk) 08:16, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As I just said at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2022_October_13#Category:Video_games_by_game_engine, millions of people download and try to make games with these engines each year. Some of them actually succeed. This is useful for those searching for information about them. The lists should only have games that are notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles of course. Useful for navigation and more information can be presented than what categories have. Dream Focus 07:28, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This argument would only make sense if someone was trying to delete the game engine articles themselves, which they aren't. The rest of your argument is just
saying you find the lists useful. Sergecross73 msg me 15:53, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply
]

Delete and use categories instead. These lists have little pratical value. It may be a good idea to put them into categories. MilkyDefer 09:39, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@User:MilkyDefer Do look at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2022 October 13#Category:Video games by game engine for the related discussion about deleting the categories. As pointed above we actually need to decide do we delete nothing, delete categories, delete lists, or delete both? - Master Of Ninja (talk) 10:51, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The categories are even more clearly not defining at all. Reliable sources do not "commonly and consistently" mention a game's engine when they are speaking about a game, like they do for its genre, release date, etc. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 13:55, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
At best, the first one or two games using a new engine or new version of an engine may be commented that way, but thats really the extent of how a game gets recognized assocuation with an engine. Masem (t) 15:45, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep — We are in the process of deleting the categories and listifying. They are inappropriate as categories, as such only appear for articles, so are woefully incomplete. Lists better support references.
William Allen Simpson (talk) 12:37, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep if we're lumping all of these together as one discussion; in general it looks like we're trying to delete an entire class of lists; related to game engines. I can't find any
WP:LISTPURP, which they do not; both the "information" and "navigation" purpose seem to be met by the class in general. If individual lists in this class are inappropriate for other reasons, they should be considered individually; but if we're asking (as this discussion is) "Should Wikipedia have lists about video game engines", my answer is "why not?" If we need a general policy or guideline specifically against having lists of games by game engine, then that needs to be instituted by a policy discussion and documented somewhere, and not legislated via XFD. --Jayron 32 16:30, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply
]
The navigation aspect of this is highly quedtionable... it is mostly a one way link list with the referenced game articles unlikely to link back to this (but back to the engine article). There is very little these games have in common beyond the engine (there are far better values that link games together, like genre or platform). The information angle is something that can be replicated nowadays using Wikidata functions (those that does need updating). So the basic issue is that this now falls into the NOTDIR aspects.. this is not a type of list regularly discussed on RSes (engines themselves are, just not enumerating games using that engine) Masem (t) 16:08, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's
talk page or in a deletion review
). No further edits should be made to this page.