Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quest for Saddam

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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 no consensus. Guerillero Parlez Moi 12:08, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Quest for Saddam

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Quest for Saddam (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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The article fails to meet

WP:GNG. All of the copious sources that mention it are as a passing mention on the game Quest for Bush and on Wafaa_Bilal's "Virtual Jihadi" modification of the Bush game, both of which received extensive coverage (unlike this game). Examples include: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]
. There is nothing to merge to either article, so a straight delete should be fine here.

There's a somewhat odd story behind this nomination. Back in 2015, I was one of the only participants in an AfD for Quest for Al-Qa'eda, and I suggested that this article also be nominated for deletion. I'm following through on that nom 8 years later today. Nomader (talk) 07:01, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Found these sources. [10], [11], [12] [13] . Apparently, there was some coverage of the game on FOX News and CNN according to the last source. Timur9008 (talk) 10:41, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for digging these up (I'm slightly embarrassed I didn't do a newspapers.com search before nominating, so thanks for doing it). Worth flagging that the first two are press releases/market wire releases. The quote at the top of the site clearly seems to be sarcastic or a joke as well, but there was an interview on MSNBC that's definitely worth flagging here. I looked into all three of the networks listed on the site below. Nomader (talk) 15:58, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • MSNBC did a full interview segment (!!) with the creator of the game. It's pretty wild honestly. At one part the anchor says, "all these publications and reviewers are calling you a legit designer! They're saying, was it Wired magazine, Game Informer, Computer Games magazine, Gamingrevolutions.com, they're giving positive reviews of this game" -- but I've found none of these. Searching now. [14]
      • Fox News mention is passing, in the context of Virtual Jihadi, and doesn't contain any reviews of the show. [15])
      • CNN gave it a brief passing mention in 2003 on Wolf Blitzer's show in a "look at other headlines around the world segment." It featured a tiny clip of gameplay and the following commentary: "Quest for Saddam" is debuting at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. The creator is just 19-years-old." Other CNN sources only mention it in the context of the Bush game ([16], [17]).
        • I'm still standing by my nomination for now. It's clear from further searching that the game was renamed sometime in 2002-3 to "Quest for Saddam" from its original name, "Quest for Hussein." I haven't found any of these articles that the MSNBC interviewed mentioned, and candidly, judging by the website, I'm not sure it actually received that coverage (the interview is extremely fawning and may not have investigated things here). It's worth noting that Wired in particular maintains a very detailed database of its old stories and hosts everything, but it isn't there at all -- if anyone has scans from around 2002-3, might be worth looking into. I've also found a couple of passing mentions of the game at its old name: [18] (an article from the Boston Globe about whether to call Saddam Hussein "Saddam" or "Hussein" and is a passing mention) and [19] (Philly Inquirer column that uses the game as a framing narrative to talk about games that feature killing terrorists). Nomader (talk) 17:28, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I've gone through and added some of the sources (including the Detroit Free Press piece) to the article, along with context about it being a part of Quest for Bush. I could also see an argument to be made where the page is merged into Quest for Bush -- the latter has a ton of sources and a really good article could be written about it. Nomader (talk) 07:13, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 07:03, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep The evidence found by Nomader convinces me that the topic is notable. I hope that someone will improve the article.-- Toddy1 (talk) 10:19, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 08:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Guerillero Parlez Moi 13:47, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I found books that write about it:
  1. We Are Iraqis: Aesthetics and Politics in a Time of War. (2013). United States: Syracuse University Press. Page 99 is mostly about it. I'd call this significant coverage, people could debate that.
  2. Anthropy, A. (2012). Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form. United Kingdom: Seven Stories Press. (also half a page, borderline significant coverage in my assessment)
  3. Flanagan, M. (2009). Critical Play: Radical Game Design. United Kingdom: MIT Press. (most of a page, but larger book, more writing than the two above, I'd call this significant)
Like the above books do, academic papers also discuss the racial/ethnic and natioanlistic elements of the game:
  1. BILAL, W. Curated Spaces. Radical History Review, [s. l.], n. 117, p. 139–148, 2013. DOI 10.1215/01636545-2375232. Disponível em: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=90650133&site=eds-live&scope=site. Acesso em: 23 mar. 2023.
  2. HODGE, P. M. Manifesting Extinctathon: Virtual Reality and Terrorism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. Global Media Journal: Indian Edition, [s. l.], v. 13, n. 1, p. 1–22, 2021. Disponível em: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=155700174&site=eds-live&scope=site. Acesso em: 23 mar. 2023.
I actually find it surprising that both books and academic papers wrote about this game. It seems unusually notable. Also surprising that this has not been discussed above. CT55555(talk) 23:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But again though, we see that all of this context is based around Quest for Bush and Virtual Jihadi. @CT55555:, I think you've made an excellent argument that Virtual Jihadi should be expanded and possibly spun out from Wafaa Bilal's page, but at best, Quest for Saddam should be a background sentence for it and for Quest for Bush. It is simply not notable on its own.
  • The "We Are Iraqis" book's section is an extensive discussion.... of Quest for Bush or in this case, referring to it as Night of Bush Capturing. It highlights how the game used Quest for Saddam to create this other work.
  • The Anna Anthropy piece feels like it more directly addresses the game itself, and I think could be used for notability... but it's still presented in the light of Quest for Bush, which is where its significance comes from and only talks about Quest for Saddam in half a paragraph. (She is definitely a reliable source and is a prolific writer of both independent video games and about their creation, as a note here).
  • The Flanagan book is a really interesting piece..... on Bilal's "Virtual Jihadi" game that I mentioned in my nomination. It extensively discusses it.
  • The first "Curated Spaces" article again is a great piece on Bilal's "Virtual Jihadi" game which is again a modification of Quest for Saddam. It contains no information about Quest for Saddam. It is also extremely similar in the text that appeared in the "We Are Iraqis" book and appears to have been written by Bilal himself on both occasions (also using the same "the widely marketed video game" language).
  • The last source is actually worse than all the others. It literally says, " In 2006, Al Quaeda altered the video game Quest for Saddam, a first-person shooter game that allowed the player to capture Saddam Hussein, into Quest for Bush, thereby completely reversing the player’s aim. ISIS also released a jihad version of Grand Theft Auto and its android app called The Dawn of Glad Tidings."
I think it's clear based on your exhaustive search that there is *not* coverage of Quest for Saddam independently that makes it notable. Trust me, I've searched everywhere for it too, and everything that comes up is stuff like this. It should be at best a "background" sentence or two for these other topics. Nomader (talk) 16:21, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The significance of the coverage is a fair point to disagree on, even if I am not convinced. Do you consider that the game inspiring, or being the template for, others helps establish notability? From my perspective, I find it strange to accept the the spins offs are notable, but the original inspiration is not. CT55555(talk) 16:28, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It certainly isn't a common thing that we run into here on Wikipedia that's for sure! I don't think it necessarily does TBH, I really wish there was more independent coverage of the actual source here.
After reading through source after source, it seems clear to me that the only things saying that it "got significant coverage" is actually from Bilal talking about and promoting his own creation, Virtual Jihadi, and that weird MSNBC interview that I cited above where the interviewer takes at face value that it was covered in other places, but doesn't actually seem to be? I think this is really pushing me towards significantly improving both the coverage on Quest for Bush and Virtual Jihadi so a redirect can feel like a realistic ATD instead of deleting a reasonable place where all of this information can live. If this article ends up being kept and this discussion is closed, I may ping you for a gut check if a redirect would be appropriate later on. Nomader (talk) 20:50, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, being the inspiration for games does not confer notability. Everything is considered in a vacuum and it would be the same as arguing your clone of a famous, notable video game inherits notability from that famous game. It's possible that a game inspired by something can reach far greater heights of fame than its inspiration. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 05:16, 30 March 2023 (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.
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