Thanks for the positive feedback! 🤣

The Mobygames database is very useful for me, so I felt I should acknowledge the hard work behind it by submitting a few things myself. Unfortunately I have only restricted amounts of time available...

I am not the only VOGONS member contributing to MG.
For example, here is a very nice System Shock review written by board member Great Hierophant.

Who else is supplying us retro-gamers with reviews, screenshots, and other stuff on MG? Speak up and show your work! 😉

Mobygames is too hassly for newbie contributors to deal with. I've have had my screenshots repeatedly rejected because the admins believe 1024x768 is impossible in DOS, and my game additions rejected because they may be "fictional" and "non-existent" (like Laser Invasion for NES by Konami)

game additions rejected because they may be "fictional" and "non-existent"

Hehe feel free to post nice box scans/cartridge photos/whatever (rejected reviews 😀 ) at vogons,
rare stuff is always nice to see.

Else you can pm the founders of it on this board.

leileilol wrote:

1024x768 is impossible in DOS

heh. I've seen people who firmly believe that "DOS" only runs games at 320x200.

hifrickinlarious.

leileilol wrote:

Mobygames is too hassly for newbie contributors to deal with. I've have had my screenshots repeatedly rejected because the admins believe 1024x768 is impossible in DOS, and my game additions rejected because they may be "fictional" and "non-existent" (like Laser Invasion for NES by Konami)

Laser Invasion "fictional?" I have a cartridge of it and it seems solid enough to me. Then I guess all these must be mockups:

http://video-games.search.ebay.com/Laser-Inva … gZ1QQsofocusZbs

I have often thought that MobyGames needs to be wholly reorganized to better serve the knowledge seeker. If I were running the project, I would do the following:

1. Encourage higher resolution or clearer scans of older games.

2. Add scans that show the system requirements/recommendations if not legibile or visible on the box covers.

3. Separate separate releases from compilation releases

4. Improve Technical Specs with supported 3D cards/chipsets

5. Remove outdated/wrong trivia

6. Use GIF/PNG format for all 256 or lower color images.

7. Eliminate incorrect screenshots when improved screenshots become available

8. Allow users to more easily edit things

I'm sad to say that I've never contributed to MobyGames. With the internet being the way it is it's all too easy for sites to disappear and since I NEED my list for compatibility testing and it works great for what I use it for there's nothing that MobyGames could do to help. I have checked their site once or twice to verify some data but that's about it.

/DosFreak takes notes from thread for whenever he stops focusing on compatibility on his list and finishes fleshing out the rest of the categories.

Great Hierophant wrote:

1. Encourage higher resolution or clearer scans of older games. 2. Add scans that show the system requirements/recommendations i […]
Show full quote

1. Encourage higher resolution or clearer scans of older games.
2. Add scans that show the system requirements/recommendations if not legibile or visible on the box covers.
3. Separate separate releases from compilation releases
4. Improve Technical Specs with supported 3D cards/chipsets
5. Remove outdated/wrong trivia
6. Use GIF/PNG format for all 256 or lower color images.
7. Eliminate incorrect screenshots when improved screenshots become available
8. Allow users to more easily edit things

Agreed with some of your points, but most of them can be resolved by writing a message to the approver. Bad screenshots and box scans will be replaced if you provide better ones.

I admit, waiting for the approver to react can get really tedious, and of course they make errors too. On the other hand, keeping a high standard throughout all entries would not be easily possible without an approval system.

Also, I would prefer the submitted content to be released under an open license. But I completely understand that the founders, after all the work and resources they invested in the site, wouldn't agree to this.

And finally, MG isn't meant to be used as the single information source about video games. However, with its creative search methods, organized structure and condensed presentation it is the perfect starting point when trying to gather information about a particular game.

I contribute to MobyGames - "educational" games, mostly - it's not difficult at all, and certainly not too difficult for people who can navigate the DosBoX FAQs! 😉

A couple of things - as far as resolutions go, Moby wants their screenshots to be as close to the way they looked when originally released as possible, thus, what may be possible to achieve in DOS is not especially what is desirable in a DOS game screenshot.

System recommendations are there for each game if they have been submitted, under "tech specs", on the left side of each game sheet. If you don't see the tech specs you can always submit them yourself 😀

Improved screenshots are definitely used to replace bad ones, if there is a significant difference or the earlier shots were incorrect or plagiarized.

GIF/PNG format is supposed to be used for 256 colors or less, probably there are some things that got through. Many early submissions are just...bad.

Keep in mind that everything can be corrected - if you are there and notice something incorrect, submit a correction - use the "contribute" link on the left of the game sheet and look for the "submit correction" link. Having correct information is very important at Moby - quality over quantity is always the idea, anyway.

I hope to have Laser Invasion approved and up very soon. I got sufficiently motivated by leileilol's story to make an entry myself with screenshots. However, while on the subject of screenshots, I have a few comments to make.

Regarding the "proper resolution" of a game, my view is that if the game was released or patched by the developers to support the resolution/color depth in question, then a screenshot should always be allowed. Thus the 1024x768 screenshot of Settlers 2 should have been approved, especially if it could be shown to have been in the install option. On the other hand, I am sympathetic to showing the game how it should have been and I do not believe that 1024x768 screenshots of System Shock should be included. Although the game engine supported them, the developers made a decision to disable the support in the game's executable. Only a hacker would have been able to experience SS in that resolution in that timeframe.

Another thing to consider is the output device each system supports. Most consoles did not support output to computer monitors. Nobody would have seen the clarity afforded by pixel and color accurate VGA. Most consoles were played on TVs. My Laser Invasion screenshots were made with the Nestopia emulator only because I do not have a TV screen capture device. For other systems, like the Apple II or composite color CGA, emulators really cannot do these graphics justice. In my opinion, these screenshots should be deleted when TV capture replacements become available.

Finally, and this is a particular pet peeve,I disapprove of attempts to correct for the "proper" aspect ratio. If TV capture is not possible, then the pixels should be square. Stretching almost always leads to inaccuracies, some pixels become larger, some smaller. In other cases, such as Servo's Hercules screenshots, the correction is too extreme. Although a Hercules did not actually display 2.06:1 ratio, the stretch displayed by Servo would surely cut off the top and bottom part of the visible screen, especially on the rectangular 5151.

I don't think a week goes by without somebody starting a new thread at Moby about screenshot resolutions, square vs. squashed pixels, etc, everybody has a different opinion - try searching all forum boards with the keyword screenshot 🤣

Here's the official resolution list http://www.mobygames.com/info/screenshots, though I'm not sure if it has been updated in...ever.

The best way to get a submission approved is to provide as much as you can in the way of references - links to websites for release dates, or uploaded scans of manual pages, screenshots of ingame info screens, etc.

Anyway, probably enough about MobyGames in a Vogons forum 😀