Why no MobyGames.com support?

[TracyPoff]

Jason Carr said Good news! Simon got back to me over at MobyGames and it sounds like they could possibly be interested in me developing the API. We'll work through the details and hopefully it all works out. This is great, because there is no better database that I've found, so this could mean much better searches/metadata/images in LaunchBox.

Great! If it works out with you coding the API, then I'll look forward to your contribution. If not, building an API is on the todo list, anyway, so we'll get this done one way or another.

[Jason Carr]

Awesome, great to hear. :)

[Jason Carr]

Hi @TracyPoff, got word back that you're going to be developing the API. Excited to see that happen and looking forward to working with you on it for LaunchBox. Hit me up when you're ready to jump in or discuss it. :)

[TracyPoff]

I'll definitely get in contact with you once things are further along. Once I've got a preliminary design for the schema, I'll send along the details so I can get your feedback. No point implementing an API that doesn't serve its users, right? There are still various architectural concerns to be dealt with before implementation, but the design doesn't really depend on that, so hopefully you'll hear from me on the order of weeks rather than months.

[Jason Carr]

Awesome, sounds great. :)

[CriticalCid]

I just saw that Mobygames put out a news a few days ago in which they said that the API will be ready soon. https://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,3/dgm,223636/vm,2/ Can’t wait for finally have it integrated in LaunchBox

[releasethedogs]

what language of wikipedia does launch box search? I assume english only?? I've found some info searching non-english wikipedia for games from other regions. Add support for Japanese wikipedia at least?

[SentaiBrad]

Wikipedia is sadly inaccurate and if it is searching other languages of Wikipedia then it is an error within the API. The hope is more so that our Database becomes more and more sophisticated so that we ideally don't need any other sources. The Wikipedia searching will probably, unfortunately, stay the way it is due to their API. It's just not optimized for what we want it for, it's too broad. We are still open to adding Moby Games and Giant Bomb potentially but the focus has certainly been the LaunchBox Games Database.

[releasethedogs]

SentaiBrad said Wikipedia is sadly inaccurate and if it is searching other languages of Wikipedia then it is an error within the API. The hope is more so that our Database becomes more and more sophisticated so that we ideally don't need any other sources. The Wikipedia searching will probably, unfortunately, stay the way it is due to their API. It's just not optimized for what we want it for, it's too broad. We are still open to adding Moby Games and Giant Bomb potentially but the focus has certainly been the LaunchBox Games Database.

No I mean searching it in my internet browser. If I am downloading for instance a Japanese Famicom game and English Wikipedia does not have an entry then I've looked on the Japanese Wiki and have found the info I was looking for.

[SentaiBrad]

It would all be in Japanese though and still have the same limitations that we currently have. Manually searching and having LaunchBox search Wikipedia are totally different beasts unfortunetly. It doesn't translate well because their scope is not refined enough through the API.

[FistyDollars]

60%? What systems are you using? Most games (except for some PC games) should be in the LaunchBox Games DB by now. And don't you think it's a little rude to insist that the developers drop everything and give MobyGames the "highest priority now"? A lot of us are working, and have been working, and will continue working tirelessly to make the LaunchBox Games DB as complete a resource as possible. If you'd like to contribute to that database instead of complain about your situation, I think you'll find it a much more productive use of your time. And we would certainly appreciate the help.

[FistyDollars]

Okay, well you're just plain wrong on Atari 2600. I imported a nearly complete a few months ago with nearly no missing games. Are you sure your ROMs don't have a special character  ( ~ or ^, something like that) in the title that might be throwing off scraping? I seem to recall one of the popular 2600 ROM collections having that issue. Even then, if you edit the game in LaunchBox it should find it through manual searching.

And why would they implement the Alpha version of an API when it is subject to change constantly, break without warning, or be shut down with no notice? We had a similar problem with thegamesdb.net, which used to be our scraper until it randomly went offline completely and broke most of LaunchBox's scraping functionality. 

It seems you've already made up your mind, which is a shame, because if you were actually interested in "making life easier for everyone", you'd help out and start adding any missing games to the database. That is unless by "easier for everyone" you just mean "fix this for me because I demand it."

[SentaiBrad]

Lets try and keep it civil please, no one is demanding, and I get the curiosity. Honestly, we just don't have the time to work on their API right now. It being in Alpha is great, but that would require a lot of extra work on our part. There are also a lot of things behind the scenes that need to be done, so it's honestly not very simple. I am sorry if that is a coy answer, but it needs to be one.

As for the issues with scraping, I would take a look at the Database manually. SNES is one of the most complete sets we have. If you have a No-Intro set of games, then most of those should get found, with some exceptions. We are lacking on a lot of Japanese games, but compared to even 3 or 4 months ago, we've gained a lot. We've had over 2 million changes made to the Database in a year, that is astounding and we are continuing at that pace. @FistyDollars is correct in saying though that we've had to rely on others in the past and it bit us in the rear. The LaunchBox Games Database is our bet because we can assure that it will be online for as long as we need or want it to be. We completely trust and love  EmuMovies, but the only thing we can promise for sure, forever, is something we control, if that makes sense (it's not meant to be a dig at anyone). So that's partly why we've banked on the Database for over a year now, and with @Vlansix working on it, it's becoming one hell of an asset we need to keep going with. I'll never say that we wont use the API, but I will say that our Database needs to be our focus. Jason has been working on 7.0, and the database is certainly getting up in shape now as well. It's going to be the same answer for why any feature doesn't get implemented as fast as someone would like, and it's because Jason is working on most everything alone, with the exception of the Database, but Alex donates his time. We would of course love every feature to be implemented right away, but I hope you can understand the position we're in.

[SentaiBrad]

Well MobyGames support could always come, but for the time being working on 7.0 and on our own database is priority.

Honestly, Wikipedia scraping is mostly broken, it's left there currently as a left over, and just in case someone does want to use it. It actually confuses the scraper a bit when checked, so I never check it anymore.

[SentaiBrad]

The Database is currently only in English, and the alternate names feature was just recently implemented. LaunchBox doesn't currently parse these extra names, but it's coming. So you can attach other regions names to an entry, but LaunchBox only looks at the current facing name. There are Guidelines as well for submissions and moderation on the Database in the Database section of our forums. If you do want to contribute please read over these guidelines.

[SentaiBrad]

Oh yea, that was something we thought of day 0, before our database was even public. That is for sure a long term goal, allow users to upload from within LaunchBox.

[Kriven]

1 hour ago, SentaiBrad said:

Oh yea, that was something we thought of day 0, before our database was even public. That is for sure a long term goal, allow users to upload from within LaunchBox.

It is? I thought this was shut down under the idea that users would abuse the system/users with unique set ups would pollute the database with images and metadata that aren't useful to other people.

[SentaiBrad]

Well we never threw the idea out, but it is extremely complicated, that being one of many reasons. It is still a long term goal, but that's why it's long term. We're not exactly certain how to solve certain problems. Never say never though.

[SentaiBrad]

I would be willing to bet it's a language issue, something to do with the language code being used? That's my only guess. It's not exactly easy to just have other languages of game details, someone has to translate all of that, and Google Translate is not reliable, so I honestly don't think that will happen any time soon. We would also need to build the feature in, and then have someone be willing to start populating it, which would take an extremely long amount of time. A rudimentary built in Google Translate type of thing could potentially be implemented. You can enable it, then select the language to translate to? That would probably be extremely difficult as well, but more doable than translating the entire database.

[SentaiBrad]

LaunchBox can handle as much as you want it to. The slower a computer, the smaller a library it can handle at decent speeds without needing to edit whats running on the machine, turn down the image size or make some software changes. I have 30k, I've had 50k previously, and LB worked fantastically. I have my LB RAM usage set to 4GB in the options as well.

So, we're looking in to if Google Translate has an API or something we could use, that could be a huge step in translating game descriptions without needing to translate the database, which would honestly be a gigantic undertaking. All it would require is implementation and for the user to have internet. Also, Alternate Names will be a huge benefit for users who's first language isn't English. It will require users to input the names, but the names get associated with a region (for Data purposes, like images etc), and eventually when it's all matured enough and cohesive, you can set your Language of LB, and set your metadata preference. Even if you download the game in english, it will know what it is and display the name in your requested language, and if that game has images associated with that region as well it can then display those images too. Some of that does already exist in LaunchBox, but to make it fully realized will take some time.