Mobygames

[Seob]

Just a quick question, any good alternative for a site like Mobygames? Since the resent restyling of the site a lot of thing went wrong. If you try to look for screenshots, it takes ages to load them.

I'm not going to abandon the site, but if there are good alternatives i might be going to support them.

[Cybergoth]

The new layout is killing the page for me as well. Kinda optimized for Smartphones and maximum ad-space.

 

Albeit I don't know an alternative either, I've been using it since its launch in 1999

[darthkur]

I don't care for the new style either. Other than the odd case of incomplete search results I found the old format to be quite pleasurable and competent.

[Hatta]

That's the problem with contributing data to private, commercial databases. Community created databases like these should be freely available in their entirety through an API, so any party can use it in any way they wish. After CDDB became proprietary, it became necessary to create FreeDB under truly open terms. A similar thing needs to happen with mobygames. Unfortunately, this kind of historical information is a lot harder to recreate than CD annotations.

 

These are the dangers of proprietary licenses. If you're not using open source software, with open standard protocols, with freely licensed data, you're living in a house of cards that could all come crashing down at any moment.

[cimerians]

I been using them too since the 90's but it looks awful right now.

Edited October 1, 2013 by cimerians

[Seob]

At least it looks like they adresed the screenshot taking to load forever. They pop up quick on my tablet at least. Looks like they finally started to fix thesite.

[Christophero Sly]

I hate it when useful sites like this fix something that isn't broken. The new layout is just awful. And all that ad space just makes the site look cheap and, frankly, unprofessional.

[+Psionic]

The major overhaul was implemented by GameFly, who purchased the MG site from its original owners back in 2010. The changes have generated a lot of controversy and many long-time contributers are leaving the site.

[Pixelboy]

Just for the fun of it, I put "Donkey" in the search box (on the Mobygames front page) and "ColecoVision" as platform, then I pressed the "Find" button. It showed me the "25 most popular games within the selected category", and most of these results have nothing to do with Donkey Kong. Who's the idiot who designed this search engine?

[Seob]

The old search engine wasn't any better. A problem is that the search engine looks to the us name of the game. But some games have different names accros the globe, making it difficult to find the game you want.

[Subby]

That's the problem with contributing data to private, commercial databases. Community created databases like these should be freely available in their entirety through an API, so any party can use it in any way they wish. After CDDB became proprietary, it became necessary to create FreeDB under truly open terms. A similar thing needs to happen with mobygames. Unfortunately, this kind of historical information is a lot harder to recreate than CD annotations.These are the dangers of proprietary licenses. If you're not using open source software, with open standard protocols, with freely licensed data, you're living in a house of cards that could all come crashing down at any moment.

I don't think it qualifies as "open" but VideoGameGeek is at least trying something.

Although VGG's interface has been described as "designed by the blind, for the blind, and if you aren't blind you will be"

[Greg2600]

Gamefly or whoever changed the layout ruined it. The site is really unusable now. The great thing about Mobygames was that there was so much previewed on each main game page. The layout was terrific. This one is just a useless mess, and I don't expect any improvement. Cannot have a repository site like that run by a corporation.

[+save2600]

Another update gone bad. Go figure!

[Seob]

Great news for all who missed Mobygames. It's back. Mobygames has been acquired by Blue Flame Labs owner Reed.

The first thing the new management did was to ditch the hated redesign and restored the old design back.

Looks like mobygames is resurrected from the dead.

[S1500]

It's back!

[cimerians]

Thank god

[carlsson]

Hm, a couple of weeks up to a month ago, I applied for an account at Mobygames but nothing happened. I forgot about it, but yesterday I received login details. I wonder if that also has something to do with the takeover, to handle a long line of incoming requests the previous management have ignored or even internal functionality broken in the new system?