I am attempting to list Builder on Mobygames. So far the experience has been very strange. I entered in all of the relevant fields and pasted in my stock description, as used on the game’s site. Then I waited a few days for someone to acknowledge the submission. Since then I have been ensnared in a baffling time-elapsed argument with a series of “approvers”.

Pentatonic Duck: The description field is used to objectively describe the game and/or its gameplay, not give subjective opinions. Please rewrite your description to be more objective. You should add more rating categories as this is how other users will rate the game. Please provide a source for the release info. A link to a trustworthy website would suffice.

Me: [something along the lines of] Could you explain, as specifically as possible, what you find subjective about the description? I can confirm that it is completely factual, as this is my own game. The source for the release information is me, since this is my game.

Jeanne: The last paragraph.

Me: [something along the lines of] What about the last paragraph do you find subjective? Everything in it is a matter of fact. Is it that you dislike the wording?

Pentatonic Duck: The whole description sounds like an essay; you don’t actually describe the gameplay. Subjective elements are plentiful, from “glitchy and obtuse” to the list of games that influenced you ( rather than a factual comparison to the game’s precursors). You should add more rating categories as this is how other users will rate the game.

Me: That is the gameplay, though. The game is designed to be glitchy and obtuse. The gameplay comes out of the glitchiness and the obtuseness. That’s the whole point of the game. In the first paragraph I sum up the game’s mechanics; in the second I detail the game’s structure. In the third, I describe the game’s design premise and expressive purpose. I’m not injecting opinion; I’m stating facts of the game’s design.

As for the list of influences, I don’t get what you’re saying. You’re saying I should give a beat-by-beat comparison of what elements are derived from what games, musical acts, and cartoons? Why?

As for rating categories, I don’t really acknowledge that any of them are relevant. People can assess the game as a whole, but what’s the point of breaking it into pieces?

We’ll see how it goes from here. I’m ready to drop the whole thing.

I have never had a good experience with Mobygames. Once I found that someone had edited my own profile to include reams of information that I didn’t want there. When I changed the information, I had to provide a source to justify it. I told them that I was the person being described, and so I was the source. Then they asked me several times to provide a good explanation for changing the information. I said that the information was out-of-date, inaccurate, and that I generally didn’t like it. Apparently that wasn’t good enough. It took ages to fix.

The site makes Wikipedia look benign. The thing is both strangled with bureaucracy and often flat-out wrong — but good luck changing anything. It’s also ugly, poorly coded, and badly organized, making it difficult to navigate.

The site is almost useless, and yet it’s an important resource, as it’s the closest that the game industry has to an IMDb. The insularity and the incompetence of the project are perhaps illustrative.