Title Formatting Guide

[tactical_nuke]

Please refer to this post before adding new entries to the database or correcting existing titles.

Main Title:

• Your Title should be as it appears on the packaging of the game. If there are multiple spellings on the box, use the spine.
• If it is stylized with certain characters, it can and should be submitted as so. Please submit an un-stylized title as the alternative title for searchability.
• Words and articles like "Featuring", "And", "The" etc., should be capitalized the way they appear on the packaging. If more than one spelling are present, use what's on the spine.
• If the game's title is more than one game released together, please separate names using a "/" with spaces on both sides so the title looks clean. Example: "Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt".
• Articles like "A" and "The" should be listed at the end of the title but before anything set off by a colon. Same goes for foreign articles like "El" or "Le". Example: "Lord of the Rings, The: The Return of the King"
• Names that "own" or "present" the title should come after a comma. If it has an article too, it looks like this: "Bug's Life, Disney/Pixar's A".
• This goes for "The Adventures of" as well. Example: "Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius, The Adventures of: Attack of the Twonkies"
• A subtitle can come after a colon, even if the packaging doesn't show a colon. If the packaging separates title and subtitle with a hyphen use a colon instead for DB consistency.
• Titles using foreign alphabets should be translated and used as the main title (phonetic translation preferred over literal for those languages with non-roman characters). The original title with foreign characters should be listed under "Alternate Title", as well as the literal translation. Example: Main Title: "Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru" Alternative Titles: "カエルの為に鐘は鳴る / For Frog the Bell Tolls"
• For NFC figures, please list the brand first, series after a colon and specific figure after another colon. Examples: "Amiibo: Super Mario Bros.: Toad", "Amiibo: Yoshi's Woolly World: Mega Yarn Yoshi", "Skylanders Giants: Spyro", "Disney Infinity: Woody", "Disney Infinity 3.0: Anger".

Variation Title:

• These should be descriptive as to why it is different but not superfluous or redundant.
• Avoid "With". If the game comes with a music CD, for example, you can simply enter "Music CD".
• "Game of the Year" can be shortened as "GOTY". Make sure to write it out as "Game of the Year" in the alternate title, though.
• If there are multiple descriptors to be added, separate them with " - ". Do not use "/" or a comma. Example: "Batman: Arkham Asylum [GOTY Edition - Platinum Hits]"
• All Demos should have "Demo" as the variation title.
• Rereleases should normally have just "Rerelease" as the variation title. Any subsequent rereleases after the first should have the year after it. Example: "Rerelease" for the first rerelease. "Rerelease 2014" for the second and so on.

• Capitalize all the words except for articles. The First word should always be capitalized. An exception would be stylized titles like ".//hack"

Alternate Title:

• For listing different spellings, punctuation, spacing, language, other titles the game is referred to as.

[Izret101]

Stuckied

Also since you mentioned GOTY that needs to be standardized too.
Most are Game of the Year a handful are GOTY

Even though it is wordier we should probably stick with Game of the Year. Or ensure that if GOTY is the visible listing Game of the Year is listed in the alt title.


As for Alt titles since the field length still hasn't been increased it is almost useless when special or non-english characters are needed

[tactical_nuke]

Ok, mentioned that second option. Also the foreign title thread should probably be unstickied now.

[Bildtstar]

Some titles have the word 'featuring' in it. What's the standard here? with or without an uppercase F?

[tactical_nuke]

Some titles have the word 'featuring' in it. What's the standard here? with or without an uppercase F?

The way it's written on the cover. I'm going to have to check the titles with that, now that you bring it up.

[Raidou]

Great work as always, Flee.  Just a couple of observations.

Main Title:
...

• If it is stylized with certain characters, it can and should be submitted as so.

Changing "Okami" to "Ōkami", has meant that this title appears first in alphabetical order rather than among the O's

Main Title:
...

• A subtitle can come after a colon, even if the packaging doesn't show a colon.

Suggest including 'If the packaging separates title and subtitle with a hyphen use a colon instead' for DB consistency.

[Izret101]

Special characters don't work well with search function BTW.

Search for # for example
Okami is now included in that list of broken stuff.

[tactical_nuke]

Well, for the Okami situation, we could always add the regular spelling as an alternate title to make it searchable again. The only thing is that it will show up first alphabetically which I can't do anything about.

[techwizard]

Well, for the Okami situation, we could always add the regular spelling as an alternate title to make it searchable again. The only thing is that it will show up first alphabetically which I can't do anything about.

why not use the regular spelling as the main title and the special character spelling for the alternate? not exactly accurate but better for searching/sorting. there's always going to be some exceptions to any rules you come up with, they shouldn't be 100% strict.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

It's the title - we can tweak the search (probably).

[tactical_nuke]

fixed a few things

[toze3]

I have several dreamcast european game discs that are know by White Label version.

Basically, it's the full game (on most cases) with a White label and blue/black letters that were sent to reviewers and criticals before realese.

It says on the disc "Sample only. Not for re-sale." and "Pre-production copy"

Just wondering how is the best wat to name this variation for this case

1-SHENMUE [White Label Promo Disc]
2-SHENMUE [Pre-Production copy]
3-SHENMUE [Sample only. Not for re-sale]

this is my preference order, nut want to be correct, and don't know how.

Bellow is a foto.

[img width=700 height=466]http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv182/toze3/SEGA_ALBUM/IMG_1721.jpg[/img]

[Shadow Kisuragi]

I'm fine with #1. They're colloquially known as White Label anyways, so that'd be the best way to identify them.
Surprised OatBob didn't put those in the DC database. I'm sure he owns a few.

[Raidou]

Way late on this one, but:

Don't spell entire words in capitals unless it's an acronym (or feaux acronym).

I know we prioritise stylistic spelling, but I've recently come across "ACA NEOGEO WAKU WAKU 7" by "HAMSTER, Co.", and yes, WAKU WAKU is capitalised in the description.  There's no good reason why NeoGeo, Waku Waku or Hamster should be written in all caps when there are legitimate standardised formats for all of these words.

[tactical_nuke]

Way late on this one, but:
Don't spell entire words in capitals unless it's an acronym (or feaux acronym).
I know we prioritise stylistic spelling, but I've recently come across "ACA NEOGEO WAKU WAKU 7" by "HAMSTER, Co.", and yes, WAKU WAKU is capitalised in the description.  There's no good reason why NeoGeo, Waku Waku or Hamster should be written in all caps when there are legitimate standardised formats for all of these words.

I find that this is a digital title thing. Certain publishers insist on doing this. It's usually Japanese companies too. I'm totally for un-capitalizing though.