A lot of you have asked for it: My Game Collection got import support for RFGen!

[Tuy]

A lot of you have asked for this, and it is finally here: My Game Collection just got updated with support for RF Generation! We are pretty excited about this, because you can now import the games from your RF Generation collection and know what you own and want at all times.

​Some of you might know My Game Collection already and some might not. For those that don't:

My Game Collection is the most popular, most advanced, Material Design styled game (related) collection tracker on Android and is fully compatible with Bluestacks which means it can be used on Windows & Mac. It allows you to track the games, hardware, amiibo & skylanders you own & want. It does this blazingly fast, and provides a ton of options, filters (20+), views & sorting options.

It also pulls in a lot of extra data from various sources, and even allows you to import your game collection from various sources like RF Generation, Itch.io, Steam, Playstation 3/4/Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, VGCollect, Android, Backloggery, Collectorz, PSDLE, Desura, How Long To Beat, Generic CSV, Generic TXT .

It will match your games to the online database, and gives you access to tons of information about your games like developer, publisher, genres, metacritic score, how long to beat, and much much more.

MGC allows you to search Google, YouTube, Google Image Search, Wikipedia, GameFAQS & Twitch with the simple click of a button.

Best of all: It is FREE to download and use for as long as you want. A paid option is available for those who want to support the development of MGC. Try it out: https://play.google.com/s....tuyware.mygamecollection. You can find even more information @ www.my-game-collection.com

As usual: If you have any issues, remarks, ideas please contact us via www.reddit.com/r/mygamecollection_app or email mgc@tuyware.com

[techwizard]

RFG already has its own android app...was this post approved by staff here? it seems like something intended to take traffic away from RFG.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

No, we were never asked nor informed, and I have my concerns on how the information is being obtained. If our site is being scraped for the information, without our permission, it is stealing resources from our site.

I'm all for working together with others to share our information, but I need to ensure it's done in a certain way that benefits us both. I need to follow up with Tuy about implementation details.

EDIT: Looked on Reddit, and can confirm it scrapes the site, but it's minor (individual collection pages). Still, would like to discuss it with the developer. The request was made to support it so the collection could be managed offline, which our app doesn't do. It's on our planned list though.

[Izret101]

So essentially you are stealing the work of our site, other sites and promoting your program?

Classy.

[Tuy]

I got the request from users to support RF Generations as an import, because they liked the features MGC offered.

The app is not stealing any information, since it doesn't use any information from RF Gen, except for the titles, which the user has marked as in it's collection. It doesn't use the database of RFGen for any information. All data that MGC downloads doesn't come from RFGen.
I think it would benefit both parties, since MGC only has an Android version, and people could keep their collection on RF Gen to manage from a computer, then import the titles in MGC to have them locally available on the phone, with all the features MGC offers.

These are things I take into account, since I have high moral standards, and won't be stealing anyone works. Never done it, never will. If MGC would use the RFGen database, then I would surely ask for permission, since something like that is just not done, but this isn't the case.

If people really have a problem with the import function in MGC for RFGen (which I really think benefits both), then I'll inform my users & remove it. Never intended to upset anyone.

As an extra information: MGC will indeed scrape the user his collection, only at the MGC users request. It doesn't replace RFGen, and won't sync back to RFGen, so RFGen would still be the driver. I don't think MGC is stealing users away this way, just supplying an extra view (on Android).

@Shadow Kisuragi: feel free to contact me about this (mgc@tuyware.com). I never considered you guys being upset about this, especially the way it is implemented. My apologies if it did. Like I stated, if you want me to remove the import function mail me about this, and I'll do so. I have high respect for other peoples work, as I expect people to have for mine. Seems only normal & fair.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Quite honestly, there's no reason for us to block you from doing so. Users could instead use the CSV import, so it's not like requesting you to drop support would in any way prevent the information from reaching your application, and it doesn't appear that you're using the information unless the user requests it.

I wish our APIs were more fleshed out so that you didn't have to scrape our pages. The issue that I'm having is that there's no agreement in place for ensuring that the information will only be utilized for RFGeneration users and that there will be no paywall to require this information to be imported. I'd also like to ensure that the application uses proper branding. If our information were to be used within your application for anything other than importing an individual user's collection, such as a generic collection database, I would certainly be a lot more concerned, as it defeat the purposes of having our own collection tools and database.

Unfortunately, I don't own an Android phone, but perhaps one of our members could check it out or I could borrow my wife's phone.

[Tuy]

MGC does indeed also support CSV import, it even supports a TXT import, so users could copy/paste their titles in a text file and import that.
Your suspicion of MGC not scraping everyone is correct. A user needs to know his/her username, and that way they can import all their titles. MGC will then try to map  those titles to the database MGC uses (not RFG).

Having an API for the users collection would be ideal, but few have them

Nobody else except for RFGen users have any use of importing one's collection. Why would someone else import another person collection? I know I could scrape all information about games from your website, but it is, in my opinion, something you just don't do. Like I stated before: I respect someone else's work.

I can get your protection about your game database info, but again, I can assure you that it is something I will never do.

MGC is compatible with bluestacks, so you could check it out by installing bluestacks on your windows/mac computer and then installing MGC on that. Not ideal, but it will show you that nothing fishy is going on.

[techwizard]

it sounds better with the extra explanation, from your first post I thought it would be taking information from the RFG database itself. If that's not the case and it's only taking information from collections that RFG users wanted then I can't imagine any big problem with it, though I'm not staff so it's not up to me.

[Tuy]

Maybe I should have explained better in my original post, I can see the way you took it. I wrote it in my enthusiasm, and was working on import for some time, which sometimes gets you stuck in a certain mindset. Didn't even consider that people might take it in another way. Part of this is because it doesn't cross my mind, since stealing ones work is a big 'No' in my mind.