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====== Secondary Guidelines for European / Australian / Middle East Submissions ======

First off we, the staff of RF Generation, would like to thank you for your interest in helping our site and it's databases grow. As you become more familiar with our community and the efforts we are engaging in to build and maintain an accurate database for everyone to use, we hope you make use of these guidelines and feel free to offer feedback and suggestions to the staff and administrators as this is an ever-evolving process.

In the next few paragraphs, our motivations behind this new policy will be explained, followed by some helpful tips afterward gathered from collectors from all over the world. The information contained here representing both staff and members of this community has been condensed and listed for your reading pleasure.

Special thanks go out to RFGen member **Madir**, who helped gather a lot of this information for everyone to use and without his efforts this guideline would not be possible. Also, thanks go out to everyone else who contributed to the policies you see here through their feedback and suggestions as well as experience.

Thank you,
Staff of RF Generation

===== Policy explanation =====

As of January 1, 2009, all European, Australian and Middle Eastern game submissions require either a part number or UPC to be reviewed by the staff. We'd prefer both as the more information the better, but if your copy is without its packaging, the part number is more important than the UPC/EAN (barcode). Having said that, we can still use the barcode alone as well if that's all you can provide. There are some exceptions which will be explained as you read on.

Over the last couple of years, we've found that as more countries have separate releases and games seem to get shifted from one country to another, a large amount of the existing European and Australian entries are mislabeled as region wide. In other cases, members simply choose their country of residence leaving out other countries that received the same copy of a particular game.

Because of the complexity of European/Australian releases, we think this will go a long way to help curb the database errors for PAL/SECAM games. We will also point out that the submission scripts will not be changed in any way. This will be monitored by the staff who review all submissions. In essence, this will be no different than how we handle hardware entries that don't have part numbers or UPCs.

There will be exceptions to this guideline. Games with no part numbers or packaging with no UPC codes will have to be a joint effort where a member posts or PMs a staff member seeking their help so their submission isn't automatically rejected. Same applies to "not for resale" or demos as well.

If your wondering what's wrong with our current system and why we need to improve it, it's that as we strive for accuracy, some of your collection lists may be affected by changing regions as we make changes to correct errors on a massive scale. These are errors that we hope to curb, and maybe even eliminate completely one day so our database accuracy and integrity isn't compromised. Over the last few months, several sections of the database have had new variations, split entries, scans moved and information from scans used to populate game entries. In the process, several games have had their regions changed to reflect that information possibly affecting one's collection list. Without this vital information (part number/UPC) for new submissions, there is a greater chance it'll be changed in the future to a region not representative of your own. So accurate information that can be used to verify a title's origin is of the highest priority.

Here's a fine example:

[[http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/getinfo.pl?ID=E-087-S-00550-A | Alex Rider: Stormbreaker (ALXP)]]

and

[[http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/getinfo.pl?ID=E-087-S-00551-A | Alex Rider: Stormbreaker (ALXX)]]

As you can see from the part numbers, they are not duplicates and both can be found in the same country. If we didn't bring in this new policy, members would be constantly editing entries because they think the region or part number or even UPC is incorrect. This ensures that the right entry for the right person is there for all collectors and that scans are properly used.

We're also sympathetic to the fact that most members may not know the details and nuances that can make a game regionwide or from a single country. Simply selecting your home country more often than not leads to problems because many games are sold in more than one country at the same time and with the exact same packaging. You can probably appreciate how frustrating that would be to someone with the exact same game who can't yet add it to their collection because the region is incorrect or missing a country or two. 

The staff have extensive experience and know how to spot the small details such as labels, ratings, part numbers, region flags, etc. that all come together in a variety of combinations to form a release within a certain sub-region. We are here to help you make sure your entries are as accurate as possible and reflect the game you currently have in your collection. We're not perfect and will still make mistakes from time to time, but we hope we can minimize these database errors with your help. All we ask of the members is that you provide as detailed submissions as you can so we have more information to research each title case by case. We also hope that you bear with us as this may slow down submission approval a bit as more time per title is needed for research.

===== Items to look for when identifying proper region/countries =====

==== Nintendo DS part numbers ====

**XXX-XXX-NOE** - Germany
\\ **XXX-XXX-UKV** - United Kingdom
\\ **XXX-XXX-FHUG** - Germany / Netherlands / France / UK
\\ **XXX-XXX-SCN** - Sweden / Norway / Denmark
\\ **XXX-XXX-EUR** - UK / Italy / Spain (possibly others)

==== Nintendo NES part numbers ====

**XXX-XX-ITA** - Italy
\\ **XXX-XX-FRA** - France
\\ **XXX-XX-SCN** - Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark)
\\ **XXX-XX-UKV** - United Kingdom
\\ **XXX-XX-EEC** - Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands

==== Other Nintendo part numbers ====

**FAH** - France/Netherlands
\\ **HOL** -  Netherlands
\\ **FR** - France
\\ **ITA** - Italy
\\ **SWD** - Sweden
\\ **FRG** -  Germany
\\ **ESP** - Spain

==== Sega Master System, Saturn and Dreamcast part numbers ====

And the following for Master System Games: if a game Part# ends with something like
-XX then XX identifies the region. This is often used for limited editions (e.g. Olympic Gold, World Cup USA '94 or Disney-Games Jungle Book, Lion King)

**-50** regionwide
\\ **-18** Germany
\\ **-09** France
\\ **-06** Spain
\\ **-13** Italy
\\ **-05** UK

==== Philips CDi part numbers ====

Normally European CD-i games start with **81x**. While some of these haven't been confirmed, it's a good starting point to use in the meantime.
  
**810** - Europe
\\ **811** - UK
\\ **812** - France
\\ **813** - Germany
\\ **814** - Netherlands
\\ **815** - ??
\\ **816** - Spain
\\ **817** - ??
\\ **818** - ??
\\ **819** - ?? (possibly regionwide)

Have attention because there are some strange games like this:
http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-bin/getinfo.pl?ID=E-049-S-00020-A

You see an 814 on the back cover but all of the text is in English. Have a look at the CD and read the copyright information as they will give you a hint. In most cases the back cover or manual language should fit the codes from above. US games starts with 310... and there are some third party publishers with their own part numbers. A demo CD has the same code as the full version.

==== Other tips for various systems ====

  * Look for country flags on the back of boxes. If a box has multiple flags, hold the "Ctrl" key down while selecting the region in the submission script and highlight the ones that apply.
  * Some Sony games (PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP) use different SLES/ULES/BLES part numbers for different versions of the same game. So if your number doesn't match the one that exists in a European region-wide entry in the database, it's most likely a variation needing its own entry.

==== Exceptions and other considerations ====

  * Hardware //**from anywhere worldwide**// stills requires part and/or UPCs as they always have.
  * Downloadable titles because they have no physical presence or packaging, are exempt from this policy.
  * If a game has an ISBN number, you can submit that as the part number as well. If it has both, choose the part number first. You can also add ISBN numbers as game trivia with a page edit when a part number is already present.
  * If you have demos, "Not for Resale" titles or regular games that have no part numbers, ISBNs or UPCs, you can post your intention to submit a scan/photo in the forum or by PMing a staff member. If that isn't possible either, give as many details as possible so the staff can try to add the game manually. Keep in mind that this can be a slow process as opposed to having info or photos on hand.
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