#MobyGames

Diego :mastodon:diegopds@bolha.us
2025-03-12

Recebi e-mail hoje cujo título é "Important Changes to MobyGames API Access"

Uso essa API com o plugin MediaDB do Obsidian para adicionar jogos. Dava preferência de uso à API da Moby Games por ser bem consolidado e com ricas contribuições dos usuários, incluindo raras fotos de estojos e manuais de jogos antigos. Além de conter informações sobre jogos atuais e nem tão antigos (foi lá que descobri que o "Stranglehold" estava disponível no GOG).

Pouco tempo atrás, indiquei a API a um amigo, mas ele informou que era um serviço pago... Estranhei; agora, isso.

Acho que os motivos são explicados nesta postagem:

dialup.cafe/@vga256/1140380520

#MobyGames #API #Enshittification #GameDataBase #GamesDatabase

Print de e-mail com um logo de uma baleia azul cartunesca ao lado de "Moby Games":

Important Changes to MobyPro Subscription Service  
Hello,

Thank you for participating in the early access program for the MobyGames API. We have refined our API feature set and performance based upon user feedback, and we appreciate your input. The early access period is ending and we are launching a new suite of subscriptions based on our learnings.

Your free access to the MobyGames API will expire after 30 days. After 30 days if you want to maintain access you will need to sign up for one of these tiers of API service:

New MobyGames API Subscriptions

Hobbyist API ($9.99/mo.) – non-commercial access to the MobyGames API at up to 0.2 requests a second.

MobyPlus & Hobbyist API Bundle ($12.99/mo) – this bundle includes non-commercial API access at up to 0.2 requests per second and all the benefits of MobyPlus, which includes access to data and lists not available on the free site, including historical rankings, pricing charts, and site usage data; unlimited results for searches; the ability to download high-resolution images and customized game lists, and early access to new site features.

MobyGames API Bronze ($99.99/mo.) – commercial API access at up to 1 request per second.

MobyGames API Silver ($499.99/mo.) – commercial API access at up to 4 requests per second plus customer support.

MobyGames API Gold ($4,999.99/mo.) – commercial API access at up to 8 requests per second pl

[...]
2025-02-20

digital preservation and archivist friends: it came to my attention recently that mobygames was bought by some trashy atari holding corporation a few years ago. all of the scans and item entries that many of us slaved over for the past 25 years were sold off. anyone submitting mobygames entries/updates are effectively working for free now.

i can't say i'm unhappy to see it going downhill with the new owners. updates to entries went from taking 1 day for approval from moderators, to 4-6 months.

it also had a frustrating limitation of declaring any software outside of its very traditional definition of game as out-of-scope.

that being said, it's a critical service for those researching and writing about games.

i'd like to know if there are any publicly-owned database initiatives in development to replace and/or subsume mobygames.

and if not, let's build one.

#mobygames #digipres #gamePreservation

2024-08-26

#Backloggery is useful for me because it’s simple and doesn’t rely on a database, so no missing games. But sharing it with others? Hardly useful, if at all!

So I did a few things:
– Lists on #MobyGames: mobygames.com/user/120552/onsa Sailing and Nausicaä-like migrated from my blog, and Recommendations is for games I, well, recommend.
– An improved version of a site map (index, really) for my blog: no-pe.netlify.app/map/ @bmo has details.
– Backloggery is still there for *everything*.

2024-05-22

How not to do a user-generated content.

#MobyGames

Screenshot showing the status of my contributions, with “estimated wait time: 3 days to 4 months”.

Developers adding translators into the credits after they left them out at first (because of a simple oversight or agencies not handing over freelancer names) is incredibly helpful to us. Unfortunately, it also means any Youtube videos will likely show the old version, which have already been entered into #mobyGames as well.
So I spent some time today editing the mobyGames entry of a game. From experience, the edit will take about five months to be inspected and published. By this point, the game itself will be one year old.

#TranslatorsInTheCredits #videogames

2024-03-09

MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership
It's a bit upsetting to see that MobyGames is going a bit more for-profit, and now offers a trail Pro membership account. Usually this kind of move means fewer features and a degraded experience for those not sending in their dimes. The trial rate is $5 a month, which seems both high ($60 a year?) and low (how much revenue will this bring in
setsideb.com/mobygames-offerin
#news #atari #mobygames #news #premium #pro #website

2024-02-15

Ever since MobyPro by MobyGames was made available a few weeks ago, I am working hard to upgrade my entire retro library to include all these high resolution scans. It is taking forever - and they don't have everything, but the quality is often so much better than what you could download before!

Here's a quick comparision.

#MobyGames #MobyPro #RetroGaming #Preservation

Loom - Box - System requirements, low quality.Loom - Box - System requirements, high quality.
2023-10-31

It was to be expected, but now it becomes a reality: The new owner of #MobyGames has started to try making money with user-contributed content.

And should you not be aware of: MobyGames was bought by #Atari not long ago. They also recently bought #AtariAge. I guess that means we all know what will happen over there as well. Atari is not a philanthropist - they want to make money.

#RetroGaming

2023-10-20

@atomicpoet I stopped contributing to #MobyGames for the same general reason that I retired my Wikipedia account: there's too much bureaucratic friction that I have to push through, to the point that it's no longer worth my time and energy.

2023-09-25

Just discovered that The #XFiles game was the first game ever added to #MobyGames! mobygames.com/game/1/the-x-fil

Lando Charismalandocharisma
2023-04-18


- was ranked 14th on Metacritic's list of top publishers in 2022, ahead of EA, Bandai Namco, Square Enix and Ubisoft
- owns , the largest Video Game database on the Internet, twice the size of Twitch's IGDB by any metric
- is acquiring , which will release System Shock, one of this year's most anticipated games, in May 2023
- owns a minority share in , which will be included in MB.OS, the native operating system in Mercedes cars from 2025 onwards

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