[COMMUNITY PROJECT] Developer Logos Database

[tthurman]

I will defer to your opinion.

There are a lot of similar dev names for sure, but many times when you start searching them, especially mobygames for example, they will all be listed. This one is a single hit.

Supervision

Adventuresoft

It could be an oddball though, inconsistency is the only thing consistent when hunting down some of these guys.

Thanks for looking into this!

[tthurman]

Victor Interactive Software, Inc. was a Japanese video game software publisher and developer, established on August 3, 1970 as a division of Victor Entertainment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Interactive_Software

[greatflash]

These two are linked in the databases so that they act as one. Not sure if they should be merged into a single company though seeing the similarity of the name?

[tthurman]

I'm not sure what works best for you, from the db side of things, but to my knowledge there isn't a logo that differentiates them from one another, so it would appear as a dupe from that perspective.

I'll just leave it blank, unless I hear otherwise. stigzler and I both noted this on the spreadsheet, perhaps he can highlight it, or otherwise flag it for easy reference.

[tthurman]

Video Software Specialists and VSS, Inc. are one in the same.

http://www.mobygames.com/company/vss-inc

[Draco1962]

If there are two or more entries that are one and the same, but spelled out differently in the db because that is how they were listed by the publisher, couldn't we use the same image in GameEx but simply name it to fit the various namings?

[stigzler]

Makes sense to me, that, Draco.

[tthurman]

That thought has crossed my mind, but I held off saving the same logo under more than one devs name until some mutual agreement could be reached as to what the best course of action was. Granted, this particular occurance isn't someting I've seen repeat a great deal, but obviously it has with a few.

The flip side of that is, say you got a small develper who never really had a logo, one of those guys regulated to 6pt text on the lower section of the back of the box. They get sucked up by a bigger dev, a well known bigger dev in some cases, do you use the big dev logo on the games the small guy did before, or go it without a logo at all.

stigzler, has been busy on other fronts, but I bet we are down to less than 35 devs with hard to find, perhaps don't exist, logos. I'm guessing the number with the current two db's of devs without logos is going to at least 250. Taking that into consideration, the methods we are discussing could take that down a good bit, perhaps as much as 20%, but that is a WAG.

So then there's is that "what to do about those"? I recall you menitoning just let it be and move on, and I concur because many of them are one and done, and some of them are just people. For the pin devs, if I couldn't find a picture, I found their most popular table, and posted the backglass, or similar. KRC had suggested making one, and that's a good idea, although it is one I will be of little value helping. Perhaps some day I will learn the graphic stuff!

Anyway, this has been a educational process for me for sure, and I'm just putting some items out there that I've become aware of since working with you guys on this project.

[Draco1962]

We will always have a "no image found" or similar image that will serve to fill in the visual blanks on those we cannot source, so I wouldn't lose much sleep over them.

[tthurman]

Sounds good, I'll be moving forward with this approach.

[tthurman]

The 2nd pass to attempt to find those not found intially, is completed. Currently there are 249 devs with no logo, or nothing to use as a logo on the spreadsheet. Given the obscurity of some of these guys, I'd say that's pretty good.

I'll start going through the notes, and see if I can locate some of devs that can share the same logo as we discussed above.

[stigzler]

Amazing work tthurman and thanks for keeping the ship sailing in my absence.....

Sounding like this is complete! Will tidy all this up and eventually upload onto the ftp.

Bit of work to do around cropping images etc, but truly herculean task, tthurman. Many thanks.

[Tempest]

Amazing work tthurman and thanks for keeping the ship sailing in my absence.....

Sounding like this is complete! Will tidy all this up and eventually upload onto the ftp.

Bit of work to do around cropping images etc, but truly herculean task, tthurman. Many thanks.

I agree 100%. When stigzler first announce this project, I did not expect to see it finished in my lifetime. Well Done!

[tthurman]

Thanks for the kudos

I don't want to mis-represent though, it is entirely possible someone else's search results could turn up something we missed, but for these rounds, I've exhausted my ability.

I look at a project like this as something more of a continuing effort, until everything is exhausted that is, as flash will most certainly provide more updates that require additonal searching.

There is absolutely work in the editing department!

stigzler, you'll have to cut me some slack on some of these, I was of the "something is better than nothing" mindset, and several are poor quality screenshots/boxart.

[stigzler]

No worries. Something is indeed better than nothing and theres nothing to stop anyone adding an improved image if they find one...

[tthurman]

Going back through these to see if any dupes that could use the same logo were left blank. It appears that we took it upon ourselves to do this along the way, as I see my notes, as well as stigzler's indicating just that.

The one I found below I believe is a combination of two devs, and I noted as such in the spreadsheet.

Gekkou, Sting

Gekkou

Sting

note that Sting also appears alone in the list as a lone developer.

I used Gekkou in the "Gekkou, Sting" field, and "Sting" in the Sting field.

[stigzler]

DONE!

Full list covered. 86% of images sourced (1,530) - others pretty near impossible to find (y'all welcome to look for them!)

Many thanks to tthurman for all his hard work. Kudos.

As ever - you can see them all here: https://sites.google.com/site/alienarcade74/logos

Until the next list update...

[greatflash]

Until the next list update.....

Sobering words ( lol )

Well done folks

[nullPointer]

Wow! Great job you guys. Very impressive work!

[Draco1962]

Very good!

[tthurman]

This looked like such a daunting task back when I first ran across this thread, that one fateful night that stigzler had a bit of a recruiting rant!

Even though it was time consuming for many weeks, It turned out to be a quite enjoyable project for me.

Considering how widespread a lot of this was distributed on so many different source sites, I don't think it's a stretch to say that collectively, we've already amassed one of the most comprehensive collections of logo's out there. The source sites were invaluable, my hats off to their hard work and that of their contributors

With continued updates from flash, and all the magic behind this scenes, this should add up to some really cool stuff for GameEx Evolution, something we can all be proud of for being a part of.

[greatflash]

You can take a breather for a week or so. Then I will post an update. Got a few things to work on ATM.

[stigzler]

that one fateful night that stigzler had a bit of a recruiting rant!

Oooopps! Know thyself, a wise man once said (was it Benny Hill??). My prematurely cantankerous old git pops out occationally!

Even though it was time consuming for many weeks, It turned out to be a quite enjoyable project for me.

Glad of this + part of my original frustration - if folks have a go they'd realize they enjoy it! Rediscovering those dev logos from their youths (Software Projects, Ocean, Thalamus being amongst my favorites). Also, real satisfaction in trawling the net for advert/boxart scans of obscure 1-dev-wonders and producing a viable logo from it - thus preserving it for prosperity (well, at least until dropbox/GameEx drops its servers).

Thanks chaps, and peanuts all round.

[stigzler]

> What's in it for me?

Kudos, esteem and a free bag of peanuts. Oh, and eventual access to the complete collection of developer logos!

There's also a sheet on the document that gives contributor stats. Maybe we could think of a community prize for the top uploader?

Oh, and considering myself a man of my word, Tthurman - if yer happy - let me have an address and I'll send out the carrier pigeon.

[tthurman]

and I'll send out the carrier pigeon.

It would have to be a helluva carrier pigeon to make it to Tennessee!