video-game-db-supplemental-data

This is both a collection of over 16,000 data points and the tools I've used to gather and format them. The idea here is to create a data set, to the best of my ability, of interesting data points not available in any video game APIs I've encountered. Things like light gun games, launch titles, platform exclusives, games banned in certain countries, etc are the types of data points I'm going for. After scouring the internet for the most accurate data I can find, lists of games are created for a data set, then the IGDB and Giantbomb IDs for the games are acquired using the frontend I built in this repo. As a result, data sets are created that can quickly and easily be referenced to add more data to your video game app that uses IGDB or Giantbomb.

Data is being collected via Wikipedia, Video Game Kraken, and other sites so it might not be 100% accurate all the time. I'm doing the best I can to find accurate data, but the internet is often full of crap. There's a bit of thought and consideration going into these lists if I think I've found less than accurate data, but that doesn't mean all data points in this project are accurate.

Also, since the app isn't the focus here (the JSON files are the focus), there will be console logs, missing error handling, etc. I only need to have this working well enough to get me through all of the json data lists and keep me sane. Features are added only when I am going crazy trying to deal with a particular issue.

NOTICE

NOTE: As of 11/7/2019, I have decided to abandon The Games DB. I've had too many problems with their API keys and that API was also getting the last amount of results so, at this point, it doesn't make sense to keep wrestling with it and just move on. I am freezing it in the UI, will eventually remove it from stats, etc. I'll leave the data I've collected for The Games DB API in there for now.

Additionally, feel free to use any of this data or even fork this project for personal usage. I added a license in an effort to help prevent the proprietary usage of any data I have spent a countless number of hours collecting, here. DO NOT USE MY DATA IN A PROPRIETARY PROJECT! The license dictates that any commercial usage must have proper attribution and must be open source as well. I have plans in the distant future to use this data to build an API that will have free tiers for devs using it for smaller projects and paid tiers for more monthly calls to the API and I will not take kindly to someone misusing my data! That said, if you are wanting an easier way to consume this data, I plan on building on launching this API sometime in 2023 and the free tier will have a generous amount of monthly API calls to allow collectors and hobbyists to use the data for free.

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Index

1. Usage
2. Organization
3. Tasks
4. Plans
5. TODOs
6. Data Being Collected
7. Things I've learned about these APIs
8. Stats

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Usage

Really and truthfully, the value of this project will live in the "finalOutput" directory and all else can be ignored. If you want to tinker around with this the run npm i and checkout the package.json folder for the npm scripts that can be used.

If you want to contribute, feel free to contact me. If you know of more data you would like to see added I am definitely open to suggestions!

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Organization

• "finalOutput" contains JSON files for the results of my work so far. This is where you can find useable data. Once I feel like I am done collecting data and getting the API references, I will create various combinations of the data to be used in different ways (collection of small files that are quickly searchable, single files with as much of the data combined as possible, etc).
• "notes" contains markdown files with general notes about consoles. Use this info however you see fit, but the nature of this data is so braod specturm that it doesn't really need JSON files created for it.
• "server" contains my Express.js server for the UI that I've built to help me speed up the process of generating this data.
• "textFilesToBeConverted" contains markdown files with raw data that I've collected. This data gets turned into JSON files and this is just the directory I'm using for the initial data collection via research.
• "src" contains the Vue.js app that I'm using to to speed up this process.
• "scripts" contains some Node.js scripts I'm using to parse data, merge data, scrape sites for data, add ids, etc.

Just a note here, the "EverDrives" folder is not really meant to be a part of this. I intend to remove it when I'm done generating this data. Basically, this is me generating json files with full game info for the games I have on my EverDrives so that another video game app I created for myself can use this data (basically its an app to help me decide what to play).

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Tasks

npm start

Starts server and Vue UI for matching API data to JSON data sets.

npm run ids

First, put in a file path and prefix. Then run this. It will assign IDs to each item in the list using the prefix and index. This is used to make quick work of generating JSON files from data gathered since all items need to have a unique ID.

npm run scrape:gematsu

First, change the url to scrape and the filePath to write to. This is meant to scrape lists from gematsu.com. This generates a basic JSON list that should then have npm run ids ran against it to fill in the ids.

npm run scrape:wiki

First, change the url to scrape and the filePath to write to. This is meant to scrape lists from wikipedia. This generates a basic JSON list that should then have npm run ids ran against it to fill in the ids. Because Wikipedia tends to break up their lists into multiple pages, I've been running it against a URL, adding a number to the file name, changing to the next url for the next data set, and continuing until I have all of the data. Then I combine the data into 1 list and run npm run ids against that list.

npm run stats

Looks at all completed files in fileInfoList.json and console logs stats for how many each API is missing. I'm using this to get an overall feel for which API is the most complete.

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Plans

I'm still gathering data and working out the data structures. To build this out, I will follow this general idea:

1. Finish gathering data into JSON files (I want to have a lot and I can come back later and add more, but would like to start with a TON).
2. Make calls for lists like "bannedInternationally.json" to get platforms list for each entry then write script to add that data to the various final output files.
3. Combine as many JSON files as makes sense via scripts to create master lists
4. Possibly grab a domain and a server and chunk this up somewhere as a fully built out API. That or make it into a npm module or something. I can figure this out later as it will be usable even as just a public GitHub repo.
5. Integrate into my existing video game projects (most of which are private for now).

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TODOs

• Strip out tgdb from stats and fix missing scripts.
• Reconfigure console list script to not use TGDB.
• Create script to strip results with nulls in all data from final output files.
• Get through the rest of the lists.
• Create an API using collected data.
• Get more data!

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Data Being Collected

NOTE: I've added "totalGames" to the consoleMasterList.json. The idea here is to have the total number of games released for each console in each region, but the problem has quickly become finding good data for this. Some consoles had a limited number of games released and I can find consistent numbers for the total. Others, like the NES, seem to be widely debated and have added complexity like unlicensed games. I'm working to find the most accurate totals possible, but just know that if you use these counts, they might not be 100% correct all of the time.

I've been scouring the web for unique data points and will continue to do so. Here's the data I've scraped thus far:

Console/Platform launch titles

• 3DO Interactive Multiplayer
• Atari 2600
• Atari 5200
• Atari 7800
• Atari Jaguar
• Atari Jaguar CD
• Atari Lynx
• Bally Astrocade
• Bandai Playdia
• Bandai WonderSwan
• Bandai WonderSwan Color
• Casio PV 1000
• ColecoVision
• Emerson Arcadia 2001
• Epoch Cassette Vision
• Magnavox Odyssey
• Magnavox Odyssey 2
• Mattel Intellivision
• Microsoft Xbox
• Microsoft Xbox 360
• Microsoft Xbox One
• Microsoft Xbox Series X|S
• NEC PC-FX
• NEC Turbografx 16
• NEC Turbografx CD
• Neo Geo AES/MVS
• Neo Geo CD
• Neo Geo Pocket Color
• Nintendo 64
• Nintendo 64DD
• Nintendo 3DS
• Nintendo DS
• Nintendo Entertainment System
• Nintendo Famicom
• Nintendo Famicom Disk System
• Nintendo Game Boy
• Nintendo Game Boy Advance
• Nintendo Game Boy Color
• Nintendo GameCube
• Nintendo Switch
• Nintendo Virtual Boy
• Nintendo Wii
• Nintendo Wii U
• Nokia N-Gage
• Philips CD-i
• RCA Studio II
• REAL 3DO
• Sega 32x
• Sega CD
• Sega Dreamcast
• Sega Game Gear
• Sega Genesis
• Sega Master System
• Sega Saturn
• Sega SG-1000
• SNK Neo Geo AES
• SNK Neo Geo CD
• SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color
• Sony PlayStation
• Sony PlayStation 2
• Sony PlayStation 3
• Sony PlayStation 4
• Sony PlayStation 5
• Sony PlayStation Portable
• Sony PlayStation Vita
• Super Nintendo Entertainment System
• Tiger Game.com
• Tiger Telematics Gizmondo
• XaviXPORT

Console/Platform Exclusives

• 3DO Interactive Multiplayer
• Amiga
• Atari 2600
• Atari 5200
• Atari 7800
• Atari Jaguar
• Atari Jaguar CD
• Atari Lynx
• Bandai Playdia
• Casio PV 1000
• ColecoVision
• Magnavox Odyssey
• Mattel Intellivision
• Microsoft Xbox
• Microsoft Xbox 360
• Microsoft Xbox One
• NEC Turbografx 16
• NEC Turbografx CD
• Neo Geo CD
• Neo Geo Pocket Color
• Nintendo 3DS
• Nintendo 64
• Nintendo DS
• Nintendo DSi
• Nintendo Entertainment System
• Nintendo Famicom
• Nintendo Famicom Disk System
• Nintendo Game Boy
• Nintendo Game Boy Advance
• Nintendo Game Boy Color
• Nintendo GameCube
• Nintendo Switch
• Nintendo Virtual Boy
• Nintendo Wii
• Nintendo Wii U
• Nokia N-Gage
• Philips CD-i (I can't find info for this so I started a list with what I know to be exclusives)
• Sega 32x
• Sega CD
• Sega Dreamcast
• Sega Game Gear
• Sega Genesis
• Sega Master System
• Sega Saturn
• SNK Neo Geo CD
• Sony PlayStation
• Sony PlayStation 2
• Sony PlayStation 3
• Sony PlayStation 4
• Sony PlayStation Portable
• Sony PlayStation Vita
• Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Region Lock Info

• PS3 games that aren't region free (the PS3 games are region free with a couple of exceptions)

Multiplayer addon/console version games

• Atari 5200 4 player games
• Atari Jaguar Team Tap games
• Microsoft Xbox online multiplayer games
• Micorsoft Xbox System Link games
• N64 3 player games
• N64 4 player games
• Neo Geo AES Link-Up games
• NES Four Score games
• SNES Super Multitap games
• Sega 32X Team Player games
• Sega CD Team Player games
• Sega Genesis Team Player games
• Sega Saturn Multiplayer Adapter games
• SNK Neo Geo AES Link-Up games
• Sony PlayStation Link Cable compatible games
• Sony PlayStation Multitap games
• Sony PlayStation 2 Multitap games
• Super Nintendo Entertainment System Super Multitap games
• TurboGrafx-16 Multitap games

Controller Related (Special directory)

• 3DO Interactive Multiplayer GameGun games
• Atari 2600 light gun games
• Atari 7800 light gun games
• Magnavox Odyssey light gun games
• Microsoft Xbox light gun games
• Microsoft Xbox 360 light gun games
• NES zapper/light gun games
• Philips CD-i Peacekeeper Revolver games
• Sega 32X 6 button controller compatible games
• Sega 32X 6 button contoller has hidden functionality games
• Sega 32X 6 button contoller MODE button extra functionality games
• Sega CD 6 button controller compatible games
• Sega CD 6 button contoller incompatible games
• Sega CD 6 button contoller MODE button extra functionality games
• Sega CD Menacer games
• Sega Dreamcast light gun games
• Sega Genesis 6 button controller compatible games
• Sega Genesis 6 button contoller has hidden functionality games
• Sega Genesis 6 button contoller incompatible games
• Sega Genesis 6 button contoller MODE button extra functionality games
• Sega Genesis Menacer games
• Sega Master System Phaser games
• SNES Super Scope games
• Sony PlayStation light gun games
• Sony PlayStation long box games
• Sony PlayStation 2 light gun games
• Sony PlayStation 3 light gun games

Built-in games (Special directory)

• APF MP-1000 built-in games
• Bally Astrocade built-in games
• Fairchild Channel F built-in games
• RCA Studio II built-in games
• Sega Master System built-in games
• Tiger Game.com built-in games

Games that were bundled with peripherals

• N64 games bundled with peripherals
• Sega Saturn games bundled with peripherals (exclusing ROM carts as they are in another list)

Misc (Special directory)

• Atari 7800 PAL games that have issues when run on NTSC console
• Atari Lynx games with tate mode
• Famicom games with save batteries
• Famicom games with expansion audio
• games banned in various countries with the reason for the ban
• Game Boy Advance cartridges with built in devices
• Game Boy Advance cartridges with save battery
• Game Boy cartridges with built in devices
• Game Boy cartridges with save battery
• Game Boy Color cartridges with built in devices
• Game Boy Color cartridges with save battery
• GameCube broadband adapter compatible games
• Microsoft Xbox games with alternate display modes
• Microsoft Xbox games with non-roamable (EEPROM locked) saves
• Microsoft Xbox games with tate mode
• Microsoft Xbox 360 games with tate mode
• Microsoft Xbox One games with tate mode
• N64 Expansion Pak games
• N64 Rumble Pak games
• NES Black Box games
• NES games with save batteries
• NES hang tab games
• Nintendo 64 games that run at 60 fps
• Nintendo 64 games with save battery
• Nintendo 64 games with widescreen mode
• Nintendo DS cartridges with built in devices
• Nintendo Game Boy Advance games with tate mode
• Nintendo GameCube games with alternate display modes
• Nintendo GameCube games with tate mode
• Nintendo DS Rumble Pak games
• Nintendo Wii games with tate mode
• Nintendo Wii U games with tate mode
• PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 games that are enhanced on the SuperGrafx
• Philips CD-i games that use the video card
• platforms/consoles that play burned disks without modification
• Sega 32X games with save battery
• Sega Dreamcast games that lack native VGA support
• Sega Dreamcast games with tate mode
• Sega Dreamcast games with VMU features
• Sega Dreamcast games with widescreen mode
• Sega Game Gear games with save battery
• Sega Genesis Black Box Grid games
• Sega Genesis games with save battery
• Sega Genesis games only available in US via Sega Channel
• Sega Master System 3D games
• Sega Master System games with hardware incompatibilities
• Sega Master System games with save battery
• Sega Master System PAL games with issues on NTSC Master Systems
• Sega Master System games with FM audio
• Sega Saturn RAM and ROM cart games
• Sega Saturn VCD card games
• Sega Saturn games that run at 60 fps
• Sega Saturn games with tate mode
• Sega Saturn games with widescreen mode
• SNES games with save battery
• SNES games with tate mode
• Sony PlayStation longbox games
• Sony PlayStation games that run at 60 FPS
• Sony PlayStation games with tate mode
• Sony PlayStation games with widescreen mode
• Sony PlayStation 2 Online games
• Sony PlayStation 2 games with tate mode
• Sony PlayStation 3 games with tate mode
• Sony PlayStation 4 games with tate mode
• Sony PlayStation Portable games incompatible with PSTV
• Sony PlayStation Portable games with tate mode
• Sony PlayStation Vita games incompatible with PSTV
• Sony PlayStation Vita games with tate mode
• Super Famicom games with save battery (japan only games)
• Wonderswan games with tate mode
• Wonderswan games with save battery
• Wonderswan Color games with tate mode
• Wonderswan Color games with save battery

Backward Compatibility

• PS1 games that don't work properly on the various PS2 models
• Game Boy and Game Boy Color games that don't work properly on the Game Boy Advance
• SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color games that play on the Neo Geo Pocket (has a black and white mode)
• Xbox games that work on the Xbox 360
• Xbox games that work on the Xbox One
• Xbox 360 games that work on the Xbox One

Greatest Hits/Player's Choice/Selects/etc

• Microsoft Xbox Platinum Hits
• Microsoft Xbox Platinum Collection (Japan)
• Microsoft Xbox Classics (PAL)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Platinum Hits
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Platinum Collection (Japan)
• Microsoft Xbox One Greatest Hits
• Nintendo 3DS Nintendo Selects
• Nintendo 64 Player's Choice
• Nintendo Game Boy Player's Choice
• Nintendo Game Boy Advance Player's Choice
• Nintendo Game Boy Color Nintendo Selects
• Nintendo GameCube Player's Choice (Europe)
• Nintendo GameCube Player's Choice
• Nintendo SNES Player's Choice
• Nintendo Wii Nintendo Selects
• Nintendo Wii U Nintendo Selects
• Sega Dreamcast All-Stars (Japan)
• Sega Dreamcast All-Stars (North America)
• Sony PlayStation Greatest Hits
• Sony PlayStation 2 Greatest Hits
• Sony PlayStation 3 Greatest Hits
• Sony PlayStation 4 Greatest Hits
• Sony PlayStation Portable Greatest Hits

Misprints and Errors (from iamerror.gamehacking.org/)

Games

• Atari 2600
• Atari 5200
• Atari 7800
• Atari Jaguar
• Atari Lynx
• Colecovision
• Gizmondo
• Mattel Intellivision
• Microsoft Xbox
• Microsoft Xbox 360
• Microsoft Xbox One
• NEC TurboGrafx-16
• Nintendo 64
• Nintendo DS
• Nintendo Entertainment System
• Nintendo Game Boy
• Nintendo Game Boy Advance
• Nintendo Game Boy Color
• Nintendo GameCube
• Nintendo SNES
• Nintendo Switch
• Nintendo Virtual Boy
• Nintendo Wii
• Nintendo Wii U
• Nokia N-Gage
• Philips CD-i
• Sega 32X
• Sega CD
• Sega Dreamcast
• Sega Game Gear
• Sega Genesis
• Sega Master System
• Sega Saturn
• SNK Neo Geo AES
• Sony PlayStation
• Sony PlayStation 2
• Sony PlayStation 3
• Sony PlayStation 4
• Sony PlayStation 5
• Sony PlayStation Portable
• Sony PlayStation Vita

Platform/console data

• platforms/consoles that are region free
• platforms/consoles where all games are exclusives
• platform/console backup devices
• platform/console system enhancing adapters
• platforms/consoles that output an RGB signal without modification
• platform/console multiplayer adapters
• platforms/consoles that play burned discs
• platform/console light guns
• platform/console flash carts
• console hardware clones (plays original disks/carts; only from big players; not cheap garbage)
• console classic/mini/software clones (devices loaded with games from a particular console; only from big players; not cheap garbage)
• disc based console/platform optical drive emulators
• special video output adapters & cables
• platform/console official/licensed accessories and peripherals

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Things I've learned about these APIs

Since I have been using these APIs to try and build out my JSON data matching their IDs with the names of various games and console, I've learned a few things that you might find helpful if you ever work with these APIs.

• If you use IGDB, know that searching games specific to a platform doesn't always return a result but when you remove the platform you almost always get what you were looking for. It's best to do the platform specific search first because multiple different games with the same title are sometimes released for the various consoles, but if you don't get a result then remove the platform from the search. Also, searches for digital only games on IGDB seem to often have their own platform so, for example, if you search for a Xbox Live Arcade game using the ID from Xbox 360, you don't get a result. IGDB seems to be the fastest to return results most of the time and is definitely the best at returning results for digital only and independent titles. Conversely, IGDB is the worst at getting results for Japanese titles.
• If you use Giantbomb, know that you should remove punctuation from your search string (mainly the punctuation in the title of games). When the punctuation is left in, sometimes you don't get a result and sometimes it just throws an error. Most of the time when you leave it out, you have better results. As a general rule of thumb, leave it in first and search, then if there are no results remove the punctuation and try again. Also, searches for digital only games on GB seem to often have their own platform so, for example, if you search for a Xbox Live Arcade game using the ID from Xbox 360, you don't get a result. Giantbomb is definitely the slowest to return results and seems to be missing a lot of data as well.
• If you use TheGamesDB, know that it seems to ignore numbers in your search string and returns more results than the other 2. An example would be searching "FIFA 2006" and it will return basically any game with FIFA in the title. Also, it seems as if TheGamesDB seems focused mostly on physical games as many of my digital-only searches have come back without any results that match. TheGamesDB seems like a solid API as long as your are searching for physical release games. It lacks a lot of data for digital only games. It does, however, return the best results for Japanese titles.

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Stats

Before deciding to end support for TheGames DB, I had collected 7812 data points and TheGames DB was missing 1106 or 14% of those results.

Also, note that a majority of the games missing data are Japanese. There seems to be more Japanese games missing from the APIs and the names are sometimes difficult to search as Giantbomb doesn't do well with special characters and I often find conflicting info about game titles from Japan. I think some of this is lost in translation.

There are 918 data points for platforms/consoles. Out of 19899 games data points collected so far, the APIs are missing data the following number of games:

• Missing from all APIs: 1537 (8%)
• IGDB: 1721 (9%)
• Giantbomb: 2848 (14%)