They may not possess the same level of recognition in the Western world as Nintendo or Sega, but Namco is undeniably one of the video game industry's most important, valuable, and beloved developers. The makers of many genre-defining classics, from Pac-Man to Xevious to Ridge Racer, Namco set itself apart from other companies through its unique corporate philosophy, forward-thinking, and ability to adapt in a constantly changing market. This article covers the entirety of Namco's 50 year history, from its origins as an operator of rocking horse rides in the 1950s to its 2005 merger with toymaker Bandai.
This article has been the focus of my editing for the past two years now. A GAN, two peer reviews, and hundreds of edits later, I believe it is finally able to be bestowed the honor of being one of Wikipedia's best articles (Sega's probably getting lonely in there). At over 131,795 bytes, it is certainly the biggest article I've ever worked on. Trying to summarize a company with a 50 year history was certainly a challenge, and underwent at least three rewrites. Due to the lack of "big" anniversaries for the foreseeable future, I am not interested in having this be featured on the main page on a specific date.
The article in its current state wouldn't have been possible without the help of Red Phoenix and Indrian, who have both been incredibly helpful with the writing and sourcing. I greatly thank them for helping get this page into the state it is in now. I also dedicate this to the hundreds of editors that have maintained it for so many years now. Thank you for reading this, and I look forward to your comments. Namcokid47 18:43, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I already had my say during the extensive GA review process, so this is not just a drive-by support. I feel this is the finest article on a video game company on Wikipedia, and that even articles on companies not involved in that industry could take some pointers on how it not just describes what happened but also why those things happening was important. It's truly well done! Indrian (talk) 20:03, 8 April 2021 (UTC) Striking per my assumption of the nomination. Indrian (talk) 20:39, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The amount of work invested into this article should not go unnoticed. This is probably one of the best video game company articles i've seen on Wikipedia and it has my highest support vote! Roberth Martinez (talk) 20:57, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The article seems to be exceptionally well-written, and is among the best video game articles I've seen on the site. - Shadowboxer2005 (talk) 05:58, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. From the merger sections:
The business takeover, where Bandai acquired Namco for $1.7 billion, was finalized on September 29... Namco Bandai's impatience to move forward with the merger and clashing corporate cultures between both parties resulted in a ¥30 billion deficit.
Can this be clarified? I looked at both pages of the referenced source, [2] , but Google Translate is hot garbage at Japanese sometimes. Deficit compared to what? If the two companies were each running a 15 billion yen deficit before, nothing really changed, as an example. An explanation would be nice but "impatience" is not really a sufficient reason for such a deficit to occur. Like, was Bandai impatient in that they overpayed for buying out Namco's stock and paid a higher premium than they really needed to? And when did this deficit show up, anyway? Normally it takes a bit of time for clashing corporate cultures to even "matter", unless the first thing Bandai did after the purchase complete was massive employee buyouts or the like. Has a native Japanese speaker reviewed that source? It have any more details? This sentence raises more questions than answers as written currently. SnowFire (talk) 20:41, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SnowFire: That was a mistranslation, which I've since corrected. Bandai Namco experienced a financial loss of ¥30 billion, not a deficit. Google Translate thought it was specifically a deficit for whatever reason, and I never bothered to look into what a deficit actually is, so I put it into the page. Sorry about that, I've fixed it now. Namcokid47 22:09, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods
Done
Don't use fixed px size
Removed, looks like I already did that a while ago but left a few behind.
Images are missing alt text
Added
Some of the captions warrant citing - for example, that Pac-Man was their mascot from 1980
Sourced
File:Nakamura_Seisakusho_rocking_horses,_1955.jpg: when and where was this first published?
It's hard to pinpoint when specifically this image came from, all we know is that it's an official Namco image and was taken in 1955, meaning it meets Japan's copyright law regarding public domain images. It should still be usable, but I can try finding an earlier instance of this image.
Can you clarify why it is believed to be PD in Japan? The given tag states photos taken before 1947 or published before 1955 - this would need to have been published, not simply taken, at that time. Plus then we need to look at US status. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:46, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
File:Nakamura_Seisakusho_logo.svg is complex enough to pass the threshold of originality
File:Pac-Man_artwork_(2010).svg is incorrectly tagged - it's a character rather than a work of art. Also the FUR needs expansion.
I really don't know what else I'm supposed to add. The FUR is taken from File:Sonic 1991.png from Sega since it's being used for the same exact purpose, so I don't know how else I can expand it. Chose not to use the Pac-Man image above as I don't think it does a good job at actually representing the character in the context of the page.
The Sonic design hasn't changed significantly over time, and has always been of a level of originality sufficient to warrant copyright protection. Neither is the case here. If you believe the non-free version is better in this context than the free one, then explain why in the FUR. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:21, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
File:Taiko_no_tatsujin_arcade_machine.jpg: what's the copyright status of the graphics?
Looking at it again, I'm not sure. Part of me is starting to think this is a derivative work as it's just a picture of the machine. I'll check with some folks on Commons.
Nikkimaria, could I get a read on where we are on this image review? If you have not been checking in here, I have assumed this nomination from the original nominator, who left for IRL reasons. I am almost done chipping away at the source review, so now I need to confirm what still needs to be done to pass the image review. Indrian (talk) 17:07, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Still need a rationale for File:Nakamura_Seisakusho_rocking_horses,_1955.jpg to be PD in Japan; File:Nakamura_Seisakusho_logo.svg is complex enough to pass the threshold of originality; File:Pac-Man_artwork_(2010).svg needs a better FUR; and File:Taiko_no_tatsujin_arcade_machine.jpg needs to identify the copyright status of the graphics. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:44, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I have made steady progress week to week. Most of the work is done. Just a little more. I know it's been going a long time, but I did take this over unexpectedly, so it's not like I had blocked off time for this. Plus I was coming to grips with sourcing and tracking stuff down in real time since I was not a major contributor to the article. I fully expect to take this over the finish line. As you can see by the wealth of supports on prose, it is deserving. Just a few more sourcing things and a couple of images to clear up and we should be set. Indrian (talk) 21:05, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and removed File:Nakamura_Seisakusho_rocking_horses,_1955.jpg. I do not believe the image is in the public domain as currently claimed, because it definitely was not taken before 1947 and there is no evidence that it was published before 1957. The file should probably be removed from Wikipedia entirely. The original Nakamura Seisakusho logo is sufficient to illustrate this portion of the article, and looked cluttered in its original location, so I moved it up. I realize that a proper fair-use rationale still needs to be carved out for that one, but I will address that down the line. Indrian (talk) 08:37, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria Okay, I have attempted to address all of these issues, though I have not worked with images on Wikipedia really at all, so its possible I will need further guidance on some of these.
First, as indicated above, I did remove File:Nakamura_Seisakusho_rocking_horses,_1955.jpg, for which I could not find any real justification and is not strictly necessary in the article.
Second, I reuploaded File:Nakamura_Seisakusho_logo.svg to Wikipedia itself as File:Nakamura_Seisakusho_Co._logo.svg because it should not have been on commons as a non-free image. I then added what I believe is a pretty standard FUR relating to company branding.
Is there a particular reason for the image's current placement in the article? If so, could that be specified in the rationale? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:52, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Third, I did my best to strengthen the FUR for File:Pac-Man_artwork_(2010).svg and tried to more explicitly tie it into the "contextual significance" rationale. If this does not cure the problem, I would apprecaite more guidance on how this problem can be resolved, or if you think the image needs to be removed altogether.
The rationale currently claims that no free depiction of the character can exist; that isn't true, as there are depictions (eg Original_PacMan2.png) that fall short of the threshold of originality. If there is a reason that this specific depiction is necessary for reader understanding of the article in general and the section it's in in particular, that would be good to clarify. If there isn't, then why use it? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:52, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Finally, I took the path of least resistance for File:Taiko_no_tatsujin_arcade_machine.jpg and just deleted it. I then moved down the picture of a Namco arcade to this section. The arcade picture did not really fit the section it was in and was pretty cluttered up there anyway. I think there is still a good balance of images in the article without that arcade cabinet.
So that's it. Please let me know if the images need anymore work. Hopefully we are just about done with this part of the review. Indrian (talk) 17:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria, I went ahead and replaced the Pac Man image with the sprite art. I think an argument can be made that the free image does not properly convey the image of Pac Man as he is identified today and that there may still be a FUR that justifies the more modern artwork, but the image selection of this article, which was not mine to begin with, is not a hill worth dying on. I am happy to go with the more straightforward image from a copyright perspective. As for the Nakamura logo, I added some more language about its historical significance. Please let me know if you think the FUR needs more work. Unlike a couple of the other images I readily discarded, I really don't want to lose this one because we need something to illustrate the early history of the company. Indrian (talk) 03:57, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Don’t expect me to move fast; I’ve been deficient at editing in the last couple of months, I know. That being said, I wouldn’t miss this party for the world. Expect me to, at the very least, contribute a source review, since I know that’s usually the part others don’t want to do, and expect it to be thorough and detailed to satisfy the FAC criteria. Red Phoenixtalk 17:37, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As a note for FAC coordinators, I have previously provided feedback for this article at my talk page, and Archive 5 of that page has my previous comments. That, however, is the extent of my past involvement in the article. Namcokid47 has done quite a good job with this article.
Now, onto a cursory look at the sources:
Taking an overview over the references, there’s a lot of work to be done to meet WP:WIAFA criterion 2c - consistent citations. Don’t worry, that’s to be expected and part of what we’ll nip at through this process. We’ll detail through them as I get time, but I would definitely start now with looking at consistency. You will save yourself quite a bit of effort if you start now.
For instance, all internet sources should have the article title, website name, article author if available (“Staff” is not necessary), the date it was published if available, and naturally the URL. For fields such as access date and publisher, these need to be all or nothing - either every source gets them, or none of them do. Be extremely consistent in your source formatting across the whole article.
In the same vein, all books should be formatted the same, and all magazines the same. Reference structure naturally varies between reference types, but all references of the same type should be the same.
Linking to articles for websites, books, or authors should also be consistent. Personally, I would link all of them whenever possible for the ease of the reader.
All books need to have page numbers; this includes the Kent and Horowitz books, as well as They Create Worlds. If all the references are in just a few pages for one source, you can use a small range of pages. If it’s spread out, you’ll want to break that up - I’d personally recommend the method used on Sega, where repeated footnotes of the same book but different page numbers use an abbreviated format that links to the original reference above.
Although I know the kind of research you have done, and I commend your efforts greatly, I wouldn’t be doing my due diligence if I didn’t evaluate SandyGeorgia’s comments at the peer review. While I don’t always agree with her, I will review when I go in detail and perhaps suggest some sources if I have concerns. I will let you know if I share her concerns or not when I have had time to review appropriately.
I hope to return soon with a more detailed look. Red Phoenixtalk 17:03, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I knew you'd show up eventually. I'm in no rush, so please take as much time as you need. In the meantime, I'll get cracking on those points regarding citations. Namcokid47 01:50, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I will start commenting on each of these as I complete them. Still getting up to speed on the article, so please be patient. Indrian (talk) 20:14, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Let's give this a start at a more detailed look. Expect this to take a while, as well as several passes as changes are made. To ensure that when I refer to a reference by its number it's the same for you as it is for me, I'll note this first pass is for revision id 1017821592:
With 1 and 2, just be mindful of consistency with access dates and publishing locations, respectively. They're okay if every source of the same type has them, but not if we have a location for this book but not that one, and so on.
I have added retrieval dates to five web sources. I think they all have retrieval dates now, but there are a lot of them, so if I missed one, let me know. Likewise all books should now have a publication location with the exception of two for which this data does not exist: The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers and Galaxian Genesis -Kazunori Sawano Den-, which are both self-published works. I own both of them and can confirm no publisher location is given in either. There is also no publisher location information for either one on Worldcat.
I'll confirm that I'm good with this aspect, that if a location is not provided in the actual book that it can be missing and doesn't require all of them to be struck. That is still consistency as far as the criterion is concerned. Red Phoenixtalk 02:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Are all eight citations to 2 on the same page?
I only have a partial copy of this book, so this may take me a little bit to track down. I can tell you that several of the citations do all come from that page, but not all of them do.
Okay, so Supercade, while it has some general history in it, is more of a look back at classic machines than a real comprehensive history. Therefore, I removed it as a source for all the general historical claims and replaced it with other high-quality sources already found in the article as needed. I left one citation in, which does, in fact, point to the page in question. This defect should now be cured.
I'll just point out that 3 is a perfect use of publisher when a website is an official site of a company or something. In this case, you don't need the website name if you use the publisher and it's the company's official website. Thumbs up!
4: I'm not sure I'd go with cite news for this one if Game Machine is a magazine and is the name of said magazine, which it appears to be. Game Machine wouldn't be the agency, it would be the publication's name, and thus should be italicized. I'd personally go with the cite magazine template, but you could also do cite journal if you prefer. Just make sure all magazines use one or the other, as they do format citations slightly different.
This was a problem with several magazines, not just Game Machine. I believe I have switched all of them over to the cite magazine format.
5: Same as 4, though I would ask what kind of publication this is, as it's a bit unclear to me.
Likewise changed. Its a trade publication, which basically makes it a magazine for our purposes here.
6: Page numbers are the biggest deal here; see my note above. I don't think a link to Google Books is necessary as the citation is the book itself. I highly doubt the OCLC is necessary unless you're going to provide OCLCs for every book source, and another decision will need to be made on whether or not to hyphenate ISBNs, as 6 is hyphenated but 7 is not.
Addendum: When I specified a link to Google Books is not necessary, it's because the link only provides more info about the book. It's not to a preview of the text copy. Red Phoenixtalk 16:25, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Our style guide prefers full hyphenation for ISBNs. I have therefore hyphenated them all in the XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X format. I also replaced the only ISBN 10 with the corresponding ISBN 13. On this specific source, I also removed the OCLC number and Google Books link.
I have added page numbers for this source and split it into multiple citations accordingly.
7: See 6 above.
Page numbers added and references split.
8 and 9: Again if these are actually books, page numbers will be needed. 9 would also need an ISBN.
9 is a book, but it was self published in Japan and never assigned an ISBN.
The Maeno book I did not have access to, so I removed it and replaced the cites with other high-quality sources already found in the article as necessary. I added page numbers for the other book and split the citations accordingly.
That's all I have time for at the moment, but we'll continue later. Red Phoenixtalk 00:20, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Let's keep going, shall we? Numbers as of revision 1019357606:
Indrian, for the moment I won't comment on inclusion/exclusion of publishers since you're taking over the review, and for all I know you may come to a different conclusion than Namcokid47 on whether or not to include publishers in which kind of sources. The important thing is to be consistent on when we do include and when we do not, to meet criterion 2c. 10, for instance, struck me as odd having a person listed as the publisher, given it's the chairperson of The New York Times Company.
I have eliminated the publisher field from all web cites. For cites where there was only a publisher field and no website field, I converted the publisher field to a website field. There are 123 web sources in the article, so if you notice one I missed, let me know.
13, in line with the necessity for page numbers mentioned above, needs page numbers and in this case the two citations are quite a distance apart in the book. I would split these, as suggested. Since I have this book, I can give you these numbers: the note about Torpedo Launcher/Periscope is on pages 7 and 8; the Namco offer to buy Sega is on pages 253 and 254.
Source split and page numbers added.
14: Link Play Meter since we have an article. It's going to be Volume 3, issue 1, and the actual title of the article is "Projection Racing: Conversation with Masaya Nakamura, Inventor of F-1", and it's on page 12.
Play Meter linked, proper title and page number added, and volume and issue number added to the citation. Note that while the article starts on Page 12, the information in question appears on page 13.
17: Though the source is good and can be kept, the link to Shmuplations will have to be removed. It's an amazing site, I agree, but there's no evidence permission was granted to translate and re-publish the material, so we have to err on the side that linking to the text is linking to a copyright violation. On the plus side: Here's the original source, at least as on the Wayback Machine. It looks like this starts on page 32 in the book.
Shmuplations removed and cite taken back to the original source. Per my comments below, I have included Shmuplations site owner Alex Highsmith in the cite as the translator, but without making mention of the website or linking to the article.
19: RePlay is the name of the magazine, so should be italicized, with the capital P in the middle. Page numbers (28-30) should also be added.
Name capitalization corrected, volume, issue, and page numbers added. Note that the proper pagination is Atari 28-Atari 30, as this was a special section of the magazine numbered as such. There were also plain old pages 28-30 in the issue.
21 and 23: Need consistency on "Cash Box" or "Cashbox" - they're used differently between the two. Personally I usually go with Cashbox, but it's your call.
These should now be consistent. You are correct that there is inconsistency on whether its "Cash Box" or "Cashbox," which I think is because the spacing between the words is very small on the cover. The space is present, however, and a space can be more clearly seen between the words in the text of the publication. It also seems to appear with a space in most library catalogs, including the LoC, so I went with that.
Similarly to publishers, ISSNs also need to be all or nothing for consistency in magazine sources - either identifiers are included, or they are not. It's probably easier not to include any, but you're welcome to try and hunt them all down. I just don't see them as necessary in this case.
I concur that ISSNs are not worth the trouble. They should all be gone now.
22 and 24: Likewise, books need to either have publishing locations, or not at all. Book publishers are important, but the locations are not as important as consistently having them or not.
As above, all book publishers should now have location information except for the two books for which this info does not exist.
26: Not sure if a citation template is being used here or not, but JoyStik is the name of the magazine and should be italicized. If there's not a cite template being used here, I certainly recommend one to make life easier.
For some reason, this was done with the cite book template with JoyStik as the publisher. Changed to cite magazine and added the volume and issue number as well as the actual publisher.
33: Call me crazy, but I don't see the direct correlation between a repair manual for a Pac-Man arcade cabinet published in December 1980 establishing that Pac-Man was a North American release of the Japanese "Puck Man" game in December 1980. Surely there's a better source for this?
You're crazy, but not because of this. =P I believe the logic was that since the manual has a December 1980 publication date and was likely made available at the same time as the game, then this date would also be the release date for Pac-Man. I agree that logic does not hold up, however. According to Cash Box, the game was officially available in November 1980. Its possible the first units did not reach locations until December, but with coin-op games, I think availability date is the best we can do. So I have changed this to November 1980 and swapped out this source for Cash Box.
34: I'd like to see such an impactful statement sourced better. This is a press release, so it implies a bit of bias for claims such as "a fixture in popular culture", and to a lesser extent, "multi-million selling media franchise". Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not factual, only that such a claim would be better sourced to a true third party source.
Red Phoenix. Pinging you so I can get a read on this one right away. I think the press release is okay for "multi-million selling media franchise" because this is just a factual statement. Companies will manipulate figures and twist words to make market performance sound more impressive than it actually is, but they don't outright lie about this kind of thing. Now "fixture in popular culture" is obviously more subjective and not something that I would take the word of the company about. I have found what I believe is a good source for the pop culture aspect of this claim and added it to the article. I propose keeping the press release to cite to the sales only. Let me know what you think. Indrian (talk) 16:50, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Indrian: It’s really only the “fixture in popular culture” I have an issue with, as that is not something that can be objectively quantified, so a primary source shouldn’t be used to cite it. The phrase about being a multi-million selling media franchise is more questionable, but I wouldn’t object to using the press release to cite it as fact. Red Phoenixtalk 17:23, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
35 and 36: IGN is a website, and as such, should be italicized.
This fixed itself when I converted all IGN mentions from "publisher" to "website."
37: I see this is the cite journal template formatting. As mentioned above, all magazines could be either cite magazine or cite journal, but they need to be consistent and use one or the other.
Fixed along with (hopefully) all the others.
38: IGN is a website, but 1Up.com during this time was owned by IGN Entertainment, IGN's company. If you choose to keep publishers, which I recommend against, make sure it's "IGN Entertainment" to avoid confusion with the website.
Oh I definitely got rid of that pesky publisher field. ;)
41: Note that this book is in Japanese. I'd also not use all caps for the title. Furthermore, I'm not familiar with the publisher (recognizing this is a Japanese publisher), and would be curious to verify this claim.
Added language field, the original title in Japanese, and a more accurate English translation title. Note the original title is in a mix of Japanese and English and the capitalization is found in the original. The capitalization is also present in Worldcat. In this case, I think that's the official way the title is rendered.
As long as the community is okay with this, I am. I've not found anything in the MOS that says otherwise on all-capitalization for this particular instance, only in other uses in the encyclopedia, so I'm good unless someone else objects.
I'm liking the progress so far. I'll try to continue on this weekend - I know my schedule is not the greatest anymore, and for good IRL reason, but that's why I'm glad we're starting this now. I will do my best to be timely. Red Phoenixtalk 02:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Let's keep going. As of revision 1020893203:
Still more instances of websites with and without publishers inconsistently as we go. Again, I won't note them all, just nudge that a decision still needs to be made there.
Hopefully all those pesky publishers have been purged.
21: Cash Box, as a publication, should be italicized. I'm presuming it's in a "publisher" field and not "magazine", which is why the error?
This was using the cite book template for some reason. Changed to cite magazine.
47: Same as 17 above, I'm concerned about linking to Shmuplations, which likely does not have permission to reprint a translation. Furthermore, it's not the true source of this information. It appears the original source for this particular quote is a 2003 interview from the "GSLA", if you have any idea what that is. Perhaps it could be converted to a cite interview to make this work?
I do not believe this is a correct interpretation in this instance. Shmuplations is not reprinting material found elsewhere; it is providing English-language translations of other material. The original source is not the source, because we are not citing to the Japanese text, we are citing to the English translation, which is a derivative work of the original text. While Alex Highsmith may not have permission to translate the original text, the translation is his original work. While you are correct that his translation of this material without the authorization of the original copyright holder is a violation of US copyright law, its up to those rights holders to issue any DMCA takedowns, which they have not done. As such, there is no reason to pretend the Shmuplations translations do not exist. Indrian (talk) 16:19, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, I have to disagree with you on this instance on the grounds that this does not meet WP:FACR 1f. WP:COPYLINK, part of the Copyright policy, is pretty specific on this and in a Featured Article it's even more noticeable than what I'm presuming is a high number of said violations across Wikipedia. The translation isn't really "his" original work, as derivative works such as translations are still copyright of the publisher in the original language, not the translator. Just because no DMCA takedown has been issued at this time doesn't mean it's okay to link to a copyright violation. I'm not saying we have to pretend Shmuplations doesn't exist, but that it should be a tool to explore other reliable sources and not a source itself. However, if you still disagree with me, I'm more than happy to ask for a second opinion from an experienced source reviewer, such as FAC coordinator Ealdgyth or FAR coordinator Nikkimaria. Red Phoenixtalk 01:49, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see the confusion here. I am absolutely fine with removing the link to Shmuplations, which as you correctly note is required by our copyright policies. I thought you were also requesting I cite to the original Japanese source instead, which I do not believe is required nor helpful. A translation is a derivative work, which is still an original creative expression, albeit one that is still beholden to the original copyrighted work and to which the original copyright holder automatically acquires the rights to. The act of translation is its own creative process that does not involve just a literal word-for-word transliteration. As the shmuplations translation is the version being used, this is the version that needs to be cited to, just without the link. It's not our job to police copyright, only to make sure Wikipedia is not a contributory infringer. Linking would make us one, citing to the information does not. Sorry for the confusion. Indrian (talk) 03:58, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Red Phoenix Okay, so here is what I have done. There were three sources that cited Shmuplations: 17, 47, and 88. For 17, I cited to the original source, made no mention of or link to Shmuplations, and listed Alex Highsmith (the Shmuplations guy) as the translator of the source. Source 47 cannot be treated the same, however, because GSLA is not the original source, but is itself actually a copyright infringer. It is a website that posts Japanese video game developer interviews, but it does so without attributing where the interviews came from. Therefore, it is impossible for me to trace back to the original source. This source is used for only a very minor point about the influence of a single game, however, so I have just removed the claim and the source. Doing so does not harm the comprehensiveness of the article in any way. Source 88, I have not touched yet, but I believe I have a solid English-language source that can be used to substantiate the same claim, so I plan on replacing it when I get there. Once that is done, all the Shmuplations defects should be cleared up. Indrian (talk) 06:18, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the point seems to be moot with regard to the Toyama interview at least: up until November, the source was apparently cited for the claim that Shigeki Toyama led the robotics division, but that claim no longer appears in the article, and I can't find any other information in the relevant Wikipedia sentence that is verified in the Shmuplations page, let alone the Japanese original. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:31, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I’ll just note that as long as “source 88” (now 87 as of the most recent revision) is cleared up, I approve of this solution. I see no harm in noting who translated the material for this interpretation of the source. Nice catch on what was 47; that just sounds like a mess of copyright entanglement. Red Phoenixtalk 15:06, 21 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The final Shmuplations source has now been replaced. That should completey fix this issue.
50: The author for this particular section is Stuart Campbell.
Added.
54: (No action needed yet. I am unclear on formatting of YouTube references, but believe this is incorrect. I need to research to verify this and what is the correct format, and will come back to this one later).
57: (No action needed here at all. I want to note, for any reviewers who may come to challenge this one on the basis this is a self-published book, that this was written and published by established video game journalist John Szczepaniak, who I know has previously written for Retro Gamer, and therefore I have no doubts about its suitability as a reliable source).
*60: Forgive me for asking, but what makes Kill Screen a reliable source? I did see the author claims to be an established video game historian, but it's not someone I'm familiar with.
I struck this one as I’ve found out that Kill Screen is listed at VG/S, and I merely overlooked it. Red Phoenixtalk 16:01, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
61: If we are keeping magazine publishing locations, just "United Kingdom" seems a little vague. Is that what the magazine says?
Not sure why this one Edge reference had a publishing location listed when none of the others did. It's gone now.
62: Granted I don't know a lick of Japanese, but I'm struggling to find the author name in the source.
I can see where those words appear, but I don't see how they could be seen as referring to an author. I took this out.
63: In contrast to the magazines, is this actually a journal? It uses cite journal, but I'm not sure what kind of source this is. Likewise, if 63 is a journal, surely it would have a doi and other identifiers as well like 64 does?
Good catch. No, this is definitely a magazine. Switched it over to the cite magazine format.
Still need to decide how to consistently hyphenate ISBNs.
Should also make sure we're using the language parameter consistently with all foreign language sources.
Took a break here. Continuing:
79: Who is this interview with? It's not clear from the citation. Perhaps consider adding the name/s of the interviewee/s to the title of the citation, or use the cite interview template.
It's a roundtable interview with a lot of people. The title Namcokid chose does make it sound like its just talking to one person. I put in the actual Japanese name for this entire project and also provided an English translation.
91: Just some future thinking here as we tackle the page number issue that 57 and 91 are the same source, and as such how we choose to handle 6, 7, 8, and 9 should be handled consistently here as well. As it stands, we have spelled out the full citation in 91 with the separate page numbers.
93, 94, 96, 106, 108, etc.: As noted above, consistency with the language parameter. Game Machine cites should note they are in Japanese. I've stopped listing them after 108, just check them all.
All the Game Machine cites should have the language parameter now.
97 and 98: So far, we have utilized publishers with magazine cites. These two don't have them, however.
Fixed
111, 142, 152, 156, etc.: IGN should be a website, not a publisher. Numerous occasions as you go, so I won't list them all.
Fixed. I even added a link to a GamePro cite appearing between them at no additional cost to you.
141: Why is Famitsu the website and IGN the publisher? These two don't add up.
No idea what happened here since I am not the original editor on all this, but looking at the source, its clearly an IGN article. Fixed.
144, 151, 161: Remove Namco.co.jp as the website. Namco as the publisher alone suffices here.
Fixed
153: Wait a second, so SoftBank News isn't published by SoftBank Group? There are other occurrences above as well where there is no publisher noted for this website, but again, however you choose to deal with this is up to you as long as it's done consistently.
Publishers are gone, so this is now moot.
166: No website listed.
Fixed.
186: Same as 38 above
Good thing we dropped those pesky publishers, eh? ;)
192: Again, drop the website if it's just a URL. Publisher alone would suffice.
I think in this case, we are looking at an article on the Famitsu website, so I believe keeping this webstie would be the right call.
205 and 206: GamesRadar or, as Wikipedia's article calls it, GamesRadar+?
This content predates the rename from GamesRadar to GamesRadar+. However, since the content is still live under the new name, I think its appropriate to just add the "+."
209 and 210: A bit odd here - Next Generation is the magazine, and should be in front of Imagine Media and italicized. Presuming this might be another bad use of the cite news template? Same with 210 and The Wall Street Journal.
The Next Generation article was indeed using the cite news template. Changed to cite magazine. The Wall Street Journal cite was using the right template, but the newspaper was listed as the agency instead of the work, so that is fixed too.
That concludes a first pass of the sources. There is a lot to be done here, I know, but no one ever said consistent citations were the fun part. I can try and jump in to give you a hand if time allows, but it's been tough lately for me to find available time. After you have made some decisions and set to fixing, I'll do a "final pass" to catch stragglers and any loose ends. I'll also check for any additional sourcing inconsistencies and conduct a few spot-checks, as this would have been Namcokid47's first FAC and those are usually mandatory for an editor's first. Red Phoenixtalk 03:26, 3 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the thorough review! I will keep chipping away at these this week. I have done my share of academic publishing, so I am no stranger to the importance of proper source formatting. I appreciate everyone's patience as I continue to plunge deeper into this FAC that is not of my own making. I remain confident I can carry it over the finish line! Indrian (talk) 03:34, 3 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Red Phoenix FYI, I plan to do a big push in the second half of the week to hopefully knock out the rest of these. I really appreciate everyone's patience as I have worked through this unexpected (for me) nomination. Indrian (talk) 15:56, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Red Phoenix, I believe I have addressed all your concerns with the exception of the page numbers with the books. The reason I have held off on doing so is that this is going to cause several new citations to appear, which is going to completely change the footnote numbering. I thought you might want to confirm that all other concerns are addressed before I do so, as that will make it far easier to check. If you would prefer I fix the page numbers first, I can do that, but I thought I would present the option. Just let me know. Indrian (talk) 07:25, 4 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Indrian:} Looking very good. On a quick second pass, I do see a couple of minor quibbles, but I'll tell you to address these lightning fast and then go on with the page numbers with no need for another check from me, as I trust you'll have them handled. A couple of these I may not have caught on the first pass.
103 and 104 appear to be from the same website, but one uses the website field and one uses the publisher.
115: Link Variety (magazine) as the website, as that's actually their website.
162 and 179 include website publishers, whereas we're going without through the rest of the article.
Indrian and Red Phoenix, I think this might be all we're waiting on? Like to get this closed off as soon as practicable... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:30, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. Had no time to work on it this week. I should have it wrapped up next week. I appreciate your patience in these unusual circumstances. Indrian (talk) 03:41, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Gog the Mild, These four points have been addressed. I am also hopeful the last two images are resolved, but need to wait on feedback for one. The final, final thing to do is split the book citations and add page numbers. That is my priority number one in life tonight and tomorrow. I think we are going to make it. I again thank you and all the other coordinators for the extraordinary patience you have shown as I have done my utmost to find the time to do the original nomination justice. Without your forbearance, this would not have been possible. Indrian (talk) 03:57, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Red Phoenix, I have now added page numbers to book sources, and I believe our massive source review is finally finished. It is a lot, however, so if I missed something, be sure to let me know. I would just like to thank you for taking the time to do such a thorough review of the citations. No offense to the original nominator, who did fantastic work on the article, but this is one area where he did leave me a mess. Without your dedication, it would have been far more difficult to bring these all in line. Gog the Mild, assuming Red signs off on the sources, this means we are just waiting to hear back from Nikkimaria to see if they still have any issues with the one image that still needs final approval. After that, we can finally bring this review to a successful conclusion. Indrian (talk) 21:58, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support on source formatting and reliability. You have your signoff from me; very well done. I don't blame Namcokid47 for the sources, as even I didn't really come up against this until a year or two ago, and I only recently began to understand its importance. You've done a great job taking over the nomination and seeing it through, and I certainly know I didn't make matters easier for you, but we made it there with an article all the more professional in nature. I'm only crushed for Namcokid47, as I peer-reviewed this article a few times for him prior to his GA nomination before this FA nom and was really hoping he could get to see this one through. In any regard, awesome work as always, Indrian, and hopefully we'll have the chance to collaborate again soon. Red Phoenixtalk 01:55, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Red Phoenix. I really could not have done this without your patience and thoroughness. I, too, am sorry for Namcokid and hope he is okay. We actually ran in some of the same video game preservation Discords before he disconnected from everything, so while I cannot say I know him well, I have actually talked to him in voice chat more than once, not just interacted on Wikipedia. He did a brilliant job making this a poster child for how to write a video game company featured article, and I did not want that work to go unrewarded. It took awhile to work through everything since I had not exactly planned my life to block out time for this review, but I am pleased and humbled that I could carry this over the finish line. Gog the Mild, I believe the source and image review are now complete. I don't know if you need a more official affirmation of support from Nikkimaria, but my understanding based on our latest exchange (and they can correct me if I am wrong) is that I have addressed all their concerns. If you need anything else from me, let me know and I will act on it immediately. Indrian (talk) 02:09, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've subheaded this discussion aside so that it does not get convoluted with my comments. I hope that's all right. Red Phoenixtalk 15:44, 25 April 2021 (UTC) [reply]
@FAC coordinators: : I'm really concerned about irl stuff right now, so I've chosen to retire likely for good. I'd like to have this FAC closed since I won't be here to address any comments or questions. I hope you can understand. Namcokid47 05:21, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's a shame but RL must take precedence and I just hope all goes well for you, Namcokid. This hasn't been open too long but seems to be travelling pretty well; there is precedence for other editors stepping up to take over the nom in such circumstances, I might leave this open a bit longer and see if there are any takers. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:42, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I can take a stab at it if that works. Obviously, I would withdraw my support. I was the GA reviewer, but I assume that is not a conflict of interest. I am incredibly knowledgeable about the topic (above and beyond just doing said review) and I would hate to see all this hard work go to waste. Indrian (talk) 07:14, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just throwing out my 2 cents that I support Indrian's offer. I can vouch for his knowledgeability based on past work with him, and I don't see a conflict of interest in him being willing to take over the work. Red Phoenixtalk 11:38, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@FAC coordinators: So can we move forward on this basis? I don’t know what needs to happen procedurally. Indrian (talk) 16:57, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Indrian, you can indeed. Prior to becoming a coordinator I once did this myself - including "responding" to my own review, which was a little strange. Shout if you encounter problems. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:42, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, I will start responding to comments, including the first round of source review, tomorrow. Just did not want to step on any toes. Indrian (talk) 22:08, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that would be great, I would just add yourself as a co-nom at the top (co-nom so Namcokid still gets credit for their work starting it off) and, as you say, strike your support because you're now taking over the nomination. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:34, 24 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Idrian, for picking this one up. Namcokid put a lot of work into this and I would have been dissapointed to see it go to waste. Wanted to pop in and say Support on prose, however. It's a good read! I might come in with further comments in the future, but this is where I stand. Panini!🥪 14:52, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little concerned about The name Namco, an abbreviation of Nakamura Manufacturing Company (and the related matter of the English name of "Nakamura Manufacturing Company"), which looks suspicious on its face (why would they take the first two letters of the first and third words but not the second, and in Japanese ナ ム コ looks more like an abbreviation of なか むら コンパニー) and a quick Googling brought up this tweet from Bandai-Namco's official Japanese Twitter account that directly contradicts it and would seem to make more sense to begin with. The claim appeared in the article before the accompanying Kotaku source was produced,[3][4] which makes me suspicious of WP:CITOGENESIS (I have in the past seen Kotaku articles both obviously get their information from Wikipedia and present historical and Japanological research that is some below the standards of Wikipedia). I don't doubt that the former 中村製作所 referred to itself variously as "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" and "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company", given that even now many Japanese companies seem to have no idea what their official English name is supposed to be, but if we are going to prioritize one over the other I kinda feel like it should be the one that the company itself says is the origin of the name our article uses as its title. Granted, sources, especially English-language ones, are difficult to find to support the existence of an English translation of an old name for a defunct company, especially because of the aforementioned CITOGENESIS, but it seems very likely that offline sources about this company from the pre-wiki days can be found if the above tweet is insufficient. (Unfortunately, when I tried doing an image search to see if old Pac-Man machines had English copyright information printed somewhere, the closest I got was to find out that apparently the company's US patent for its game machine was granted to "Kabushiki Kaisha Nakamura Seisakusho".) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:16, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for brining this up. Right now, there is no good evidence that Namco ever went by the name Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing. I would not consider this tweet to be a high-quality source on the matter, for as you say, Japanese companies are often confused by their own Western names and the current Bandai Namco is a bit removed from the original Namco just because of the merger. If we look back over older sources, Namco's own corporate history timeline on its English-language website pre-merger stated the company was founded as the Nakamura Manufacturing Company and never mentions "amusement" as being in the name. Likewise, a 1985 article in English by the Japanaese trade publication Journal of Japanese Trade and Industry written by a Japanese author and based largely on an interview with company founder Masaya Nakamura, refers to the original company name as Nakamura Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Most English-language sources from the 1960s and 1970s just use the official company name of the time, "Nakamura Seisakusho Co., Ltd. While "Seisakusho" does not literally translate to "manufacturing," that is usually how the word is translated into English in this context, and it certainly has nothing to do with the word "amusement." Nor to my understanding could the Japanese characters that spell out the company name, 中村製作所, ever be translated to include the word "amusement." In summary, there is zero evidence in contemporaneous sources that the company ever referred to itself in English as anything but "Nakamura Manufacturing" or "Nakamura Seisakusho," and the Japanese name does not contain any characters that would refer to the word "amusement" or any concept similar to amusement. I think a low-level PR employee just whiffed on this one. Indrian (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Western name" and "English name" are very different: English is a de facto official language in Japan, with it being the original of the Japanese constitution, it being universally studied in the education system, and it being increasingly used by businesses for a growing proportion of their internal communications, but not a lot of people actually speaking or understanding it, which results in various inconsistent "Japanese English" names used by the same company within Japan, oftentimes all equally official unless the company has an official, publicly available, English version of their articles of incorporation; "Western name" implies a name used by western media, which in this case is a little tricky since most of the earlier stuff is unlikely to be available on the Internet. a 1985 article in English by the Japanaese trade publication Journal of Japanese Trade and Industry written by a Japanese author and based largely on an interview with company founder Masaya Nakamura, refers to the original company name as Nakamura Manufacturing Co., Ltd. This is really interesting, but it would be a good idea in the future to provide a link or a specific article title: I Googled the title of the publication and the name "Masaya Nakamura" and got no exact matches before realizing that the title had an ampersand and found this. This does indeed prove that the English name "Nakamura Manufacturing" (which is indeed a literal translation of 中村製作所, and therefore the one most likely to be employed by an author writing after the fact based on an interview that was likely conducted in Japanese) was attested before Wikipedia, but as I said confusion within Japanese companies, let alone among third parties, already made this a near-certainty, and the article (which, to be fair, I skimmed to find the use of the name "Nakamura Manufacturing") doesn't seem to indicate a connection between the precise wording "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" and the then-current name of "Namco" (halfway through the second paragraph on the second page, the author just starts referring to the company as Namco without comment), so the source can't be used for the claim that the name "Namco" is an abbreviation of anything in particular. Meanwhile, while "製作所" does not mean "amusement manufacturing", that is a pretty intuitive translation for a company that was primarily active in the amusement park industry rather than, say, steel manufacturing, and while it's possible that the employee who wrote the tweet was duped by a hoax on Japanese Wikipedia's article on Masaya Nakamura, given that the tweet doesn't mention him it seems more likely that if he/she was looking at a Wikipedia article it would have been this one, knew or heard from someone else within the company that this was incorrect, and tweeted the correct information accordingly.
It might be worth noting that I've just now noticed that Japanese Wikipedia (unusually for that site...) cites sources for both of these statements, with the claim about Namco being an abbreviation of "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" being attributed to 「超発想集団・ナムコ」PHP研究所、p.119、1984年、ISBN 4-569-21327-8 while the claim that it is an abbreviation of "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company" is attributed to 「新明解ナム語辞典」日本ソフトバンク、1987年、ISBN 978-4-930795-86-1 I'm loath to trust Japanese Wikipedia over a GA-class article on our own site under the best of circumstances, but it does strike me as odd that we cite the former claim to a Kotaku article and the latter source. I'll see if I can get to a library and check both of these (mid-1980s) sources out over next weekend, but given that both of them are old and obscure enough that neither is available in any form on Amazon, it seems unlikely that the Osaka public libraries will have them on-hand...
Either way, unless someone can confirm the contents of 新明解ナム語辞典, I think we should assume that the Japanese-speakers on Japanese Wikipedia interpreted it correctly and either (a) change the content to read The name Namco, an abbreviation of either Nakamura Manufacturing Company<SOURCE> or Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company,<SOURCE> was introduced in 1971 as a brand for several of its machines.<SOURCE[S?]> or (b) remove the 新明解ナム語辞典 citation. At present I'm leaning (b) since adding content based on an assumption that another Wikipedia article has accurately represented its cited source's contents is borderline WP:CIRCULAR. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:15, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, I really appreciate you looking into this, as we certainly want the history to be accurate. Its interesting that the 1984 book is by the same author who wrote the 1985 article. The 1987 books seems from what I can tell to be something of a fan publication more focused on game center culture, though the author did apparently have some official contact with Namco and had the original version of this dictionary published in Namco's own magazine, which lends it an aura of credibility. It also has its own Japanese Wikipedia page for some reason. As you say though, I would want to see the actual text to confirm it actually makes this specific claim as opposed to being another amorphous translation issue. A couple more Western sources that refer to Nakamura Manufacturing Company include this article in Cash Box from 1967 and this deposition of Hideyuki Nakajima, who is a Japanese native who seems to have an okay, but not flawless, grasp of English at this time. Neither of these sources speak to what the acronym means, but just in terms of seeing if anyone ever referred to the company as Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing, I am still not seeing it. That 1987 would sure be great to get a peak at though. Just because I am skeptical does not mean I am not keeping an open mind. I do want to be accurate. Indrian (talk) 16:28, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As a further point of comparison, Hijiri 88, how would you translate this passage: 中村製作所（ナカムラセイサクショ）は続く F-1( 76.10 ) での成功を受けて社名を変更するが、ここで初めてナム コの略称が使われた。これは海外に対して『ナカムラ・ 7ニュファクチャリング・カンパニー』と名乗る事もあった ので、その英話名称を縮めてナムコとしたもの。これは 同社の企業ブランド戦略のl慌矢となった? This is from a book length oral history of Kazunori Sawano that also goes into general Namco history. I take it to be saying that the company name was changed to Namco because the Western name was Nakamura Manufacturing Company, but I do not speak Japanese and would appreciate your input. Indrian (talk) 16:31, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really have an opinion on the general reliability of 新明解ナム語辞典, but if you don't mind, could we remove it just to be safe? I do have opinions on Kotaku, but I suspect I'm in the minority of Wikipedia editors, and the article seems to have passed GA review with the Kotaku citation intact, and the Kotaku source seems to support all the content of the sentence by itself, while 新明解ナム語辞典 probably contradicts it.
Well, there seems to be a mojibake or some such problem on the first letter of マニュファクチャリング, but yes, that is in line with the "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" sources, but the full quote reads Nakamura Seisakusho, with the ongoing success of F-1 (October 1976) changed its company name, and this was the first time the abbreviation Namco was used [emphasis added]. This was a shortening of the English name that the company sometimes used overseas, namely "Nakamura Manufacturing Company". [Then something about this becoming the l慌矢(?) of the company's corporate brand strategy.], which, while supporting the root of the abbreviation currently cited in our article, but seems to contradict the date. It's theoretically possible to ignore the explicit wording used in the quote (ここで初めて○○が使われた) and interpret it as meaning that the official name change happened in 1976 by using an abbreviation that had been introduced in 1971, but that's not what the source says -- I was originally going to say it might be an idea to replace 新明解ナム語辞典 with this source (title?), but if it contradicts the other information in the sentence that can't be used.
Once again, thank you for engaging in this incredibly helpful dialogue. I am good with removing the 1987 Japanese book. As to the rest, I would like to loop in Red Phoenix since they are doing the source review. Are you okay with Kotaku being the source for Namco being a contraction of Nakamura Manufacturing Company? Any one who has interacted with me for any period of time on Wikipedia knows I am the last person to ever just assume a generally reliable source is correct in a particular instance. For what’s it’s worth, though, I think the totality of the evidence shows Kotaku got it right this time, and as a subject-matter expert I can also say with authority that this name origin story predates Wikipedia, so I don’t see a citogenesis problem here. If you are uncomfortable with the source after this discourse though, Red, I can look for alternatives. Indrian (talk) 18:53, 11 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. (Sorry if I seem a bit gruff/sarcastic in these interactions; it's not intentional, but I've been rushing these responses to get back to the other two discussions on en.wiki and one discussion on ja.wiki that I found myself dragged into without honestly being that interested in any of them and being busy IRL.) Are you okay with Kotaku being the source for Namco being a contraction of Nakamura Manufacturing Company? (I'm assuming that only your final sentence is directed at Red Phoenix specifically and not me or "the room".) As I said above, no, but I'm willing to agree to disagree if the consensus among other editors is that Kotaku is reliable for this kind of information. I don’t see a citogenesis problem here My view is that citogenesis is always a problem with pop culture topics (like video games) that touch on slightly less pop-culture-y topics (like the pre-1980 corporate history of any Japanese company) and we need to be super-skeptical of sources like Kotaku in such circumstances. Even in cases like this, where I believe you that the "NAkamura Manufacturing COmpany → Namco" story predates Wikipedia, it may well be the case that prior to Wikipedia there was an equally viable "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing COmpany → Namco" story that has since been suppressed as a result of English-language pop culture sources copying Wikipedia, which may not technically be citogenesis (which implies a completely made up statement that subsequently spread to other sources) but it's pretty close. Personally, I would prefer if the source you quoted above replaced the Kotaku one, but as long as I know that such a source exists (as I now do) and others are happy with the Kotaku citation, it's not something I see as worth fighting over. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:08, 12 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so I'm very sorry it took me a while to make it here, but that's just the way IRL has been treating me lately. Anyway, Indrian, here's what I would tell you: normally, I'd say yes. According to WP:VG/S, Kotaku is considered a reliable source for all news articles after 2010, though this isn't exactly "news". They do tend to do well with retrospectives, however, and I've used them with some caution before. That being said, let me poke another hole in this one. In doing some searching on "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company", I didn't find that, but I did find several occurrences of "Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Company". And here it is again in the Wall Street Journal, which is listed at WP:RSP, and at Gamasutra. There are actually many more I'm finding, and they're all tied to obituaries of Nakamura. At least one contradicts Kotaku by saying the initialism happened after a 1977 rename, whereas Kotaku claims 1971. As it stands, I'm trying to find a more period-based source that might help us out, but I think there's enough here to poke a hole in this particular claim to this particular source given that we have disagreement in other, similar sources also considered reliable. Red Phoenixtalk 03:01, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I should add here (since I don't think it came across well above) that I'm confident that all these variations (Nakamura Manufacturing Company, Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company, Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Company, and possibly others) "exist" and were at one time or another officially recognized by the company themselves. The problems as I see them are (i) which of these can specifically be called the origin of the abbreviation "Namco" and (ii) when the abbreviation was coined. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:42, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Hijiri88: A look through the sources I reviewed suggests the same. The when and what specifically also seems to be in dispute in modern sources - ergo, my desire to try and find a period-based source, maybe in an old issue of Cashbox or so. Red Phoenixtalk 11:21, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Right, that's been one of my points. Other than possibly one 1987 book for which we cannot currently verify the contents, no older source I am aware of in English or Japanese ever refers to a "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company." English language sources from the 1960s through the 1980s use either the original official name, Nakamura Seisakusho, or the translation of said name, Nakamura Manufacturing. While this is not proof in the sense that these sources don't say what Namco stands for, it would be odd for it to be shorthand for a name the company never used in another capacity. Indrian (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here’s an interesting one, supposedly from an old issue of Cashbox circa 1976, though I’d have to find the exact issue. It does call the company “Nakamura Seisakusho”, but says “call us by our familiar initials NAMCO”. Maybe it’s not short for anything in English at all? Red Phoenixtalk 16:24, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I can't believe it didn't occur to me to check until now, but Googling "Nakamura Amusement Machine Company" ("Nakamura ... Company", despite some statements above to the contrary, being a fairly reasonable translation of "Nakamura Seisakusho" by itself, with "Amusement Machine" being a description of their key product) in quotes brings up a few Japanese pages of seemingly varying levels of trustworthiness, which mostly seem to go back to this. This, like "Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company" seems, at least to me, like a more likely source of the abbreviation "NAMCo" than "Nakamura Manufacturing Company", and I'm not exactly seeing the flood of pre-web English-language sources that all uniformly refer to the company as either "Nakamura Seisakusho" or "Nakamura Manufacturing (Company?)" alluded to above -- seemingly one unattributed quotation and one article in the Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry that use the latter and at least one patent application that uses the former. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:19, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Is it so important that we have the exact abbreviation to the word? We could either specify that sources differ on precisely what it's short for, or just mention that Namco came about as an abbreviation of the company's name and not specify exactly how. Perhaps that would not be so precise, but it would be accurate and still based on an appropriate review of reliable sources. Red Phoenixtalk 01:54, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm okay with either of those solutions. But in-line citations should be to sources that give different origins, because with only "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" sources (or one obscure Japanese print source from the 1980s and one "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" source that is both online and in English) someone might inadvertently restore some version the present text. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:40, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I will absolutely fix this so that the sourcing lines up well with the claims, and I am incredibly grateful that you brought this issue to my attention on the FAC page. I am not sure, how much of the nom you read through, but I am not the original nominator of the article nor the person that did the majority of the work on the article, so I have been coming to grips with some of the nuances at the same time as everyone else. (I did the GA review, but that does not require the same level of engagement with the sources as we demand from a full FAC source review). As to your specific factual concerns, I am still just not seeing them. It's wonderful that you appear to have tracked down the modern source for the claim of the Nakamura Amusment Machine Company name, because it provides some more clarity on why this claim is suspect. Simply put, I would not expect a PR rep at Bandai Namco, a successor in interest to the original Namco, to have any idea how Namco itself translated the word "Seisakusho" into English. They are quite far removed from the original name change, which was almost forty years before that source was written. I do perhaps take slight umbrage at the "flood of sources" comment. I provided you what I felt were some of the most pertinent examples, but I never had any intention of citing to every mention of Nakamura Manufacturing/Seisakusho in the English-language coin-op trades. I will give you two more, however. Here is an ad Namco itself placed in the English-language coin-op trades announcing the name change. As you can see, the official name of the company was Nakamura Seisakusho in English. As for how to translate that into English, here is Namco's own corporate history, pre-merger, rendered in English by Namco corporate itself on its own Japanese website. Again, it does not say what Namco stands for, but it does clearly show what Namco itself considered the English translation of the "Seisakusho" in its name to be at a time when its founder was still the chairman of the company. It stretches all credulity that Namco is derived from an English name (Nakamura Amusement Machine Company) for which there is as yet no evidence Namco itself actually used in its dealings in the English-speaking world. Indrian (talk) 05:01, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Those are interesting sources, but all they do is verify what I said up above (I don't doubt that the former 中村製作所 referred to itself variously as A, B, C, etc.) without shedding any light on the origin of the abbreviation, and the latter actually just clouds the dating issue even further by showing that as of 2003 Namco's English website said that the "[u]se of [the] Namco brand name [began]" in 1972 (given the preponderance of other sources, I suspect this is either a typo or a factual error). I don't think we're going to solve the mystery with the resources we have at present, so why can't we just do what Red Phoenix suggested above and say either that different sources give different etymologies (and cite at least one source for each, without necessarily listing them in-line) or that the name "Namco" was originally a brand-name based on an abbreviation of the company's name (without actually stating what said company's name is)? I didn't think it would be an issue so I didn't mention it up above, but is the problem that the latter solution would lead readers to assume that the correct origin was "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" because said name is cited elsewhere in the article? I don't see that as an issue, and I seem to be the one who's most sceptical of that origin, so I don't see why anyone else would see it as important. Anyway: there is as yet no evidence Namco itself actually used in its dealings in the English-speaking world This is a little problematic, as it depends on what you consider to constitute "the English-speaking world" -- English has been a de facto official language of Japan since before Nakamura Seisakusho was founded, and while even today very few Japanese companies are careful to maintain uniformity in their English branding, it goes without saying that some form of English branding could have been in use even within Japan, let alone in the company's dealings with other parts of Asia where English is used as a lingua franca, even if such would not have appeared in publicly available materials in those countries at the time or now. Even if you reject Niconico News as a source and take "Nakamura Amusement Machine Company" to be either a hoax or an error, there are still three options, all attributable to reliable third-party sources, one of which (Nakamura Amusement Manufacturing Company) is attributable to a recent first-party source but possibly contradicted by the fact that there are a larger number of old sources that refer to the company (but not the origin of the brand name) as "Nakamura Manufacturing Company". I would think it qualifies as OR to take a bunch of sources that all refer to the company as "Nakamura Manufacturing Company" and claim (in the article space) that this is the origin of the brand name "Namco", especially when multiple reliable sources explicitly say otherwise, and I really don't see why it's still an issue worth arguing over: we should just remove the potentially problematic part of the sentence and change the citations (or insert a WP:COMMENT) so no one misinterprets it in the future. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:59, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"led Namco to producing games" - another problematic "to" - it's either "led to Namco producing games" or (my preference) "led Namco to produce games"
History:
"them longer and expensive" - need a "more" for expensive
"Because other manufacturers had exclusive rights to do so, the company was unable to place its machines inside stores" - swap the "to do so" and "place its machines inside stores". Having "to do so" first leads readers to say "to do what?"
"approached Nakamura in early 1974 in regards to having his business" - this could be trimmed to just "approached Nakamura in early 1974 to have his business". Expressions like "in regards", "in order to", etc. are generally superfluous
"It was released in North America by Midway Manufacturing, the video game division of Bally, where it became one of its best-selling titles and formed a relationship between it and Namco." - "it" is doing a bit too much heavy lifting in this sentence, referring to the game and Bally (or just Midway? I can't tell for certain) interchangeably. I'd be clear with the last "it"
"considered of high quality" -> "considered to be high quality"
"decision in creating" -> "decision to create". That sentence is also fairly long and probably should be split at "for the console. Namco signed a five-year...[and was given]"
"Tadashi Manabe replaced Nakamura as president" - do we know why? Did Nakamura resign? Or was he forced out for some reason?
We don't have details, but he would not have been forced out. As the founding chairman of the company Nakamura retained great power and stepped right back in as president two years later. My guess is he wanted a more experienced administrator to run the day-to-day as the company grew larger. This is something that happened at several Japanese coin-op companies in this period. The founder of Konami also briefly stepped aside as president for a more experienced man, for example. Obviously, I am not putting any of that in the article because it is speculation, but I don't see him being forced out. Indrian (talk) 15:55, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Namco's R&D divisions finished development" - was there more than one R&D division?
Possibly. A lot of these Japanese arcade companies had multiple R&D teams. That said, its really not worth trying to clarify, so I just took out the term "R&D Divisions" entirely. Indrian (talk) 15:55, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"As his anxiety disorder prevented him from properly running the company, Manabe" - this presents it as though we all know Manabe had an anxiety disorder.
"The System 22 was put to use with Ridge Racer, a racing game, in 1993" - this is awkward; first, I don't think the definite article is needed, and it would be smoother to say "System 22 was put to use with the racing game Ridge Racer in 1993."
"helped it outperform Sega's game in popularity" - this assumes the reader knows Virtua Fighter" is a Sega game
"widely-successful" - drop the hyphen
Parsecboy, I believe I have addressed all of the above. I will address the general comments below as soon as I am able. Indrian (talk) 15:55, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
General comments:
There are instances where refs are not in order (i.e., they appear as [1][3][2])
These should all be fixed.
There are multiple figures given either in yen or dollars; it'd be nice if we could convert one to the other, but I realize this is fairly difficult to do for a given currency at a given point in time - if the sources provide conversions, it'd be good to include them.
I have expressed all the monetary figures in both dollars and yen save the revised sale agreement between Atari and Namco for Atari Japan, as those figures came from an internal Atari document and were therefore only provided in dollars.
There are several duplicate links throughout the article - if you don't happen to have a checker, User:Evad37/duplinks-alt is the one I use.
Fixed.
If you have a moment to spare, I also have a FAC that could use a review from someone less familiar with the topic. Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 00:29, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Parsecboy, I believe I have addressed all of your concerns. Please let me know if I missed something. Indrian (talk) 18:17, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good, great job, especially taking over the FAC midway through. Parsecboy (talk) 20:17, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
While I've come late to this FAC, it does not take away the fact that it is well-written, comprehensive and impeccably sourced. I can't pick anything out which hasn't already been addressed, other than the fact that it is undoubtedly an exemplary article which faithfully represents all the facets of an influential video game company. Well done to Namcokid for his fastidious efforts, and Indian for taking the reins. ♦ jaguar 22:13, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I could nitpick the prose, but this article already far exceeds the standards of a WP:FA. The research is excellent, and it is very thorough. Perhaps too thorough, if there was such a thing, but it never goes too deep into a tangent. Great work to Indrian for keeping this one going. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:30, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the ((featured article candidates)) template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 09:00, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
