About

From Game Developer Research Institute
Revision as of 13:36, 7 June 2009 by CRV (Talk | contribs) (Contributors)

Jump to: navigation, search

Game Developer Research Institute (GDRI), officially established on August 26, 2006, is dedicated to finding out more information about the companies and the people that developed video games. Our specialty is researching contract developers that worked for larger publishers, but were not usually given proper credit.

History

In 2005, CRV noticed the words "PROGRAMMED BY SIMS CO., LTD." shortly after booting up George Foreman's KO Boxing for the Sega Master System. He posted his findings on SMS Power, jumpstarting a whole investigative thread which eventually uncovered many other games developed by SIMS. The success of this investigation begot more investigations including ones of Aicom and games published by Pony Canyon, both of which led to some grueling discussion.

As more development companies became discovered and more people became interested in helping, it no longer seemed practical to post only on message boards. CRV felt there should be one source for all of this information. SIT Developer Table, a Japanese site with listings for a wide variety of game companies, provided the inspiration, but he wanted something more dynamic. The solution he found was in the form of a wiki.

CRV asked for web space from SMS Power webmaster Omar Cornut and in August 2006, the wiki software was installed and work began immediately.

Today, we have over 100 company entries and over 25 interviews. Thanks to our small group of contributors, we are always growing and learning new things.

Research Methods

Main article: About:Research Methods

Read more about how GDRI determines the developer of a game by clicking the link above.

Using GDRI

Viewing company entries

All company entries follow the same basic format: background information, links to related interviews (if there are any), company logo (if available) at the top; game list in the middle; and links of interest at the bottom. However, there are some variations when it comes to disclosing what research methods were used to build our game lists.

Variation 1

Most entries use this variation, which is a straightfoward list at the top of the page that looks like this:

Research Methods: Code comparisons, interviews, online resources (see Links), shared credits

If you need a reminder of what each "research method" involves, click on Research Methods to read about them.

Variation 2

This variation is more specific and more time-consuming to put together, so it will only be used with a select few companies. Instead of one general list, each individual game will have listed the methods used to figure out the developer. For example:

  • Battle Baseball (JP Publisher: Banpresto)
[Shared credits] [ROM text]

If a method listed has a link, you can click it to find out more. In the case of "[Shared credits]," you will be taken to a page containing the game's credits. Relevant staffers will be highlighted in yellow.

Reading game lists

Games are listed by platform.

  • Game Name (role) (Publishers)
Other companies involved in development
Black means the company was the primary developer (or co-developer)
Gray means the company provided support development (ex: EIM doing only music/sound on Casino Kid II)
Red means we are unsure of the extent to which the company was involved

Editing

Much of GDRI is editable by anyone who wishes to contribute, but we HIGHLY encourage you to create an account. If you choose to edit anything without being logged into an account, your IP address will be recorded and displayed publically in the edit history. Remember that anything you contribute may be altered or removed by someone else.

If you do not know how to edit a wiki page, please consult Wikipedia's Help section. We also recommend clicking on "Edit" in an entry that has already been started and looking at the formatting.

Contributors

CRV
Founder, system operator.

Dimitri
Runs code comparisons, translates Japanese.

Others: Hydr0x, Ita, Idrougge, Jarrod, Jonny2x4, Kaminari, KungFuFurby, Manjimaru, Mukimuki@RS, NeoZeedeater, PingvinBlueJeans

Contacting us

Any questions, comments, or other feedback can be sent via e-mail to smsgenny at vgrebirth dot org.

You can often find us on IRC: popn.cjb.net #project2612

Game developers

If you work/worked in the video game industry and have a story or information to share, please e-mail us at smsgenny at vgrebirth dot org. Do, however, keep in mind the following conditions:

- If you name any specific game titles, we would like to be able to include them in our entries.

- We will keep anything "off the record" at your request, by which we mean we will not attribute a particular piece of information to you. We would rather you not share information with us that cannot be published on the site AT ALL. But if you must, we will abide by your request, but we cannot guarantee that other contributors (mostly "head" contributors CRV and Dimitri) will not be privy to this information.

These same conditions apply to interviews that we initiate.

Press/media

Members of the press/media may use the following logo:

GDRI logo

Right-click and save. Do not hotlink directly to it.

Legal

Read our site terms and conditions, privacy policy, and more here.