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Good articleMother (video game) has been listed as one of the Video games good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Good topic starMother (video game) is part of the Mother series series, a good topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
October 17, 2014Good article nomineeListed
January 29, 2015Good topic candidatePromoted
Current status: Good article
WikiProject iconVideo games: Nintendo GA‑class Mid‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Video games, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of video games on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Video gamesWikipedia:WikiProject Video gamesTemplate:WikiProject Video gamesvideo game articles
GAThis article has been rated as GA-class on the project's quality scale.
MidThis article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
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This article is supported by the Nintendo task force.
Summary of Video games WikiProject open tasks:

Sales figures

Mother was successful in Japan, selling approximately 400,000 copies.[1]

  1. ^ Hiroyuki Nakada. 1990. Nintendō daisenryaku: Mario ga Toyota o koeru hi! : handōtai sedai no sakusesu shinwa. JICC Shuppankyoku. ISBN 4-7966-0063-9

Can someone verify the above citation? If not, I think it's safer to stick with Nintendo Power's 150k figure. czar ♔ 22:33, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Mother (video game)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 18:36, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]


I'll complete the review within a few days, if that's OK. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 18:36, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:
    B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. Has an appropriate reference section:
    B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:
    C. No original research:
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:
    B. Focused:
  4. Is it neutral?
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. Is it stable?
    No edit wars, etc:
  6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
    A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:
    B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:

Initial comments

I'll have to focus on copyediting issues in this review.

Lead

  • "but is set in a modern United States" - unless I'm mistaken the first Mother game is set in 1980 so would we agree that thirty four years ago is still considered 'modern' or contemporary?
  • "and circulated on the Internet as EarthBound Zero" - just curious, there was a discussion debating on the capitalisation of 'Internet' in some Wikipedia articles
  • The lead summarises the article well so this meets the criteria

Gameplay

  • "The game's protagonist, Ninten, is about 10 years old" - hey what happened to player-character!?
  • "and ventures outside to find a crazy world with hostile everyday objects and other odd events" - not very encyclopaedic, what about a formal synonym such as strange or berserk?

Development

  • When did development start?
  • "a North American release as Earth Bound" - just to be clear is this referring to the first Mother game or the second one?
  • "recorded in Tokyo, London, and Bath" - this is the correct city to be sure?

Reception and legacy

  • "Mother sold 150,000 copies" - in Japan only?
  • Although not a requirement for GA, I notice that there is no reception box and very few actual scores given from critics

References

The tool server is currently down so I had to check the references manually. They all seem to be working properly and I couldn't find any that seemed unreliable (not for this topic). The citations are also in their correct places so this meets the GA criteria.

On hold

This is another well written article and should have no problem passing the GAN. This will also be my (second) last review for some time and before closing this GAN I just wanted to make sure that those issues were clarified. The only problems I found with this article were a few minor copyediting issues (which would more than likely improve readability) and once they have been addressed I'm sure that this article will gain its well deserved GA status. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 18:46, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Jaguar, done—take a look? Modern/contemporary should be fine, since that's how the recent sources put it. But I changed it anyway to late 20th century. Also I capitalize Internet as a proper noun. Re: protagonist—took your advice on this one. (Ninten is also described as a protagonist more often, and he carries out the plot, so it fits.) I don't have a date for when development started. The 150k copies are assumed to be in Japan since it didn't have a wider release. Thanks for the review and best wishes on your wikibreak! czar ♔ 21:12, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Close - promoted

Thanks for clearing those issues up, Czar, this article now meets the GA criteria. It is very broad, well written and long story short it is a strong GA. I might have to try this game on a emulator soon. I will cue the wikibreak, see you soon! ☠ Jaguar ☠ 16:03, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK nomination

{{Did you know nominations/Mother (video game)}} czar ♔ 07:00, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rename

The common English name for this game remains Mother despite the rerelease by a different name, and the series is still known by the reliable sources as the Mother series. This rush to rename is premature. – czar 23:30, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with that, I think we should move this to Earthbound Beginnings, first that the official Nintendo Youtube video just posted today and they just gave a better new name, second that the title Mother is only used in Japan and was only used in English version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and third, this is a English Wikipedia not a Japanese Wikipedia.DigiPen92 (talk) 00:14, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Name

While the game has been known as Mother for a long time, readers won't be confused by the name change, and fans will understand what the title means. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 23:40, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The person who moved the article back suggests that mother is the common name for the game thought I find that questionable since the is going to be a lot of coverage under the EarthBound Beginnings name due to the official release and the officillEnglish release will attract a larger group of readers who have not heard of the original name Mother. I see EarthBound Beginnings as serving the general audience.--67.68.31.244 (talk) 23:50, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. If somehow enough sources begin referring to the game known for decades as Mother by another name, we can revisit a name change proposal/discussion. I'm familiar with the sources—if you review the sources attached to this peer reviewed article, you'll see that most refer to the game as Mother and not by another name. – czar 00:08, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 15 June 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. A discussion that has largely missed the point, to be frank. Supporters cite the new official name, either ignoring or oblivious to Wikipedia policy that "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's 'official' name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources". Opposers cite that policy and refer to the previous 20 years of sources, while seemingly ignoring that a paragraph down the same policy states "If the name of a person, group, object, or other article topic changes, then more weight should be given to the name used in reliable sources published after the name change than in those before the change."

I'm calling this a no consensus because neither side made a particularly good case for what reliable sources have been calling this game post-official name change. It should probably be revisited in a month or two, so we accurately assess whether the change has caught on in reliable sources. Jenks24 (talk) 11:46, 23 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: On further consideration, it was unfair to characterise all opposers as having missed the point about what sources have used since the name change. There were several who did and, on the whole, their arguments were stronger than those supporting but not to an an extent that I felt justified a clear consensus against moving the article. Jenks24 (talk) 14:12, 23 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Mother (video game) → Earthbound Beginnings – Nintendo has finally announced a release and official English title for the game, Earthbound Beginnings, so the page should be moved to reflect the official name. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 00:46, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Extreme Support - per CyberSkull.DigiPen92 (talk) 01:10, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • support I do not support the claim that Mother is the common name in English. This fails to take into account several issues. First, Several sources that have previously used Mother, due to that being the only official name of the game until now, are now using EarthBound Beginnings the new English of official name. Secondly, that argument does not take into account people that are not familiar with the series looking this up when they heard the announcement. These people would not know the game as Mother and we should be writting for a general audience.--67.68.31.244 (talk) 01:18, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. A review of the article's sources, which are a representative sample of the sources available on the subject, shows that Mother is both the common and official English name for the game. Even in the sources on today's announcement, the game is known as Mother and not by the localization's title. If in the future sources refer to the game as "Earthbound Beginnings" rather than Mother, there will be a reason to discuss how the common name might have changed. Until then, the game has been and will continue to be known as Mother globally and in English-speaking countries until the sources show that they prefer another title, be it EarthBound Zero or EarthBound Beginnings. A Google hits search shows that the game is better known as Mother than by any other name. There is no evidence that the title that established a series and has propagated for two decades has been eclipsed in the span of a few hours. – czar 02:03, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • You're comparing search results for a title that is over two and a half decades old versus one that isn't even a week old. As with any recent official English release, the original Japanese name is going to get more. --Evice (talk) 16:57, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Mother is its English title in English-language reliable sources. The common name guideline says to use what the English-language reliable sources call the game. As you admit, the decades old name is the established name and the new name is unproven by usage in the sources. – czar 13:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If I may, I think it is important to look at the news articles that have been written the past few days. All of them refer to the game itself as Mother and then say it is "released under the name of" Earthbound Beginnings, or variants of this. To me, it definitely seems that Mother is the name the game is known by, even after the western release, while "Earthbound Beginnings" is the title of this specific release of the game. The sources of the past 25 years are already starting to get outnumbered by the new sources (if we count each news report covering the recent anouncement), but all of the new sources still say "Mother 1 is finally coming out in the west! Oh, and they're calling it Earthbound Beginnings." ~Mable (chat) 15:23, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note to closer: many of the "supports" are coming from new users unfamiliar with our naming conventions, and very few are citing any policy-backed rationale. The point of the common name guideline is use a subject's publicly known name as reflected in reliable sources. Even in the EBB announcement references, this game is already known in English as Mother. In all previous sources (I wrote this game's article), the game is known as Mother. There is no lasting evidence that this game is predominantly known as EarthBound Beginnings. This discussion is too soon for someone wanted to make that argument, though I'm sure no one would have an issue with entertaining it later down the line if the nature of the coverage changes (e.g., more than just reviews of the new release). – czar 13:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strenuous Oppose - Come on. The VC release was announced yesterday. For the past 26 years the game's only name has been Mother. Articles and books have been written about it, reams of callouts to "Mother, the Japanese-only prequel to EarthBound". And you're trying to tell me that, in less than 24 hours, the entire English-speaking video game world has all flipped on what the common name for the game is? So much so that, according to some editors, not only should we move the page title but every instance of "Mother" should be changed to "EarthBound Beginnings", even the bits referring to 20-year-old Japanese reception? At least wait until the weekend is over, and you can actually see what the reliable sources are calling it now- all you currently have is hastily-written press release covers. --PresN 02:06, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and against czar & PresN's ludicrous argument, this is an English Wikipedia, not a Japanese Wikipedia, it could get any newcomers to the Earthbound series confused, I mean we had The Mysterious Murasame Castle been renamed when it got released in the 3DS Virtual Console and alot of people got to know it more, I mean Earthbound Beginnings was released before the original Earthbound in Japan and I think alot of fans wanted to try out the game and Earthbound did make it in the Best Seller Category in the Wii U Virtual Console when it at the time when the game was released afterwards.166.176.58.120 (talk) 02:29, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, mostly per PresN's argument. Wait a few weeks and see how everyone refers to the game then. I don't find it hard to imagine if "Earthbound Beginnings" would only be used to describe the Virtual Console port/translation, which isn't even really what the article is about. The title of the Famicon game hasn't changed. I reasonably expect that the game would be referred to as Earthbound Beginnings in a more general sense after a while, but right now, I myself can hardly think of the game itself as anything other than "Mother". We'll see what happens. ~Mable (chat) 07:23, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Obviously support : It doesn't matter the game was known for 26 years by its JAPANESE name. The game's official international name is Earthbound Beginnings since yesterday. Wikipedia shouldn't judge which name is better, but be accurate. We should indicate it, while mentionning the name's history. 93.22.223.192 (talk) 13:17, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The official name is only part of it. What if its ignored and everyone carries on calling it Mother? We go by what the reliable sources say. We don't obey press releases.- X201 (talk) 14:30, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Per Czar, PresN and Mable. Nothing really to add, the original game is Mother, and nothing has changed about that. -- ferret (talk) 14:33, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Proposal - How about two separate articles? It's almost unheard of for a VC re-release to warrant a completely separate article, but I have a feeling this will get significant coverage on its own, separately from the original Mother release. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:21, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Knowing the interest in Earthbound-related articles on Wikipedia, I expect this is actually quite possible. Again, though, it's too early to tell. Most of the sources for a possible Earthbound Beginnings article would be related to critical reception, though, with absolutely nothing to cover its "development". This would be an article about a specific release, rather than a specific game. I have no idea if this is the best choice - a separate section to talk about the reception of the western release might make way more sense. ~Mable (chat) 17:54, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that would work since iI doubt that the VC port would be considered independently notable.--67.68.31.244 (talk) 22:52, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interestingly, Itoi closes that video by saying "...and creating Mother, and creating the work that is Earthbound is somehow, for me personally..." and he even calls the series the "Mother series" after that. He starts the video by saying that it "will now be released ... under the title Earthbound Beginnings." He's talking about the specific release rather than the game. Not that primary sources have much influence on how we title our articles, but it's interesting to see the duality pop up everywhere. ~Mable (chat) 15:11, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, but I'll add that the B in EarthBound is capitalized (it's camelcase), even with Beginnings. The English Wikipedia tends to prefer official English-language names where one exists (if more than one exists, as with Trace Memory/Another Code, one of the two is chosen and not the Japanese name). --Evice (talk) 15:37, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry for not saying earlier, but on the actual system (on the eShop and in the main menu; the title screen of the game itself still says "Earth Bound" as it did in the protoype) it's camelcase. --Evice (talk) 05:13, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now, just because it should be given time to figure out whether it will eventually become well-known as EarthBound Beginnings. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 19:27, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - This is an English Wikipedia not a Japanese Wikipedia, come on guys.63.249.58.117 (talk) 22:07, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment to the closing admin - there are an awful lot of single-edit IPs contributing to this discussion. Perhaps this is a hot button issue drawing people out of the woodwork, perhaps there's something else going on, who knows? Axem Titanium (talk) 22:12, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: - Go by the reliable sources and WP:COMMONNAME. Changing stuff because of one press release is bonkers. - X201 (talk) 07:21, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • The game has been already been released used the proposed name so no one had ever suggested to rename it due to a single press release.--67.68.31.244 (talk) 10:59, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • "One press release" (more specifically, an official English-language Web site) was apparently all it took for Dragon Quest IV, Dragon Quest V, and Dragon Quest VI. The first of these had a very different official translation before it was retranslated in 2008, and the other two didn't have one at all until the remakes. There was no (or at least very little) controversy over the names as there is here, and both series are pretty niche outside of Japan. Yet, all three articles use the new title (as opposed to Dragon Warrior IV) for IV and the English subtitles for V and VI, and they all use the new names for characters, locations, etc. --Evice (talk) 16:51, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Also the iOS releas of the first three games In the Dragon Quest Franchise was enough to get them moved to Dragon Quest even though all the games had been previously related in the West as Dragon Warrior. The first game actually was released in the West about a month after this game's Japanese release.--67.68.31.244 (talk) 04:17, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support: - We don't call Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War by its Japanese name, and that's a similar case, so why should we do it here? I say move to EarthBound Beginnings and be done with it. DN-boards1 (talk) 04:56, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • How is this at all a similar case? "Genealogy of the Holy War" only became the common English name due to "Seisen no Keifu" being a title purely in Japanese. "Mother" is an English word that people use globally to refer to Beginnings. At least for the time being, "Mother" is still the common name of the game, and as long as it remains that way, the article should reflect this. Jucchan (talk) 05:11, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Czar, PresN, Mable, and others. Until everyone actually starts calling this "Begginings" instead of "Mother", the current title should remain. If they announced Mother 3 to be Earthbound "X", do you think people would immediately stop calling it "Mother 3" after years of begging for a release? Jucchan (talk) 05:02, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, move is not needed. --Anarchyte 01:15, 21 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - As Czar, PresN, and Mable have said, this is jumping the gun. If we move the page right now, we may find ourselves just having to move it back in a few months. It won't hurt to wait a bit and see how things pan out.--Martin IIIa (talk) 17:45, 22 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Giygas' name and some of the other stuff from the Prototype could have changed in the English Wii U Virtual Console version?

I know that the prototype had Giygas was formally called Giegue before they named the main antagonist as Giygas in the English version of EarthBound (that I did see Llyod's name from the Trailer was corrected as Llyod that was used from Super Smash Bros. Brawl instead of Loid that was used from the prototype) and I did see some of the others from the trailer looked almost the same from the prototype, but, does anyone have downloaded the Wii U Virtual Console and see if there were any changes differ from the Prototype to the English version of the Wii U Virtual Console (just wanted clarification answer), I wanted to downloaded the game later until I had saved up enough money for the Prepaid Card or getting a game download code from the store and add more info about with the stuff from the Wii U Virtual Console version to to this page since I did recall seen Nintendo did had edited some typos and edit some elements to the Wii and 3DS Virtual Console version before?DigiPen92 (talk) 03:01, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not post your original research. We use the language reported by the vetted vg reliable sources. – czar 03:13, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reason for move protection

While I do not object to the protection itself, the reason currently cited for protecting the page is "Persistent vandalism". I feel like this is inaccurate. From the page history, all page moves appear to be good faith attempts to change the name, but did not establish consensus for the new name. I'm not sure what the reason should be listed as, but I think the edit summary provided when move-protecting the page was more accurate ("MPP due to pagemoves during an ongoing RM"), although part of that is now outdated due to the closing of the move discussion. --SnorlaxMonster 07:17, 26 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also it appears that no one has suggested trying to unilaterally overrule the close of the move request so I am not sure if the protection is even needed.--64.229.165.154 (talk) 18:36, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
People who plan to unilaterally move the page don't propose it. They just do it. It's probably a good idea to leave the protection in place for a while. -- ferret (talk) 20:23, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Giegue? Gyiyg?

Why is Giegue spelled like Gyiyg? EarthBound Beginnings was just released, making the spelling "Giegue" official. Is there a good reason as to why we are not using the name? –– ♫ Mara/Freya ♫ 09:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We're using the spelling used most often in the sources. If the new reviews consistently call it something different, we can discuss those sources. – czar 16:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've personally always seen "Giygas" used in sources. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:23, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For EarthBound, yep, and that's what that article uses. For Mother, it's different (both from the devs and in the sources). Even though the "character" is supposed to have some continuity between the two. – czar 17:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Plot section

I see that in the source code for the plot section it is written 

<!-- ATTENTION: Please do NOT change the any of the names to the ones used in the "EarthBound" prototype. Because it was not officially released, none of the names are official, and therefore should not be used in the article. Please use only the Japanese names.-->

Since the "prototype" is now released, is it suggested that we change the names?–– ♫ Ellie ♫ 04:13, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Let me just point to a few sections up, [1], and note that I would undo the last three edits if I could figure out how to undo multiple edits simultaneously. We kinda got this worked out, but the new edits are making all the articles in this series inconsistent with eachother again. If anything, name changes in this series should be coördinated - otherwise, we just end up with a mess in our hands. ~Mable (chat) 04:32, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've updated the out-of-date comment. I'm hesitant to change the names unless someone can show that the NA release names have had enough coverage to eclipse the JP names. Like the name "Mother" itself, the so-called Japanese names are presented in English (the Latin character set) and are better known and used in more sources than the localized names. Ironically, the localization has not received very much coverage at all after the initial release. – czar 05:25, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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