Talk:Donkey Kong 64

Hbomberguy stream

In January of 2019, YouTube personality Hbomberguy raised over $300,000 by playing Donkey Kong 64 for the charity Mermaids in response to the actions of television personality Graham Linehan putting their funding from the National Lottery Fund in jeopardy.

References

Brewis started his stream on Twitch on Jan. 18. In a YouTube video announcing the stream, he said he’d never beaten Donkey Kong 64 as a kid. His old save file purportedly shows 59-plus hours of playtime, but just 69 percent completion. Brewis’ goal for the charity stream was to beat the N64 game 100 percent.
— https://www.polygon.com/2019/1/20/18191023/hbomberguy-donkey-kong-64-twitch-stream-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-john-romero-chelsea-manning

I haven't found a source that describes DK64's role in this stream as any more than trivia. I could see mentioning it on the streamer's page as a high-profile event for him, but what does a general audience interested in the game itself need to know about this event? If DK64 became associated with trans rights, would be a different story. czar 13:50, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

• The game is making international news almost 20 years past its release because of its selection for the charity fundraising. I felt that was significant enough to include it here, compared to just a normal Let's Play which would be otherwise unimportant. Also, the Polygon article (thanks for the source!) points out the game was selected because of how difficult 100% completion of the title would be. A consistent theme in this page's discussion of the game appears to be the immense amount of collectibles and the increasingly negative impression it's left of the game since its release. Rebochan (talk) 15:28, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

The streamer and his guests made news, not the game. The game is not associated with any record or movement, right? If collecting 100% of the collectibles is a feat (as inferred), I would think the sources would make a point of saying so, and even then, we would note that it's regarded as a feat, not the other details of the stream, as those aren't relevant to this article. The blockquoted sentence above has no immediate use to a general reader wanting to know about the game because the choice of game was incidental to the event. There are plenty of other places to cover the event on WP, though. czar 19:06, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

But the game's selection is a notable event for its history after decades of inactivity. That's what a "legacy" section would cover in any other game's article. In addition, if you google "Donkey Kong 64" right now, most of the hits are about the charity event - so it's going to look very strange to a casual reader that comes to this page off the front page of google and not seeing the most newsworthy event in the game's existence included on the page. If you want a more direct tie-in, references to the game and trans-rights became viral in the aftermath as well - which Kotaku Australia picked up on when they used one of the *many* trans-rights Donkey Kong images to head the article. A "Legacy" section isn't simply the mechanics of the game and its content, but documenting its place in history even when its not entirely because of the game itself. The lack of any mention of its selection in such a high profile event is a very curious omission that readers of the article are clearly noticing given the other good-faith attempts to add the information in. Rebochan (talk) 19:35, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

the game's selection is a notable event for its history after decades of inactivity

I haven't seen a single source mention the stream as important to DK64's legacy, nor have I seen a source name the choice of DK64 as intrinsically important to the event's message (not even the kotaku.com.au piece). Open to seeing other reliable sources.

Lots of game articles include all kinds of trivia but when they're cleaned up and featured, WP editors discuss (as we're doing right now) whether elements are incidental to the subject or noteworthy. As for the Google searchers, if the game has any lasting connection to the stream, a source will mention the importance of the connection and we will cite it. czar 03:11, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

I (mostly a Wikipedia user rather than editor; So a beginner to its rules) came here expecting a passage or at least a sentence mentioning this. I almost made another good-faith edit to it before remembering that talk pages exist. Karland90 (talk) 13:39, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Holiday season

"Holiday season" is a phrase that not everyone understands. Does anyone know if the game was Nintendo's top seller for all of 1999, or at least for the last quarter of 1999? - Dank (push to talk) 19:52, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

More to the point, it is an (almost)exclusively US term, and so leads one to wonder whether the leading sales position is restricted to the US. It is highly inappropriate to place such a one nation claim on a worldwide encyclopaedia without qualification to make that clear. The claim is further thrown into confusion by the fact that the only source cited for the claim states that the game was released on 31 December 1999. That would appear to be erroneous, but it thereby brings into doubt the status of that publication as a reliable source in the matter. Kevin McE (talk) 11:41, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Our "holiday season" article doesn't make such a distinction by region and that was the one article I had found with sales information. It doesn't specify the time period apart from "holiday season". czar 23:25, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

I want to get back to bed so maybe I'm misreading this, but it looks like all we have is one poll of retailers. That's not unusual ... the companies can't be counted on to release sales figures ... but given the other problems, I expect a fight when this gets to the Main Page, so I'm going to pull it from the blurb. If new sources pop up, please ping me. (It's certainly plausible that sales figures were high in 1999, and you make a good case for plausibility in the article; we just don't have room for all that in the blurb.) - Dank (push to talk) 11:23, 11 November 2019 (UTC) Okay, the blurb is long enough without that claim, and we still have "By 2004, 2.3 million units had been sold", which is in line with previous video game blurbs. - Dank (push to talk) 16:55, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Improvement on the proposed blurb, but... That article is entirely unclear about where those 2.3 million units were sold: US, North America, worldwide? Who knows? Kevin McE (talk) 23:49, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Not my call. Thoughts, Czar? - Dank (push to talk) 23:58, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

The chart says "Life-to-Date Sales" so I'd assume cumulative but also don't know the NPD Group's practices. I think how it's phrased in the blurb works. Thanks, all! czar 02:58, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This page should not be speedily deleted because it does not appear to meet any of the criteria for speedy deletion. I don't believe that the reason given, "Donkey Kong 64 requires an expansion pack...," fulfills any reason for the page to be deleted, speedily or slowly. Webbsledge (talk) 20:12, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I second Webbsledge’s idea. This was a huge game and will likely be recreated in case of page deletion. E Super Maker (😲 shout) 20:44, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

@Webbsledge and E Super Maker: The page was never seriously considered for deletion. A vandal just slapped a deletion template on the page, and you happened to view the page before it was removed. In general, if you see a speedy deletion template that is obviously incorrect or placed in bad faith, you can just remove it yourself without bothering to contest it. But if you're not totally sure, it's probably best to wait for a more experienced user. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:54, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Facepalm The joys of being on the front page. Thanks to all who reverted vandalism! czar 00:50, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

The devs on the game's development

Nintendo Life posted a Feature article on DK64 in light of its 20th anniversary November 22, 2019. Mark Stevenson, Chris Sutherland and Gregg Mayles also added some in details on the game's development that may be good information to add to the article.92.244.24.162 (talk) 10:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC)