Re: VideoGame proposal

Thanks Jeff and Martin.

Jeff > I do think that granular classes are important but it might be
better to defer to something like Product Type Ontology for this. For
example one could use a generic schema:VideoGame class and associated
properties to describe a game and add an additional rdf type of
http://www.productontology.org/id/Role-playing_video_game.

Martin > Video game is definitely a class that should be in schema.org,
whereas for http://www.productontology.org/doc/Action_role-playing_game, I
think an external mechanism is a better place.

What you say makes sense Martin.  And that'd fine if, as per your comment
Jeff, those "associated properties to describe a game" include those
currently proposed under RolePlayingGame.

That is, the properties of the proposed RolePlayingGame type are (with the
possible exception of quest) useful in describing video games of all sorts
(especially min/maxNumberOfPlayer and statistic).  These properties have
equal utility whether they're included in the more general CreativeWork
Game type that's been discussed, and so inherited by VideoGame, or whether
they're included in the VideoGame type itself:  I'd just be loathe to see
these important video game properties disappear from schema.org proper in
the course of finessing VideoGame.

FWIW, in describing the *type* of a video game, I'd be far more likely to
employ the now-available CreativeWork property genre rather than declare an
specific game type described by a productontology.org URI, except in the
case of declaring it a Product.

I think another CreativeWork, Book, is a good example.

An ebook is a *type *of book (in the physical sense), and is declared using
the enumeration value EBook for the BookFormatType value of the bookFormat
property of Book.
A novel is a *genre *of book, and would be probably be declared using the
genre property of CreativeWork.

A mobile video game is a *type *of game (in the physical sense), and might
be declared either as more specific type of VideoGame, or using some sort
of enumeration.
A role playing game is a *genre* of game, and would probably best be
declared using the genre property of CreativeWork (or an enumeration like
VideoGameGenre, which is what Freebase does (
http://www.freebase.com/cvg/cvg_genre).

This mostly in passing though: as long as core "game" properties currently
contained in the RolePlayingGame proposal become available in schema.org,
the needs of video game industry webmasters will be served IMO. :)



On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 1:22 AM, martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org <
martin.hepp@ebusiness-unibw.org> wrote:

> Hi Aaraon:
>
> On 15 May 2014, at 21:24, Aaron Bradley <aaranged@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > While I understand the rationale behind using productontology.org URIs
> I come down squarely against relying upon them in any situation where the
> class and/or properties in question are likely to be widely used by a large
> number of webmasters.  I feel confident in saying that potential benefits
> of employing productontology.org URIs for something like the proposed
> platform property will ever remain potential because hardly anyone will
> employ it.  schema.org's better-than-anticipated success has been
> predicated not only because it's easy to employ, but on the fact that it's
> self-contained.  IMO, every time we punt to an external vocabulary we're
> shooting ourselves in the foot:  I can't stress this enough (and I welcome
> Martin Hepp's input on this, both because I know he's had something to say
> about this recently in the context of his generic property/value pair
> proposal and, of course, because of his experience with
> productontology.org).
> My point on mechanisms for externalizing or deferring consensus is as
> follows:
>
> 1. When there exists consensus in an external standard, it is better to
> refer to that standard than to incorporate it into schema.org - e.g.
> currency codes, GPC classes, most enumerations.
>
> 2. When site owners are not able to easily link their data to a more
> standardized representation, it is better to allow them publishing as much
> "lightweight" semantics as possible than making it too costly for them to
> publish any data.
>
> Video game is definitely a class that should be in schema.org, whereas
> for http://www.productontology.org/doc/Action_role-playing_game, I think
> an external mechanism is a better place.
>
> Martin
>
>