Re: VideoGame proposal

Thanks Owen - as previously indicated I'm all in favor of a Game type to
contain such properties.  And yes, the semantics (ha) of game types can
raise many interesting conundrums.  Is the Android game "Monopoly" still a
board game, even though the board is virtual (and, to your comment, in
playing either version I adopt the role of a ruthless capitalist - does
that make "Monopoly" a role-playing game?:).

Jeff, I forgot to mention:
> It would be very interesting if there were a way connect users (arguably
schema:Person instances) across games and service providers.  I have
thought a bit about this and it could be done using primarily existing
classes/properties.  If there is interest, I could mock up a few examples
and send them out.

Yes, please do (if you don't deem the examples fully pertinent to this
thread start a new one, or share them directly)!


On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 11:09 AM, Owen Stephens <owen@ostephens.com> wrote:

> Definitely agree on keeping the relevant properties - just think they
> should be attached to 'game' as opposed to something more granular.
>
> There are games that I wouldn't regard as 'role playing' that have quests
> (am I showing my age if I say Double Dragon? :). One can make an argument
> that you are playing a role in such games but I don't think they'd commonly
> be called RPGs.
>
> I also believe that many of the properties of video games can be applied
> to games in general (including quests and number of players and any other
> properties). In some cases the same game can be played as a physical or
> video game - chess being the obvious example I guess.
>
> So +1 for keeping relevant properties - the proposal looked good to me
> from that perspective.
>
> Owen
>
>
>
> On 16 May 2014, at 18:45, Aaron Bradley <aaranged@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>>
>>
>