Re: Proposal: schema.org/MobileVideoGame

"Can you elaborate on what makes the distinction useful?"

I'll just give one example.  Let's say I had Google Site Search (paid
version of Custom Search Engine).  The distinction would allow users to
limit onsite searches to mobile games only - "gimme a game for my phone or
tablet".

"Would it be equally valid to have types like:
  OnlineGame
  MultiplayerGame
  PuzzleGame"

OnlineGame - Perhaps valid, but unlike "mobile" I think this *is* a pretty
lose concept.
MultiplayerGame - For video games this is a property already explicitly
covered by schema.org/playMode.
PuzzleGame - For video or other types of game this is a property already
explicitly covered by schema.org/genre.

"I'd personally think of mobile game as being games that run on a phone or
tablet - specifically on: Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and
possibly web-based games that are optimized for phone/tablet."

I pretty much agree, just as I'd think of that being the case for software
applications.

An expedient approach might be, can you buy it on an app store?  If yes,
it's a mobile video game, if not it's just a video game - in which case one
might consider things like Game Boys to be video game consoles.  Another
approach - thinking of MobileApplication's sole unique
property, carrierRequirements, is whether or not a game can be acquired
over a mobile network.

Again, analogous to the same conundrums with applications in general, and
again I'd argue about that ambiguities surrounding the how a
SoftwareApplication differs from a MobileApplication doesn't mean that the
distinction between the two isn't useful.


On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 4:45 PM, Jerome Mourits <jmourits@google.com> wrote:

> Can you elaborate on what makes the distinction useful?
> The way I think about it is that you're trying to take one attribute of a
> game (based on the platform) and promoting it as a type.
> Would it be equally valid to have types like:
>   OnlineGame
>   MultiplayerGame
>   PuzzleGame
>
> I also think that mobile game is a pretty loose concept.
> Wikipedia includes calculators and portable consoles like NIntendo 3ds and
> Ps Vita as part of the mobile game category:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_game
>
> I'd personally think of mobile game as being games that run on a phone or
> tablet - specifically on: Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and
> possibly web-based games that are optimized for phone/tablet.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 4:03 PM, Aaron Bradley <aaranged@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "... webmaster has a site about video games.  Everything is marked up as
>> a video game.  Games have platforms that might be indicative that the game
>> is a "mobile", but I'm not sure that the distinction is interesting for
>> them."
>>
>> I assure you that distinction is very interesting for them indeed. :)
>>
>> Or to generalize the question by reference to the types' parents, "from a
>> webmaster's perspective -- why would they care about distinguishing between
>> MobileApplication and SoftwareApplication?"
>>
>> "As someone that consumes the data -- can't we just map from the platform
>> (or set of platforms) to determine whether our application considers
>> something to be mobile or not?"
>>
>> If the platforms (or set of platforms) are declared I guess you could,
>> but if not I guess you couldn't.  Relying on item properties to make those
>> sort of inferences is by no means universal, so I don't know why data
>> consumers should have to engage in that sort of reasoning to determine
>> whether a game is a mobile game or not - again, it makes sense to me that
>> MobileApplication exists, rather than forcing data consumers to map the
>> operating system to determine whether the application considers a program
>> to me an "app" or not.  Or do you think that's reasonable?  If not, why is
>> it reasonable for a game?
>>
>> On a side note it's by means clear whether "iOS" is a
>> schema.org/gamePlatform or schema.org/operatingSystem, since the former
>> is valid for VideoGame, and the latter for VideoGame's parent type
>> SoftwareApplication.
>>
>> And on a (what I think is interesting:) side side note, Google Play
>> doesn't use "operatingSystem" at all, but rather "operatingSystems".  Which
>> makes total sense in the context of the schema.org description for
>> "operatingSystem" ("Operating systems supported (Windows 7, OSX 10.6,
>> Android 1.6).") as software applications are rarely operating system
>> *version* specific.  While of course it'd be trivial to reconcile
>> "system" and "systems" (and schema.org has many deprecated plurals, like
>> "performers") the plural does give an explicit nod to the fact that
>> applications generally run on OS version *families*.
>>
>> E.g.: [1]
>>
>> <div class="content" itemprop="operatingSystems">2.3.3 and up</div>
>>
>> [1]
>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ea.game.simpsons4_na&hl=en
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 3:35 PM, Jerome Mourits <jmourits@google.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> So i guess from a webmaster's perspective -- why would they care about
>>> distinguishing between MobileVideoGame and VideoGame?
>>>
>>> I could see a couple scenarios:
>>> 1) webmaster has a site about mobile apps.  Everything is marked up as a
>>> MobileApplication.  Games are co-typed as a VideoGame in order to add
>>> information about number of players etc.
>>> 2) webmaster has a site about video games.  Everything is marked up as a
>>> video game.  Games have platforms that might be indicative that the game is
>>> a "mobile", but I'm not sure that the distinction is interesting for them.
>>>
>>> As someone that consumes the data -- can't we just map from the platform
>>> (or set of platforms) to determine whether our application considers
>>> something to be mobile or not?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 2:49 PM, Aaron Bradley <aaranged@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> *Would we consider the game to be a MobileApplication?*
>>>>
>>>> I think that depends on the context in which the thing and its
>>>> properties are being declared, and the approach to modelling the data.
>>>>
>>>> IMO this is exactly analogous to a program that's available for desktop
>>>> and mobile operating systems, like Adobe Reader.
>>>>
>>>> (1) "Adobe Reader" Mobile:
>>>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adobe.reader&hl=en
>>>> (2) "Adobe Reader" Desktop:  http://get.adobe.com/reader/
>>>> (3) "Adobe Reader" Mobile and Desktop:
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Acrobat
>>>>
>>>> Obviously (1) would be marked up as a MobileApplication and (2) as a
>>>> SoftwareApplication, but what about (3)?
>>>>
>>>> I'd probably say SoftwareApplication, in the same way I'd declare a
>>>> shop that did both auto and motorcycle repairs as AutomotiveBusiness - the
>>>> broader class - rather than the more specific subclass MotorcycleRepair.
>>>>
>>>> But, for the game, if I required a MobileApplication property, I guess
>>>> I'd use, yes, an MTE. :)  (There is a question of whether or the game is
>>>> substantially the same on the different platforms - that is whether or not
>>>> "Hearthstone" for Windows is actually the *same *game as "Hearthstone"
>>>> for iOS, or whether they're different games that share the same name, just
>>>> as Reader for Android is substantially different for Reader for Windows
>>>> even though still called "Adobe Reader" in both cases.  But I'm basically
>>>> approaching the task as "how would I markup the Wikipedia page" in both
>>>> cases.)
>>>>
>>>> The conundrum is, though, unaffected by the availability or
>>>> non-availability of MobileGame as a type.  Currently, the question is
>>>> "would we consider the game to be a VideoGame or MobileApplication?"; with
>>>> the more specific type the challenge is the same:  "would we consider the
>>>> game to be a VideoGame or a MobileVideoGame", just as the availability of a
>>>> more specific mobile type for software applications still leaves us with
>>>> the question "would we consider Acrobat Reader to be a SoftwareApplication
>>>> or a MobileApplication?"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 1:20 PM, Jerome Mourits <jmourits@google.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> What about games that are available both for console / pc as well as
>>>>> mobile?
>>>>>
>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearthstone:_Heroes_of_Warcraft
>>>>>
>>>>> This game was initially released for Windows, OS X and the later was
>>>>> released for iOs and Android.
>>>>>
>>>>> Would we consider the game to be a MobileApplication?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 12:20 PM, Vicki Tardif Holland <
>>>>> vtardif@google.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Out of curiosity, what limitations do you see in having to use
>>>>>> multiple types?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - Vicki
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Vicki Tardif Holland | Ontologist | vtardif@google.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 3:07 PM, Aaron Bradley <aaranged@gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> schema.org v1.92 introduced the new type VideoGame, a more specific
>>>>>>> type of both (the also-introduced) Game, and of SoftwareApplication.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> VideoGame is a great addition, but as mobile video games stand
>>>>>>> poised to overtake console-based games in popularity [1], there is no way
>>>>>>> differentiate between a traditional video game and this important variant.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Freebase [2], Wikipedia [3] and Wikidata [4] all have entries for
>>>>>>> "mobile game", and the Google distinguishes between "Video game" [5] and
>>>>>>> "Mobile game" [6] in Knowledge Graph results generated on the basis of a
>>>>>>> video game title search.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Perhaps most tellingly, schema.org itself gives a nod to the
>>>>>>> importance of mobile video games by providing a a markup example on the
>>>>>>> schema.org/VideoGame page.  And in my opinion the way in which this
>>>>>>> example is necessarily formulated demonstrates the utility of a
>>>>>>> MobileVideoGame type:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> <script type="application/ld+json">
>>>>>>> {
>>>>>>>   "@context": "http://schema.org",
>>>>>>>   "@type": ["VideoGame","MobileApplication"],
>>>>>>>   "gamePlatform":"iOS",
>>>>>>>   [...]
>>>>>>> }</script>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Only by means of this multi-type entity declaration is a data
>>>>>>> consumer able to determine that a given video game is a mobile video game,
>>>>>>> and then only by inference - for those data consumers that are able to
>>>>>>> correctly process multi-type entities properly.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In light of all of this, I propose MobileVideoGame, a more specific
>>>>>>> type of both VideoGame and MobileApplication.  No additional properties
>>>>>>> would be required to support this new type.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Aaron Bradley
>>>>>>> Electronic Arts
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [1] http://fortune.com/2015/01/15/mobile-console-game-revenues-2015/
>>>>>>> [2] http://www.freebase.com/m/04951x
>>>>>>> [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_game
>>>>>>> [4] http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1121542
>>>>>>> [5]
>>>>>>> https://www.google.com/search?q=battlefield%204&pws=0&hl=en&num=10
>>>>>>> [6]
>>>>>>> https://www.google.com/search?q=simpsons%20tapped%20out&pws=0&hl=en&num=10
>>>>>>> [7]
>>>>>>> https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/?url=http://jsbin.com/niqile
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>