The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ian Rose 10:01, 10 November 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

---

God of War III (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Toolbox
Analysis Citation bot External links

Nominator(s): JDC808 ♫ 21:10, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it's ready to become an FA. Any issues can be easily addressed. --JDC808 ♫ 21:10, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by David Fuchs

• Off the bat, I see issues with WP:NFCC compliance. File:The Labyrinth.jpg doesn't really tell me anything about the puzzles or how they are solved, File:God of War III Gameplay 2.png doesn't actually specify anything about what it illustrates in terms of gameplay changes, and File:God of War III Ultimate Trilogy Edition.png/File:God of War III Media Kit.jpg simply don't meet criteria as they're just promotional images (the media kit is also so tiny as to be useless.) The fair use rationales and supporting captions at the very least need sprucing up, or else it's an issue of needing to find more easily justifiable images.
  • Minor note: is the box art File:God of War III not final art.jpg not actually final? Confusing to have conflicting information in the description and in the filename.

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 22:42, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• • Removed all the images except the gameplay, which I replaced it with a more useful one. Replaced the cover art so the file name is not conflicting (it is the final box art, the file name just wasn't changed). --JDC808 ♫ 03:50, 11 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

• File:God_of_War_III_cover_art.jpg: source link is dead, FUR should identify that the image is used in the infobox

Fixed. --JDC808 ♫ 00:40, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• File:GoW3_Kratos_vs_Hercules_QTE.jpg should explicitly identify the copyright holder. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:52, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think I fixed although I thought it had said who the copyright holder is by "Author or copyright owner". --JDC808 ♫ 00:40, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from John From a brief sampling of the prose, I am minded to oppose. Can you see what is wrong with A critical and commercial success, PSM3 magazine...? --John (talk) 18:24, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, unless you're talking about "PSM3"? --JDC808 ♫ 01:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is PSM3 a "critical and commercial success", or is God of War III one? I presume the latter. Good writing does not feature this sort of ambiguity. Is calling something a "critical and commercial success" somewhat of a cliche, somewhat of a peacock phrase? This is not the language of a FA. --John (talk) 19:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How is it ambiguous when immediately following PSM3 magazine, it says "claimed that God of War III..."? You can't give an example and say it's ambiguous, and leave out the key word(s) that makes it unambiguous. The game was a commercial and critical success. I don't consider the phrase to be cliche. --JDC808 ♫ 23:08, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What does it mean to say it was a "critical and commercial success" in the lead? What is this summarising and where was this referenced? Here's another: "God of War III received universal critical acclaim" and then "Webber criticized the script, claiming that it "gets downright hokey at times".[86] GameFront's Phil Hornshaw criticized it for having an overly cruel antagonist, as well as making the assumption that the players themselves were reveling in the misery and violence as much as Kratos.[87]" The more I look the more problems I see. --John (talk) 05:17, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure how there's confusion in the meaning. It was a critical success because it was well received by the critics, which is all referenced in the Reception section with each reviewer giving it 90% or higher. It was commercially successful because it sold well (referenced under the Release section). Not sure what you're getting at with the universal critical acclaim, unless you don't understand what it means. At GameRankings and Metacritic, if a game (or film, etc.) has an aggregate score of 90 or above, that means it has universal critical acclaim. I'm not sure why you're quoting what Webber and Hornshaw said, unless you're trying to say they're contradicting to the universal acclaim or something. --JDC808 ♫ 19:42, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, exactly. I may be being stupid, but I think a lot of readers will see that as a contradiction. This section needs a rewrite. Good writing does not produce these (even apparent) ambiguities or contradictions. --John (talk) 22:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But it's not a contradiction even if some readers were to think that. I could source where it says if a game has 90 or above, it's universal acclaim, but even doing that, universal acclaim doesn't mean it's flawless. How would you expect me to rewrite the section? Take out "universal critical acclaim" even though it's true by the aggregate scores? Or take out the negative criticism which would then not make this a properly done reception section? I'm also going to ask the WP:VG project about any solutions, because this has never been an issue before in past FACs. --JDC808 ♫ 00:46, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't what universal means. --John (talk) 11:09, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And the closest I could find to "commercial success" was "By June 2012, God of War III had sold almost 5.2 million copies worldwide—approximately 2.8 million in North America, 2 million in PAL regions, and 417,866 in Japan and Asia—making it the best-selling game in the series.[52]"; it tells me it sold a lot of copies, but how much money did it make? That's what "commercial" means. --John (talk) 11:24, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the aggregate score for God of War III from Metacritic where it says "universal acclaim" right under its score (1), then if you click "What's this?", you get this which if you scroll down a little, it shows you a chart that says 90-100 is universal acclaim for games. --JDC808 ♫ 03:18, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Well, you would need to explain that in the article, because otherwise it isn't clear, and saying universal acclaim followed by negative reviews looks contradictory. On the commercial success front, see "Blue Monday" for an example of a record that sold many units but famously did not make much money. --John (talk) 07:23, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@John: Could something be a commercial success and a financial failure, which I think was the case with "Blue Monday"? Commerce to me just means business, whereas financial, I believe, is only to do with money. I don't think there's an issue with the use of the word commerce in this article. Regards, --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 02:31, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good thought, but I don't think it easily could. Commerce means activities that relate to the buying and selling of goods and services. So we have three problems which currently fail this article; sloppy writing (eg "A critical and commercial success, PSM3 magazine..."), unexplained jargon (eg the specialist meaning of "universal acclaim") and peacock terms like "commercial success". There may well be others. --John (talk) 12:34, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By the definition you provided, wouldn't the amount of copies sold still constitute "commerce"? With that being said, I've explained what you pointed out as "sloppy writing" so how is it sloppy (you didn't comment further on this)? The "unexplained jargon" has never been this big of an issue before. There was one editor who thought "universal acclaim" meant a perfect score from every reviewer and I showed them the link I showed you and that was the end of that. And I don't agree that it's a "peacock term". --JDC808 ♫ 04:02, 29 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment -- Although open a month, this review clearly isn't progressing towards any kind of consensus so I'll be archiving it shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:43, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 05:44, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.