9

This question and this question bring up an interesting conundrum of the Arqade StackExchange. Both questions, one about Video Game Music, and the other about Twitch-Played Video Games, are tangentally related to Video Games as a whole. They do not ask a question about a specific video game or the mechanics of that game, but they touch upon them, and possibly reference the game specifically.

Many different forms of media have tangental reationships to video games - Video Game Movies, Video Game Music (both tribute and directly from video games), Video Game Streaming, all tangental to actual video games, but with content that often relates TO video games (are the SMB Movie Goombas anything like the ones in the game? Did Johnathan Coulton write any video game music other than "Still Alive"? What IS Start9?), and inevitably, those questions are going to show up here.

I am not promoting any specific course of action here, but I think this question needs to be addressed.

How do we deal with questions about other media that are tangentally related to video games?

7
  • 4
    I argued in my answer that TPP is its own, short-lived videogame.
    – badp
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 18:11
  • Related: meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/8423/…
    – shanodin
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 18:11
  • 10
    I would STRONGLY encourage anyone drafting an answer to this question to read Grace Note's answer to this question. The distinction between incidental knowledge, and our specific area of expertise - and where that line is drawn, is at the core of this question, and any good answer, regardless of where it draws that line, must understand and reckon with that distinction.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 18:12
  • @LessPop_MoreFizz I'm not convinced we need another answer to this - Grace's answer covers the fundamentals of why we treat questions like these the way we do...
    – kalina
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 18:15
  • 1
    @kalina They cover the basic reasoning, yes. But they leave out the detail of what is/isn't "incidental" to gaming, specifically in this case. You could say 'any other media is incidental', but, if that IS what you want to say, I feel it ought to be said for clarification purposes, because I see questions like these popping up more often without a clear answer if it isn't addressed.
    – Zibbobz
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 18:29
  • 4
    I'm not sure if there's really a line we can draw. We can't just say, "Media type X is incidental", or "Skill type Y is expertise, but Skill Z isn't". It will depend on the question.
    – Frank
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 18:32
  • 1
    Then maybe some criteria to help a person decide whether or not something is 'incidental' would help?
    – Zibbobz
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 18:34

0

Reset to default

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .