Martijn's criteria (that we still follow at ZXDB) was much simpler:druellan wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:10 pmI'm trying to understand this so I can improve the contributions to the ZXDB, tell me if I'm wrong but I understand that:Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 12:34 pm ZXDB adopts the convention (inherited from Martijn's WoS) that only actual releases are stored, for released games. Only if a game was never released, then it stores the publisher that was behind it, although it's not really a "publisher" since it wasn't really "published".
Mixing information about real and imaginary releases for the same game would be confusing IMHO.
Not a publisher:
A game developed in the '80/'90 just for fun, they didn't have any intention to publish the game, but they created an imaginary software house.
Same as above, but they have several titles developed.
A publisher:
A game developed in the '80/'90, they HAD intention to publish the game, but that never happened.
A modern developer that sells physical copies of their games.
A modern developer that distribute digital copies of their games on their own page.
A modern developer that distribute digital copies of their games but does not have any proper Internet webpage or identity.
A publisher: whoever is named responsible for releasing the game. It could be a real company, or a fantasy name chosen by someone, or the main developer(s). This information is based on whatever evidence can be obtained from inlay, cover, poster, website, or simply mentioned by the author(s). Whatever was declared by the owner of the game is a much more reliable source of information than any guesswork about the developer's intentions...