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Google Search Finally Adds Information About Video Games

Posted by timothy on from the where's-my-danged-atari-2600?! dept.

An anonymous reader writes Google has expanded its search engine with the capability to recognize video games. If your query references a game, a new Knowledge Graph panel on the right-hand side of Google's search results page will offer more information, including the series it belongs to, initial release date, supported platforms, developers, publishers, designers, and even review scores. Google spokesperson: "With today's update, you can ask questions about video games, and (while there will be ones we don't cover) you'll get answers for console and PC games as well as the most popular mobile apps."

47 comments

  1. Biased by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    First and foremost Google search is biased in order to "steer you" into certain directions, as Google recently have admitted themselves.

    So don't use Google.

    1. Re:Biased by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What's a viable option for quality results still? Perhaps if enough people used DuckDuckGo there search would actually become useful

    2. Re:Biased by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's about keeping the gamer results separate so that they don't interfere with the search results that non-gamers want to see. By separating them out they can be easily ignored or disabled instead of being mixed in with the other search results.

    3. Re:Biased by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.ixquick.com

      they don't track or sell

  2. slow news day? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    or is google paying you to post this?

  3. I don't like by NotInHere · · Score: 2

    the current trend of google to create a "smart search" that directly answers your questions. Not because this isn't useful, but because projects like wikipedia suffer from it. This is even a direct competitor to wikidata. I still don't understand why wikidata isn't copyleft, its a bad descision in my eyes. Or isn't there any copyright on databases? Then i'll look forward for open google scraping projects.

    1. Re:I don't like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not because this isn't useful, but because projects like wikipedia suffer from it.

      But information wants to be free.

    2. Re:I don't like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stamped on pretty much every Wikipedia page is this notice: "Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License". The notice links to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License

      The wikidata page is similarly stamped:
      "All structured data from the main and property namespace is available under the Creative Commons CC0 License; text in the other namespaces is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.", which links to http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ and the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

      So, there you go. WP doesn't suffer. The appearance of Wikipedia data in Google's Knowledge Panels furthers WP's goals.

    3. Re:I don't like by redmid17 · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not really a direct competitor. The smart search answers have 3-4 sentences topically explaining something. Wikipedia has, almost always, exponentially more data.

      'Smart search' is great for questions like "Who won the World Series in 1987" or "How many Grand Theft Auto games are there". It's not so great for "What is the plot of GTA V".

    4. Re:I don't like by NotInHere · · Score: 1

      The wikidata page is similarly stamped:
      "All structured data from the main and property namespace is available under the Creative Commons CC0 License; text in the other namespaces is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.", which links to http://creativecommons.org/pub... and the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

      And CC0 is no copyleft license. "text in the other namespaces" is only a small minority of wikidata's data.

      So, there you go. WP doesn't suffer. The appearance of Wikipedia data in Google's Knowledge Panels furthers WP's goals.

      Now google decides what appears in the info box. Also, the image is chosen by google, and all other data than the short description also come from some google database. So while wikipedia is still prominent, its position is weakened.

    5. Re:I don't like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You need to establish that it is a bad thing for wikipedia to "suffer" for this to be a compelling argument.

    6. Re:I don't like by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      I like it, and even used it yesterday.

      I couldn't remember our externally facing IP address. The security guy was on lunch. So I went and searched for "What is my IP?" and dreaded eventually ending up at one of those spam laden, ad riddled websites designed for that survive. To my pleasant surprise, Google just offered it up for me. I could still click on the awful links bellow if I wanted all the nonsense.

      This is good, and all is well with the word.

    7. Re:I don't like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wikipedia deserves to be punished for their deletionism. If their position is weakened, so much the better.

    8. Re:I don't like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To my pleasant surprise, Google just offered it up for me.

      Google puts out? Damn, this is great news for basement dwellers!

    9. Re:I don't like by torsmo · · Score: 1

      Easy solution. Run NoScript and you won't have to encounter any google search enhancements (although for a split second while your results are loaded, you can see them before noscript forces the webpage to behave itself).

    10. Re:I don't like by TuringTest · · Score: 1

      Wikipedia is dead, for anything other than keeping track of trivia about popular media anyway. All the policies about removing content in the name of improving quality, without adding proper quality processes on top, killed it around 2007 - not coincidentally, that's where the decline of editors started.

      The huge knowledge base that is Wikipedia is merely waiting for someone to successfully fork it; it may very well be Google graph, as they're the best positioned.

      The first company that manages to define a process to separate spam from good content, and keeps the knowledge clean and growing from all valid contributions through a semi-automated technique, that avoids all the drama over rules and edit warring over content, will be the one to keep all the users. And then it will be instantly bought up by Google, who have been eager for a way to replace Wikipedia for a long time.

      --
      Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
    11. Re:I don't like by brunes69 · · Score: 1

      The data in the panel IS from Wiki data. Nearly all of the information in all of Googles side panels is coming from Wikipedia. They link directly to it.

    12. Re:I don't like by Your.Master · · Score: 1

      How does Wikipedia suffer? If Google knows the answer, nobody will hit Wikipedia's servers and thus Wikipedia won't have to beg for as much cash in December. If Google doesn't, Wikipedia will be the stop result as always.

    13. Re:I don't like by narcc · · Score: 1

      No, there are plenty of articles that ought to be deleted. Wikipedia should be punished for allowing organized special interest groups to take near total control over articles to push their own agendas.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    14. Re:I don't like by NotInHere · · Score: 1

      And if google knows the answer, nobody cares what is on wikipedia. Therefore articles become inaccurate, which give Wikipedia a bad name. So no direct harm, yes, but a very strong indirect harm.

  4. results rather lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Did a test search for "Metroid" and it pops up a box with a list of games that does not include either Metroid or Super Metroid. It seems to have nothing older than about 2002.

    1. Re:results rather lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems to have nothing older than about 2002.

      So... it's like John Carmack never existed?

    2. Re:results rather lame by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Since you mention it, if you search for "Doom", you get (amongst others):

      Doom (Video game)
      Developers: GT Interactive Software
      Designers: Tom Hall, Shawn Green, John Romero

      Doom (Video game)
      Developer: id Software
      Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

      So I guess John Carmack never did exist.

      And, yes, "Doom (Video game)" appears twice. The second one is actually "Doom 4."

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    3. Re:results rather lame by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      I get this when I search for "doom":

      Designers: Tom Hall, Shawn Green, John Romero, Sandy Petersen, American McGee

      Still no Johnny Cee there. They must add a "Programmers" section!

    4. Re: results rather lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It returns the series as a whole rather than just the first game, and lists the games in order of release from newest to oldest. This is the most relevant result for the highest number of users. Google's behavior in this case is the correct behavior.

    5. Re:results rather lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Search for "Legend of Zelda" shows a couple of pictures related to the first game (one screenshot, and one picture of the box). Since that game shows a release date of 1986, this result goes contrary to the above observation that games shown are not older than 2002. Mega Man shows two drawings of the game's hero, and the box art from the first game (released in 1987).

      Getting back to the results for "Legend of Zelda", the info on Google's right panel also says: "Developers: Flagship, Vanpool, Capcom, More"

      I guess Nintendo did not make a significant enough contribution to be prominent in that list. 'Cause, yeah, Capcom clearly deserves more notable recognition when I am researching "Legend of Zelda".

    6. Re:results rather lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I still see no catering section. Google, why you!

      Now seriously, did they start to index the gaming stackexchange yesterday or what?

  5. FBI WARNING by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Winners don't play Video Games.

    1. Re:FBI WARNING by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or pirate...

    2. Re:FBI WARNING by narcc · · Score: 1

      None of the mods remember the ubiquitous "Winners don't use drugs" message from the later arcade days?

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
  6. The site ahead contains malware by Kjella · · Score: 1

    As for a guesstimate from the headline/summary, I generally like "smart search", I'd love to see Google apply Watson-style technology to return relevant answers.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  7. We still have video games? by AndyKron · · Score: 1, Funny

    People are still making video games? I thought we all got sick of that after Duke Nukem Forever?

    1. Re:We still have video games? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Why do we need new games? Everyone knows Quake 3 attained perfection in 1999. It's a scientific fact.

    2. Re:We still have video games? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would anyone need to create more video games? After all, gamers are dead.

    3. Re:We still have video games? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All gamers are masochists interested in oppressing females and keeping their wages low. A longstanding scandal finally brought to light by the liberal media.

    4. Re:We still have video games? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Thank god for 3M for releasing that patch, though.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    5. Re:We still have video games? by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      Why do we need new games? Everyone knows Quake 3 attained perfection in 1999. It's a scientific fact.

      Heh!

      But hey, 1999 was a great year. CPUs and 3D accelerators were powerful enough to run games like Quake 3 or Half-Life. All games released after that has just been about adding more fidelity.

      Sound quality of music albums reached also a pinnacle point: we got great digital audio workstations with lots of tracks and good signal-to-noise ratio, and the dynamic range compression madness had not yet begun.

      Windows 2000 was released, which is the other of the two non-sucky graphical operating systems Microsoft has released (the other one is Windows 7). Linux also got popular on the desktop.

      Gooood times.

  8. Slidebox Bob by epine · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google didn't do this to make the gamers happy. They did it to make the non gamers happy, because video game culture is ladden with a rich and repurposed vocabulary that constantly shows up when people don't want to see video games in their search results.

    They have to recognize games in order to remove games. Once they've gone that far, throwing up a positive infobox is Slidebox Bob.

  9. Interesting coincidence by stonedead · · Score: 0

    I saw this today before I heard about this feature when I searched for "side scroller games" https://www.google.com/search?...

  10. "Finally" by mishu2065 · · Score: 1

    Finally, I've been waiting for this for so long (NOT)

  11. Not really aimed at users of /.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It seems like some people really don't like it, but, it also seems like if they actually care enough to get upset about it, they probably are pretty into video games, and therefore not in the set of people Google is putting this out there for me - same way complicated math can get done without someone needing to have put much effort into it. I bet some people who are passionate about math hated the Google Calculator when it came out, and, well, Wolfram Alpha, c'mon...

  12. Tough market by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    They're really trying against the big one here this time. How do they plan to trump TPB?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Tough market by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

      Turbo Pascal from Borland? What about it?

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  13. Improved Search doesn't hurt Wikipedia by CrashNBrn · · Score: 1

    Most Wikipedia articles on software types are outdated or incomplete. For instance, according to Wikipedia there are only 20 'notable' File Managers.

  14. ring king by Dwedit · · Score: 1

    Searched for the NES game "Ring King", examined the star ratings, but they were Rom sites and X-rated Newgrounds parodies instead of actual review sites.

  15. Monkey Island... Park? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doesn't seem to work for my primary interest, but now there's a park I need to visit:
    https://www.google.com/maps/place/Monkey+Island+Park/@37.860761,-122.247043,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x2eff8c180957358d

    1. Re:Monkey Island... Park? by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      The Monkey Island series shows up in the sidebar for me, and the first two links refer are to the wikipedia pages for the first game and the series in general.

      The third link is to that monkey island indoor playground in Chicago.