Help talk:Contents/Prerelease Rules & Guidelines

Unreleased Games

Should unreleased games that don't have dumped prototype ROMs be covered under the Prerelease namespace or avoided altogether? --AquaBat (talk) 23:37, 24 December 2013 (EST)

• Should this wiki page in particular tell people to go to the Lost Media Wiki to report about unreleased games? Julyo (talk) 18:18, 22 January 2018 (EST)

Artwork

...should probably reword this so people don't start dumping all prerelease artwork available, regardless of how irrelevant. West (talk) 19:58, 9 April 2014 (EDT)

Box Art

When are things like box art useful? I can't think of much prerelease material of that sort, but the Pokemon Colosseum US bonus disc cover has an English logo with Japanese brick background. A bit strange considering its own on-disc content uses the final logo. Theclaw (talk) 13:33, 19 October 2014 (EDT)

I'd say yes, if the early box (or even the final one) shows off things that were removed from the final (for example, the original release of Super Mario Bros. 3); shows an element that was removed from the final; or similar to your example has a logo style that is present but unused in the final. -WarioBarker (talk) 22:43, 21 October 2014 (EDT)

Alright, done. I'm not too interested in random promotional art. Lasting long enough to reach mass produced boxes makes it of interest.Theclaw (talk) 02:53, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Regarding Undumped Prototypes

<devin> i think the main thing is that if a proto is undumped how do we actually verify any of the information
<devin> with released games and dumped protos any user can theoretically get their own copy and access the content 
<devin> but if a proto is undumped then a reasonably savvy person claiming to have a copy can easily pull some kind of hoax with it

--From: divingkataetheweirdo (talk) 23:04, 30 November 2017 (EST)

Exceptions

Under "don't add this", there is

• Content still present in leaked or released versions of the game.

There should be an exception made for content that is present but unused in prototypes and/or the final game, since prerelease material can show such things not only were in use at one point in context (example: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins) but can provide context.

Similarly, there's

• Information about unreleased ROM images for prototypes
  • This includes hoarded prototypes.

An exception should be made for trustworthy sources that can't release the ROMs due to legal concerns. I'm specifically thinking of GameHut here, given that Jon Burton had previously worked at Traveller's Tales and has not only uploaded videos of very early Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R builds but has released prototypes of other TT games. Yes, the Sonic builds would be considered hoarded, but the footage and info about them comes from someone who worked directly on the games in question, has said early builds, and given his release of other TT prototypes and the 3D Blast demo track cassette (the latter of which was only done after getting Sega's approval) it's clear would release the Sonic protos if he got the go-ahead from Sega.

I know these exceptions already exist on the site, but they're not officially listed as such in the rules. -WarioBarker (talk) 23:54, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

I think the exception should only be made for people involved in the game's development. Not just any person who cites "legal concerns" as a reason not to release a prototype they bought. --Hiccup (talk) 12:07, 9 May 2022 (UTC)