Talk:Accolade (company)

Too much focus on "developer"

Lot of mentions about developing in this article - look through the linked game articles and it seems the developer was someone else. Smells like too much development credit is going to Accolade in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.243.178.205 (talk) 21:53, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Everyone?

Is it just me, or does the list of employees present when Infogrames obsorbed Accolade seem a little over the top? Does each person really need a wikilink? Is each person really important enough to justify an entire article? I think I'm probably the only person who watches this article, so I doubt I'll get any response, but I think we should either shorten it or totally delete it. Thoughts? — Frecklefoot | Talk 17:27, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I decided to be bold and delete the whole list with the exception of the executives. I don't have any great love for any of them, but they are the ones who are most likely to have articles written for them. Alan Miller, for example, was an influential member of the young video game industry.

The entire list was full of broken links—none of the people had an article on them and it is unlikely that more than 10% would ever have an article written on them. Some appeared to have articles, but they, in fact led to different people. Only 1.5 links led to correct entries, but they really don't need to be linked to from here. No other articles do this. If you disagree please discuss here first. — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:10, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

re: deleting the incomplete staff list and replacing it with executive staff seems fine: while the staff list was great for nostalgia, it was perhaps excessive (and at what point would it ever be considered comprehensive enough without being unwieldy?)

Accolade (developer)?

This article has gone through several name changes, but the last one, to "Accolade (developer)", seems inappropriate. While Accolade was a video game developer, they were primarily a publisher. Near the end of their existence, very few of their games were developed internally. Also, being labeled a developer implies that they developed games for other publishers, which they never did. Therefore, I propose that we rename this article to "Accolade (publisher)". Any objections? — Frecklefσσt | Talk 12:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Ha-ha, you truly are the only one with this page in watchlist. To be honest, this is exactly the kind of thing a development task force would be responsible for. Currently there are randomly assigned "(company)" "(game company)" "(game developer)" "(developer)" tags. I would argue developers-only are (game developer); publishers-only are "(game publisher)"; mix of both are "(game company)"; mix with other disciplines/industries are (company). This preserves both precision, unambiguous naming and hierarchy.—  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  16:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, my comment was almost two years old. I wouldn't mind "Accolade (game company)", but the current title is just wrong. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 18:26, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I support the move. Unless you propose a move or otherwise put the discussion outside this talk page, I do not think there will much more response.—  H3llkn0wz  ▎talk  19:09, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I finally got around to moving it. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 12:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Accolade (company)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 22:07, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

I'll tackle this one. Comments to follow. Indrian (talk) 22:07, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

"What could possibly go wrong?" Namcokid47 ^(Contribs) 04:16, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

You're brave. So many magazine citations that I went cross eyed. Looking forward to bringing this up to quality. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:09, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

• Just checking if Indrian still has time for this. Standing by and ready to fix any remaining issues. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:44, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, the holidays got in the way. I will review this week. Thanks for the ping. Indrian (talk) 18:01, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• No pressure, Indrian. Checking back one more time, either way. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:48, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Giving this a lookover "Gameography" should definitely be renamed to "Games" or "Games Developed." The list is also quite long and may need its own article.NightFire19 (talk) 04:43, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Here we go:

Lead

• "The company later published the acclaimed Star Control and Bubsy series" - I think calling Bubsy an acclaimed series is a bit of a stretch. The first game did very well, but the other games in the series, not nearly so much. And Bubsy 3D was pretty much universally reviled in its own time and now.
• "Accolade was acquired by Atari SA (known then as "Infogrames Entertainment SA")" - Just say it was acquired by Infogrames, since that was the company at the time. The fact that it became Atari is already covered in the next sentence.

Origins

• "Activision was the first company to operate independent game console companies" - I know you are trying to explain its position as the first third-party developer, but this formulation makes little sense.

Transformation and Later Years

• "This included releasing several games on the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive" - I know we have ugly naming wars about Genesis every so often, but listing the console as the Genesis and Mega Drive makes it seem like you are talking about two different systems to the uninitiated. Accolade is an American company and was developing console games in that American context, so in this case it should be Genesis.
• "Alan Miller quit the company in 1994 to work in medical software, marking the end of the founders' influence. What followed were a series of new CEOs, starting with toy industry veteran Peter L. Harris." - This is the wrong sequence of events. Peter Harris was brought in as CEO to replace Miller in the role, but he continued as chairman and head of game development. Then Miller left, presumably because he was unhappy the venture capitalists replaced him as CEO (he had previously forced both Tom Frisina and Allan Epstein out as CEO and clearly liked being in control). That last is speculation, so obviously don't put that in the article, but it is fact that Harris was in before Miller left.
• Obviously take care of that citation needed tag. I know the statement is true, and there should be press releases or newspaper articles floating around to support it.
• "By 2000, Infogrames merged Infogrames North America (previously Accolade) into Infogrames Inc." - The article just identified Accolade as Infogrames North America two sentences ago, though it did so in a somewhat obtuse way. Maybe clarify earlier that Accolade was renamed Infogrames North America and eliminate this parenthetical as redundant.

Gameography

• Mostly fine, but two entries list U.S. Gold as the publisher, when they were just the European publisher. This makes it look like Accolade did not publish either game. Also, one game is credited to "Ballistic" as publisher, but this was just a brand name Accolade created for its console products and not a separate company.

In addition to the specific points raised above, it does seem like the article is a little light on corporate history. Its missing Frisina's departure in 1987 when he was forced out by Miller over company strategy and his replacement by former Activision VP of operations Allan Epstein. Epstein himself left in 1991, and Miller took direct control as CEO until the VCs brought in Harris. Its also missing the ruinous financial impact of the Sega case, which is a big part of the reason they needed to seek VC funding in the first place. Its also missing the Warner Music Group investment in the company in early 1995 following the Prudential investment. In exchange, Warner became Accolade's worldwide distributor, which lasted until the EA deal. There are a frustrating lack of articles on Accolade out there since it was a pretty small closely-held company for most of its existence, but some of this personnel change info at least appeared in the SF Chronicle, which can be found in places like Newsbank, which I realize requires membership with a library that has the proper subscription. Still, not having some of this in the article does result in a few holes. Its not an FA nomination, so comprehensiveness is not a requirement, but it would be nice if we can get a little more of this in there.

Overall, this article is very well-written and informative. I feel it is close to GA status, so I will go ahead and put this nomination  On hold while these concerns are addressed. Indrian (talk) 16:33, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• I'm thankful to have a review from someone who knows the subject, because this was a tough one and I had to learn as I went. I tried to incorporate all of your suggestions, but the fact/research based ones were still challenging due to an obscurity of sources. Hopefully this gets us all the way there. And if you don't mind, I might follow up with you afterwards just to get a list of unverified-but-verifiable facts that would tell a more complete story (in case someone wants to try to bring this to FA, possibly me). Let me know if you'd like to see any other edits. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:45, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Checking back in with Indrian. Hope I'm not being a pest. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:09, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Certainly not being a pest; I completely understand your interest in wrapping this up. Should be in the next couple of days. Thank you for your patience. Indrian (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• Looking good Shooterwalker. I appreciate your work to get as much historical context into the article as you could with the limited sources. One error did get introduced, however: Peter Harris became CEO in May 1994. Alan Miller was CEO between 1992 and 1994 after Allan Epstein left. The source you used is not wrong per se, its just poorly written in such a way that it implies he became CEO immediately after leaving FAO Schwartz in 1992, which is not what happened. After that gets sorted out, we should be good. Indrian (talk) 15:45, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks again, Indrian. I'll admit I'm out of my depth with the actual knowledge, and I'm resting on what little research there is. If you rely entirely on the sources, CEOs just materialize into existence depending on the year. I can make the changes but I'm a little vague on what would make it more accurate. Are there one or two statements I should re-phrase? Shooterwalker (talk) 16:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Following up on this one more time with Indrian. Having trouble and could use some specifics. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:05, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• I think I can find some articles to fill in the blanks on this. I will try to do so within the next week. Once that is cleared up, I believe I will be able to pass it. I don't think you will have to do anything else to the article. I appreciate your hard work and your patience. Indrian (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay, it took a little longer than I planned, but I corralled some sources to better document all the management changes at the company between 1988 and 1995 and added that material to the article. I think we are good now, so I will go ahead and promote. Thank you for all your hard work on the article! Indrian (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 02:31, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Accolade was so well-known for publishing sports games, that the packaging for science fiction game Star Control II accidentally included a sticker calling it the "Best Sports Game" of 1992? Source: "Because Accolade had focused their success around sports games, they accidentally placed a sticker on the box of Star Control II calling it the "Best Sports Game 1992". [1] at 46:00-47:00

Improved to Good Article status by Shooterwalker (talk). Self-nominated at 22:32, 15 February 2021 (UTC).

• Y Article is long enough (13583 characters), is a GA, nominated in time (became GA 15 February, nominated same day), and article is within policy
• ? Hook is short enough and interesting. However, the source [2] says that "Accolade put a sticker on all the SCII boxes saying "Best Sports Game of 1993.", not 1992. Shooterwalker please can you clarify whether it should be 1992 or 1993?
• Y QPQ exempt, as the user has 4 previous DYK nominations
• Overall, the article looks fine, but can you please clarify the year for the hook? Joseph2302 (talk) 17:50, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Just noticed that inconsistency now. Yeah, there's some conflict between the sources. If you look at this video interview at 46:15, it has an actual image of the sticker that says 1992. I feel like that makes the video interview just a little more reliable, which is why I went with that source instead of the text article. If we're being accurate, the exact phrasing would be "Best Sports Game 1992", which I tweaked. Let me know if there's anything else we need to figure out. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:13, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• All looks good to go now that year is clarified. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot. Keep me posted if there's anything else I need to do. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:00, 22 February 2021 (UTC)