Online Games SIG/2007WPSB/index/Style

International Game Developers Association

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NOTE - THIS WAS TOTALLY RIPPED OFF FROM THE CASUAL GAMES WHITEPAPER - NEED TO REFINE / ADAPT.

Because style can be somewhat subjective, please send comments and suggestions to Larry Mellon / James Hursthouse rather than directly editing this page. Please don't edit the Style Guide to suit your own definitions of Style, but rather adhere to the Style Guides until any officially sanctioned change is made.

Writing an Officially-Sanctioned White Paper

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in editing or contributing to a white paper sanctioned and distributed by the IGDA Online Games SIG and The 2007 Persistent Worlds Whitepaper Project Committee. To make it easier for you to participate in this initiative, we have created this document as an overview of the guidelines and requirements for creating officially sanctioned IGDA Online Games SIG white papers.

About the IGDA Online Games SIG

Blah.

About this Document

This document is written for white paper Editors and other contributors. As with any set of guidelines, there are often many different possible interpretations. We recognize that special situations will arise, and we are ready and willing to help find solutions. Please contact your Section Coordinators or the Overall Project Coordinators with questions or comments.

Top Do’s for your White Paper Contribution

DO choose a focused topic with goals that you can reasonably achieve.
DO outline your work early. Use the outline to find contributors and to create a schedule for completion.
DO work with Section Coordinators to agree on publishing milestones and deadlines.
DO honor your deadlines. Give the Section Coordinators early warning if you fear you will miss a deadline. We are very forgiving if given good notice of slips.
DO use external research and data whenever possible.
DO cite your data properly.
DO maintain objectivity; the white paper is not a forum to promote a favorite game, platform, genre, or technology. Try to provide valuable information while maintaining a neutral viewpoint. For example, provide both sides of an issue and let users form their own opinions.
DO use real-life case studies and examples.
DO write in the 3rd person
DO respect the trademarks and copyrights of companies whose works you are describing by including appropriate ™ and © symbols. See the “Standard Terms” section for additional information.
DO use a spell checker and a grammar checker (F7 in MS Word).
DO NOT hesitate to send questions our way if in doubt about any of the guidelines or if you need assistance with topics or with finding additional contributors.

General Guidelines

Adherence to a common format, set of standards, and contributor guidelines

By submitting a contribution to the 2007 Persistent World Whitepaper Project, writers and section editors agree to allow their work to be included in current and future white papers, and to be distributed without compensation and at the discretion of the IGDA Online Games SIG.
Writers and Section Editors agree to strive for objectivity and refrain from using the White Paper as a promotional vehicle for their company or products, except in sections sanctioned for this purpose (e.g. Industry Directory).
Writers and Section Editors agree to be bound by the editorial decisions of the Committee and the IGDA on all white paper content. Changes to the submitted work may be made at the Editor’s or Committee’s discretion.
Writers and Editors represent that all submitted work is their own or is properly credited.

Formatting and Presentation

To simplify the reading experience, all white papers will be formatted according to a general template. Use visual aids such as screen shots, technical diagrams, and quantitative charts whenever possible. If you present any kind of comparison or quantitative numbers or process flow, please consider including some kind of visual graphic to accompany the data and ideas discussed. At a minimum, there should be some type of graphic or chart for every five pages of text.

Use of Quantitative and Qualitative Research

Whenever possible, quantitative and qualitative research should be incorporated into the white papers. Common sources for research include company annual reports and web sites, consulting and analyst studies, brokerage reports, and company-specific internal data.
All research must be properly cited. Guidelines for footnote formats are available at the end of the paper. If you use a data source whose type is not found in the guidelines, we can assist you with creating footnotes.
In many cases, information about online games has been presented as “conventional wisdom” or “tribal learnings”. Some of this information, like the statement that “Customer Service is critical to a successful massively-multiplayer role-playing game,” is obvious and does not need to be cited.
However, other statements like “Generally, women comprise more than 50% of the audience for a casual game”, while also conventional wisdom, should be identified as such, with supporting references or specific examples.
The more specific or unusual your information sounds, the more important it is to provide supporting references.
If you are not absolutely positive that everyone else working on the paper would agree with your statement, it should not be regarded as “conventional wisdom.” For example, “Flash is the best platform for online game development” would not be agreed upon as conventional wisdom. If you have any questions about whether the statement qualifies, please ask.

Case Studies

Case studies, descriptions of an actual project, game, development team, geographic market, or other real-life situation, are valuable learning tools for the readers of the White Paper. Whenever possible, include case studies where available. In general, a good case study:

Describes the situation, environment, dilemma, goal, market, and/or people involved;
Presents the course of actions or circumstances that caused a change from the initial description;
Analyzes the situations, action, and data provided to support the overall section discussion;
Exposes the personality and beliefs of the author more than other sections of the white paper.

Fact and Opinion

Be crystal clear when presenting data that is factual (because it was derived from a scientific study or quoted from a respectable and footnoted source) versus information that is the opinion of the author. Both facts and opinions are fine so long as it is clear to the reader which category all information falls under.

General Writing Guidelines

1. The White Paper should be written in a professional and objective style, with third-person voice. Avoid using high emotion terms such as "abysmal", "incredible", "awe-inspiring", "appalling" or anything else that is difficult to prove or justify. 2. Anything copy/pasted from a company's website should be reviewed for marketing hype terms; all such terms should be removed. The White Paper should not be a vehicle to include text such as, "Now, at a new lower price!" or "Perfect for all your needs!".

Standard Terms, Abbreviations, and Definitions

Common terms and their proper spelling and abbreviations:

Sony PlayStation 2
Microsoft Xbox
Nintendo Game Cube
Nintendo GameBoy
White Paper
online
web-based vs. downloadable
shareware, classic definition and modern trend

White Paper Definitions and Terminology

Persistent State World (PSW), Massively Multiplayer Game (MMG), and Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) are often used interchangeably to refer to games in which hundreds (or thousands) of people interact with each other in a persistent universe.

If the game has a “game universe” which exists even when specific players are not logged in, please use the term PSW. Many online games are persistent, but are used by tens or hundreds of people in a game instance; therefore, PSW is an accurate description.
If the game has state or even a “universe” in which remote players can compete or otherwise interact but this state does not exist unless players are actively playing, it is a “Session-based multiplayer game”.
If the game cannot be played by more than one person interacting in the same game state, please use the term “(single-player) online game”.

Web game: This term describes games that are launched via a web page with no prior installation of software required. This does not include games that are downloaded to the user’s hard-drive and run outside of the web-browser but it does include games launched from a web page that might require/install a general or custom ActiveX control. Common examples of this are the Flash™, Shockwave™, Java™, etc. games found on sites like pogo.com and shockwave.com as well as custom C++ games delivered via an ActiveX control.
Downloadable game: A game where the primary method of distribution involves downloading a game installer over the Internet. The game is installed on the local hard drive and executed locally thereafter (via an “.exe” file on the PC). Many times they will have some sort of trial mode, and can be purchased to “unlock” the full game. Typical examples of this are the “deluxe” versions of many of the games at shockwave.com, etc. This does not include demos of titles that are primarily sold through retailers. This does include the downloadable version of games like Zuma, even if the game is also distributed on CD-ROM. Most U.S. downloadable game distributors continue to address a modem (not broadband) audience as their least-common-denominator; therefore they define a “downloadable” game as being under 10-15MB in size. As broadband penetration increases, distributors are increasingly experimenting with larger file sizes. At some point file size may cease to be a defining characteristic for this category.
Streaming game: A game where the primary method of distribution is retail CD-ROM or DVD that has been configured for rental and/or purchase over the Internet. These are very large file size games – generally over 100MB and increasingly even larger than 1GB – targeted at a broadband market.

Wiki Usage and Style

We need a guide on the formatting / headings / acceptable Wiki usage for this project.

http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents

is a reasonable basis.