Here are some true facts for your consideration.
After 15,000+ edits, I only started receiving multiple rejections within the last week or so.
Because I have over 1,000 strategy guides in my collection, I think I know a little about this subject. At least all the data is complete and correct for my guides. Please have a look:
http://vgcollect.com/SilverBow/strategyguide. It has "elegance", which is a term used by us former system programmers.
A VGCollect Big Mistake: The incorrect use of the term “barcode” which is just an OPTICAL representation of data. The only numerical data we should be concerned with are a series of NUMBERS, either an ISBN (International Standard BOOK Number) or UPC (Universal Product Code). You should NOT refer to them generically as barcodes because this causes a great deal of confusion. I seriously recommend you replace that “barcode” term on the item form with something more appropriate and meaningful.
ISBN vs. UPC:
When it come to books, ISBN is the most critically important of the two. It’s the only way to guarantee a successful search for a book anywhere in the world. Book sellers almost never keep a record of the UPC.
ISBN:
For books, this should be considered analogous to a video game’s part number.ISBN’s need to have dashes per your current style guide. Unfortunately, each publisher has a unique format. ISBN-10 examples:
x-xxx-xxxxx-x
x-xxxx-xxxx-x
x-xxxxx-xxx-x
x-xxxxxx-xx-x, et al
This is easily remedied by using the official ISBN converter site
http://isbn.org/ISBN_converter. It converts and properly formats ISBN-10 to ISBN-13 and vice versa. It also flags numerical errors in an ISBN. It’s super-simple and easy to use. PLEASE check it out. For consistency, I personally use ISBN-13 which is the new format. Either one will work in any internet search.
UPC:
What I am seeing all too often are unformatted ISBN's (no dashes) that you are mistakenly calling UPC's. Look at the numbers closely.
About 99% of all strategy guides have a UPC unique for each publisher. BradyGames and Prima Publishing/Prima Games have published more than 85% of all the strategy guides to date. Depending on the time period, Prima Publishing/Prima Games 12-digit UPC’s begin with
086874 (1990~2003) or
050694 (2003-present), BradyGames begin with
752073; and Nintendo,
045496.
Here's a Nintendo example for
Metroid Prime: Hunters045496693176 (strategy guide)
045496735272 (video game)
If you're still unconvinced, I have compiled a list of the first 6-digits of the UPCs for 100 publishers of games & guides. I will send it to you if you want.
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The following is off topic for this discussion, but I thought I would ask. Recently, an unknown reviewer has started allowing a game’s ESRB rating to be included in a strategy guide’s “Rating” field. I’m referring to a twice rejected edit when I removed the rating on
http://vgcollect.com/item/63284. Why has this policy changed? In the past, a rating in this field would have always been rejected. Btw, that guide has the ISBN and UPC in the correct places.
![Wink ;)](https://vgcollect.com/forum/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
If I seem to be rambling, please forgive me. I had to write in a hurry.