The PC [NA] category has a LOT of duped entries

[foxhack]

I was browsing the PC category and I noticed that there's quite a bit of duplicate entries for some reason. The same image, and the same entry info. For example:

http://vgcollect.com/item/3953
http://vgcollect.com/item/3954

http://vgcollect.com/item/4329
http://vgcollect.com/item/4411

... and so on. Any idea what happened there?

[scott]

The first was prolly a mistake, thanks to pressing enter in the text fields... The second, prolly just go overlooked. I'll merge them. Thanks foxhack

[tpugmire]

Yeah, the pc category has been on my personal to-do list for a while.  I cleaned up duplicates for all the others, guess I need to get back to work.

[foxhack]

scott, there's dozens of entries like that.

I suppose it's easy to get rid of the dupes, just search for duped names and there you go.

[scott]

Ya we have a tool in the admin area for merging dupes. I'll also look into the pc section. Might as well convert any dupes that are also Steam games to the Steam category though.

[matt]

I'll write some custom code to handle this. I should be able to get it cleaned up over the holiday weekend. Thanks for reporting it and looking into it guys. Our original database was a mess and the PC section definitely was neglected.

[amauriel]

On a side note, I screwed up and added Personal Trainer: Cooking DS [NA] to the database when it already was (it didn't populate when I searched for "personal" but then it did when I typed "cooking", looking for Cooking Mama?) So that one will need merged as well, sorry.

[foxhack]

Ya we have a tool in the admin area for merging dupes. I'll also look into the pc section. Might as well convert any dupes that are also Steam games to the Steam category though.

NO NO NO NO PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!

Steam games SHOULD NOT be merged with PC games. They should be kept separate, since a retail package is different from a digital release. Some retail games require Steam, but you still get a box and manual... I seriously do not think games that overlap in these two categories should be merged. Plus Steam games have different release dates than the original PC games, they may also have different publishers and contents...

[scott]

No no, I'm not saying merge the Steam games to PC or vise versa. I was saying take the dupes, and if they are on Steam, Convert the info to reflect the Steam release.  So if There is... say, 2 of the same version of Portal 2 in the PC category, and it's not in the Steam listings, turn it into a Steam game with Steam artwork, info, etc.

[foxhack]

No no, I'm not saying merge the Steam games to PC or vise versa. I was saying take the dupes, and if they are on Steam, Convert the info to reflect the Steam release.  So if There is... say, 2 of the same version of Portal 2 in the PC category, and it's not in the Steam listings, turn it into a Steam game with Steam artwork, info, etc.

Well, I own retail copies of The Orange Box, Counter-Strike Source and Counter-Strike Anthology. I registered them on Steam, but I still have the retail copies... sometimes it's not that simple, ya know. >_<;;

People may still want to list the games outside of Steam.

[scott]

I've had a massive headache all day, so I'm not sure if I've been relaying thoughts correctly.

What I am trying to say is something like this:

Rather than just merging duplicate PC games into one database number via the admin merge tool, which deletes the "dupe" entry completely.  We can take the "dupes", change the info around a bit and put it into the "Steam" category instead. Complete with Steam info, rather than retail info.

The original PC game will be in the "PC [NA]" category with PC retail info, while the dupe will now be in the "Steam [US]" category, with updated Steam game info.

For example we currently have two copies of Dead to Rights in the PC [NA] category.
http://vgcollect.com/item/4158
http://vgcollect.com/item/4428

Both of these are identical entries. So, say Dead to Rights was released on Steam... we take one of these existing entries (preferably one no one has listed in their collections) and we update the game info/ date / "box" art / etc to reflect a Steam download release, and change the type from PC [NA] to Steam [US]. Thus populating the Steam category, without the need to add a completely new database entries.

I hope I'm making sense.

[foxhack]

Yeah, you are. I didn't think of that.

I guess you've already started on that. I noticed Dark Void Zero, Borderlands and Deus Ex 1 entries on the Steam category (I've been adding my games one by one) so I just corrected the cover art with the proper Steam ones.

[scott]

Ha um, actually those may have been someone else. I didn't do those games, lol.

[foxhack]

Oh snap! I have competition!

[tpugmire]

So should I hold off on getting rid of the duplicates until you guys convert some to steam?