8

(There's a prequel trilogy joke in here somewhere, I just can't find it.)

Since superuser has been established as a place not to ask videogame/console questions, are there any plans to add such a site?

Personally, I'm not really interested in a site for cheatcodes or walk-throughs or what-have-you (really, gamefaqs has that covered if you need it,) but stuff on the more technical end.

Things like "I'm trying to get counterstrike to work on four LAN computers in my living room and steam won't seem to let me," or "why does my machine crash whenever I turn on 4xAA," or "how do I get X-Wing working under DosBox?" (But, you know, better written.)

Some of those kinds of questions could get rephrased to "sneak under the radar" at superuser, but that seems against the spirit of that site. I'd love an SO engine site for questions like that. I can also see moderation of SU getting easier if those kinds of questions can just be migrated.

Are there any plans, or should I hope someone sets up a StackExchange site with that mandate?

5
  • 1
    I too think that this would be a good addition. But, the team cant make every site that anyone wants.
    – jjnguy
    Aug 20, 2009 at 20:49
  • dupe: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3579/…
    – Kip
    Aug 20, 2009 at 21:21
  • 1
    There would be a "must have" cheatcodes, "must have" add-ons, "must have" mods, and walkthrough for every game out there question. That is a lot of useless information that can be found elsewhere on the thousands of gaming sites.
    – Troggy
    Aug 20, 2009 at 21:32
  • 7
    @Troggy: "How do I beat Eviltar using only the Stabbing Knife?" "Drop that and try jQuery." Aug 20, 2009 at 21:36
  • @Kip dang it! I knew there had to be such a question already, but couldn't find it. It's pretty amazing that there's essentially no reused words between the two questions and yet - almost the exact same content. Aug 21, 2009 at 20:48

10 Answers 10

11

These topics are covered in the Gaming.SE

Come visit us!

3
  • You should declare that those are referrer links which will gain you Area 51 rep should someone follow them to commit.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Jun 15, 2010 at 15:22
  • You've done it for me, and in any case, I'm already capped for the day so it's just for the referral count, not the rep. Added.
    – juan
    Jun 15, 2010 at 15:25
  • Nudge to note the site is now live ♪
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Nov 24, 2010 at 13:27
4

I think the restriction on gaming has more to do with managing the age and maturity of the general user of the site than it does with remaining limited to computer related subject matter. This is despite the fact that it's not uncommon for my 79 year old father in law to be playing 8 hours of games a day, while I play maybe 0.01 hour a day. It also likely keeps the scope-creep clearly away from consoles and household electronics. Personally I would love to throw in all routers, nas, serving and streaming devices into the super-user scope, including consoles, especially hacked ones, but I can see the reasoning around keeping the audience generally computer savvy. Maybe once there's 1M hits per day, and a ton of savvy users, the community can manage the influx of questions about the cup-holder on the X-Box 360 arcade.

While I don't believe there's a future gaming site in the works, I can't rule it out. But it's safe to say that there's a lot of room for these three sites to grow beyond just adding more sites and topics. E.G. wiki and organizational features, language localization (apparently not a priority), and selling out to the man.

4

After noticing games being explicitly defined as out of scope at SU, I've been sort of anticipating an announcement about a new SO family site solely for games... That would be a logical explanation, at least.

Then again, after thinking about it, I'm not at all sure if the Q&A format would lend itself nearly as well to games. I could imagine tons of poll type questions (even more than on SU), at the very least. Well, in any case, personally I'd surely be interested in participating in some of those, such as this. :)

1
  • 1
    Yeah, this is more or less the thought process that inspired the question. Aug 20, 2009 at 21:08
3

This is just a guess/hunch...
But I think there will be a video game site added to the StackOverflow family.

Why you ask?

Well if you look in Jeff's 'Super User Launch' post, he says SU is for any hardware or software questions '… and it is not about videogames or consoles'.

He doesn't mention anything else at all, just video games.

My first thought was, ah, he's marking out territory for a new site!

And you know he is a serious gamer.

But I could have totally read more into that was intended, so make up your own mind.
Or wait for an answer from Jeff ; )

2
  • I'll be honest - I was thinking along those exact lines and kinda hoping we could coax a response from Jeff with this question. Aug 21, 2009 at 20:51
  • Jeff is careful, so we know that specific exclusion was put there for a solid reason. And we know that Jeff is a bit of a gamer. Either he hates gamers and doesn't want them trampling on his baby (possible) or he sees them as a great market. I expect the latter. Aug 28, 2009 at 14:19
2

I would hazard a guess and say: NO

As per the original Trilogy announcement on the blog SuperUser completed the trilogy. Therefore I doubt that there will be any more official SO sites. However there will most likely be more sites incorporated into the League of Justice

1

@Electrons_Ahoy, I'm planning to setup one using StackExchange. Suggestions/comments/cruel intentions would be greatly appreciated.

2
  • Well, color me interested. Aug 21, 2009 at 20:48
  • Jeff will beat you to it. Aug 28, 2009 at 14:20
1

For Gaming-Related issues like running CounterStrike in a LAN, SuperUser seems perfectly fine and appropriate, only stuff like "How can I change the Harddrive in my Xbox/PS3" seem inappropriate.

I'd rather see a Game-Design related site, as StackOverflow does not cover that.

1
  • Man, +1 for the game design site. I hadn't even thought about that, but that would be spectacular. Aug 21, 2009 at 20:52
0

I would guess not, but one of the officials from the sites would have to validate that.

That said, you can always start one up by licensing StackExchange directly. I'm guessing that, since they're making it available, they're not planning to take all of the good ideas themselves.

0

The problem, I think, is that the site platform is mostly done for the "specific question"->"several propositions of direct answers". I know there are comments, but in general, the logic doesn't really apply for an iterative process.

If these are precise questions related to games (let's imagine "How do I pass this level", or "where can I find this weapon"), then this logic matches. But in this case, other sites are doing the same job, as mentioned.

For "hardware problems", though, it won't match, since it will be a rather iterative process, matching more to a forum. Because most of times, unless it's a precise, specific problem, it will be rather "pasting the error message", and will require a discussion to find out what the problem is.

-1

http://stackexchange.com

8
  • CWing an answer with easy upvotes? You must already be at the cap for the day. Or have you -- gasp -- gained a some morals? Or is it ethics? Which is the one where you do things that make whiny people happy? Aug 20, 2009 at 20:53
  • 1
    Capped already. And the answer was way too easy. And it wasn't a particularly good one.
    – jjnguy
    Aug 20, 2009 at 20:56
  • That makes two of us..... First time ever I have capped on MSO. Sad actually. Aug 20, 2009 at 20:58
  • @jjnguy: Phew. You had me worried for a minute there. Aug 20, 2009 at 21:02
  • 1
    This answer was actually in the question itself already. That's how easy it was. :P
    – EBGreen
    Aug 20, 2009 at 21:02
  • Well, you know, I didn't want people to work TOO hard to answer it. ;) Aug 20, 2009 at 21:09
  • This answer changed my life.
    – Troggy
    Aug 20, 2009 at 21:58
  • @jjnguy Yah, I capped out quickly today on meta. Soon to on SU also.
    – Troggy
    Aug 20, 2009 at 22:19

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .