Commercial/Licensed Games:



Licensed games are games that were commercially released during the life span of a specific system and were officially sanctioned by that system manufacturer. The term licensed doesn't really apply to many systems due to their nature (PC based ones are obvious), but it's an important term for others like the Nintendo machines.

The following rules should be followed when adding games (in this order):

USA Region games - All games will be included.

Europe Region games - All games that weren't released in the USA will be included. If a game isn't in English it will only be added if it can be played without too much hassle assuming you can't understand the native language. Having non-English text is fine as long as it's not too hard to figure things out.

Japan Region games - All games that weren't released in the USA and Europe will be included. If a game isn't in English it will only be added if it can be played without too much hassle assuming you can't understand the native language. Having non-English text is fine as long as it's not too hard to figure things out.

Other Regions - All games that weren't released in the above regions will be included. If a game isn't in English it will only be added if it can be played without too much hassle assuming you can't understand the native language. Having non-English text is fine as long as it's not too hard to figure things out.

Compilations - Compilations will only be added if they include at least one game that hasn't been included in the database as a separate entry already. There can be some exceptions like for instance adding a compilation just for the sake of completing a set so there won't be holes on it.

Clones and Regional variations - Clones aren't included unless they are significantly different from the parent game, same applies for games that are slightly modified for a release in a different region. Normally these games are only added when there are some noticeable changes like new main character sprites, new levels, a lot of different enemies. If the games only have minor changes then they aren't added. Example of added games are Probotector (European Contra with Robots instead of Humans) and Bugs Bunny and the Crazy Castle (Released as Mickey Mouse in Japan) for the Game Boy.

Prototypes - Prototypes are included if the games are fully complete or can at least be played from the beginning till the end without any major issues or require any kind of cheat codes.

Exceptions - Some systems will be treated with specific rules due to their nature. For instance there are systems that were released in Japan only and where removing all non-playable games would reduce the game list to a very short number distorting the reality of that system. In that case all games will be included on the XML, examples of such systems are PC-FX or WonderSwan.
In some cases foreign language games can be included, normally under 2 conditions:
-To have a set 100% complete. For example there's only 1 Japanese exclusive for 32X so it's added to the XML since we can have a 100% complete set with that one game added.
-The game in question has a very high quality or importance to that particular system and it would make no sense to leave it out. PSP is known to have some great RPG's that were only released in Japan and don't have any available translation, there are normally some good guides for these as well. These cases are evaluated on a case by case scenario, they are exceptions and don't happen often.

Homebrew/Unlicensed/Other Games:

Unlicensed games are games that were commercially released during the life span of a specific system, but weren't officially sanctioned by that system manufacturer. Examples of these are Bible Adventure for NES or Karate Joe for Game Boy Color.
Pirates are often confused with Unlicensed games since they are also obviously Unlicensed, but the term Pirate refers to games that use content ripped off from other games (normally commercial ones). It can be sprites, backgrounds, sound, etc. While Unlicensed games are normally fully created by the developers even though they usually copy the concepts from existing games.

All Unlicensed games are added as long as they follow the same rules for the commercial games. Pirates are never included unless on some very particular cases where a pirate game got extremely popular by some reason (I can't recall any example from the top of my head). Hacks and Mods also follow the same rule as Pirates, they are only included on some exceptional conditions.

All Homebrew that had a physical commercial release will be included as long as it follows the same rules for the commercial games. The other homebrew will be added only if the quality of the game is on par with commercial releases. This will vary greatly from system to system, some older consoles have a very active homebrew scene up till today that can produce games easily better than many of the commercial releases (Atari 2600 or ColecoVision for ex.), PC based systems also have a lot of homebrew by nature, several Amiga or C64 homebrew were actually more popular than many of the commercial games back then. So the amount of homebrew included will vary greatly from system to system and will take several things into consideration.

Naming Rules:

Games are named using a No-Intro simplified format where we only use the game name and region by default: "Game_Name (Region)".
All extra tags present in the No-Intro naming schema are stripped out (version tags, special tags, language tags, etc.) they have no real purpose for our sets and will only make the database creation process much harder and we will need to be constantly updating the XML files once a newer revision is found or we find a game is missing language tags.
In the case of name clashing normally the name of the manufacturer is added to both rom names to differentiate: "Game_Name (Manufacturer) (Region)".
Unlicensed and Proto games are also always tagged as in No-Intro, these tags are placed at the end of the name: "Game_Name (Region) (Proto) (Unl)".
Multiple disc games will also have tags stating so, media tags can be: Disc, Disk, Tape, Cart, Part, Side. They will be added after the Region part: "Game_Name (Region) (Disc 1)".
Some systems might require special tags to be added and these will be handled on a case by case basis. Amiga games will require an AGA tag to differentiate the AGA from the regular OCS/ECS releases for example.

These naming rules won't be applied to systems that require a specific naming for obvious reason. This usually means most arcade based systems, so the MAME database will still use the MAME rom names of course.