Sites likeIMDbhave become synonymous with compiling movie and series info with user opinion. They take all the hundreds and thousands of movies and television shows and put them into one database users can access. Databases have become a handy resource to find out more about your favorite films or latest series.
But what about video games?
If we look at every single video game ever made, from triple-A titles to indie games to hobbyist experiments to forgotten classics, we’re looking at over a million games. And that’s a number Game Rant is aiming to tackle, game by game, withtheir database launch. This project is vast and ongoing, but they love the doors it opens for connecting with our readers.
Just have patience with them. It’s a lot of doors.
How Big Is The Database Project?
At the time of this writing (as in sitting here at the computer, typing these words), there are around 10,000 games within the database. By the time this article is actually published, there will no doubt be more. Adding games to Game Rant’s database is not just a work-in-progress. It’s a forever work-in-progress.
Luckily, they have a dedicated team whose sole focus is keeping the database up-to-date. That involves adding new games as they come out or are announced, retroactively adding older games they might have missed, updating specifications on individual games, organizing database pages so they don’t look empty, scouring every corner of the internet for reliable trailers or game screenshots for ancient titles, and spending a lot of time in spreadsheets.
Their database team is more than just the five people we interviewed, but here’s a peek at the highs and lows of database upkeep!
Favorite Game?
How Does An Ongoing Project Like A Database Work?
Next month in May, according toTheGamer’s Video Game Release Date Calendar, there are 19 big-name games coming out. If we were to take that as an average, that’s 228 games every year. That doesn’t take into account the numerous game announcements that pop up during event season or something as (purportedly) simple as a game coming to a new platform.
So how does the database team keep on top of everything? With help, of course.
Most everyone who works for Valnet’s Odyssey Group (focused on gaming) has an abiding passion for video games. And with so many people all in one spot, we have a beautiful resource for keeping tabs on games: each other. If one of us notices there’s something incorrect with an existing page or that we’re missing a game entirely, we can let the database team know.
So if someone from Odyssey were to be a huge fan ofPowerWash Simulator, for example, they could keep the database team up to speed on all specification changes needed for its page.
It is an awful lot to keep track of, but it’s worth it for the end goal. We want readers to be able to log onto the database and find any game they want. Want to rate and review this game you played when you were five? We aim to have it. Want to look up a rando title you found on Steam last week? We aim to have it.
The Valnet Dev Team Behind The Database
This whole project would not have been possible without the minds behind the tech. While GR’s dedicated database team exists to keep it up-to-date, it’s thanks to Valnet’s dev team and analysts that it functions at all.
Fabio Del Greco is Valnet’s Lead Functional Analyst, and we got the chance to ask him about what it was like developing the database.
“It was definitely a challenge to make sure we categorized and presented the available content for each game in a way that is easily digestible for readers, without being a burden on the GR team [to maintain]. Each game could have dedicated pages for videos, guides, news, and thread discussions. Manually managing these organizational elements, for a game library as vast as GR was tackling, would have been a nightmare. We wanted to be sure we didn’t burden [the database team] with the mundane tasks, so they could spend more time playing games and writing for our readers.”
Fabio and his team’s work at the beginning of the project, despite being difficult, has paid off. “Now, activating a database for a game is a one-time action and it will automatically grow/change as the team writes their content.”
This is why we love our tech team. They’re looking out for our time expenditure!
In terms of what Fabio and his team are most proud of when looking at features they’ve included in the database, he immediately points to the design of the video game cards. “We’ve made them in a way that they are automatically kept up to date with the centralized information from the Game Rant database. No matter how old an article is and across the websites in our network, when the staff on GR update information about a game, it is reflected everywhere.”
This entire project has necessitated collaboration across various internal Game Rant departments and external Valnet brands, and Fabio expresses his appreciation of the endeavor, saying “It was fun to collaborate with the Game Rant staff. To work with passionate people is always a welcome opportunity in the IT world. (This project in particular, since we could watch the progress and achievements on a daily basis, as the database of games grew.) There would have been easier alternatives to get information, but we know that automated solutions don’t always provide the most reliable results. I’m proud to have helped the team, as they undertook sourcing all the information in the database, by hand, going to the official game websites and storefronts to curate the information. It was not an easy project, but it was definitely worth the effort.”
And of course, we didn’t miss the opportunity to ask Fabio what his favorite video game is while we had the chance. His answer is mind-blowing yet expected for someone as awesome as he is.
“Favourite game is a tough title to give out.Baldur’s Gate 3, I think it is a representative culmination of everything I love about video games. It’s taken over 300 hours of my time, over two thirds of which were spent in Act 1 and dozens of new characters. The game that defined me would be X-Com: UFO Defence on MS-Dos at the age of 5 (which I had no business playing).”
What Can You Do With The Game Rant Database?
Game Rant’s database pages, as stated previously, are part of an ongoing project, but at the time of launch, there’s a lot you can do with them.
You can browse through game details, like developer, publisher, release date, etc. Each fully-filled database page comes complete with a game card that showcases this info in a parsable format. You can also get directed to platforms where you can play these games (if applicable) using the “Where To Play” button.
With aged games this might prove more spotty, but each database page should also have a gallery of official screenshots from the game that you can scroll through. And beneath that, you can read the game’s description and watch official trailers.
Further down, you can find sections for relevant guides, news articles, and lists that may have included the game in a ranking.
But the real magic happens with rating and reviewing the game. For any game included in our database, you can leave a starred rating out of ten and write a review, summing up your thoughts on it in a brief blurb or going full-on multi-paragraph in-depth. Your choice. And once you’ve reviewed a game, your review gets included in the final section of a database page, collated with all reviews other readers have written themselves.
Welcome To Game Rant’s Database!
With over 10,000 games ready to rate and review in Game Rant’s newly launched database, this is a major win for their team. It’s taken a lot of work to get to this point, and it’s going to take even more to maintain it. But it’s well worth the effort. This database provides so many ways (around 10,000) GR can connect with the people who come to their site every day and share their love of games. So yeah, they’re more than ready to open these doors.
