Video game database MobyGames will let developers claim video game credits and customise their personal portfolios, albeit only via a new premium tier.
As reported by our sister site GamesIndustry.biz, MobyGames Professional launched in beta in June, with a full 1.0 version due this autumn. Alongside enabling developers to claim credits of games they’ve worked on via a verification process, it also lets users build a personal portfolio page on the site.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at Gamescom, product manager Reece Denzel said signups had been “great” and “thousands of developers” have already claimed their pages.
Talking specifically about the verification process behind claiming a page, which stops short of letting anyone edit their actual credit listings, Denzel said: “There’s two parts to that. One is making sure that people are who they say they are, and that’s a human-driven verification process that we run in the background. When it comes to making sure that credit history is reflected appropriately, the actual way that we do credits and credit verifications has not changed: It’s not changed since Atari has been involved, it’s not changed in a long time, and we have no plans to change that process”. Atari acquired MobyGames in March 2022.
“It’s very important for us to note that that does not give them the ability to edit any of the structural information about things like their credits,” Denzel added. “What it does give them the opportunity to do is to go in and edit some details about themselves that are then listed as coming from the verified source of that developer.”
The feature stops short of letting developers add themselves back if they were dropped from a game’s credits entirely after moving on.
Developers have long grappled with the industry practice of cutting them from game credits, even if they worked on that particular game for many years. For example, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD’s credits were missing the original game’s development staff and in 2023, former Retro Studios engineer Zoid Kirsch said he was “let down” by the lack of individual credits in Metroid Prime Remastered.
Meanwhile, translators contracted from firms outside of Nintendo voiced their disappointment at not being credited for work on high-profile games, too.
MobyGames’ Professional tier costs $14.99 a month (or $11.99 a month with an annual subscription), but there’s currently a 45-day free trial period.