Is it really necessary (or beneficial) have all four of these fields.
It seems like they are not being used uniformly. What is supposed to go into them? What's the difference between an author and a designer? And a composer?
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2009, September 17 - 9:10am
#1
Author/Publisher/Designer/Composer
Comments
2009, September 17 - 9:56am
#2
I think we can get rid of some of these fields...
Composer is the musician who did the score, and designer is the guy behind sketches, UI and art. I guess 'Composer' and 'Designer' is a sub-category under 'Author'. Author is misleading, it should really be Developer, which would refer to the company as a whole. Though for the original one-man-band games the word Author really makes sense.
I guess I was trying to find out who did the art and music for games, not just the code. However 99% of games don't have these fields filled in.
Are you happy still to separate Author (developer) and Publisher?
Here's a game I found that tries to use the fields to the fullest, you may have to click 'edit' to see the fields:
http://macintoshgarden.org/games/monkey-island-2-le-chucks-revenge
2009, September 17 - 8:26pm
#3
I think it is imperative to know just the main people who were involved in a game,
at least to me it is,
(of course it is pointless to mention ALL the coders and assistants)
for example the score writer of the game Diablo, He or She really deserves to be mentioned,
the author of Glider, Prince of Persia, and so many games and Apps, etc..
and since Macintosh garden is about the preservation of abandonware, and a lot of these abandonware was the preamble of today's great software,
at least we ought to know who actually did it, for history's sake.
2009, September 17 - 11:15pm
#4
It's a wiki. People are SUPPOSED to edit pages and add info whenever they see it missing! 
I know myself I only have limited time on the internet, so I often don't post much info since what time I have is spent uploading stuff. And I don't have access to a mac or emulators while I'm on the internet, so I can't just open up an archive and copy over info from the read me files.
2009, September 19 - 2:35am
#5
What I mean is that the fields are being used interchangabily (incorrectly). I think that a lot of people don't know the difference between author and designer. And some people don't know the difference (or cannot properly distinguish) between designer and publisher. This is most noticeable on older games where there was just one guy who wrote the game, designed the game, published the game and (yes) scored the game.
Indeed, if one guy did all the work, do I write his name in as author AND designer? If it was just a little shareware game, do I write his name in as the publisher, too?
Maybe a few notes could be added to the "edit this game" pages?
2009, September 19 - 4:09am
#6
We'll delete/re-configure the Designer and Composer fields. Maybe create a 'Artist/Composer' field instead.
Author should be the main field, I've noticed a few games have what I'm guessing is the developer written down in both the Author and Publisher fields.
http://macintoshgarden.org/games/agitate
There should be some guidlines... in this case maybe only put them in the Author field, and have the Publisher field disappear on the games page.
Indeed, if one guy did all the work, do I write his name in as author AND designer? If it was just a little shareware game, do I write his name in as the publisher, too?
I'd just put him in as the Author. Repetition is bad?
2009, September 19 - 4:20am
#7
For the record, what exactly is the difference between an "author" and a "designer" of a game?
Does author = programmer? Does designer = game studio?
2009, September 19 - 4:29am
#8
Author = Developer (company or individual)
Designer = Arts, sketches, creative people. Not the developer/game studio in this context
2009, September 19 - 9:15am
#9
Maybe some clarification would be helpful. I had no idea that "designer" meant graphics designer.
I thought we were using it in the "game designer" sense. Like on some other sites: