This Castlevania question shouldn't have been closed as game identification

Question

I answered a question recently: Alucard Visual Effect - Original Appearance?. It's a game ID question, so we had to go through the usual rigamarole of certain users not counting high-budget studio animation of a video game fight scene, named after a video game, with dozens of confirmed video game callbacks, as being based on a video game.

I answered the question, and it turns out that the question was correct, the move the user called out is a one-to-one copy of a move from multiple games in the series, and it's not a particularly difficult move to find or do. It's on the main wiki of the character, in fact. The user accepted the question, thanked me in the comments, and presumably upvoted the answer.

...Then it was closed anyway. And closed by precisely the same user who was claiming that they needed proof in order to not close it.

So, long story short, the question was closed incorrectly. The artifact is from a videogame, you no longer have to assume good intentions even though Stack Exchange requires that you must always assume good intentions, artistic renderings of elements from videogames are well received here and always have been.

Answer 1

If the user was truly trying to identify a move from a Castlevania game based solely on memory, the question would indeed be off-topic. But it is well known and was made very apparent in the question that the show is based on the games and their universe, and therefore artifacts from the show are from the games, just as promotional material for the games would be.

Other questions asking about promotional material have set a precedence of being on-topic as long as a direct association to a game or game universe can be made. I believe the question is on-topic and should be reopened.

Answer 2

When it comes down to it all, the line has to be drawn somewhere. I think we can agree that the line itself is important, otherwise we would have tons of unanswerable questions that do not provide value to the site.

Currently the line is drawn where the asker must provide an artifact from the game, and not from memory. It might limit some well-natured content, like the thread in question. However, it does not allow any grey area to leave the question open or closed. If we allowed the above thread to stay open, we are basically saying that the site allows game identification questions with a memory-based artifact, which introduces a really slippery slope that would negatively affect the quality of game identification questions down the road.

I'm genuinely glad that the question ended up being answered, but the line is still drawn: a more concrete artifact is needed in this specific instance. Other sites, such as https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmyjoystick, are more lenient in game identification evidence.

Answer 3

This question should not be allowed, and it should not be reopened. The issue here is not whether there is proof that the effect originally came from a game, or whether a relevant artifact exists. We only allow "identify this game" questions in which the original asker provides an artifact that directly depicts a game or a game asset. In the post in question, the artifact provided by the asker is from a TV show, not a game, so it does not meet our criteria. This conclusion does not change if a new artifact is provided in an answer or an edit by another user.

Regarding the other example questions, they roughly fall into three different categories that should be handled differently.

• This question, this one, this one, and this one all contain images or audio that are directly and officially associated with their corresponding games, and that the asker reasonably believed were from games. They conform to our ITG policy, so they should all be allowed.
• This question, this one, and this one all contain images that are clearly not directly from the video games the asker is looking for, so strictly speaking they should be closed. However, the characters in those images are depicted in a way that is so closely similar to the actual assets within the game that it is very nearly functionally equivalent to providing an artifact from the game itself, so it is reasonable to keep them around. But they are right on the border line of acceptable questions.
• This question, this one, and the one this meta question is primarily addressing all depict art that is not from a game and is so stylistically different from the games the askers are trying to identify that some guesswork is needed to actually make that association. This guesswork is one of the primary reasons general "identify this game" questions were banned in the first place, so all of those questions should be closed.