Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gameplay of Pokémon

Gameplay of Pokémon

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This article falls afoul of multiple different rationales and guidelines, which I'll go over now.

-The article's scope is unclear. It's titled "Gameplay of Pokémon", but is primarily discussing Pokémon battling. Additionally, it is only covering the gameplay of the main series of Pokémon video games, and not the gameplay of any game that diverges from that basic gameplay style. I've already merged some of this content to Pokémon (video game series), and while it needs work, this content really only pertains to that article and not to the franchise as a whole, making a spin-out unnecessary.

- This article fails WP:VGSCOPE. It goes into excessive detail about various game mechanics, and is a gross violation of guideline 7 in VGSCOPE, which states that excessive listing of gameplay concepts is not a valid spin-out rationale.

-A source search for notability only yields WP:ROUTINE coverage on gameplay changes when new games come out, as well as WP:VALNET articles that do not provide notability per WP:VG/RS. A search through Books yields only WP:Trivial mentions or is discussing Pokémon Go's gameplay, which is unrelated to the scope of this article. Scholar yields more of the aforementioned finds, but also has a few sources discussing it in correlation with competitive Pokémon. Notability is not WP:INHERITED from the competitive Pokémon topic, which is notable and is an article I'm working on a rewrite for right now, so these sources are not helpful for determining the gameplay's individual notability.

-In short, nothing inherently dictates that Pokémon's gameplay is separately notable from the Pokémon franchise as a whole, and gameplay can easily be summarized at each game's individual article's "Gameplay" sections, as each game has such a varying style of being played that it is impossible to make one article that covers everything without falling afoul of VGSCOPE. I've mentioned a viable AtD target above (Pokémon (video games series)) that could be helpful for preserving page history on the off-chance this article turns out to be notable in the future, but as it stands, this article isn't individually notable and is better off redirected, merged, or what have you. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 20:38, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements and Video games. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 20:38, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or merge. Standalone gameplay article can be had but only if there is significant coverage of that from sources (beyond just being a gameplay guide), such as the case for Overwatch or Mahic: The Gathering. This has very little sourcing to support it. Masem (t) 21:21, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Merge - to the game series article, per nom. Unnecessary spin out. Sergecross73 msg me 22:18, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I don't understand nom's rationale that "The article's scope is unclear". The article describes the gameplay of the games described in Pokémon (video game series) as "The main series of role-playing video games (RPGs), referred as the 'core series' by their developers". Separately, I'm not against a merge of the current content of the article, which is largely duplicative of the series and individual game articles. However, from trying to navigate between the various Pokémon game articles, it's currently already frustrating to actually understand the gameplay of any individual game, due to the articles being structured with descriptions of "like previous entries" or "the same as X", plus a "new features" section. I think merging this makes that problem worse, necessitating the reader to read back through the line of individual game articles. ~ A412 ^talk! 22:48, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think they're saying it veers off-topic a lot, which I agree with. For starters, why would you put a "release timeline" in a gameplay article? There's lots of that sort of stuff, the more you look and think about it. Sergecross73 msg me 23:02, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will also add that if there's any issues that are caused by this article's removal, I am willing to and will handle the fixing of those issues editorially. I've been working on improving the Pokémon topic area for a while now, so I know what areas and articles this will affect and what will need to be changed. If you have any more specific advice for this problem, let me know and I'll try to implement these into the articles. At worst, also, we can link a hatnote to the relevant subsection (In this case, Pokémon (video game series)#Gameplay) in place of the previous hatnote to the Gameplay of Pokémon article, as this subsection currently covers the bulk of the important information as is. If you have any more suggestions on if anything else should be merged to that section, then feel free to say it here, and if closed as redirect/merge, we can add it there. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 00:36, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or partial merge, per nom. Gameplay of X" or "Story of X" is essentially the same as "X". Beyond some point, it begins to violate WP:GAMEGUIDE and WP:UNDUE. Once you clean up the violating material, you'd find it redundant with the game article itself, with very little new ground to cover. The main Pokémon (video game series) article is a good place to summarize the essential features across these many games, and is already surplus coverage that isn't covered at the individual game articles. (In addition to the main Pokémon article about the whole multi-media intellectual property.) If Pokelego999's opinion is that this is excessive, then other editors should take that seriously. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:04, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to the relevant gameplay section of the series article. The only reason to separate what is functionally identical subject matter to the game itself is to cover a topic with significant coverage and/or analysis, rather than to expand on detail to the point of WP:GAMEGUIDE or WP:UNDUE. The content and sources seem purely descriptive, and a shorter summary of this could be merged in the game itself. ＶＲＸＣＥＳ (talk) 23:09, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete It appears to fail WP:GAMEGUIDE, IMO. As said by the nominator, it lacks evidence the gameplay is standalone notable. Wikibooks does accept game guides nowadays, but it's not something typical for Wikipedia. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 23:12, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]