User:JimmyBlackwing/Sourcing video game articles

In my experience, finding reliable sources is the single most challenging aspect of writing a video game-related article. Several factors have created this problem. First, the mass interest in video games coincided with the early years of the Internet, and so important video game coverage was put online—only to be scattered by decades of website redesigns and closures. Second, video games' long-standing reputation as a niche pastime has meant that, until recently, little effort has been made to preserve historical materials related to the medium. Third, very few historians have cared to study and document video games. In short, you probably won't be able to read up on Lufia & the Fortress of Doom at your local library.

This puts WikiProject Video games in a position very different from that of, for example, WikiProject Military history. If you plan to write a video game-related article, you won't be able to rely on archivists and historians to dig up and parse reliable sources for you. Nine times out of ten, you'll have to do it yourself. And that involves learning how to use the Internet for more than superficial research. Boatloads of online and print sources are out there—if you know how to find them. This essay will give you, in less than half an hour, what it took me over five years to learn about sourcing video game articles.