Template:Infobox Website StrategyWiki is a wiki-based website striving to provide gamers and game guide authors with the definitive repository of videogame walkthroughs, FAQs and strategy guides. Unlike similar sites, StrategyWiki has a "one game, one guide" rule-rather than each author working on a guide of their own, everyone contributes to one single guide for each game. This is both to take full advantage of the wiki design and also to eliminate the inevitable redundancy between different guides.[1]
Traditionally, videogame walkthroughs are created as text files with no formatting or embellishments other than visual tricks such as ASCII art. In recent years this format has been increasingly criticized for having not evolved along with advances in web design and web content accessibility.[2]. By using MediaWiki, StrategyWiki guides can utilize features such as rich text, tables and inline images, things that are either impossible or extremely difficult to replicate in a plain text file.
Thanks to the wiki nature of the site, every player is encouraged to fill in the blanks that they come across which they might be able to fill in. In addition to the ease of editing that makes such contributions possible, StrategyWiki can provide another tremendous benefit over ordinary text guides; the use of images to clearly illustrate diagrams, maps, and complicated play strategies. This feature alone allows players to intuitively understand what an author is trying to convey instead of needing to visualize it for themselves in order to follow along.
And finally, StrategyWiki is a site of collaboration and cooperation. While many of its users are content contributors, some of it's most valuable members are strictly content editors that help maintain a consistent look and flow from one guide to the next, making it easy for readers of the site to navigate to the information that they're interested in quickly. Members are constantly contributing new templates and layout concepts that facilitate the creation and design of a guide to the point where novice editors can create guides that look just as complex and robust as regular editors.
Simlar sites
Since its founding IGN has started the IGN Vault Wiki, but only for computer role-playing games and MMORPGs. 1up also operates a wiki, called MyCheats.
Involvment with Wikibooks
When Jimmy Wales no longer wanted videogame walkthroughs on Wikibooks, StrategyWiki used the transwiki process to copy many guides to their site.[3]
Milestones
- StrategyWiki has grown to incorporate nearly 2500 different articles containing 8000 maps, screenshots and other illustrations.
- StrategyWiki has nearly 100 to 200 edits on an average daily basis.
- StrategyWiki hosts over 700 guides, 100 of which are in a "complete" state, covering most or all elements of the game in question.Guides at completion stage 4</ref>
- StrategyWiki is attracting nearly 30 new authors every week.