One of the most exciting features we’ve been working on at Retro Gaming Australia launches today. After two years of work, we are proud to announce that our wiki, the Australian Gaming Database, is now accessible to the public.
The Australian Gaming Database is our attempt to catalogue the history of video gaming in Australia. You will find pages for
- Every console, computer and handheld released in Australia
- Every video and computer game magazine produced in Australia, with cover galleries
- Every video and computer game television programme produced in Australia
- Every video game developer based in Australia
- Every video game developed in Australia, including ones that were never released
- Publishers, distributors and other major companies involved in gaming in Australia
- Key people responsible for the development of the industry in Australia
- Major issues such as censorship
- Court cases involving video game companies
Here are a few pages we recommend looking at to start
- Beam Software
- Megazone
- The Zone
- Star Wars
- Nintendo Entertainment System
Please be aware that the AGDB is still in a beta state. We’ve been working on this project behind the scenes for a long time, and were itching to show it off and get some feedback. Originally we wanted to launch 18 months ago, but the release date kept slipping as our plans got more grandiose. Much of the categorisation needs to be formalised, and a good chunk of the pages are not yet complete.
Many pages are still incomplete, but if you feel like you have something to contribute, you can request an account. Open account registration is not available at this stage since we don’t want to deal with wiki spammers and vandals.
Very well done, Matt! Totally awesome! Looks to be gigantic project!
Checking the Beam Software page I noticed that you skipped the earliest company’s games for Spectrum: FREEWAY FROG (1982), 3-D MAZEMAN (1983), BLACKJACK (1983), CHESS (1983), ELIMINATOR (1983), FRUIT MACHINE (1983), LEAPFROG (1983), METEOR STORM (1983), NUMBER REVERSAL (1983), SPECTRUM INVADERS (1983). These were all type-ins, but were also released on tapes together with the corresponding books.
Also I did not find the three Eureka’s cricket games: WORLD CRICKET 99, CRICKET 2000 and CRICKET 2001.
The other two cricket missing are SHANE WARNE CRICKET and SHANE WARNE CRICKET 99.
I hadn’t really considered the possibility that their type-in games came out commercially, so thanks for bringing it up – they were not in MH’s archived title list.
Good spot on the Eureka cricket games, had totally forgotten about them.
The Shane Warne Cricket games had been tagged for inclusion under the same grounds as the EA AFL titles (technically not developed in Australia but developed for the Australian market), but I had just not got around to adding them.