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Some games are repackages with updated information. There may be small improvements in one area or another, but most features are unchanged to a point where an answer to a 2005 game may be the same to a 2016 game.

FIFA, PES, FM, WWE, NHL, NBA and Remastered Games are pretty much all the same. WWE introduces new attires, changes the story mode, but the match rules are mostly the same. FM updates the rosters (and attributes), and from time to time redoes how contracts work, adds new animations, but some features are left unchanged for years. Final Fantasy VII got a remastered version, but the stories and game mechanics are pretty much the same.

Those titles can generate questions that are concerning one version, however they may also be present in some or all other versions of that game. I just posted this question. Testimonial matches are featured since at least FM09, meaning that the answer to my question may as well be the answer to the same question for FM 09, FM 10, FM 11, FM 12, FM 13, FM 14, FM 15 and FM 16.

That's a lot of Fs and Ms.

I was thinking that on these situations, and only on situations where the answer may be (and if proved otherwise the tag should be removed) applicable to previous titles (and future titles if the "future" game already exists) we could tag them differently. Similarly to minecraft.

Minecraft mods require the tag minecraft and the tag mods. Questions whose answer may be applicable to other games in the series could be tagged name-omni, or name-* (although the last one may be problematic as it brings automatically all tags eg: game-1, game-2)

If not for a tag that connects all answers, what should be done in cases where the same question, with the same answer, but for different games (and as such different tags) occurs?

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    I can't help but feel we're borrowing trouble here. Ask a question about the game you're having an issue with. If someone asks the same thing for another game in the series, we can dupe it, add a tag, or a -series tag. We don't need an -omni tag.
    – Frank
    May 6, 2016 at 23:06
  • portal-series , metal-gear-solid-series
    – GnomeSlice
    May 6, 2016 at 23:13
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    Also, you say these games are mostly the same, but I'm betting that a lot of the time, the answers won't be the same (because stuff does change). So it just borrows extra overhead for no solid reason. The tags are also useful for search, etc. so keeping them game specific makes sense.
    – user11502
    May 6, 2016 at 23:14
  • @AshleyNunn Like I said, some, answers would be the same, but in case the answer wouldn't be "general", then the tag would've have to be removed, or at the very least, specified which were the games it was valid to. However, this was just a thought experiment, not something I was particularly keen on, but just to think a bit on how to deal with this kind of questions
    – Oak
    May 6, 2016 at 23:32
  • @ChromeSlice while we do have a [*-series] tag for many games - those tend to largely be lore-type questions that encompass the story between multiple games, or mechanics if the games largely use the same engine. While I'll fully admit that I haven't played many large franchise sports games since ~'98; they do tend to slowly change/fix/add/remove things every couple iterations, so the answers may differ, even if only subtly. It isn't always just the same game with a different/updated roster. May 6, 2016 at 23:36
  • Agreed. I was merely revealing that they exist for the purposes of discussion.
    – GnomeSlice
    May 7, 2016 at 0:30

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I don't think this proposed "omni-tag" for these sorts of games will work very well. If the proposed tag is to encompass all the iteration of these big-league sports games... where do you draw the line?

Let's use as an example. You ask a fairly general question about the NHL games. It applies to the current game you are playing (for the sake of argument, let's say the 2016 version). It may also apply to a couple of iterations past ('14 and '15) and may even apply to a future one as well ('17 & '18). But this Omni tag you propose would encompass all the NHL games, no? Well, how far back/forward?

I've got an old SNES NHL-'95 game in my closet, I can't think of any questions you could ask about a modern NHL game that would apply to my 20+-year-old cartridge (and have a remotely similar answer) that aren't strictly about the rules of hockey in general.

My point is that while the changes to these games are often small and incremental (with the occasional big leaps for each new console generation) and not just roster updates, over time they do change and questions may have radically different answers after a couple iterations. And I don't think it's in the best interest of the site to keep track of the differing answers across many versions of these games in a single question.

If a question applies to several games in the franchise, and the answers are largely the same, you may have a case for tagging multiple of those game, but due to their slowly changing nature, I think it best to not automatically assume that all yearly iterations of these games will be sufficiently similar enough to answer them all in a single question.


It has been brought up that we do have a number of series tags (for example: ).

These largely tend to cover the lore of the series, and I'm not sure asking about lore between these sports games would be on-topic, as the comings and goings of players and teams is not really video game related.

For the few mechanics questions in the *-series tags those are largely limited to games that have (thus far) only existed in a single game engine.

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  • also relevant: our per-generation pokemon tags
    – badp
    May 7, 2016 at 14:46
  • @badp hmm, the per-generation pokemon tags are probably the closest workable approximation of what this meta is asking for. If a number of games are mechanically identical, there might be a case for a "nhl-2010-2015" type tags. But how many games before that is preferable to just tagging individual games? What would you name the current 'generation'? "Nhl-2015-present"? May 7, 2016 at 15:31
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    I simply don't think people think of those games in generations, because the engine and game mechanics are tweaked or replaced every year with great fanfare, in a continuous attempt to keep things fresh and different. The closest thing I'm aware of are FIFA 2012-2014 for PS2: same engine, updated rosters. IIRC.
    – badp
    May 7, 2016 at 16:38

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