Wikidata:Property proposal/media franchise

media franchise

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Creative work

Done: media franchise (P8345) (Talk and documentation)

Description	this creative work belongs to this media franchise
Represents	media franchise (Q196600)
Data type	Item
Domain	creative work (Q17537576)
Allowed values	media franchise (Q196600)
Example 1	Super Mario Bros. (Q11168) → Mario (Q4803535)
Example 2	Super Mario Bros. (Q535550) → Mario (Q4803535)
Example 3	Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (Q2712053) → Dragon Ball (Q2020)
Example 4	Dragon Ball GT (Q735669) → Dragon Ball (Q2020)
Example 5	Ghost in the Shell (Q22575835) → Ghost in the Shell (Q92580)
Example 6	Ghost in the Shell (Q259804) → Ghost in the Shell (Q92580)
Example 7	Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Q1776982) → Ghost in the Shell (Q92580)
Example 8	Stargate: Resistance (Q3116405) → Stargate (Q11927)
Example 9	Stargate SG-1 (Q187462) → Stargate (Q11927)

Motivation

media franchise (Q196600),

a collection of related media in which several derivative works have been produced from an original creative work of fiction, such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game
— English Wikipedia

The intellectual property, related data, and content shared among a group of cultural objects to which one or more video games belong.
—Video Game Metadata Schema 4.0 (Q61639540)

At time of writing this there are 457 items with it as instance of (P31) (although many of them have more than one P31).

Right now media franchise (Q196600) are used with:

on characters:

present in work (P1441): I think this is mostly fine modeling ; although formally characters are present in works (specific book or game) and franchises are not works, which would justify moving these relationships so Princess Peach (Q507001)<media franchise>Mario (Q4803535); Also, relationships between characters and franchises is sometimes established through P31, via items like Mario franchise character (Q33093124)

on works, using:

part of the series (P179): for video game (Q7889), this is distinct relationship. A game can be part of a series (or sub-series), and of a distinct overall franchise. For example, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (Q2712053) is the second episode of the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi (Q63107942) series (following Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi (Q2414858) and followed by Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (Q2520122)), but all belong to Dragon Ball (Q2020). Critically, “series” are expected to be ordered, and franchises are not (a work just belong to a franchise or not).

based on (P144): these are made to model relationships between works, while the franchise is an overarching umbrella over all these works. For example, Resident Evil Survivor 2 – Code: Veronica (Q3282068) is based on Resident Evil – Code: Veronica (Q1050284) and both belong to the Resident Evil franchise. Similarly, Tomorrow Never Dies (Q1195880) (the game) is based on (P144) Tomorrow Never Dies (Q207916) (the movie), and both belong to the James Bond franchise ; but the game James Bond 007: Nightfire (Q161188) is not based on any James Bond movie (while still belonging to the James Bond franchise).

from narrative universe (P1080) / takes place in fictional universe (P1434)

formally universes are different than franchises. Also, universes is an in-universe concept (obviously!) while franchises are out-of-universe. Franchises are also more straightforward than universes when it comes to spin-offs (do Metal Gear Acid (Q2630695) or Metal Gear Survive (Q27534668) share the same universe as the rest of the Metal Gear series?) or canon/non-canon (Oh, gosh, Star Wars Legends (Q3551295)…) or alternate continuities/timelines − for example, the Tomb Raider (Q270503) video games span three distinct continuities (see also reboot (Q1343020)), and arguably the movies in a different one altogether − the same goes for the Resident Evil movies… It’s also true outside of games: the James Bond (Q844) movies take place in widely different eras − is that then still the same universe? Franchises are more straightforward: the whole of Metal Gear Something titles belong to Metal Gear (Q216655).

And practically there are:

franchises panning across several universes: for example Gundam (Q732120) (has Universal Century (Q2713151) and Cosmic Era (Q2755142) and others) or Final Fantasy (Q12391356) (has Spira (Q2704368) and Final Fantasy VII universe (Q3269066) and many many others)
and franchises sharing a single universe: eg Cardcaptor Sakura (Q49182) and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle (Q696006) take place in Cardcaptor Sakura universe (Q73935362)

Finally, many franchises do feel (to me at least) that they do not warrant a fictional universe item (although that may be my mistaken understanding of that concept): arguably the Back to the Future, James Bond or Indiana Jones movies ; or the Call of Duty games, take place in what looks enough like "our universe" that it would feel overkill to create a universe item about it.

See also the paper Relationships among video games: Existing standards and new definitions (Q50180192), which outlines “Franchise” and “Universe” (as well as “Series”) as distinct first-class grouping entities, the former defined as “A commonly used name that refers to the intellectual property, related data, and content shared among a group of cultural objects” and the latter as “An intellectual and/or creative domain represented by the recurrent ideas, themes, and/or settings from multiple video games or game series” (I personally find their explanations and definition of what a “universe” is very confusing and somewhat uncompelling ; but in general this serves my point that media franchise is a much better defined concept).

part of (P361): which feels unspecific/unprecise

Other relevant properties are:

has spin-off (P2512): to link a spin-off to the main series ; but that relationship is transversal: for example CSI: Cyber (Q16919551) is a spin-off of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Q117396), and both belong to CSI (Q264198)

plot expanded in (P5940): Another property linking works together ;

Current issues

Modeling

For games, the current situation leads to what I would view as bad modeling, with having items like:

for works:
- James Bond (Q2635372), even though formally there is no “James Bond video game series” (one could easily imagine such series existing actually)
- Pokémon video games (Q1079748) and Pokémon video game (Q55588631), weird items expressing that a video game (Q7889) belongs to the Pokémon (Q864) media franchise ;
- Star Trek video game (Q78444225)
for characters:
- Mario franchise character (Q33093124) (even Mario franchise enemy (Q33095807)) Q29006203, Q17478752, Q89598576 etc.

Difficult querying: At the moment, there is no good way to list « all Dragon Ball video games” or “all works related to Pokemon”.

Elsewhere

Looking at what other databases are doing:

Giant Bomb (Q1657282) has a multi-field “Franchises” field (although they do not have a “series” field)
Internet Game Database (Q20056333) has both a “series” and a “Franchise” field − eg Super Mario Land 2 is linked to both the Super Mario Land series and the Mario franchise

Literature:

Video Game Metadata Schema 4.0 (Q61639540) has “Franchise” as a first-class entity (distinct from series) ; see also the paper Relationships among video games: Existing standards and new definitions (Q50180192)

Example

Notes

1. Usage of media franchise (Q196600)

SELECT ?propertyItem ?propertyItemLabel (COUNT(?item) as ?count) WHERE{
  ?franchise wdt:P31 wd:Q196600.
  ?item ?propertyRel ?franchise.
  #?item wdt:P31 ?type.
  ?propertyItem wikibase:directClaim ?propertyRel.
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
} GROUP BY ?propertyItem ?propertyItemLabel

Try it!

2. Most linked-to franchises:

SELECT ?franchise ?franchiseLabel (COUNT(?item) as ?items) WHERE {
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
  ?franchise wdt:P31 wd:Q196600.
  ?item ?propertyRel ?franchise.
  ?propertyItem wikibase:directClaim ?propertyRel.
}
GROUP BY ?franchise ?franchiseLabel
ORDER BY DESC(?items)T

Try it!

3. Item types most-linked to franchises:

SELECT ?type ?typeLabel (COUNT(?item) as ?items) WHERE {
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
  ?franchise wdt:P31 wd:Q196600.
  ?item ?propertyRel ?franchise.
  ?item wdt:P31 ?type.
  ?propertyItem wikibase:directClaim ?propertyRel.
}
GROUP BY ?type ?typeLabel
ORDER BY DESC(?items)

Try it!

Discussion

Notified participants of WikiProject Video games --Jean-Fred (talk) 09:52, 15 May 2020 (UTC) [reply]

Notified participants of WikiProject Narration --Jean-Fred (talk) 09:53, 15 May 2020 (UTC) [reply]

Notified participants of WikiProject Fictional universes --Jean-Fred (talk) 09:53, 15 May 2020 (UTC) [reply]

Support Genius idea! – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Trade (talk • contribs) at 22:14, 4 May 2020 (UTC).[reply]
Support I like the idea. Do you think this is ready to be discussed with others projects outside of Video games ? If we want to clean the existing relation, we might need some coordination with them. --Misc (talk) 21:23, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- So, I just heard about the story of Harvest Moon and Story of Season (see the comments), wouldn't that cause issue to decide where is the franchise exactly ? The original one in japanese (Bokujo Monogatari) is translated under the name Harvest Moon before 2013 and Story of the Seasons after 2013, and the Harvest Moon name is used for different serie of games. So would the franchise be the japanese one, or the US/Europe ones, or would we have 2 differents franchises with some properties to describe the market ? --Misc (talk) 23:32, 12 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - It seem to me that this is essentially a commercial and intellectual property issue. Maybe we should probably stick to use it when IP rights are actually been sold, with reference. Overwise it seem more flexible to use work classes when appropriate. author TomT0m / talk page 08:18, 16 May 2020 (UTC) (for example, the « ghost in the shell » franchise seems essentially to be the class of all works who take place in the Ghost in the shell universe, with its characters and so on. author TomT0m / talk page 08:22, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    the « ghost in the shell » franchise seems essentially to be the class of all works who take place in the Ghost in the shell universe, with its characters and so on.
    − that’s probably true for GitS (although the various works [manga, movies, anime, OVAs, live-action movie] operate in different continuities, or with different interpretations of the same characters) ; but that does not really fit Gundam (Q732120) where the works, as described above, take place in wildly different fictional universes. Jean-Fred (talk) 15:48, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Jean-Frédéric: There is probably enough common points between those work for the reader to recognize them (and to justify the IP legally). So there is probably room to capture this one way on another on Wikidata more precisely – same characters in a different universe ? Same character class / combat mechanisms / narrative scheme ? Characters parent to each other ? author TomT0m / talk page 17:43, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      @TomT0m: I think we are in agreement: a reader would "know" that a Gundam work belong to the Gundam franchise/IP (indeed, it should often be in the title ;) and this is what we aim to capture here. The more complex relationships between/across works in that franchise can indeed also be captured, using things like based on (P144), characters (P674) and so on. Jean-Fred (talk) 07:19, 19 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
this is a great idea Support --Shisma (talk) 16:22, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 16:54, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support This would be a great improvement Nicereddy (talk) 00:17, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, this would only be used by real-life entities, correct? (That is, actual products, as opposed to fictional entities.) --Yair rand (talk) 19:17, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Yair rand: That’s up for guideline I would say − that’s definitely my primary goal, and that’s reflected in the examples I put in the header.

However, as I developed in the text, I do believe that Luigi (Q210593)instance of (P31)Mario franchise character (Q33093124) is a fundamentally flawed data modeling (are we going to create a “character from X” item for every franchise out there?), and I would see a strong argument for Luigi (Q210593)instance of (P31)fictional character (Q95074) + Luigi (Q210593)<media franchise>Mario (Q4803535). Jean-Fred (talk) 09:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like someone repurposed James Bond (Q844). I undid that. You probably want to use another sample. --- Jura 14:51, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Jean-Fred (talk) 17:15, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support As I am quite active in the field of media franchises right now, I am very much looking forward to this. -- Discostu (talk) 20:43, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Moebeus (talk) 20:58, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Jean-Frédéric, Trade, Misc, TomT0m, Shisma: @Valentina.Anitnelav, Nicereddy, Yair rand, Jura1, Discostu, Moebeus: media franchise (P8345) has been created. Pamputt (talk) 05:40, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Jean-Frédéric: i am absolutely too late for this party - could you explain what will be the difference of 'media franchise' as it is discussed and created in the way above and the idea of the top-level entity "res" in the FRBR-data model as it is proposed here (p. 14). maybe i am wrong, but i think both concepts (frbr res and media franchise) will describe near the same concept, but media franchise has such an economic (capitalistic) bias. Mfchris84 (talk) 13:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]