Video game dataset

Question

I am looking for a video games listing with as many following fields as possible:

• date of release
• platform(s) (e.g. PlayStation 1, Windows 7)
• genre (e.g. RTS, racing, FPS)
• location(s) where the game takes place (e.g. Miami, Paris, China, space)
• time(s) when the game takes place (e.g. Middle Age, contemporary, future)

Answer 1

Giant Bomb (API info) is probably going to be your best bet. They have a very large database of games, and they keep track of details like release date, genre, platforms, publishers, franchises, characters, locations, etc. However, they restrict their API to non-commercial use and 200 requests/hour.

Another one to check out is TheGamesDB (API info). Their database doesn't support some of the more advanced stuff Giant Bomb has like locations, characters, etc, but they are much less restrictive with their data. Unfortunately, their API is known for having a fair bit of downtime -- I wouldn't recommend relying on them for a user-facing app.

There's also IGDB (API info), which is also free and emphasizes that they allow commercial use.

Answer 2

Wikidata is the only place with open data about games. The other sites have APIs for their closed data that have many restrictions and may not be viable if you need data about all existing games.

With the following SPARQL query, you can get the data you need for all games with a single request:

SELECT ?game ?gameLabel ?releaseDate ?platformLabel ?genreLabel ?narrativeLocationLabel ?periodLabel WHERE { SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". } ?game wdt:P31 wd:Q7889 . ?game wdt:P577 ?releaseDate . ?game wdt:P400 ?platform . ?game wdt:P136 ?genre . ?game wdt:P840 ?narrativeLocation . ?game wdt:P2408 ?period . }

Game theme specific information like location and period still missing for most games, but Wikidata is open and you can add the values for the games you need and it will be available for querying immediatly.