Category talk:Lost media

For some reason, this category just won't be shown on any pages that have it. But I just wanted to say Dr. Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 35 are NOT lost media. They are just unplayable. There is still footage of the game avaliable. Kaptain Skurvy 15:00, February 2, 2025 (EST)

That makes them lost media because there is no way to access them other than archival footage. Ray Trace^(T|C) 15:01, February 2, 2025 (EST)

Are you just referring to YouTube videos? Nightwicked Bowser 15:02, February 2, 2025 (EST)

We mean... Private servers for Super Mario Bros. 35 definitely exist, we've heard of those. Dr. Mario World, we're less certain of, but that's mostly because mobile game modding/private servers are kinda in an infancy state still. We feel like we should exclude 35 as a result, though, since if "not available officially" is the metric, then most games are "lost media", and this category becomes basically just a general media category on a delay of a few years for when they stop making physical copies and don't have re-releases to pick up; like, what, are we going to just start calling Yoshi's Cookie lost media? ~Camwoodstock (talk) 15:46, February 2, 2025 (EST)

1000000% agree that being unplayable officially is miles away from "lost media". Super Mario Bros. 35 is fully archived and fully playable. Nothing about it is lost.--PopitTart (talk) 16:35, February 2, 2025 (EST)

(edit conflict) There are means for you to obtain and play Yoshi's Cookie right now even if Nintendo hasn't been selling the game. As loose as the term "lost media" may sound within the boundaries of our most esteemed, uber-formal educational resource mariowiki.com, it's at least consistently been defined in internet and pop culture parlance as some kind of duplicable work whose known copies either lack some parts or have expired entirely. Or something in that ballpark.
TBH, I'm not sure whether Dr. Mario World truly fits these criteria. While it's not currently playable, even as a fan build, the APK still floats around and I assume its assets can be readily extracted. A dismantled car may not be driveable, but all the parts that would make it work are scattered about the room, in mint condition, and can be assembled with existing knowledge. How "lost" do you measure that car to be? Same with Dr. Mario. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 17:08, February 2, 2025 (EST), edited 19:29, February 2, 2025 (EST)

Why are the details hidden to guest users?

The circumstances surrounding lost media shouldn't be obfuscated to the average reader. That only creates confusion and hinders the already tenuous research and improvement that goes into documenting this stuff. (Assuming this is not a bug or a mistake.) -- KOOPA CON CARNE 18:33, February 4, 2025 (EST)

It works on our machine... Can you elaborate what you mean by this being hidden to guest users? ~Camwoodstock (talk) 18:51, February 4, 2025 (EST)

Nothing beyond the boilerplate statement "This article is about..." was showing on my phone when I was logged out (i.e. when I was browsing as a guest). It was probably a bug. Either way, it's fixed now; thanks Porple! -- KOOPA CON CARNE 19:42, February 5, 2025 (EST)

Prima e-guides

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Prima Games used to offer electronic formats of their game guides on their official website, which were only readable as a collection of web pages and requiring users to log in. The publisher even allowed owners of these electronic guides to view them as legacy content long after they went out of the game guide business. Back in November of 2024, however, they epicly trolled their paying customers by pulling the curtains on this side of their website altogether and thus locking these customers out of their purchases. While print alternatives have thankfully been digitized and uploaded to sites like Internet Archives, the guides in their strictly electronic forms are probably now lost.

For this reason, would it be appropriate to slap the {{lost}} tag at Prima Games#List of Super Mario guides and provide the above context, or would this be excessive considering that the contents of these books are still very much publicly available, albeit with a different appearance? Note that I don't know how different the e-guides were from their print counterparts in terms of information. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 15:10, February 19, 2025 (EST)