CLCTN · TYPE MANIFEST · VIDEO GAME · SEPTEMBER 2026

CIB · THE LIBRARY

SUPERSEDES RETRO GAME

Retro is a date that keeps moving.

A type called retro game has to answer a question the app has no business asking: how old is old enough. In 2026 that line sits somewhere around the PS2, and it will have moved again by the time the type ships. Meanwhile a 1997 Saturn game and a 2019 Switch game are collected by the same person, in the same room, with the same anxieties — completeness, region, edition, and whether the thing still works. So the type is video game, the whole medium, and the era becomes a field rather than a boundary.

Written against vinyl.yml for shape and retro-computer.yml for the clock. This page also settles the signature question raised in One Roof, section 09: the CIB triptych is withdrawn and the game gets the generic ladder instead.

01 · WHY THE OLD CUT WAS WRONG

Four separate failures, each of which on its own would be a reason to widen the type. Together they make "retro" indefensible as a category boundary.

WHAT IT COSTS TO KEEP THE OLD CUT

02 · FIVE MEDIA, ONE TYPE

The real design problem isn't the date, it's the media: a cartridge, a disc, a big PC box, a handheld card and a download code want different completeness, different lookup and different decay. One field — media — resolves all of it, because the rules that vary are exactly the rules the kit already parameterises.

Pick a medium. The two signatures, the clock, the lookup strategy and the hard part all change; the slots, the verbs and the scale do not.

{{ exYears }}

SIGNATURE 1 · LADDER · {{ axisCount }} AXES · LAST STEP MEANS MISSING

SIGNATURE 2 · SET · WHAT SHOULD BE IN THE BOX

THE ONE CLOCK · RENDERS IN THE STATUS SLOT · ESTIMATE

HOW IT IS IDENTIFIED

{{ lookupCode }}

THE HARD PART

Note what stays put across all five: one scale, one clock, two signatures, the same seven slots. The medium changes the content of each, never the count — which is the One Roof contract holding under the widest type in the catalogue.

03 · VIDEO-GAME.YML

Fourteen fields, no new primitive. mediaRules is the only unusual key: a lookup table keyed on the media field that selects which insert slots, which clock formula and which identifier strategy apply. It is data, not code, and it is the reason one type can hold five media without five branches in the app.

RESOURCES/TYPES/VIDEO-GAME.YML

REPLACES RETRO-GAME

id: video-game
name:
  singular: Game
  plural: Games
  collection: The Library
mark: "CIB"
icon: cartridge
gradient: [indigo, claret]

# Same title, different region or print = different object.
duplicates: rows

spine:
  title: Title
  subtitle: Platform          # not the publisher — this is how shelves are read
  year: Released              # this print, not the game's first release
  acquired: Acquired on
  paid: Paid
  value: Value

# One scale, shared by every axis and every medium. Missing is a step, so
# completeness and condition are the same question asked once.
conditions: [Sealed, Mint, Near mint, Very good, Good, Fair, Poor]
allowMissing: true

# Signatures — see One Roof, section 09. Two is the cap, and the clock
# is not one of them: it renders in the status slot like every other clock.
signatures:
  - renderer: ladder
    axes: [mediaCondition, boxCondition, manualCondition]
  - renderer: set
    binds: inserts            # slots come from mediaRules, below

# The era is a consequence of the medium, never a boundary. This table is
# what lets one type cover 1977 to now without a second type.
mediaRules:
  cartridge:
    identifier: catalogueNumber
    inserts: [manual, map, insert, regCard, dustSleeve, spineCard]
    clock: saveBattery        # lithium cell, ~25-35 yrs
  optical:
    identifier: barcode
    inserts: [manual, inlay, regCard, demoDisc, obi]
    clock: discRot            # pressing-plant dependent, see Q2
  floppy:
    identifier: catalogueNumber
    inserts: [manual, codeWheel, feelies, map, disks]
    clock: mediaRot
  card:
    identifier: barcode
    inserts: [manual, insert]
    clock: none
  code:
    identifier: none          # a licence is not an object; the card is
    inserts: [codeCard, sleeve]
    clock: codeExpiry         # the only clock that can reach zero

lookup:
  symbologies: [ean13, upc-a, jan]
  providers: [openvgdb]
  localCorpus: releases.json  # ~180k releases, region-resolved
  ocrFields: [title, platform, catalogueNumber]
  identifierPattern: per-platform

searchable: [title, subtitle, year, publisher, region, edition, place]
placeLabel: Where it is
related: [subtitle, publisher, series]

fields:
  - key: platform          | Platform          | text   | auto
  - key: publisher         | Publisher         | text   | auto
  - key: catalogueNumber   | Catalogue no.     | text   | auto · the real id
  - key: region            | Region            | choice | NTSC-U, NTSC-J,
                                                          PAL, region-free
  - key: media             | Media             | choice | drives mediaRules
  - key: edition           | Edition           | text   | first print, Greatest
                                                          Hits, Platinum, budget
  - key: revision          | Revision          | text   | cart rev / disc ver
  - key: mediaCondition    | Cart / disc       | scale  | ladder axis 1
  - key: boxCondition      | Box               | scale  | ladder axis 2
  - key: manualCondition   | Manual            | scale  | ladder axis 3
  - key: inserts           | What's inside     | set    | slots per medium
  - key: slab              | Sealed / graded   | choice | None, Sealed ungraded,
                                                          WATA, VGA
  - key: saveBattery       | Save battery      | date   | feeds the clock
  - key: playLog           | Played            | log    | [date, note, finished]

supersedes:
  - type: official/retro-game@1
    fields:
      cart      -> mediaCondition
      box       -> boxCondition
      manual    -> manualCondition
      cib       -> (derived from the ladder; field removed)

04 · IDENTITY — WHY TWO COPIES ARE NEVER THE SAME COPY

This is the type's hardest problem and the one a title-based lookup gets wrong every time. Four axes of variation, all of which move the price by a multiple, none of which are visible in the title.

AXIS

THE SAME GAME, TWO OBJECTS

HOW THE TYPE SETTLES IT

05 · THE SEALED MARKET — A POSITION, NOT A FEATURE

WHAT THE TYPE DOES

A slab field with four values, and Sealed as the top step of the ordinary condition scale. A graded slab shows as an outline on the ladder's marker — the same treatment comics and trading cards get, because it is the same fact. Nothing else: no price index, no population report, no grading-service integration.

WHY IT STOPS THERE

The sealed-and-graded end of this hobby is a speculative market with a live controversy attached, and building for it would make the app an instrument of that market rather than a catalogue of a collection. Supporting the field is honest — people own slabs. Ranking, valuing or celebrating them is a product decision I would not make for you without asking.

06 · MIGRATION FROM RETRO GAME

Nobody's collection moves. Three of the four fields map by name, the fourth is derived and disappears, and the media field is filled in from the platform — a Mega Drive game is a cartridge, a Dreamcast game is a disc — with a one-screen confirm for the handful of platforms that shipped both.

07 · OPEN QUESTIONS