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Who the heck are you anyway?

My name is Dave Silva, mostly known around the internet as Foxhack. I’ve been involved in several websites and other documentation projects since the early 2000s; most of my original online “infamy” came from my video game fan translations, but I stopped working on those and moved on to other projects, many of which didn’t really go anywhere. I’m also an English-Spanish translator that has worked on a few released games and print materials, but I’ve settled on assisting other people with video game history research. But this is the project I plan to stick to from now on.

Unless something else comes up, of course.

So what the heck is this site about, anyway?

I came up with the original concept for Set Top Games in the later 2010s, while preparing some submissions to MobyGames, specifically this game. I had a moderately large DVD collection and I started noticing DVDs mentioning games in them. So I started to look into them, and found that some had DVD menu based games, which weren’t very interesting… but some had PC games, and that caught my attention.

As I started to catalogue my collection, I started to look into the games that were included, and noticed that a fairly large amount of these were just not documented anywhere. So I decided to do that!

And that was… a very long time ago.

Over the years, I’ve expanded the scope of what this project is meant to cover. What originally started as a small documentation project for MobyGames has spiraled into a full blown documentation project that spans multiple languages, themes, and platforms; and I hope that you’ll join me for the ride ahead as I try to write about all the stuff I’ve found (and haven’t!)

So, what are the rules for what you want to cover?

A DVD or Bluray must have one of the following:

  • A simple menu-based game (trivia, action, reflexes, etc.);
  • A game that runs on top of the movie itself;
  • A more complicated, standalone game (as seen on a small amount of Blurays);
  • Content that is readable on PC, ranging from something simple (like the majority of discs with PC Friendly or Interactual content) to more complicated (full games or game demos);
  • A demo, full retail, or standalone game or entertainment application for PCs or consoles, either on the disc, or included in the same package;
  • Specialized DVD player games that use additional hardware to interact with the disc;
  • A board or tabletop game that uses a DVD player as an important part of its gameplay;
  • Discs with non-interactive additional content that can be accessed through a disc drive: things like articles, documents, books, videos, PDF files containing scripts or catalogs, or music.

The inverse also applies: If a PC game includes a video DVD, it also counts. Also consoles! But I don’t own anything that could run those - yet.

There’s also weird oddities that I’ve found over the years, both game related and not, that I’d like to talk about. Some surprising, some not if you’re old enough. But we’ll get there in due time.

A lot of these disc are 15 years old, or even older. What’s the catch?

The catch is… that a lot of this additional content is not playable anymore due to security upgrades, software being discontinued, people not having DVD drives installed on their computers

And what doesn’t get covered?

  • Items that only have an application that opens a web browser, or that have a link that opens a website in your browser. There’s a lot of those out there, and there’s no real content to interact with.
  • A majority of educational-oriented DVDs. For example, discs that would be included with the purchase of a textbook, religion-themed educational videos, and other classroom-oriented products that do not contain DVD specific content. There are some things that would qualify (and I already own many), a majority of them just do not fall under the scope of this project.
  • Items that promote hate. Yes, they exist. On that note…

What about Harry Potter?

J.K. Rowling is a well known transphobe who uses her fortune to attack women’s rights all over the world. So a lot of people, including many fans who grew up reading her books or enjoying the media that they spun out of them, no longer support her, and actively boycott any related products. Many have also called for not spending money on any games based on the property that are still available for sale and tell others to not support people who ignore the fact she uses her profits to continue spreading hate.

There are at least two DVD games and multiple board games based on the franchise, and many of the earlier films also included extensive game-related bonus features, which do fall under the scope of this project. The good news is that all of the products I want to discuss are no longer in print, which means she doesn’t get a single penny from new sales of these. They’re also very easy to find. Many people just threw out their discs or donated them to charity, and any new editions are lacking bonus content. So you won’t be giving her any profits.

And yes, I do intend to talk about these games. Eventually. But it won’t be immediately. They are on the list, but they’re very low on the list of priorities. I also don’t plan on using any money from site readers on these items.

There are also other people I won’t name yet who have had games or content I would actually talk about down the road. But these discs are not a priority at the moment.

If your site supports it, you can use this handy dandy 88x31 button! Otherwise a normal link with a description is enough.

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It looks round but that’s because of the site theme doing its thing (and I can’t figure out how to turn that off.) It’s perfectly square otherwise.

How can I help the site?

For that you can read the support page right here.

I can also be contacted via social media through Bluesky or Mastodon. I will have other alternate methods of communication in the future.

Additional credits and acknowedgments:

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