The question
Rampart is a 1990 Atari game. Tower Defence (TD) is a video game genre. It should be easy to answer whether Rampart belongs to the Tower Defence genre or not. The Arcade Museum just calls it a shooter game.As of today, Wikipedia mentions that "The game is considered a precursor to the tower defense genre." And what does it cite as a source? Wired.
The research
On 11 June 2013, Wired, an independent reputable source, published a piece that says that "It's generally agreed upon that Atari's 1990 arcade game Rampart was the first tower defense game". Therefore, it makes sense that Wikipedia uses that piece as a source for the fact that Rampart is a Tower Defence video game.The problem with that? Wired cites Wikipedia. In fact, that very link is a link to the Wikipedia page on the game. Does Ryan Rigney, the author of that piece, actually know for a fact that Rampart is considered a TD game? Or did he just check Wikipedia and said "okay, it's TD, let's just add that to the piece"? The problem is amplified when we check that the piece is not mainly about Rampart, but about the genre. It seems odd, then, to use that as a reference.
Wired says that Rigney "is a professional writer and editor that works in the games industry". So maybe he does know this specific fact that he mentions. But maybe not.
I decided to check what information was available at the Wikipedia page when Rignye wrote that piece. This is the last version before 11 June 2013, "as edited by JEB215 (talk | contribs) at 01:04, 25 June 2013". This last edit is not about the genre. What does this last version has to say about TD and Rampart's genre?
Rampart (...) combines the shoot 'em up and puzzle genres.
(...)
Legacy
Rampart arguably influenced the first tower defense games around a decade later. Gameplay similarities include defending a territory by erecting defensive structures, and making repairs between multiple rounds of attacks.[4][5]It seems all right. Let's check those sources.
{{cite web | url = http://palgn.com.au/article.php?id=11898 | publisher = PALGN | title = Tower Defense: Bringing the genre back | author = Luke Mitchell | date = 2008-06-22 | accessdate = 2008-12-24 }}Both are 2008 pieces, so five years before Rigney wrote about TD games. Both original links are broken. Both were archived at the Internet Archive.
{{cite web | url = http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3165843 | title = PixelJunk Monsters Review | author = Nick Suttner | date = 2008-02-01 | accessdate = 2008-12-24 | publisher = 1up.com }}
Luke Mitchell wrote, on 22 June 2008:
A familiar classic that has been ported to many different consoles, including being available for download most recently on the PlayStation Network, is Rampart. Originally released in 1990, you as the player must defend a set of castles by shooting and attacking any attacking forces whilst also making sure to repair any damage that is done to the castles in question. The maintenance of this specific territory on the map which contains your castles and cannons is integral to surviving and gaining victory, as if it is destroyed, it's game over. Bouncing back and forth between an attacking round and a repairing round, the game was one of the first of its kind and included a lot of strategy, given that you were always on a time limit to complete your goals.In this piece that is also about the TD genre, Mitchell wrote way more than Rigney's one liner.
Nick Suttner wrote, on 1st February 2008 a piece about another game, and in it he mentions Rampart:
The concept is appreciably simple; like the well-regarded Flash title Desktop Tower Defense -- with roots in strategy classic Rampart -- you need to stop waves of enemies from parading to your base to stomp the life out of your young.No very in depth. It kind of makes sense to add this as a reference, to show that Rampart indeed influenced other TD games.
Just for the sake of it, I decided to repeat the process. What was available at Rampart's Wikipedia page when these articles were written?
Before 1st February 2008, the last version was this, as edited by Seba5618 at 17:22, 19 November 2007. It mentions the genre as "shoot-em-up and puzzle", and there's no mention of Tower Defence. Before 22 June, the old revision of the page, as edited by ReyBrujo (talk | contribs) at 16:18, 17 June 2008, is pretty much the same article. So Suttner and Mitchell must have gotten their information from somewhere else.
The action
Since that "Legacy" bit was still present in today's version of the article, this was an easy fix. First of all, making sure that both sources already linked to the archived version, which they already do.The next plan of action was to replace Rigney's piece with the older pieces that do not cite Wikipedia. However, they don't exactly work as perfect sources. Wikipedia says that "the game is considered a precursor to the tower defense genre". Rigney says that "it's generally agreed upon that Atari's 1990 arcade game Rampart was the first tower defense game". Mitchell just calls it a "familiar classic", and Suttner says that another TD game has roots in Rampart.
What I decided to do was to cite Mitchell's piece in the beginning of the article, without removing Rigney's piece. I also added another source I found, for the sake of it.
The conclusion
Wikipedia is not a reliable source, and citogenesis does happen, but this does not seem to have been a case. A happy ending.P.S.: In reading through this 1990 videogame, I found out the Neopets game I played as a child is just a blatant copy of Rampart.
