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prominos-lexx-playground [2025/02/05 22:51] – [A primer on barcodes] prominosprominos-lexx-playground [2025/02/06 22:43] (current) – [How this guide is structured] prominos
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 and many more and many more
  
-===== How this guide is structured =====+===== How is this guide structured? =====
  
 This guide will first cover topics that are universal to any cataloging effort regardless of what is being cataloged. This will cover topics such as how to read and interpret UPC barcodes. This guide will first cover topics that are universal to any cataloging effort regardless of what is being cataloged. This will cover topics such as how to read and interpret UPC barcodes.
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   * They are not always present. Not every companies adopted barcodes at the same time, in my experience with video game products, vintage and retro video games that came out before the 1990's have good chances to be lacking a barcode. Additionally, products that are part of a bundle or were not sold for retail, like contest prizes, development tools, display cases etc also often lack a barcode.   * They are not always present. Not every companies adopted barcodes at the same time, in my experience with video game products, vintage and retro video games that came out before the 1990's have good chances to be lacking a barcode. Additionally, products that are part of a bundle or were not sold for retail, like contest prizes, development tools, display cases etc also often lack a barcode.
-  * While barcodes are a good way to identify different products in a cataloging project, they almost never identify packaging (cover and boxes), art revision or sometimes even different language boxes/covers and/or editions uniquely. If we're striving to catalog every variations/correction to a product packaging then we can't rely solely on barcodes. + 
 +  * While barcodes are a good way to identify different products in a cataloging project, they almost never uniquely identify packaging (cover and boxes), art revision or sometimes even different language boxes/covers and/or editions. If we're striving to catalog every variations/correction to a product packaging then we can't rely solely on barcodes. 
  
 In the next section, I will introduce the most important format of barcodes you should know when cataloging video games. I won't go over every single format in existence my focus will mainly be on what you'll encounter when looking at video game products. In the next section, I will introduce the most important format of barcodes you should know when cataloging video games. I won't go over every single format in existence my focus will mainly be on what you'll encounter when looking at video game products.
  
 === International Article Number AKA EAN (European Article Number) === === International Article Number AKA EAN (European Article Number) ===
-{{:ean.jpg?400|}}+{{:ean2.jpg?400|}}{{:ean_guards.jpg?400|}}
  
 You will find this format of barcode mostly on products that are sold outside of North America and Japan. You will find this format of barcode mostly on products that are sold outside of North America and Japan.
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    * 6: This is the check digit, I won't go into the detail of how it is calculated but just know that its value depends on the 12 previous digits.    * 6: This is the check digit, I won't go into the detail of how it is calculated but just know that its value depends on the 12 previous digits.
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 +One last thing to mention is that you might runs into EAN barcodes that ends with a ">" (greater than) symbol (see the image above). This is called a guard mark and it is not part of the barcode per se, it is just used to help barcode readers read it properly. I have also heard that some barcodes can start with "<" (lesser than) this also works in the same way and is not considered part of the barcode so you can safely omit them when cataloging. 
 +
 +=== Universal Product Code (UPC) ===
 +{{::upc-a.jpg?400|}}
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 +You'll mostly see these in North America. They were the first version of the barcode to be used en masse and it originated in the United States. They work the exact same way as the EAN but the company prefix is 6 digits long instead of 7. You can easily convert a UPC to EAN by prepending a 0 to the UPC (this has no impact on the check digit). You'll notice that visually the check digit is shown separated from the product code contrary to the EAN where the check digit is grouped with the product code. What I've shown here is a UPC-A format, there are other UPC formats but I haven't seen them used with video game products.
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 +  * 04: With UPC-A you can consider that there's always an implicit 0 at the start so this is really a country code of 004. Since the first number is always a 0 that implies that the country code always indicate the United States given that GS1 country codes between 000 to 099 are either assigned to the USA, are reserved or have some other special meanings.
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 +  * 5496: This company prefix is assigned to Nintendo. We usually refer to it including the country code (without the implicit 0) so 045496.
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 +  * 59043: This is the product code that Nintendo assigned to the Legend of Zelda - Breath of the Wild, Canadian version on Nintendo Switch (remember barcode country code is not necessarily equal to place of sale). .
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 +  * 7: This is the check digit, it serves the same purpose as described above in the EAN section.
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