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RPS Demands: 10 Things All PC Games Should Do
Written by Alec Meer on September 29, 2008 at 5:27 pm.
Less a manifesto, and more a notverymanlyfesto, as this is very much a tech-centric list. If you want thoughtful game theory, you’ve got the wrong nitpicker.
The PC is the best gaming platform in the world - but it could be better still. While it’s great that the PC doesn’t have to suffer quite the same degree of standardisation as its locked-down console brethren, we have nevertheless fallen into certain patterns of how we game. There are things we take for granted and thus expect, like WASD controls in FPSes and patches for bad bugs. There are others still we should be able to take for granted, but can’t because the same damn-fool oversights happen again and again. Even outside of the more obvious annoyances like referring to Xbox controls or including ridiculously draconian DRM (which are both more a question of money than of thoughtlessness), a ton of stuff that any gamer could have told the developer was a glaring screw-up keeps on turning up in otherwise great games. Here are just 10 of the worst offenders, 10 things that every single modern PC game should get right and has no excuse not to. Please do suggest others in comments below.
1. Alt-tab support.
Perhaps the single greatest, but so often neglected, Must-have there is. Just having rudimentary task-switching support in there isn’t enough (hello-o Valve games) - it needs to be fairly quickly and smooth, and included in the original release of the game, not in a patch down the line. This should be as big a priority as graphics or sound. Don’t care if it’s a massive pain to code in. Don’t care if you have to re-start the entire game from scratch to put it in. Alt-tab is absolutely integral to the way we all use our PCs. Half of us essentially live at our computers - we need to be able to task-switch to an IM window or an inbox or even another game in moments, not be locked into one program. Frankly - if your game doesn’t alt-tab, it’s not really a PC game.
Possibly deserving an entry of its own, but in the name of keeping this list to 10 I’ll include it here - all PC games should be able to play in a window. I’ve missed social events because someone’s instant messaged me about going to the pub, but not bothered to phone or text when I don’t get back to them right away because I’m off in a game. One day, the girl of my dreams will magically message me, and by the time I’ve exited the game she’ll have got bored of waiting and declared her love for my arch-nemesis (I don’t actually have an arch-nemesis, but I’m working on it). Then I will hunt down and kill the developer of whichever unwindowable game I was playing at the time. They will appreciate why. Window play is also necessary for 2D games whose resolutions can’t be changed - 800×600 pixels of pretty hand-drawn art look like roadkill in toontown when they’re stretched over a 1680×1050 panel.
2. Use standardised install and savegame folders
Everything goes in Program Files by default, please (and, just as importantly, there needs to be an option to install anywhere the player would rather). Don’t have your game install itself into the root of C:\ or an obscure sub-folder, and when you do put it in Program Files don’t stick it inside [Publisher name]\[Developer name] - just stick a folder directly in there under the game’s name. Gamers want to be able to find their game files easily, not have to Google for everyone involved in its creation just so they can work out what folder it’s in.
This is doubly true of savegames. We need to be able to back those suckers up in case of disaster or a Windows reinstall. Know where STALKER hides its savegames in Vista? C:\Users\all users\documents\stalker-shoc, that’s where. Here’s where games whose developers aren’t crazy stick their saves on my PC - C:\Users\Alec\Documents\My Games. In other words, the standard My Games folder inside (My) Documents, a two-click, standard process to reach. To find STALKER’s saves, I have to dig through five separate sub-folders, in something I’d never otherwise look at. Who are these mythical ‘All Users’? They’re not me, that’s who.
Even our beloved World of Goo fails at this. The game goes into Program Files\World of Goo. The savegame - and the savegame alone - goes into C:\ProgramData\2DBoy\WorldOfGoo. ProgramData? Worse, that’s actually a hidden folder by default. Gah!
3. Automatically set themselves to your desktop screen resolution
Don’t default to something horrid and archaic like 640×480. The vast majority of PC gamers use flatpanel monitors, and games running at anything other than their native resolution tend to look horrible. Save us the hassle of changing the setting ourselves, but most of all save the less tech-savvy from having to work out what a resolution even is in the first place, or just putting up with a blurry screen because they’ve no idea how to fix it. Clearly, still allow the resolution to be easily changed to whatever the gamer wants, however: the game needs to support every res the monitor does.
4. Support widescreen resolutions.
Widescreen isn’t the future - it’s the present. Just look at the consoles for proof of that, or at the top hits for ‘monitor’ on Amazon. And expecting us to edit an ini file or type in command lines doesn’t count as widescreen support.
5. Uninstall in seconds.
Don’t have it laboriously check every single damn file before it has the grace to remove ‘em - just wipe the folder, pull the main hooks out of the registry and be done with it. I uninstalled the FIFA 09 demo today, and it all but locked up my PC for ten minutes while it did its ridiculous, disc-churning thing. Then I uninstalled the King’s Bounty: The Legend demo, and it was gone in the blink of an eye. That’s the way to do it. When I want someone to leave my house, I just want them gone - I don’t want them hanging around on the doorstep making tedious chit-chat for half an hour. Tied into this is installing neatly in the first place to ensure removal is simple - the game should all end up in one place, not explode tiny bits of itself all over the hard drive.
6. Don’t require the CD/DVD in the drive to play.
Again, we’re talking about a PC, a device with hundreds of gigabytes of storage. A game needing to look at a plastic disc entirely external to the game install folder whenever it runs is openly ludicrous. I know it’s for copy protection’s sake (and even so is of debatable effectiveness in this day and age), but the annoyance to legit customers surely outweighs a few extra lost sales before the inevitable no CD crack turns up anyway. Requiring PC gamers to scrabble through a vast pile of discs just to play the game they’ve already installed is contrary to the nature of the platform, and lures people towards less than legal solutions that may ultimately push them further towards piracy. And you wouldn’t want that, would you publishers?
7. Keep the quicksave and quickload keys far apart.
Accidents happen, whether it’s sausage-fingered gamer stereotypes or just furious keyboard-slapping in rage at another defeat. Hitting quicksave when you’re reaching for quickload is the worst thing in the world, including being licked to death by a pack of hobos. If you set quicksave and quickload to F5 and F6, you are not fit to be developing PC games. F6 and F9 are fine - that’s enough space to blame quicksaving just as you get killed on the player being stupid, not on developer thoughtlessness.
8. Escape means menu/pause
The button’s actually called ‘Escape’, for heaven’s sake. Why on Earth would a game ever bind a request to leave or pause the action to anything else? This needs to be standardised. No-one wants to be miserably jabbing at random buttons one-by-one because the phone’s ringing but they’ve got no idea what brings up the pause menu.
And, because I want to keep this list PC-centric rather than generalist to all games, I’ll mention cutscenes here rather than as a separate point. Pressing Escape during a cinematic means I want to end that cinematic. Literally, I want to escape this movie you are making me watch. Please respect that button’s purpose. Please respect your players - and if you make any of your cutscenes unskippable, you don’t.
9. Auto-backup quicksaves
Again, accidents happen. Excited gamers hit quicksave when they think they’re out of danger but a giganto-beast is just about to feast on their ankles. Files get corrupted. And then you’re screwed, with no option than to rewind potentially hours of progress. So whenever the player hits quicksave, the game should keep a copy of the last one in case of disaster. The last two, ideally. It’s just common sense, and surely an incredibly simple process.
10. Patches should fix, not break
If your patch renders savegames from previous versions of the game inoperable, it’s just not ready for release. If people have to restart a game from the very beginning because of this, they will hate and distrust you for it. If there’s honestly no way around this, because the under-the-hood changes really are that absolute, then the patch needs to say as much in giant red letters when it’s run: “INSTALLING THIS WILL BREAK YOUR SAVES. OK?” A footnote in the readme file is not enough. Better yet, the lead designer should show up at the door of anyone installing the patch with a box of chocolates and an apologetic hug.
Stepping away from savegames, if your patch introduces new problems then it’s hardly a patch, is it? Test it to death before you let it into the wild - remember that Eve update which deleted critical Windows files? Such a thing cannot be allowed to ever happen again.
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Fumarole says:
Regarding point 7 - I’d be happy if all games simply included a quicksave. The ability to rebind keys makes it easy enough to prevent fat-fingering the keys, if one is so prone.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
finchDenton says:
2. Use standardised install and savegame folders
Goddamn, EA you motherfuckers, listen to this. I’m sick of finding my Crysis and Spore saves in stupid folders.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Katsumoto (jvgp100) says:
2- Personally I install all my games into C:Games, cuz even program files pisses me off - it already has a load of random software in it, having to trawl through that in addition to my mass of games gets infuriating. I agree with the general point though, why does it have to be done by publisher! Argh. Also agree about the save game malarkey - nowadays games seem to save their games into any of about 5 or 6 different folders. Why not do as you suggest, or even better imo, just put them in a folder called “save games” in the folder that you installed the game into!
8 - I agree, but I also think more games need a way to pause cutscenes (space bar?). It’s so annoying if your mum/girlfriend/whatever comes in during that crucial cinematic, and you can either miss the entire thing or try and get rid of the intruder politely whilst at the same time trying to take in the essential plot twist.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Chris says:
Great list! The only one I’m not entirely in agreement with is the CD/DVD one. I think that’s the least intrusive bit of DRM right now — if you lose a movie DVD, you can’t watch the movie, after all. I don’t think checking to see you haven’t passed the disc on to someone else is that terrible of a thing.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Carra says:
Ok:
-> All buttons should be remappable! I play with the numpad instead of WASD. If I can not put my movement there, I won’t even bother with the game. And not being able to remap the Mass Effect spell hotkeys to the buttons around the numpad (/, *, -, …) is just horrible.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Optimaximal says:
Addendum to #8.
If playing a single-player game, hitting Escape to explicitly pause the game MUST PAUSE THE GAME. There’s nothing worse than needing a wee, pressing Esc (out of habit and/or expectancy), only too come back to find your forces wiped out.
I’m looking at you Darwinia, you otherwise largely flawless masterpiece!
re: keyboard remapping -
Splinter Cell:Double Agent gets an automatic -900000000% for forcing you to use the Return key to do anything. It made an already shoddy buggy game noticeably worse!
September 29th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Reader No. 4 says:
Actually, with point 8, it would make a lot more sense to bind pausing the game to the button that says “pause” on it, and when you think about it putting quit on “end” makes as much sense as “escape.” Escape is the standard and all games should respect it but I wouldn’t try to logically justify it.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
phuzz says:
Yes to all of the above, except maybe the uninstall thing, because I usually just reformat every 6 months or so instead…
Perhaps we should have a similar idea to Games for Windows (wait! read the rest! don’t flame yet!). A sticker/logo that developers can put on their games when it complies with the above list of requirements, some sort of Campaign for Proper PC Games or some such (ideally with a witty/smutty acronym ).
Console developers should be used to having to jump through hoops to get their games published, most of the above (except maybe 1 & 10) should be trivial to implement.
And lastly, this is a special plea for Valve:
Once I’ve set my display settings and key bindings for one source game, why do I have to set them again for every bloody mod I download?
September 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
MrMud says:
Always allow the user to change the default controls.
Not quite so important in some genres but If I cant change the input configuration in an FPS I uninstall at the spot.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
garren says:
Abso-*beep*-lutely agreed on all points. Someone contact Stardock on this to make another list.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Jason Lefkowitz says:
Why not… just put them in a folder called “save games” in the folder that you installed the game into!
Because the idea of a home folder is that you should be able to only back up that one folder, and then, if disaster strikes, you reinstall your apps, restore your home folder, and presto voila all your saves, prefs, etc. are back in place.
Putting saves and prefs in “Program Files” defeats this because it’s outside the home folder.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Joe says:
Speaketh Trueth youeth doeth.
Soundeth liketh aeth knobeth Ieth doeth.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
karthik says:
A nod at point #2. The Gears of War save games are hidden 8 folders somewhere under drive C. And 4 of them are hidden, one of them has a randomly generated name!
11. Allow a save anywhere feature. (Famous Culprits: Far Cry, Riddick)
12. Easy access to in-game volume controls, and one slider for master volume (in addition to music/speech etc) . It drives me up the wall when I can’t alt-tab out of a game and end up having to tweak half a dozen volume sliders in-game to avoid having my ears blown out.
13. In game gamma correction. I hate having to tweak monitor brightness settings before and after a play session.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
phuzz says:
I don’t have permission to edit my own comment 
so instead I’ll add this one as well:
…while standardised save game folders are great, the option to change them would be even greater. Just have an ‘Advanced’ tickbox on the installer that lets those of us who know what we’re doing, install our games to a different drive (for example).
September 29th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Switch625 says:
Being able to pause cutscenes would be nice as well - can it be that hard?
I can pause at any other part of the game to respond to the microwave beeping, the doorbell going or the phone ringing - why is that if any of these things happen during a cutscene I miss a great chunk of the story?
Not that developers should be having long cutscenes anyway, obv.
There’s not a single one of these I disagree with, although regarding Alt-tab support I think there are technical issues that stop it being silky smooth with a lot of games. With more demanding games on lower RAM systems (which, with the advent of Vista, now includes 2Gb systems) all of your desktop stuff gets paged out to the disk, so there’s a big pause when you alt-tab out cos it’s got to page all the game memory to disk, then all your desktop stuff back off disk.
At least, that’s the way I understand it.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Sid Sinister says:
5. Uninstall in seconds.
How when you uninstall game with expansion packs also installed it would be ideal if you could run one uninstall program for the lot. If you have uninstall the expansion packs before can uninstall the main game it can takes ages have, the worst offender I can think is The Sims 2 especially with all it expansion packs that has came out over the years.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Lacobus says:
I was with you untill pressing escape to quit cutscenes. This should be a separate button, escape = pause. Whether it be to a menu screen or whatever.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Bobby says:
If your patch renders savegames from previous versions of the game inoperable, it’s just not ready for release
That one just won’t happen. ever.
Most notably because with each little change in the game structure there’s a chance the old save game state may actually be invalid or even bug-inducing by the new “rules” the game follows post-patch. Writing systems to correct the old game state as it is loaded is, to put it mildly, not trivial.
There are other problems, but that one’s the hardest to take care of.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Fred says:
I absolutely agree with all but #5. While it’s true that when I ask a guest to leave, I want them out ASAP, if they’ve been leaving crap all over my house, I don’t want to have to clean up after them.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
suchchoices says:
Point 7 is a close relative of the reason why my keyboard has gaping holes where those “power off your computer by accident while you try to hit F12 in the dark” keys usually sit.
I propose the addition of the Clear Sky Crash Reporter Memorial Point, whereby seriously bug ridden games with automated error reporting tools are strongly encouraged to ensure the error reporting tools themselves do not fail.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
MacBeth says:
How about deactivate the goddamn Windows key so that you don’t accidentally hit it in the middle of a game while reaching for Ctrl or Alt… though I have never ever used the Windows key for the purpose for which it was invented (not even sure what that was tbh) so mine is currently removed from my keyboard and lost somewhere…
September 29th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
ascagnel says:
@phuzz:
Most games have had such a checkbox for quite a while. Going back at least as far as 2003 (I remember installing SimCity 4 to my G:\ drive).
September 29th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
gattsuru says:
14. Have an autosave. This goes doubly for games that inspire eight-hour-long gameplay sessions. This goes quadruply for any game that could ever have a bug which causes crashes (and thus, any game).
September 29th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Saflo says:
If your story-driven game is divided into discrete levels or chapters, have an unlockable menu that makes them available for replay after completion. Halo did this, Half-Life 2 did this, and everyone else should do it.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Sucram says:
Like Katsumoto I also install to X:\games\ rather than program files. A few titles default to this, it would be nice if during install you were given the option:
Install directory:
O X:\ProgramFiles\thisgame
O X:\Games\thisgame
O custom..
UserSettings directory:
O MyGames
O (install directory)
O various random folders you’ll never find
September 29th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
LewieP says:
I will say on the widescreen point, they should also support non-widescreen resolutions. A bunch of recent PC games have been “Widescreen only”, which is bullshit.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
FP says:
Great list, this is what games for windows should have been.
One thing though, your suggestion for solving #5 is a really bad idea since users *will* manage to install the game into somewhere important (e.g. straight into c:\program files or c:\users\ or c:\myimportantdata) several pieces of software have been bitten by that before.
@Katsumoto
In addition to what Jason said, saving files into a subfolder of Program Files can cause problems on Vista.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Mr_Day, Pioneer of Yawning Indignity of Man says:
Amendment to unskippable cutscenes:
Developer\publisher logos and introduction cutscenes should be shown once, then moved to a button on the title screen to only be shown when the player wants to watch them.
This is especially true of MMO games. Age of Conan and Warhammer are guilty. I want into the game, not to look at EAs logo. Sod off, will you. Piss off. I am pushing esc. I sodding hate you.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Shadowmancer says:
3. Automatically set themselves to your desktop screen resolution
No and NO, why because most people dont have a £100,000 pc, so when i play crysis s i’ll have to play it at 1650 x 1050 by your reconing or i’m not a gamer i mainly play games at 1280 x 768 and they are fine run with brilliant graphics and a good framerate only old games run at my default rez.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Keith says:
Yes. Very yes. Specifics:
@Katsumoto, re:8, pause for cinematics. Yes! I would probably suggest that instead of the Escape key skipping cinematics, it pauses them. Like it pauses the game, so it’s consistent. Make the “skip cinematic” button something like Backspace. Or even, as Tomb Raider Legends did on Xbox, have a “Skip cinematic” option appear on the pause menu when in one. That way you avoid accidental skips, and don’t have to implements a “replay cinematic” button for people who were busily hammering space/whatever when the cutscene kicked in.
re: 2, yes. One thing though — in order to have “Vista compatible” or “XP compatible” badges on the box, software has to follow a few rules about where it saves configuration files. My Games*name of game* works for me. Put the configuration files in there too (ALL of them, if there are separate engine configs and inis and keybindings and whatnot) so I can backup my configs and saves easily if I’m upgrading or whatever.
Happy with karthik’s 11, 12 and, er, 12. What about:
14:Automatic updates. Not “you must download 500Mb before you can play”, but “there’s a patch available: [install] [read changelox] [not now, thanks]“, *before* the game has spent 60 seconds loading textures and showing me endless logo animations. Obviously only relevant for not-steam games.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Sucram says:
On cutscenes:
When you start mashing buttons on your input device it should pause the cutscene and give you the option to skip it. Escape should pause it and bring up the in-game menu.
Similar to what Saflo said about a chapter menu, where appropriate there should be also be a cutscene theatre.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
kafka7 says:
Great article. So many annoyances that we take for granted. Let’s not take them for granted anymore! Man the barricades!
If I was going to add one thing, I would mention your choice of start menu item folder being completely ignored, and placed in some stupid subdirectory starting with the publishers name. I don’t care who publishes it! Put it in \Games\* please! I’m fed up of rearranging my always-tidy start menu after every install to redress egotistical publishers.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Walsh says:
I see kafka beat me to the punch.
My biggest beef is games that let you install to C:Games but don’t let you configure where the Start Menu shortcut goes! I had a whole system goin where my Start Menu was one neat column with a folder for Games and its slowly become a ridiculous PITA to maintain after uninstalls/installs etc.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Andrew F says:
‘Save Anywhere’ is a game design decision, not a universal right.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
EyeMessiah says:
@3
This one is a bad idea! WAR does this with a psychopathic mono-focused obsessiveness every time I start the game and it is driving me crazy having to switch modes every single time. My desktop resolution is not the resolution I game at.
Otherwise, ok.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
EyeMessiah says:
11. Save anywhere is a universal right.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Homunculus says:
Addendum to 8.
The first menu screen you see when you mash the Escape key from in-game should always have a “Quit to desktop” option. The most egregious offender, Assassins’ Creed, is rightfully mocked for its eleven step process, but even the mighty enhanced edition of the Witcher necessitates an unnecessary backstep before releasing you to other interests; despite an obvious space in the pause menu which could comfortably accomodate a quit to desktop item.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
suchchoices says:
@ Sucram, others, regarding the default game install path
It would be nicer if your operating system noticed when you were installing the game, and forced the install and savegame directories to follow the naming convention you’d specified earlier.
@ MacBeth, re: that sodding windows key
I too levered out my left windows key many years ago.
On the subject of keyboards, another pet hate is those games that exclusively grab my keyboard input, and block the use of hotkeys for applications running in the background, eg foobar2000’s global play/pause/next track/prev track hotkeys.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Theory says:
Why not… just put them in a folder called “save games” in the folder that you installed the game into!
On top of Jason’s reason, this generates a UAC prompt (and on OSes older than Vista, completely bones anyone running the with a limited user account). It’s as bad an idea as saving all your documents to Program Files/Microsoft Office/Word/.
In fact something Alec missed is Vista’s dedicated saved games folder: Users/[name]/Saved Games/. It’s even better than adding a new folder to Documents, and it’s even more standardised since every Vista user account already has it.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Colthor says:
2.
I hate it when games installed on not-C: put their save-games on C:.
Keep them in the game’s directory. That way they’re on the disk I specified to install to, and they’re easily findable when you want them. And when you move the disk to another computer all the savegames are already there, you don’t have to go digging for them.
Having your smallish system partition filled up with gigs of savegames because you didn’t realise they were going in c:\Documents and Settings\[...] is a pain in the arse.
And yes, I know it’s part of the Games for Windows specification. Morons.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Diogo Ribeiro says:
Nice list. I have to echo the voices that support the ability to save anywhere (which may indirectly be a jab at annoying checkpoints), and cutscene handling. As for the latter, I’d really like it that when a cutscene comes up that I’d have the option to pause it or skip it. That way, vital information that may be shown to players (I know, it most often breaks down to some trivial bit of bump-mapped breasts sauntering about, but I’m giving devs the benefit of the doubt) can be paused to do something and later resumed.
In terms of DRM, I’ve been thinking about the annoying online verification everytime you launch a game. How about instead of requiring a new verification everytime you want to play a game; the system does a check and maintains the permission for the game running as long as you don’t turn off the PC or switch accounts? This means that the verification can check if the copy is legit, but only does so once every time the user logs onto their OS of choice - NOT everytime they launch the game.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
araczynski says:
I disagree with #2. I HATE when everything wants to go into program files. i install ALL my games under C:\Games and also use a start menu folder ‘games’.
I would also add to include in game cheats in all games. for when we’re not in the mood for their ‘challenge’. sometime i just want to blow crap up, why should i have to hunt the net to get the cheats/trainers when the devs probably have them in the code at some point for testing. stop pretending you’re special and just leave/put the stuff in there from go.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
RandomEngy says:
About #2: Vista requires the process have admin privileges to write in the Program Files directory. That’s why more and more save games are appearing in your Application Data folder, so users with UAC on (and yes, this is a lot of people) don’t get an irritating pop-up every time they run their game.
What they should do is include a static shortcut to the save data so you can get to it easily.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
bitkari says:
Good list. Here are my personal bugbears:
* DRM is only acceptable if it NEVER EVER interferes with my enjoyment of the game. Smart publishers don’t DRM.
* Don’t require a dozen patches to get up to the latest version. If someone buys a game 8 patches down the line, let them grab ONE file to get up to speed.
* Speaking of patches: MAKE THEM AVAILABLE. So many publishers are cheapskates and don’t even host their own patches, relying on fileplanet and friends to do their dirty work. It’s your game, and it’s your publishing brand at stake here, so have a website that works, and keep all of the relevant downloads accessible.
* Gamepad controls on relevant games! So many games, even ports of console games don’t support game controllers. I remember sobbing gently when Beyond Good & Evil would let me play with my gamepad.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
cliffski says:
What really annoys me as a developer is there seems to be NO DOCUMENTED WAY to get the location of the MyGames folder.
Maybe you need to pay cash to microsoft for the voodoo. You can use SHGetFolderLocation() to get MyDocuments (which is what I use), but getting MyGames is impossible.
If anyone knows how, please tell me NOW, as I’m releasing a new game tomorrow 
September 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
suchchoices says:
yay for windows development bullshit! good luck with that one cliffski!
September 29th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Junior says:
I am here to say NO to standardized save locations.
But only because I’m getting so sick of them showing up all over my machine, everytime a developer starts a convention, someone else makes another. Then just to rub it in, three of them start sharing a folder, while all the others linger outside.
MY DOCUMENTS JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE.
So, a save folder in the install please?
September 29th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Maximum Fish says:
Skip-able (or absent) ad splash screens when loading the game. Everytime i loaded up Crysis i had to watch the EA logo animation, the Crytek one, the Nvidia one, the Intel one, the ESRB one telling me the rating of a game i’d already bought, the lawyer soothing ESRB one telling me the online content isn’t rated, and the screen that just says “Crysis” on it. Then, 13 minutes later, i’m at the main menu and, wait, what was i here for again?
September 29th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Katsumoto (jvgp100) says:
Okay, thanks to the numerous people telling me why Vista necessitates save games going into a certain directory! I take that bit back. I uphold everything else I said ;)! If they must go into a certain directory then yes, it should of course be standardised i.e. every game in the same place. Ooo, messy subfolders get my goat!
September 29th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Sucram says:
@suchchoices
Having a default install directory for games has to be a setting in Windows. I don’t think we should be asking for or expecting games to scan our PC’s for where games are installed; comparing registry entries/executables against a database so that they can present us with a default directory.
A lot of the fault regarding where save games are kept is Microsoft’s. Most program data which you would want to transfer between PCs is kept in the Roaming folder. But for games they make a special case and have not one, but two extra folders . Why do they have a ‘MyGames’ folder AND a ‘Saved Games’ folder under Users?
edit:
Just found a good (by which I mean bad) example. C&C3 has Saved games in the SavedGames folder, replays in Documents and maps and profile data in AppDataRoaming!
(P.S. in other news we’re all bankrupt, just in case everybody is just reading about games and hadn’t noticed)
September 29th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
dartt says:
11. No putting checkpoints right before cutscenes.
12. No installer music (that can’t be switched off).
13. No unskippable publisher videos when you start the game.
14. No gamespy?
September 29th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
brog says:
I was all prepared to go ahead and implement in my game anything you said.. and then it turned out half of it was irrelevant because there are no savegames.
I’ll get right on to the windowed mode though.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
cliffski says:
holy fuck, I didn’t even see that saved games folder. i have maybe 10 games installed, including COH and Bioshock and Spore, and that folder is empty.
Fuck it. I’m going to sick to MyDocuments/Kudos2. At least that bloody works.
BTW apparently SHGetFolderLocation() is now SHGetKnownFolderPath(). They changed it just to annoy everyone apparently…
September 29th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
karthik says:
Skippable intro videos and logo splashes. (Echoing Maximum Fish above)
Crysis allows me to skip all but the EA logo, whereas Gears of War makes me watch four screens (about twenty seconds) before I can get to the main menu. I couldn’t find the responsible .bik files, either. Another of Games For Windows’ splendid innovations.
I remember some game that forced me to watch the intro videos the first time after installation that it was launched, but allowed me to skip them from then on. This was perfect. I think it was Titan Quest, or its expansion.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Half Broken Glass says:
I’ve seen many whines about PC gaming(Most recent being the gamer’s manifesto), but this one takes the cake.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Downloads_Plz says:
Oddly enough the one that resonated the most with me is the one that I don’t see anyone commenting on, #1. Alt-tab support. Far and away in my opinion the most annoying thing a dev can ever do is not include alt-tab support.
I do not want my PC to be stuck on your game until I exit. A PC is not a console, and the lack of an alt-tab option (and a FAST one at that…TF2 I’m looking in your direction) seems like an attempt to turn it in to one.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Pahalial says:
All of these.. Yes, yes, and yes. God yes.
So many recent games fail at ALL of these. I hope other major game blogs pick this up so devs have no excuse when they KEEP DOING IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Mman says:
Can’t really disagree with anything on the list, as it’s mostly common sense stuff (beyond #3, possibly, for reasons others have mentioned).
On #2, and an extension of the last part of #5, keep my saves in the damn game directory, instead of spreading it to my documents or some other place (though I have to admit I’ve almost been convinced otherwise by a couple of posts here).
Also, I would put #7 as “let me change my quicksave and quickload keys”. I’ve seen many games that let you configure everything else, but not save/load, which kind of sucks.
Ever since Crysis I’ve completely lost any sympathy for developers not doing #1; Crysis is probably the most advanced game ever, yet almost instantly alt-tabs itself on/off even if you leave it half an hour.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
cliffski says:
agreed. and all games should support the old standard of alt+enter to toggle between windowed and fullscreen mode. Yes it *is* a bitch to code it. No there is no excuse not to do it.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
James says:
If anybody in the industry reading this, please get rid of the
FUCKING SHIT COCKSUCKING INTROS OF FUCKING NVIDIA EA INTEL YOURGRANDMA BULLSHITLOGO CRAP
because
I ALREADY BOUGHT YOUR SHITFUCKING GAME NOW LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!
how hard can it be?
September 29th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
roryok says:
many have said it already, but
8. NO! Escape should still bring up the menu/ pause game as expected, but SPACE should skip the cutscene. I’ve missed exposition in more than a few games trying to get to the menu to turn off subtitles or change resolution and ending up skipping the cutscene
Points 2,4,5, and 6 are pretty much licked by most steam games, so it wouldn’t be a whole heap of effort to get in the other features on this list.
I’ll add a few more too… 11, 12, 13 and 14 are taken so…
15. in relation to standardised keys, WASD are fairly standard to move, but use / reload / lean left /right might aswell be too. Even having a setting where games can choose from a few different standard defaults would be nice, like how some xbox games have a few different controller setups.
16. display setting menus and difficulty settings should be standardised too. Crysis had some very confusing display settings menus. It seems like every developer has a [slightly] different opinion about what goes in the ‘advanced’ section of the display menu. Wouldn’t it be nice to have universal display settings that would become the default for any installed game?
@Katsumoto
I totally agree, I always install games on c:\games\ so I can tell quickly when games are hogging diskspace. But I’m sick of having to specify it (and of playing that little game where you turn “program files” into “games” using only the right arrow and delete key. Ok maybe that’s just me.
@karthik
Uhm… you can save Far Cry anywhere. It autosaves at certain points, but you can also open the menu and save any time….
@Sid Sinister
The Sims games don’t count on this list because they are technically the spawn of the devil.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Patrick says:
I am in complete agreement with Bitkari. All developers must host their own patches. To not do so is troublesome and an inexcusable. Also all patches should be cumulative. If I want to update my game to 1.5 I should not have to download the 1.1 patch and the 1.3 patch and the 1.5 patch and install each one in succession. With modern internet connections patch size has basically become irrelevant. Just offer one big patch.
Ideally all games should come with auto update where you click one button and the patch is downloaded and deployed. Auto update, however, needs to be an OPTION not a requirement for those of us running mods incompatible with the most recent patch or for whatever reason.
Also in line with the Alt-tab point, never map keys so that Alt and tab need to or could rationally be pressed at the same time. Several games I have played, most recently including the Witcher, have done this and it is really annoying (Yes, I know it can be changed but it should never have been set that way in the first place).
September 29th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Alex says:
@Downloads_Plz
I do not want my PC to be stuck on your game until I exit. A PC is not a console, and the lack of an alt-tab option (and a FAST one at that…TF2 I’m looking in your direction) seems like an attempt to turn it in to one.
It takes forever to switch to and from any fullscreen Source game, but even that is still better than Goldsrc. It wasn’t the time it took to switch, but that you’d lose your sound until you restarted the game if you alt-tabbed out.
I do think that the save-games should stay out of Program Files, though. Games should be run as a limited user and limited users shouldn’t have write-access to Program Files. Won’t someone think of the security!?
September 29th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Tei says:
My list:
1) Quake style console
2) Good modding support
3) ESC key skip all non-interactive crap
4) Having Quicksave/Quickload
5) Screenshot key
6) Run on my native LCD monitor resolution, and looks good
7) Ability to change FOV
8 ) Ability to rebind keys
etc..
September 29th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
suchchoices says:
as if millions of angry internet men cried out in varying levels of pent up irritation
September 29th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Mogs says:
Good list RPS. I agree 100%. The other thing I would add after playing STALKER is
11) Don’t invalidate old save files when a new patch is applied.
Having to start the game from scratch because you’ve patched it? Unforgivable.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Sucram says:
@cliffski
NO!
Some people actually use the Documents folder for documents (yes really, I’ve seen it). Having to dodge dozens of game folders to find their files is not fun. Clicking on the democracy2 folder instead of docs does not make them happy people.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Pederson says:
I really want to be able to bind key _combinations_, even if it’s limited to Ctrl, Alt, Shift. Some games do this, most (in my experience) don’t. I know it’s possible to do this without stepping on the bindings for the individual keys, and it would allow me to bind related actions to related keystrokes. Even if this isn’t something I need in most games, I want it in any game complicated enough to justify remappable controls.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Matt says:
1.) Good
2.) Agreed, or, ideally, make the save game folder itself customizable, I don’t like a load of extra folders in “my documents”
3.) not really an issue, some people prefer a lower resolution to improve performance, it’s the same thing as saying “turn everything on high initally because it looks better”
4.) almost all new games do
5.) Not really saying anything, devs don’t deliberately make uninstall process’ long, it’s just either poor coding or good coding.
6.) Industry has solved this problem via securom, woo!
7.) lol
8.) I can’t think of a single game I own where escape doesn’t bring up a menu or similar. Agreed with the cutscene point though.
9.) A bit ridiculous, I’d prefer saves didn’t corrupt than backing up saves
10.) Well dev’s obviously know this, GSC on the other hand could do a MUCH better job of letting people know the patch will break saves.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
spd from Russia says:
why the bloody need to shit allover the Documents and Settings/users/ folders?
keep the saves, configs and EVERYfucking thing inside the games` install folder!
digging thru Documents and Settings/blah/blah/blah/blah/
is always a pain.
And plz why install yet another pukbuster ( I think I`v had 5 of them at some point) and another aGaya driver
and rebindable controlls is a MUST above all those things!
September 29th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Ergates says:
@James
Seconded.
When I double click the icon of a game on my desktop, I do so because I want to play the game in question. Not because I want to stare for several seconds at your companies logo. I’ve bought the game, you have my money, you don’t need to advertise any more.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Gabanski83 says:
Multiplayer via that POS Gamespy as an option, not as the only choice.
I hate Gamespy. I do not understand why devs/pubs use it, as it’s such a pain in the arse to use. Really puts me off multiplayer gaming if it’s through Gamespy and it’s flaky login system, with random lag and disconnects. Relic Online is almost as bad, but at least that’s one series of games.
And yes, lose the playing of the damn EA (or whoever) logo every time I launch a game. I’m sick of seeing the logos of who the game was developed by, published by, sponsored by, the hardware it (apparently) runs best on, etc. I know this shit, and even though I wasn’t interested in it all the first time I had to sit there and watch it, I’m even less interested now, on the thirtieth launch of, say, WAR, or Crysis Warhead, or whatever. I don’t care who made it, I just want to enjoy the product I paid good money for.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Mogs says:
And another thing:
12) Do not, under any circumstances use or support the abomination that is Games For Windows Live. And if you have the Games For Windows label, ensure you support other control pads beyond the 360 controller.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Radiant says:
YES! Fucking save files!
I told the installer to stick the game in my D drive why in gods name are you saving my save games in my windows drive?!?!
The D drive is labeled GAMES you bastards.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
phuzz says:
re: all the installer path malarky:
All this has reminded me of the good ol’ Amiga. The built in installer program started with a quick choice, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced (or similar), if you went for advanced then you’d get asked about the location of every file (assuming the programmer had bothered to script the installer), on intermediate you’d only be asked the more important questions (eg install to where? and where would you like your shortcuts to end up?), and beginner would often not bother asking any questions at all and just install to default locations.
Seems to me we could do with this universally (props to the one or two programs that actually do something like this already). Ideally with your level of expertise being set per user, so my mum can have a limited user account, and not be asked comlicated questions, and I can have full admin rights and be asked every little detail, but now I’m getting a bit beyond just games.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Kadayi says:
Offtopic:-
Cliffski
You’re releasing Kudos 2 tomorrow?
Ontopic. Good list overall gents. There isn’t much I can add or say, save that actual resolution only really suits people with beat machines generally. A better option is a degree of autodetection and optimal setting (best suitable resolution and graphic settings), which you used to get with a lot of games, but seems to have died a death in recent years.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Masterdog says:
Somebody please tell me I’m not going mad, but haven’t we seen this article before? When I saw the title I thought ‘oh yeah, this one included the alt-tab thing and the quicksave keys’. Then I noticed nothing about it appearing somewhere before. Help?
Edit - never mind, saw the alt-tab link at the bottom and remembered I heard the close-together-quicksave keys from a friend. Good list anyway
September 29th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
BobCFC says:
11) Don’t use DRM! I was just about to pre-order Red Alert3 on amazon; it has a natural incentive to buy the game because I want to play it online so I need a real CD key.
After reading all the terrible reports of the SecureROM restrictions and the fact that you can ONLY INSTALL THE GAME 5 TIMES I have decided to wait and see. Sorry you lost a sale EA. I bought the previous game C&C3 last year too.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
dhex says:
i know there’s no chance in hell of nuking activation limits but it’d still be nice if there were. that’s just plain excessive.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Hobbes says:
Why the _____ does a game need to modify the registry?
I understand a work App like Office or Creative Suite where you need to link files to file editors and such.
Annoying!!! adding useless _#it to my registry just makes my comp’s boot time increase EVERY day.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Mark Cook says:
A few thoughts:
- Screen resolution defaulting to desktop: I’ve got a crappy video card in my laptop. It runs a web browser and Office fine at the laptop’s max resolution, but a game made in the last year or three? Not a chance. A better solution is to have the game determine a recommended level based on your video card, RAM and processor during install and default to that.
- Unskippable cutscenes/logo splash screens - some (not all, but some) are there to cover up that they’re secretly loading screens; so maybe this should be to skip as soon as possible (or even show a loading screen if you quit a cutscene before everything is finished loading).
- ESC shouldn’t suddenly become skip in a cutscene. If it brings up a menu in game, it should bring up a menu in cutscene - it’s all about consistency. (The menu having a “skip cutscene” option at this time would be great.)
- Speaking of consistency: a standardized location for saved games means that saved games WON’T end up over My Documents. And yes, please keep them in my home directory.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
friday says:
When I get alt-tabbed out of anything running on the HL2 engine it takes days to get back in…
September 29th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
ascagnel says:
A new one to add, that goes along with the ALT+TAB: Proper support for the mouse in windowed mode, especially in strategy games. RTS and TBS games may not have a minimap and may rely on edge scrolling. In windowed mode, if you go outside the window it could ruin your game. Either trap the mouse, or include a minimap/scroll buttons.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Cowbane says:
I LOVE windowed mode. I love it, greatest thing ever, and usually when a game doesn’t allow it. Guess what? I’m not playing it. I like to talk to people while playing a game, I don’t care how ridiculous the game is. I want to talk about that ridiculousness.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Nitre says:
Good article. Agreed on pretty much all points.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
CdrJameson says:
As a PC developer I would add:
- Let the user set any screen mode for the game, even if the video drivers say they don’t support it. They lie, oh yes, they do.
- Support multiple monitors
- Don’t put anything in the registry- you’re just making it hard to find, back up and restore. There are games that, I kid you not, put save games in there.
- Let the user choose where save games go. You let them choose the installation path, so why not the save games? I quite like my shared folder so I can play at home/work.
- Don’t use Vista-specific anything
- Don’t assume the machine is connected to the Internet
Oh, the old publisher name in the file path is a hang over from the old ‘designed for Microsoft Windows 9x’ certification, which brings me on to:
- Don’t bother with Microsoft logo certification.
And you can make save games ‘forward compatible’with any changes in patches easily enough, as long as you think about the possible future need to do that before you start.
Oh, and why not full video controls in cutscenes?
September 29th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
wien says:
@spd from Russia: As has been stated several times already, storing saves in the game’s directory is bad mojo. In any proper OS (and some bad ones) a normal user does not have write permission there. User files go in the user’s home directory, plain and simple.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
VonWatters says:
Great article.
Re the windows key, get a G15 then you can switch it off for games! Also, mouse thumb buttons are a godsend but PLEASE make your game recognise them, otherwise my thumb starts to atrophy.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
cHeal says:
Heads up, I’m pretty sure that you should infact install your games under Program files, while working with Vista 64bit I learnt that Program Files is a special folder, and all apps should be installed there. Forget what it was all about now. I put all my games under Program Files/Games/*game name*/
It’s pretty easy to do so, as it just means replacing the Publisher name with “Games”
September 29th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
sbs says:
I am used to backing up saves myself, manually, provided I actually do want to keep them.
I still get nightmares from the traumatizing events that unfolded when I wanted to backup a save and could not find it, for the first time, in the actual game directory. I eventually found this C:/Users/User/Documents/My Game. and was horrified when I saw this mess of configs and saves that dozens of games and demos had stored there. I had no clue whatsoever.
All I’m saying is an alternative option to this wouldn’t hurt. Just ask me on install where I want to put the shit.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Nick says:
“As has been stated several times already, storing saves in the game’s directory is bad mojo. In any proper OS (and some bad ones) a normal user does not have write permission there. User files go in the user’s home directory, plain and simple.”
What? Why would you not have write permission to the folder your game is installed to?
September 29th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
cliffski says:
“%USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\ surely, Cliffski.”
BWAHAHAHAHA as if it was that simple.
No.
You can’t do that stuff any more, not if you want to play ball with XP and vista. There are newer ‘approved’ ways of doing all this.
To everyone who wants all the savegames in the games folder, it ain’t gonna happen because amazingly under some setups, the user cannot have access to that folder. Thats the whole point of the MyDocuments crap. Even if your machine is locked down with lead weights, EVERYONE can access their own MyDocs. That’s what its there for.
Vista added more layers of confusion, redirection and virtualisation. yay!
I can use vista fu to get the location of the Savedgames folder, but heck, nobody uses it. They all save their games in Mydocuments\My Games
Even Rise of nations, a MICROSOFT game.
And here is a funny thing… there is NO way to get at the My Games folder in code. All you can do is grab MyDocuments and manually paste it on the end. I STRONGLY suspect that everyone is just hacking this, and that it’s not even a standard anywhere. So fuck it, I’m going to stick Kudos 2 saves and config in there too. I always hated it being in MyDocuments, but wanted to do it the approved way.
This thread could not have been more timely for me. (Kudos 2 wednesday btw).
September 29th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
CdrJameson says:
> Even if your machine is locked down with lead weights, EVERYONE can access their own MyDocs. That’s what its there for.
Oh, if only this were true… Sadly, there are corporate/educational environments where not only do you not have access to these, they don’t even exist (which causes hilarious* Installshield problems). The user ends up with some crazy network path as their only editable area, which there is quite literally no way to guess.
*Not hilarious
September 29th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
“7. Keep the quicksave and quickload keys far apart.”
Oh please god yes.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm