Also Rod Humble is here (?/!)

I go back again to keeping the standards basic, though, so as not to encroach too much on freedom of design. And it would be nice if whoever did form this organisation was more of a committee with members from the industry than a ruling party. Compliance lists for Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are huge because they are so exhaustive. They cover everything from whether you can write “The A and B buttons” or whether it has to be “The A button and the B button”, to under what circumstances messages should appear and how they should be worded, to a number of different things. Really the PC standards should be more of a ‘best practise’, agreed and conformed to by members of the industry for the good of the industry. And there is absolutely no need to be so invasive with the standards since nobody owns the PC brand, so half the standards you’d see for the console makers would not need to exist on PC.

Creating the standards is only half the issue. The other thing is how they are enforced. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo charge tens of thousands of pounds every time you send your game for submission to their set of standards. This would not be good for indie gaming at all. I think the PC could perhaps self-regulate. There was talk of the PC Gaming Alliance at the thinkosium in response to this question which I think most people scoffed at. But perhaps some sort of similar organisation that wanted to champion quality in games could be trusted to at least publish sensible guidelines. That way if it was clear that perhaps a standard wasn’t followed entirely to the letter, but the game was a lot better off for it and it didn’t impact negatively on the end-user experience, it wouldn’t matter.

But it’s not really going to save PC gaming, is it? That’s the indie scene’s job, and corralling them into some kind fixed format will be like catching gas with a butterfly net.

That’s probably not the best example here, since you’re talking more about making basic concessions to good software practices, which I can agree would be a good thing (PC games already HAVE guidelines and best practices if you care to look for them), but I can also understand why it doesn’t happen consistently. If you have time to set up what directory your save games go into, taking into account all the proper platform and user settings, chances are, you’d prefer to spend that time on making the actual game (rather than the packaging) better. I guess, ideally, you need more money to hire someone to take care of that stuff, but chances are, they’ll just be sucked into more pressing aspects of development.

I think at this point, all you can ask is for PC developers to use common sense on that stuff, but any idea of forcing them to conform kind of defeats the point why they’re making games on a PC.

For me it is clear that compliance (a.k.a. standards, TCRs, TRCs and lotchecks) is impossible for PCs as far as componants are concerned.

But on a software level there are various unwritten rules that really should be written down somewhere so lazy developers who’ve patently never played a PC game in the last 10 years can see how PC games work.

Ed Stern asked “What is a PC?” Now, it’s clear that PCs vary in terms of chipsets, but in terms of interfaces they really haven’t changed much in the last, um-I-don’t-know: millenium? I can’t remember the last time I played a PC not in an internet window without using my mouse. And every game uses a keyboard and/or mouse as the basic or default format. So why is it that there is not a standard for:

- ‘Escape’ is always the key pressed to access main menu screens whilst in-game? (not ‘Delete’ or ‘Backspace’ or any of the many other horrific things I’ve seen and crossed my fingers will be fixed for release)
- Save games are always created in the same directory? (or at least a preference given)
- There is an uninstaller option to delete Registry entries and save games? (I find it pretty crappy that a game that knows where it is programmed to install things won’t tell you where it put stuff and help you get rid of it if it serves no purpose)
- There is mouse support for the main menu if a mouse is installed? (no I am NOT kidding)
- The main menu does not say ‘Press START? (or if it does, it at least tells you which key is ‘START’)
- Save games do not overwrite previous save games without seeking permission?
- Save games ask first before writing to your last patch of disk space?
- Where possible, the installer automatically defaults to the language that the PC is set to? (even if this language option isn’t supported in-game)
- The installer doesn’t attempt to install if you don’t have enough space on your hard drive.
- The installer gives you at least a rough idea of whether you can run a game? (something I know Valve are looking to tackle with games on Steam)

I think a lot of you will agree that the vast majority of these are common sense, even if some are more idealogical and more of a personal preference. But the fact is, unless a game is ‘Games for Windows’, there are no standards for PC games, and even then if it looks like a game isn’t going to pass on all the GfW checks, the branding can simply be removed without a massive song and dance.

I am 100% not saying that all PCs should have the same hardware or that games should be untouchable, self-contained units. These qualities are what make PCs exciting to use and also what are pushing technology ahead in games. But clearly there needs to be someone looking out for the PC to keep the quality of products made for it high, even if only on a very basic level.

In order that the PC may move in sudden and unexpected directions with its merging of hardware and software, and be (for those who can afford it) on the bleeding edge of technology, standardisation is clearly The Enemy and must be stopped.