Scope of a "PC game"?

[g_m_1990 1]

Not sure I'm the only one who asks this question, but I'm really curious that why the term "PC game" was not even defined, or couldn't be found anywhere in pcgamingwiki.com.

So what exactly is a "PC game" in terms of this wiki, i.e. what kind of video games that could be documented here, and what cannot be?

I thought this wiki is dedicated only to "IBM PC Compatible PCs and their successors", i.e. x86-16 and above architectures PCs that has a BIOS/EFI, but later I realized the wiki has a list of games with PowerPC, MIPS and ARM architecture "PCs" which clearly falls out of the above criteria. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_lists

With that said, there are a plenty of other "PCs" with other kind of specifications, e.g. NEC's PC-98, which uses x86-16 and above CPUs but cannot be categorized as "IBM PC compatible", however they are not documented. With ARM, MIPS and PowerPC games could be found here, why PC-98 games (as well as other specifications that could be potentially called as a "PC") couldn't be found in this wiki?

[BaronSmoki 3]

This may answer your question: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/PCGamingWiki:Editing_guide/Wiki_policy

[g_m_1990 1]

1 hour ago, BaronSmoki said:

This may answer your question: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/PCGamingWiki:Editing_guide/Wiki_policy

Thanks, that clears a bit of my question and concern. So any OSes or systems configured in a special way not listed on the wiki cannot be added at this time unless its ambiguity has been cleared by PM.

But still it would be better to be a bit more detailed on this, if necessary.

[Dandelion Sprout 13]

From what I understand after being pretty active here for 7 months:

✓ Games for Windows (3.1, 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, RT, 10), macOS (Any version), Mac OS Classic (Any version), Linux (Any distro), DOS (Any version that I know of), and so-called bootloader games from the 1980's.
✓ Chrome Web Store games have to be locally playable to count; i.e. they can't just be links to Flash game sites.
— Browser-only games.
— Games that are exclusive to consoles, phones, or tablets.
— 80's microcomputers, such as Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Commodore Amiga.
? I personally consider FreeBSD and Haiku OS to be in the "Linux" category
? iOS apps with Mac M1 support, could plausibly be added to existing game pages, as long as it isn't the only known PC version of a game.
? Although there are no rules against fanmade games or unlicenced Russian 00's games, some care should be taken to establish that they aren't viruses or very-low-effort.

[g_m_1990 1]

2 hours ago, Dandelion Sprout said:

From what I understand after being pretty active here for 7 months:

✓ Games for Windows (3.1, 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, RT, 10), macOS (Any version), Mac OS Classic (Any version), Linux (Any distro), DOS (Any version that I know of), and so-called bootloader games from the 1980's.
✓ Chrome Web Store games have to be locally playable to count; i.e. they can't just be links to Flash game sites.
— Browser-only games.
— Games that are exclusive to consoles, phones, or tablets.
— 80's microcomputers, such as Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Commodore Amiga.
? I personally consider FreeBSD and Haiku OS to be in the "Linux" category
? iOS apps with Mac M1 support, could plausibly be added to existing game pages, as long as it isn't the only known PC version of a game.
? Although there are no rules against fanmade games or unlicenced Russian 00's games, some care should be taken to establish that they aren't viruses or very-low-effort.

FreeBSD OSes are not Linux - rather, they share some code base with research UNIX if my memory serves correctly, and may share more code base (kernel-wise) with macOS/OS X/Mac OS X (which is a certified commercial UNIX and is Darwin, a BSD "variant", plus proprietary components).

Haiku OS is a BeOS clone, and there is no significant system component that share characteristics with UNIX/Unix-like/*nix systems; hence it is not a *nix system (and of course not a Linux system). Similar terms with ReactOS which is a Windows clone.

Classic Mac OS in this wiki site should be from version 7.1.2 ("PowerPC" release) to the last release version number of 9.

[g_m_1990 1]

16 minutes ago, g_m_1990 said:

FreeBSD OSes are not Linux - rather, they share some code base with research UNIX if my memory serves correctly, and may share more code base (kernel-wise) with macOS/OS X/Mac OS X (which is a certified commercial UNIX and is Darwin, a BSD "variant", plus proprietary components).

Haiku OS is a BeOS clone, and there is no significant system component that share characteristics with UNIX/Unix-like/*nix systems; hence it is not a *nix system (and of course not a Linux system). Similar terms with ReactOS which is a Windows clone.

Classic Mac OS in this wiki site should be from version 7.1.2 ("PowerPC" release) to the last release version number of 9.

Oops... I may be wrong. There was a debate around Haiku OS.

https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/is-haiku-a-unix-like-os/8801/4

Nah, the term "Unix-like" is just too broad...

[Dandelion Sprout 13]

Considering I've frequently used FreeBSD FreshPorts as a source for a game being able to run on ARM/PowerPC Linux, it could get problematic for me if the PCGW mods were to disagree with me doing that... 😅

As for Mac OS Classic, I've seen many Mac OS games from the early 90's being counted as eligible for PCGW, back when 68k and PPC blurred together.

[tyl0413 3]

I've spent way more time thinking about this than i should have and have rewritten this post multiple times before posting and i came to the conclusion that there really is no technical definition to what a PC is. A PC is anything we consider a PC and to consider something a PC there doesn't have to be too many similarities to do so. Any technical definitions end up missing something that we would otherwise consider a computer but there are not enough similarities to justify considering it as such technically. So I'll just put the questions I was thinking about on here. If we can answer them and find the shared characteristics we'll be closer to knowing what a PC is. Or maybe I'm just thinking too deep into it.

Does architecture matter?

Does OS matter?

Does the physical form factor of the device matter?

Does the type of gameplay features of a game designed for the platform matter since we are talking about games after all?

What does "designed for the platform" mean, is a multiplatform game designed for any platform in particular, which one and if so why or why not?

Here some examples i guess:

Is the iPad Pro a PC?

Is a PS3/4 running Linux a PC?

Is a Windows Phone modded to run Windows 10 on ARM a PC, does it matter if it can be docked?

Is a Linux Phone (Librem 5/Pinephone) a PC? Does it matter if it's docked?

Is an Xbox One/Series (x86 CPU/Windows based OS) a PC? If it ran full Windows would that make it more of a PC?

Is a tablet a PC, does it matter if it can be docked, does architecture matter, does OS matter?

Is the Commodore a PC?

Are pre-Mac Apple devices PCs?

Is a streamed session of an OS a PC (Shadow)?

Again maybe I'm just overthinking way too much but this thread really made me think.

[Aemony 142]

On 5/31/2021 at 1:46 AM, tyl0413 said:

Does architecture matter?

Does OS matter?

Does the physical form factor of the device matter?

Does the type of gameplay features of a game designed for the platform matter since we are talking about games after all?

What does "designed for the platform" mean, is a multiplatform game designed for any platform in particular, which one and if so why or why not?

Here some examples i guess:

Is the iPad Pro a PC?

Is a PS3/4 running Linux a PC?

Is a Windows Phone modded to run Windows 10 on ARM a PC, does it matter if it can be docked?

Is a Linux Phone (Librem 5/Pinephone) a PC? Does it matter if it's docked?

Is an Xbox One/Series (x86 CPU/Windows based OS) a PC? If it ran full Windows would that make it more of a PC?

Is a tablet a PC, does it matter if it can be docked, does architecture matter, does OS matter?

Is the Commodore a PC?

Are pre-Mac Apple devices PCs?

Is a streamed session of an OS a PC (Shadow)?

 

From the perspective of PCGW, and what we cover, basically the answer to all of those questions are "No."

This whole thing is a slippery slope -- if we start covering GeForce Now just because it streams a PC-game from a virtual Windows computer somewhere then we would have to cover Stadia as well, which technically is "Linux" but isn't otherwise much of a similar platform the same way regular Linux is. Further on, covering GeForce Now and Stadia would make it questionable why we don't cover Playstation Now or the upcoming Xbox Cloud Gaming services -- from an end user's perspective there's literally no difference between GeForce Now, Stadia, Playstation Now, or Xbox Cloud Gaming; they're all the same sort of streaming services with the same locked down platform/interface that the user cannot interact with beyond the limited options available through the game itself.

This is actually why I recommended Andy to set up AppleGamingWiki as a separate wiki from PCGW, because if PCGW started to cover sideloaded iOS/iPadOS games running on macOS then it wouldn't make sense to not cover Android games either as they can equally be able to run on PCs through the use of emulators or such. Again a slippery slope with the end result of "PCGW" now covering Windows, Linux, macOS, Xbox, Playstation, Stadia, iPhone, iPad, Android devices and games... AppleGamingWiki sidesteps that whole issue by stating that it covers Apple silicon devices and generally doesn't concern itself with handling legacy stuff. The most that wiki goes to is document a short table regarding how macOS compatibility of a non-native game might run through some form of compatibility layer like Rosetta 2, sideloading, CrossOver, Wine, or through virtualization. Beyond that, however, the site doesn't view Windows/Linux games as "Apple Silicon" games and so doesn't provide a way to list release dates for those sorts of things nor availability of non-Apple copies (it refers users to PCGW instead for that information).

[Garrett 214]

There wasn't really a strict distinction of what sort of platforms would and wouldn't be covered back when the wiki was started. Windows/OS X/Linux were there, of course, and the inclusion of classic Macintosh and DOS/PC booter games came about naturally, in part because those are part of the modern system lineage to some degree (you can't necessarily run them on the newest systems today, but there is or was support for running that legacy software on the modern successor OS at some point along the way).

I've tried to distinguish classic Mac OS from OS X where possible while editing (this isn't made easy by sources like MobyGames treating this as an unbroken lineage). I don't know enough about the classic Macintosh era to say whether a singular classic division is sufficient or even correct.

Defining what a PC 'is' might be a bit broad; if you would like to see a particular system added I'd suggest making a topic for discussing that individual case.

Streaming services are probably never going to be covered (except as an aside on pages for games with normal versions) because you're not actually playing it on your PC in the traditional sense, you're just using your PC to send commands and view the resulting output (identical to using that streaming service on your TV, phone, tablet, etc.)

 

On 6/4/2021 at 2:50 AM, Aemony said:

This is actually why I recommended Andy to set up AppleGamingWiki as a separate wiki from PCGW, because if PCGW started to cover sideloaded iOS/iPadOS games running on macOS then it wouldn't make sense to not cover Android games either as they can equally be able to run on PCs through the use of emulators or such [...]

Some clarification in this area will inevitably be required in the near future with Android apps coming to Windows 11 through the Microsoft Store (these apps will run directly and function just as you'd expect a real native app would)--especially if there end up being weird cases where there is (or was) both a native version for some OS and also the Android version in the store.

[Aemony 142]

39 minutes ago, Garrett said:

Some clarification in this area will inevitably be required in the near future with Android apps coming to Windows 11 through the Microsoft Store (these apps will run directly and function just as you'd expect a real native app would)--especially if there end up being weird cases where there is (or was) both a native version for some OS and also the Android version in the store.

Tell me about it 😩 The moment Microsoft announced support for Android apps on Windows, I faceplanted because of the potential implications for PCGamingWiki and AppleGamingWiki...