this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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At some point in this millenium, it became ubiquitous in games to ask for a button press before switching to the main menu and it has become a pet peeve off mine.

Why is that there? It's your main menu so ugly that you have to shield players from it? Why can I not double click the game Icon, go to the kitchen to get coffee and return to the PC/console to find myself in the main menu ready to continue my game? Seriously, cui bono? Sometimes, they even show a different screen before that press, which some artist got paid for creating, so the developer is also losing (a tiny amount of) money here.

I honestly just don't get the point of these screens.

Bonus negative points for games that only check DLC after that button press instead of any other point of the losing process. Calling a server could easily be threaded while the game assets are loaded since it takes very little hardware load to do so. But no, I get to wait an additional 10 seconds because the game devs want me to for no apparent reason.

On a related note: just allow players to auto skip intros, please. Just put an checkbox in the settings, so that everyone can see it once.

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[–] lloram239@feddit.de 94 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Why is that there?

It's there due to the technical certification requirements of XBox. All games are required to become interactive after a set number of seconds. When you have a complex game with long loading times, that might be difficult. The load start screen works around that, it's simple enough to load quickly and it is interactive, i.e. "Press any key to continue". It's not useful, but it fulfills the certification requirements, all loading time that follows or might happen in the background while that screen is shown, doesn't count.

It the same reason why you see so many games have the same "You'll lose all your unsaved progress if you exit the game" screen, even in games that save so often to be a non-issue. It's a certification requirement too. There is a whole punch of stuff like this in games (and movies) that is not there because anybody wants it, but because some contract somewhere says it has to be there or you aren't allowed to publish your game.

PS: This has been around since at least the Xbox360s, don't know what Sony requires or how Microsoft might have updated their requirements since then.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

God I wish they wouldn't try to adhere to these awful requirements in PC games.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you have a particularly slow PC, this screen would be good feedback that it hasn't crashed while booting the game. It also keeps the game consistent across platforms.

[–] all-knight-party@kbin.cafe 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yeah, they're not gonna do all that stuff for cert and then go "now let's remake our whole intro sequence to be more convenient!", I don't think devs typically have that much free time

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[–] TwilightVulpine@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The save warning is helpful for kids who don't get how game saves work yet.

[–] lloram239@feddit.de 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The problem is that the majority of games do not tell you what you are actually losing or how to prevent it. Do you lose the last five seconds or do you go right back to the beginning of the game? How far away is the next save point? Games don't tell you. You have to try to find out. There are a few smart games that will tell you "2min since your last save", but they are pretty rare.

And of course in modern times that screen is rather unnecessary to begin with: Just save the damn game and let me continue were I left of. Xbox has QuickResume, but a lot of other platforms still have nothing like it.

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[–] Zalack@startrek.website 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

IMO it's a good feature and it's a good thing it's required. I remember the days when I would boot up a game and never be sure if my system crashed or not.

This requires the game to start giving you feedback before you start wondering if you should do a power cycle.

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[–] beefcat@beehaw.org 80 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I honestly just don’t get the point of these screens.

It lets the game see which controller or input method you are using. This screen was (and maybe still is? I'm not sure.) a requirement for certification on consoles going back to the Xbox 360, when wireless controllers became ubiquitous.

Having to press a single button at the start of a game is a pretty minor complaint.

[–] Lowbird@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why can some games just pick that up in the main menu, but others can't?

[–] Noved@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What if I have an Xbox controller plugged in and want to use my keyboard? A simple spacebar hit sets the default controller for fit this play session.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Personally, I think if I cant just use both at the same time it's kind of shit. Only a handful of games actually work like that, and it's insane. I shouldn't have to go into the settings and switch control types. I should just be able to use them if they're plugged in, like GTA or BG3.

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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Plenty of games are able to determine what you're using without having such a screen. The "press any key to continue" screen has been a thing my entire life (born in 85), and it has never been necessary for anything other than simulating the "insert coin" screen for arcade games.

BG3 can use both at the same time, and yet it still has two of these screens. If you're playing with a controller, it will say press any key then you press a button and it changes to "press A to continue" before you actually get to the main menu.

And it's even dumber because you can see the game detects your controller before the first logo screen ends when the cursor is auto hidden.

[–] JangoF76@monyet.cc 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Of all the things to complain about. You must have a very stress free life.

[–] Lowbird@beehaw.org 65 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Dude. It's called a pet peeve. They're allowed, and even people who have very stressful lives have them. It's definitely better than shit-talking random people on the internet - just skip the thread if you don't care about it.

My group calls them first world problems.

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[–] Misconduct@startrek.website 47 points 1 year ago

They spent their time sharing a relatable gripe that sparked some jokes and discussion. You spent yours doing this.

[–] supersonicstork@beehaw.org 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I got curious myself and agreed, so I went looking.

A lot of sources specified that it was part of a technical requirements checklist, and...

Yeap. It doesn't explicitly require a "press any key" screen, but it gives a more pleasant screen to look at while you select a user. People online also say it's used to detect which controller is in use.

If you add a feature like this to a game, it becomes harder to maintain if there are discrepancies between builds. So presumably it's usually just left in rather than removed.

[–] Durotar@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

People online also say it’s used to detect which controller is in use.

I don't get it. Any modern game can detect when you connect or disconnect a controller on the fly, in the actual game.

[–] snowbell@beehaw.org 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Some games use it to determine who is player one vs player two. i.e. whoever presses the button first is treated as player 1.

[–] Oka@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yet they are not built in features to game engines such as Unity and Unreal

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[–] Rocketpoweredgorilla@kbin.social 39 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It annoys me when you close down a game, and it only has the option to send you to the title menu instead of closing out. It's not the worst thing ever, but it's kind of annoying when you need to go, and you have to "quit" the game just to wait for it to go back to the title screen and make you hit "quit" again a second time.

[–] delitomatoes@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It's for console ports. They have a power button..so on PC you'll need to go to that button created specifically to quit to desktop

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[–] mojo@lemm.ee 27 points 1 year ago

So it knows what input device you're using

Bro if this is what bothers you, then I wish I had such an easy life as you

[–] Jotain@suppo.fi 20 points 1 year ago

There was (is?) a requirement from Sony and Microsoft about how long a game can take to load as part of the game licensing process. One of the ways it is measured is by counting time from game boot to how quickly the game can react to user's keypress. A "press start to continue" screen is the most simple thing you can load that passes this requirement. After that the game can do heavier operations such as loading save data, checking DLC or pulling latest messages from online server without having to worry too much about how long these operations take.

The best thing a game has ever done with this is ask on first startup if it should go to the main menu or just load your last save on every startup after this one.

[–] chloyster@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

I get your point. And kind of agree for the most part. But idk, some title screens are nice to look at. Having the option to just view it until I'm ready to go on is nice imo. One button press isn't all that bad. But yeah when loading or dlc checking has to be done after pressing the button it's more annoying. That should happen before imo

[–] _MusicJunkie@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Games used to take a looong time to load before flash storage, so people would go get a coffee or something while loading. Before main menus, it would just drop you into the game while you were away, potentiality missing something. So they added the "press any key" pause to wait until you're back.

For some reason they kept this until today.

[–] Vordus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 year ago

It's also a holdover from arcade games, which would have an 'attract mode' when there was nobody playing.

[–] Stillhart@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's been bugging me in BG3. Mostly because it takes a while to load and when it's finally loaded, I have to press a button then WAIT AGAIN for a stupid animation before getting to the main menu so I can then load some more.

Gimme a command line to just automatically "Continue" please. The pretty animtions and menu were fun at first. Now I just want to get back to my brain parasites as quickly as possible. I'm sure that has nothing to do with my brain parasites.

[–] Scrath@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's a mod on nexusmods to skip the startup intros. That might help in speeding things up a little

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[–] soulsource@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Some games, like the Pathfinder games by Owlcat, use that initial input to determine if you are playing with mouse/keyboard or a gamepad. Depending on that, you get presented with a different UI in the main menu.

Another reason for such a screen could also be Xbox support. Nowadays it's no longer necessary, because user-handling has been vastly improved with the GDK, but before the GDK was released a splash screen was the most user-friendly way to do user-handling in a single-player or online-multiplayer game on Xbox.

[–] degrix@lemmy.hqueue.dev 9 points 1 year ago

Lately, I’ve seen it for controller detection on PC games. Larian games like Baldur’s Gate 3 at least use it to change how they render the “Main” menu. I mean, the “Main” menu also changes if I plug in a controller so maybe it’s just an aesthetic thing held over from older video games.

[–] HellAwaits@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Such not a big deal IMO

[–] Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

At some point in this millenium, it became ubiquitous in games to ask for a button press before switching to the main menu and it has become a pet peeve off mine.

Fake news. It was common in the previous millenium too

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pI0fJMkYdPU/maxresdefault.jpg

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[–] Banzai51@midwest.social 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cyberpunk 2077 is terrible for this. Have to push the spacebar three times to get to the menu to start/continue a game.

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[–] Racle@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 year ago

Bonus negative points for games that only check DLC after that button press

Don't forget games that have you manually press button to dismiss and unlocked DLC.

It's very fun with games that you buy after few years and have hundred DLC (ex. fighting games) 😅

Usually takes few minutes of just button pressing to dismiss all new dlcs

[–] phoenixes@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm reminded of something that Binding of Isaac does that I wish more games would do: If you're anywhere in the main menu (even drilled into it), if you just mash the B button/Esc key, it will keep backing out, up to and including exiting the game if you press it on the main menu. I hate games that make me click 3 times and say "are you sure??" when I just want to quit the dang program.

[–] OminousOrange@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If quitting the game is more complicated than alt+F4, I often just alt+F4 after saving.

[–] Toribor@corndog.social 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE NEVER DO THAT" - FromSoft games

At least Elden Ring added a "Quit to Desktop" option. Any games before that... no you have to exit back to the title screen and be subjected to several seconds of extremely loud gothic chanting before you're allowed to exit the game. God help you if your network connection is down because it will try to connect to the network for an entire minute before it fails and lets you exit.

[–] acastcandream@beehaw.org 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE NEVER DO THAT”

Hey just an FYI "reeee" is "autistic screeching" i.e. it's pretty ablelist/shitty to say. Not sure if you are aware, I only learned that pretty recently.

[–] effingnerd@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sorry but what? I'm not OP but that is a record scratch. End of story. There is no ableism even in the vicinity of OPs statement without someone shoehorning it in there.

[–] acastcandream@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Wait, what? I’m talking about the use of “reeee” in the comment above. This has nothing to do with OP or the original post. I think you’re confused.

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

There are usually ways around this in the config files. That's how I've always fixed it.

[–] loops@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The only thing I don't like about Deep Rock Galactic is having to watch both the publishers, and the studios logo sequences every time I start the game.

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[–] coffinwood@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I finished Assassin's Creed Valhalla recently and it drove me up the wall all the time. I mean well over 100 h playtime.

And the game would sit there after every start and wait for me to "press any key". And only after a keypress it would start checking for Add-ons which took ages. Why couldn't it have done that already?

Plus the intro videos I had to replace with empty files because no-skip.

Annoying!

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