07 — Last Ten Per Cent

Certification

A platform holder's checklist that has nothing to do with whether the game is good.

Entry 03 of 03Section 07 Last Ten Per CentShort read

Hands hold a clipboard with a home inspection checklist for buyers while pointing with a pen — Fig. 1
A checklist worked through line by line. None of it asks whether the game is good.
Photo: RDNE Stock project / Pexels

The checklist that does not care about your game

Every console platform holder — Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo — runs a technical requirements programme before a game is allowed onto their storefront. The list of requirements goes by different names (TRC, TCR, lotcheck), but the structure is the same: a formal document, often hundreds of items long, specifying exactly how the game must behave. Does the console's home button work at all times? Does the game save correctly when storage is full? Does it handle a disconnected controller without crashing? None of these questions touch whether the game is fun, beautiful, or coherent. Certification is a safety and reliability audit, full stop.

Failing cert is expensive in ways that compound. A submission that comes back rejected — a "cert fail" — costs the time to fix the issue, the time to resubmit, and the turnaround window the platform holder needs to re-review. That window is typically measured in days to weeks, and it does not shorten because you have a release target. The last ten per cent of a project is already the most dangerous stretch on the calendar; a cert failure drops a weight onto exactly that period. Teams that plan for one clean submission are optimistic; teams that plan for two are prudent.

The practical response is a pre-certification pass run internally before any submission goes out. Most studios of reasonable size maintain their own copy of the requirements document and assign someone — sometimes a dedicated QA role, sometimes a producer — to walk every line. Platform holders also publish self-certification tools that can catch the most mechanical failures automatically. Neither guarantees a clean first submission, but both reduce the odds of failing on something embarrassing.

What certification cannot do is tell you the game ships in a good state. A title can pass every requirement and still launch with progression-blocking bugs, because cert tests the platform contract, not the game. That distinction is worth keeping clear, especially when stakeholders conflate "passed cert" with "ready to ship."

A dim office at night with a few desks still lit — Fig. 2
What the end of a project looks like from outside: quiet, and mostly small corrections.
Photo: cottonbro studio / Pexels

Hands on a controller in a test booth, debug overlay on screen — Fig. 3
A debug overlay is the only honest view of a frame — costs, counts, and what the renderer quietly decided not to draw.
Photo: lalesh aldarwish / Pexels