Game Project Classification Standard
GPCS is a public framework for describing game projects more precisely: seven capacity tiers, an independence marker, and verification levels that make classification more transparent.
The Game Project Classification Standard — GPCS — is a public framework for one of the games industry's most persistent language problems: everyone uses labels like "indie", "AA", and "AAA", but those labels rarely mean the same thing twice.
That ambiguity creates real friction. Awards bodies struggle to compare unlike projects. Grant programmes need clearer eligibility language. Platforms, publishers, press, and developers often talk past each other because project scale, independence, funding context, and verification are collapsed into shorthand.
GPCS proposes a shared classification model instead.
Capacity Tiers
C through AAA
7
Independence Marker
A visible signal for ownership and funding context
1
Verification Levels
From self-declared to externally supported
3
The Problem
The games industry has outgrown the labels it still relies on.
"Indie" can describe a solo developer, a studio with venture backing, a self-published team, a publisher-funded production, or a creative posture rather than an operating reality. "AA" and "AAA" are used constantly but rarely defined consistently. That leaves institutions making decisions with language that is emotionally familiar but operationally weak.
The result is avoidable noise:
- awards categories that compare projects with radically different operating conditions
- grant criteria that depend on vague eligibility language
- market analysis that treats scale as vibes rather than structure
- public debate where classification becomes identity politics instead of a practical tool
What I Built
GPCS turns that loose language into a lightweight classification system.
The model combines three parts:
- Capacity tier — a structured indication of project scale, from C through AAA.
- Independence marker — a signal for whether a project meets the standard's definition of independence.
- Verification level — a confidence layer showing how the classification was produced or supported.
The point is not to police identity. The point is to give the industry a more useful shared language: one that can be adopted, challenged, improved, and applied in contexts where classification actually matters.
Why It Matters
Standards work is operational work at industry scale.
A good standard reduces translation cost. It helps different groups coordinate without needing to renegotiate basic terms every time. It gives institutions something clearer to cite, developers something clearer to understand, and communities something more precise to challenge.
For me, GPCS is also a direct expression of the systems-first operator work I keep coming back to: take a messy coordination problem, identify where language is failing, and build a framework that makes decisions easier.
Current State
GPCS is live as a working public draft at gpcstandard.org.
It is designed to be read, tested, and criticised. The current site explains the methodology, the classification model, and the intended use cases for awards bodies, grant programmes, platforms, publishers, and other institutions that shape how games are evaluated and described.
What This Demonstrates
GPCS is evidence of a few things I want my public profile to make more legible:
- diagnosing industry-level ambiguity rather than only local process problems
- turning fuzzy language into usable structure
- designing classification and governance models people can apply
- communicating complex systems in plain language
- building public infrastructure that invites critique rather than hiding behind polish
This is not a side quest. It is the same operating model, pointed at the wider games industry.