In an action game/mode, if something pauses gameplay (user or system initiated), should that disqualify score submission at the end? This seems like the right thing to do to ensure fairness, but what if the user gets a battery low alert? What is typically done in action games/modes with respect to pausing and fairness?
i don't think it's fair at all. i don't understand how pausing a game is going to improve your gaming abilities, thus disqualifying you from a high score. if you're so into a game that you have to keep pausing to wipe the sweat off your hands because getting that high score is SOOO important, you've got bigger problems than worrying about the other guy challenging your leaderboard rank. then again, leaderboards and high scores are the last thing i care about when playing a game, so i guess it doesn't matter what a developer does to my score when i get a new notification on my screen.
Pausing can be a double edged sword because you have to get back into the zone and such. I don't really think it should disqualify you, not only does it seem like its not that big of a deal, I think it hurts your score more than it helps, I couldn't imagine pausing tilt to live and even have a chance of coming back and living.
Or you could just limit the number of times a player is allowed to pause the game within one session [i.e. Doodle Jump].
That makes no sense in most games. The ones where it does the main screen typically gets blanked during a pause (e.g. Tetris for the original Game Boy did that, haven't played any newer Tetris versions) so you could only benefit from it if you have photographic memory. In fast action games you'll likely waste more time on reaching for the pause button than any thinking can make up for.
I don't think that should be done, especially when iDevices are mostly mobile devices. It sucks to be a game dork that ignore your surrounding and completely focus on your game until it ends.
