Death to Good Graphics!

[Russian_Assassin]

Oh God do I agree with you! I really hate the 5 hour long games of the current generation that take 2 fucking years to finish or the ones that are ON CONSOLES ONLY! I also think game devs should center a bit on the pc, after all it's a lot easier to produce pc games and provide support (in the form of patches, like our beloved Valve). I noticed that your suggestions are quite similar to the current Valve's strategy

 

[Sanaj]

Agreed, game developers should spend less effort on graphics and more effort on improving gameplay,
having better stories, developing characters etc.

It isn't always necessary to keep building new game or graphic engines all the time.
Once programmers and artists have more time to work with existing graphics and physics they can improve
and tweak the performance offered by the game engine.

A good example would be to look at Half-Life 2, then Episode 1 and 2.

Also, many PC/Mac consumers aren't willing to be constantly upgrading or replacing their hardware.
Mainly because it's prohibitively expensive and unnecessary to keep pouring that much money into computer hardware.

This trend has caused a shift towards consoles, sure PC gaming is still important...
but less prevalent than it was say 5 years ago.

Anyways, nice article Shamus Young, it included many points that are sensible,
plausible and that I personally agreed with.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

RE5 was a game that suffered heavily from it. You'd figure graphics like that would make the "Evil" Part of the title stand out more, but nope. Nothing. It happens to feel more like an action movie than a horror game.

 

[InProgress]

That was the single most absurd post I've ever read in my life...
Stop graphics advancement... really? You think you're not getting it WAY too far?
REALLY?!

The whole point of the article was to say that graphics advancement has been detrimental to gameplay, that's the way it has happened so far, but it doesn't mean better graphics are bad by nature. It's just that way too many companies have relied on good graphics to forget about making some decent gameplay.

But look at Zeno Clash, it's got good graphics, and yet the gameplay was improved from most fps games and it oozes style.

As I said before, look at Bioshock, amazing atmosphere and game immersion, awesome graphics, and what would be the problem if it became photo realistic? More immersion... and it would still be awesome because of it's gameplay mechanics.

Something tells me you're really angry at what I said

1. I didn't meant to say that graphics are bad, but publishers put too much care and attention on it.

2. Game engines can be realistic, but even realism has it's limit. And CryEngine almost reached it. Make the CryEngine able to create all other genres with it and it would be almost perfect.

3. I would say that your Zeno Clahs argument is faulty, as Zeno Clahs isn't trying to be the game with most the advance and realistic engine.

4. You wouldn't mind if BioShock got even better graphics. However, would you mind if Bioshock had better graphics and a lot of faulty gameplay mechanics? You wouldn't, because it would be mostly like a tech demo.

I apologise if my previous post confused you about what I really wanted to say.

 

[VZLANemesis]

That was the single most absurd post I've ever read in my life...
Stop graphics advancement... really? You think you're not getting it WAY too far?
REALLY?!

The whole point of the article was to say that graphics advancement has been detrimental to gameplay, that's the way it has happened so far, but it doesn't mean better graphics are bad by nature. It's just that way too many companies have relied on good graphics to forget about making some decent gameplay.

But look at Zeno Clash, it's got good graphics, and yet the gameplay was improved from most fps games and it oozes style.

As I said before, look at Bioshock, amazing atmosphere and game immersion, awesome graphics, and what would be the problem if it became photo realistic? More immersion... and it would still be awesome because of it's gameplay mechanics.

Something tells me you're really angry at what I said

1. I didn't meant to say that graphics are bad, but publishers put too much care and attention on it.

2. Game engines can be realistic, but even realism has it's limit. And CryEngine almost reached it. Make the CryEngine able to create all other genres with it and it would be almost perfect.

3. I would say that your Zeno Clahs argument is faulty, as Zeno Clahs isn't trying to be the game with most the advance and realistic engine.

4. You wouldn't mind if BioShock got even better graphics. However, would you mind if Bioshock had better graphics and a lot of faulty gameplay mechanics? You wouldn't, because it would be mostly like a tech demo.

I apologise if my previous post confused you about what I really wanted to say.

Not angry, just what you said was pretty ridiculous.
How are you justifying with what you just said the "stop the advancement of graphics" reasoning? That's what really amazed me about your first post.
Edit: my argument about Zeno Clash is faulty?
Who said anything about it trying to be the one with the best graphics, I'm simply saying great graphics AND great gameplay. How is that faulty after reading that we should stop the advancement of graphics altogether?

 

[Booze Zombie]

I can drink to this! All I see when I'm looking at the trailers for games I really look forward to is "bad gpfx, lulz" "OMG GT44 lookz so much betta".
The knuckle dragging masses appeared to have fallen for this graphics gimmick.

Me, I'm happy as long as it isn't 8-bit. Anyway, keep up the good work, man.
Your articles are always a good read.

Edit: Isn't the secret to Valve's success the fact that they build their own engine and seem to use it continuously for a number of years (the Half-Life engine and the Source engine, for instance)? Just something I was wondering whilst I finished up reading your article properly.

 

[masakoz]

this article is gunna get attacked by sony fanboys why becouse every sony fanboy ive ever met is a graphic nut(or graphic zombie as i call them)

 

[InProgress]

Not angry, just what you said was pretty ridiculous.
How are you justifying with what you just said the "stop the advancement of graphics" reasoning? That's what really amazed me about your first post.

I would compare it movie formats: Why would you need Super Hi-Vision when it looks exactly like full HD only bigger.Or TV screens with a billion colours, even though the human eye can't percieve that many The reason: technological masturbation. It's almost the same as having games going with a steadi rate of 60 FPS, even though the human eye can't perceive more than 24. It does make a change, but that's it. And porfesional lighters can give the illusion of realism just with lights. Polygon limit wise it can be turned up a nothc, to somewhere like 20 000 triangles and then it's enough.

As I once said, I would like to say that gaming, as an art, it's in the same phase as art was in Roman times: Everything is just realistic and idealised, ruogh cuts weren't really accepted as art. Realism is the key at the moment. Hopefully publishers will realise that realism isn't everithing and just go ahead on making fun games.

 

[Credge]

This trend has caused a shift towards consoles, sure PC gaming is still important...
but less prevalent than it was say 5 years ago.

I agree and disagree. More people are playing PC games now than ever before. The worlds most successful video game is on PC with more people playing it than any other game ever.

When people talk about the number of players playing a console, they talk about just that. When you talk about the number of players playing PC stuff... well, that doesn't even make sense because you don't 'play' a PC like you play a console. When you talk about people playing PC games, you talk about people playing a specific game. Never a genre or the total number of people playing PC games.

That's really confusing.

The reason developers are going away from PC gaming is because they suck. They can't do what past developers did with different types of hardware and software so they stick to something that is consistent. However, the terrible practices and general terribleness of the developers really shows when they release games riddled with bugs, visual problems, and missing features that SHOULD be there.

It's more of a paradigm shift because making consoles games has become easier than making PC games. The result is that there are more quality PC games but less PC games while consoles are flooded with truly craptastic games.

 

[Irandrura]

Oh God do I agree with you! I really hate the 5 hour long games of the current generation that take 2 fucking years to finish or the ones that are ON CONSOLES ONLY! I also think game devs should center a bit on the pc, after all it's a lot easier to produce pc games and provide support (in the form of patches, like our beloved Valve). I noticed that your suggestions are quite similar to the current Valve's strategy

Er... isn't it actually harder to make PC games, due to the constantly changing technology? That was part of Shamus' point in the article. It's easier to develop games for consoles. As for support, it's worth pointing out that online support is becoming increasingly common for consoles. (And I've always been of the opinion that a good game is fine out of the box; reliance on patches is a bad thing.)

Incidentally, I'm curious about one thing. This is an open question to everyone: what's so great about Valve anyway? As far as I know they're just a company that make PC FPSes. I didn't like Half-Life or Portal myself (as by and large I don't particularly like FPSes full stop; the 3D Metroids are my one exception, and they're practically adventure puzzle games), so I've never really played their most famous games at length. My only major contact with Valve is Steam, which they forced me to install with Dawn of War II and which I loathe.

So for someone who doesn't have much contact with them - who doesn't really like the genre they do most work in and doesn't care for digital distribution or anything of that sort - what is it that Valve does that is actually so great when it comes to graphics? I'm not attempting to troll (preference in games is subjective, so don't worry about that; their games just aren't my cup of tea), but as I'm not familiar with the policies that many posters here are praising, would anyone like to fill me in?

 

[Sanaj]

This trend has caused a shift towards consoles, sure PC gaming is still important...
but less prevalent than it was say 5 years ago.

I agree and disagree. More people are playing PC games now than ever before. The worlds most successful video game is on PC with more people playing it than any other game ever.

When people talk about the number of players playing a console, they talk about just that. When you talk about the number of players playing PC stuff... well, that doesn't even make sense because you don't 'play' a PC like you play a console. When you talk about people playing PC games, you talk about people playing a specific game. Never a genre or the total number of people playing PC games.

That's really confusing.

The reason developers are going away from PC gaming is because they suck. They can't do what past developers did with different types of hardware and software so they stick to something that is consistent. However, the terrible practices and general terribleness of the developers really shows when they release games riddled with bugs, visual problems, and missing features that SHOULD be there.

It's more of a paradigm shift because making consoles games has become easier than making PC games. The result is that there are more quality PC games but less PC games while consoles are flooded with truly craptastic games.

True, more people are playing PC games now, that's not what I was trying to get at...

What I was trying to say was that consoles and their games have a larger slice of the pie than they used to 5 years ago.

More importantly the cost of PC hardware pushes many gamers into buying consoles and playing their games on them.

There exists many games that used to be made for PC/Mac system only,
now being made to work on the PC, PS3, 360, Wii... multi-platform releases.
Not necessarily do gamers have games only on the consoles, but many people lack
the money to play some of this generation of games on anything other than a console.

 

[AceDiamond]

I agree wholeheartedly with this article. As someone who spent 4 years in school for artistic video game design I still feel that we are hitting the point where we cannot go any further with graphics. Development time is just too long and too costly to justify us making things any better looking than they are at this point. And hell, I actually like the way games made in the Source engine look, and have been repeatedly pleased by Valve's continued efforts to work with an engine that's hitting its 5 year mark in terms of age.

At this point I'd rather be making games that are fun over games that look physically impressive, because really, what's the point of making something look awesome if it doesn't play awesome. It's probably why I have more of an eye for design and concept more than I do for the art itself.

In any event I think the biggest problem here is that the consumer has been taught to believe that better graphics = better game. And in a way we're all at fault for that in some form or another.

But I think if we start making games under less intensive graphics requirements, thus resulting in a faster and cheaper development time, game costs will go down and consumers will accept this new idea more readily.

 

[the_tramp]

Yes, there are mainstream game reviewers out there who are obsessed with graphics and spend their non-gaming hours masturbating to the NVIDIA product catalog.

I know you elaborated this point, but this is really the issue at the end of the day. I'm sure developers would be more than happy with your tactic of graphical upgrades every 8-10 years or so and still using the DooM 3 engine from 2004 but at the end of the day the higher ups will demand the latest and greatest to get the best reviews. Hell, the Kane and Lynch scandal with Gamespot just proves the extent to where developers' alliances lie: with the score and not whether the game is 'good' and/or 'fun'.

 

[Ben Legend]

For the majority of games, I believe graphics should take the back seat to anything else. E.g. story/ character development.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

I'm definitely in favor of this idea. To me, anything from the PS2/GC/Xbox era looks perfectly fine, especially the stuff on Xbox that was made for the system (like Riddick, Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, Oddword: Stranger's Wrath and Otogi.) And yeah, how much better do the graphics need to be? How much is an acceptable amount to spend pushing the last pixel of visual excellence out of the latest technology that nobody's going to have? When something has to give in game development, must it always NOT be the graphics? Why can't the graphics just be a BIT more dated, and the game given more content or bug testing?

I've played Snes and GBA games that really don't look dated at all, to me. Oftentimes with good games it seems like it's less about having "awesome, mind-blowing graphics" and more about creating an immersive visual style. The original Escape from Butcher Bay, for example, actually uses the graphics as a part of gameplay, color-coding the environment according to whether or not you're in darkness (and thus invisible to enemies), in addition to doing the whole Pitch Black eyeshine thingy (which looks really cool.)

 

[similar.squirrel]

Mm..I agree..But..Do physics engines count as graphics?Look at Half Life 2. The graphics are quite good, but the game runs on most mid-range PCs. It's the realistic physics engine that makes it so compelling..among other things.

 

[messy]

I don't think we should remove good graphics completely because playing games does beomes easier when you can see what's exatly happeing. i think we need a few more games with some stylised "artistic" graphics like Okami. Also games companies need to stop using graphics as a selling piont because now-a-days it's give pretty much everyone can do great graphics.

 

[Doug]

I've been saying this for years. The current console generation is crap. The only one that has it right is the Wii, and crap developers are making it crap anyways. From the moment I saw the $60 price tag on the 360 games, I knew that we were in for trouble. There just isn't anything to justify the $10 increase if the game isn't any more fun. As time has gone on, I see that games are now even LESS fun. It's driven be back to decade-old games because they just were a lot more fun then.

Agreed, completely. To be honest, the only case where better graphics are necessary is when crapping out the next Madden game or the next Fifa.

Anywho, aside from that, the pace of wasting on graphical improvements for little or no return is ridiculous. I'm amazed that only Stardock and Valve seem to have realised that they don't need to create a new top-of-the-range graphical engine every 3 years. Stardock focuses on simple but robust and pretty engines (see SoaE, Demigod, and Galactic Civilizations 2) which aren't massive cost-makers and are kind to hardware. Valve are still working with the source engine, adapting/refining/improving in small ways frequently for little risk and little cost.

Why oh why do the two 'hardcore' consoles seem to just want to out graphic each other? The Wii has a few fun games with strong art styles (see Mario Galaxy, No More Heroes, MadWorld, etc, etc).

Ok, someone is going to want a photo-real game, but the majority of us are happy or even prefer a stylized form of graphics, which is good for the developers as well.

 

[Rhayn]

Holy hell, it's been 5 years since Doom 3? Wow. 5 years, and the graphics of that game still come close to what the games of today look like. Not to mention, that thing runs absolutley beautiful on my computers, which are older than Doom 3. Two years older, in fact. It also looks very good on my 1-year-old Laptop, that can run it on near-highest graphics.

So yes, I agree with everything you said.

 

[Playbahnosh]

Wow. I didn't read every comment, but it seems at least 99% of the commenters agree. That has to say something...

I can't put my finger on the exact moment where graphics took over as the primary concern for game designers, but it must be somewhere around Doom3. I still haven't played that game, and I never will, because it's shit.

On topic: anyone with eyes can see, that graphics are overhyped. Gameplay, art and story is the key. Hell, when Darwinia came out, it looked like a fucking fossil compared to 2005 graphics (when it was released), but I still consider it one of the best games as of today, along with Introversion's other game Uplink: Hacker Elite (which is essentially a text-adventure with point&click elements) and my all-time favorite game StarCraft.

But the most sad thing about this is not the pursuit of better graphics, but neglecting gameplay in the process. Gears of War is essentially and interactive cutscene, Far Cry 2 is boring as shit, and many MANY games that are released today are glorified rail-shooters with quick time events. Gameplay of these new games has been dumbed down to the point a toddler with Down Syndrome could play them...and win...

The console titles can be won by random button mashing, and the PC titles' walkthrough consists of "hold down W and the fire button. Wait. Win." No need to think. Eehhh...

For example, Fallout 3. It's a nice game in itself, but it's not a Fallout game. It's just "Oblivion with guns". I wonder how many of the Fallout 3 fanboys actually finished the first two games. I guess not too many. In the first two Fallouts, you had to use tactics, logic, strategy...basicly your brain to get through. In Fallout 3, you just run around and shoot everything that moves. It has its charm, hell, I liked Oblivion (aside from the fact that is was fucking boring), but the originals, the Jagged Alliance and X-Com games were turn-based for a reason. I agree, those were glorified chess programs, but you had to use you brain nevertheless.

Today's games doesn't require thinking or imagination. They just hold your hand and yank you through the story and only require you to press some buttons to create the illusion of interactivity. There is no death, magically regenerating health, life saving quick time events, checkpoints on every corner...ehh. There is absolutely no penalty for playing badly. In earlier games, if you died, you lost money, lost skills, you lost plot elements and progress. That was game's way of punching you in the nuts for messing up, and it gave an incentive to not do that again. The reward for using your brain, learning to play and practicing was...actually...finishing the game. Today, there is no penalty for playing like a retard and no tangible reward for thinking or figuring out stuff. This stupid achievement system is just a transparent, idiotic hoax. Wow, you pressed the jump button 1000 times, good for you. OMG, you drove off a cliff, fell a mile and died horribly 2000 times in a row, in racing game, way to go dude! Here, let me increase this totally arbitrary and meaningless number for you. Now go and brag about how good you are at repeating mindless tasks for no apparent reason.

Bleh.