Death to Good Graphics!

[ender214]

Graphics don't necessarily make a game fun, but they do make the game more engaging. I personally believe that if companies started to cut down on graphics, they run a great risk of creating games that would be unable to compete with the games that kept revamping their graphics. This is probably especially true for PC games, seeing that the majority of the PC gamers I know (including me) seem to believe that finding new tech that makes games look better is worth spending several hundred dollars on.

 

[badsectoracula]

Graphics don't necessarily make a game fun, but they do make the game more engaging. I personally believe that if companies started to cut down on graphics, they run a great risk of creating games that would be unable to compete with the games that kept revamping their graphics. This is probably especially true for PC games, seeing that the majority of the PC gamers I know (including me) seem to believe that finding new tech that makes games look better is worth spending several hundred dollars on.

I agree with this, but i think the point is to not make games that compete with each other on which one is better visually or which one uses the latest tech, but which one is more fun to play and which one is more entertaining. When the game itself *do* benefit from having good graphics then they should assign more resources on the graphics, but for games that do not really benefit from them i think it is better to focus more on the other aspects of the game more and use graphics for augmenting the gameplay not the other way around.

I believe that the best genre to do good use of graphics and related technologies are pure adventure games (not action/adventure, just adventure). Graphics tend to be used for realism and cinematic effects and no other genre has so much storytelling as the adventure games genre to benefit more. And unlike other genres (such as action games).

 

[MasTerHacK]

Combat Arms is a great example of old graphics, but amazing gameplay.

 

[Altorin]

shamus, I love your articles, I read them whenever they update.. I agree with you on this one, but I really don't think the industry will have much of a choice soon but to follow the Valve and Blizzard model and make smart use of older technology. Moore's Law has been slowing down for a couple years now - technology doesn't grow exponentially anymore - we're getting close to the physical limitations in how small you can make chipsets. Once we reach that point, it'll take a REALLY HUGE technological advance to get past it (akin to discovering some Prothean Ruins on the surface of Mars "REALLY HUGE").

So yeah, the well will dry up eventually as far as the next technological graphical advance goes.

I'll probably wrong - I'm not a pundit of gaming technology - my computer is years old and looks it, but I have been watching the advances for some time and I can see the writing on the wall.

 

[brodie21]

i like games that have a good, long story, good gameplay, are engaging, and are fun. graphics are a plus, but 3 years into the future what will be more important? the graphics or the game? Look at KOTOR, the graphics are mediocre compared to COD4, but it has a great story and so is remembered. in a few years CRYSIS will just be a footnote in game development. in a few years i expect that the first holograms will start to be available. or something.

do you get what i am saying?

 

[SenorFuzzeh]

I know that graphics are pretty damn good as they are already. But I think better graphics and models and movments and such, can add more appeal to a game. Making it more enjoy able, and moments wehre you can jsut feel damn right epic, or feel like your acctually there in the game.

i think people are to over the top about it both ways.

People who always want better: Yes graphics are nice and add appeal to a game expierence. But that doesnt mean you always have to talk about them and wait for the next up coming game jsut for the graphics.

People who think graphics are done: Yes we are at a very high point in graphics than we've ever been, and it might not even go much higher. But that doesnt mean you need to rant about it, and bash people.

 

[likalaruku]

Bravo! Nicely put ^_^

This is basicly what was going through my head when I got to the premium mods for Neverwinter Nights 2: the graphics looked awesome, but the effects like shadows caused sluggish gameplay durring battles. The money spent on upgrading their game engine could have been spent on better voice actors & maybe giving Storm of Zehir some actual gameplay & a deeper plot so I didn;t stop every 5 minutes to wish I was playing Neverwinter Nights 1 again.

I'm also awaiting Serious Sam 3. I still like the graphics from SS2 & don't think it really needs to be improved upon.

Ooh, another reason graphics don;t need to advance: players with ADD. Do we really need to stop & watch the wind blow through the grass? Do I have to let my enemy rail on me because I want to get a good look at what he's wearing? Do I have to get ambushed in a survival game because the house is full of shiny objects? No! But I do anyway, & that's why I suck at shooters.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Personally, I think developers should use whatever kind of graphics that they feel is appropriate for the kind of game they want to make and the kind of story that they want to tell.

 

[Slycne]

the game that does not require me to buy a new pc will always have better chances to be bought by me then the game that demands a ludicrous machine.


fck you crysis, not gonna buy you.

I think this brings up another interesting aspect to this discussion. Crysis and many of the other PC melting graphical feasts are often time optimized to scale quite well to older machines, but despite them being capable. They are simply written off as something you will never buy. It's believed it can only run on some theoretical supercomputer or there is a mystique that you are not playing the true experience if the resolution is not into the 5 digit range.

I actually played the first FEAR back on a system that was only capable of running it at 800x600 on low or medium graphic settings. I still had a lot of fun playing it and was drawn in regardless of the fact that it could be played at a much higher graphic level.

During Mike Capps keynote at TGC he mentioned having a small team working on the latest Unreal Tournament whose sole purpose was to get the game running on much previous generations of technology. So developers are at least beginning to understand it's important to provide their game on at least the widest range of systems as possible. One section of the gaming industry where you see this heavily is MMOs. MMOs make money by having lots of users, so having your game require for instance Pixel Shader 2.0 can drastically cut your user base. So they are designed graphically from the bottom up, what's the bare minimum we want this to be able to run on and then how can we improve what we now have as the user's system improves.

I do agree with the sentiments expressed in the article. A good solid art design can make up for a few years of addition pixel counts, and many games would be better off spending the time they invested into all those pixels and reinvesting it into core game design and gameplay.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Great read!

 

[outcast_within]

buy a wii those have crap graphics most of the time

 

[Jumplion]

I do agree with the sentiments expressed in the article. A good solid art design can make up for a few years of addition pixel counts, and many games would be better off spending the time they invested into all those pixels and reinvesting it into core game design and gameplay.

But that's assuming that the Graphics, Gameplay, and Story department are all intertwined. While some form of connection between cubicles is inevitable, lowering the costs of Graphics making doesn't automatically mean that the money cut from production will go over to the other ones (Gameplay, Story).

 

[Slycne]

snip

Crysis is about looking pretty. if the game won't look prett on your machne, there is no point buying it.

Crysis was merely my jumping off point. The game had a few interesting bits, being able to change your suit aspects and the open world gameplay was interesting, but it didn't bring much else to the table.

I do agree with the sentiments expressed in the article. A good solid art design can make up for a few years of addition pixel counts, and many games would be better off spending the time they invested into all those pixels and reinvesting it into core game design and gameplay.

But that's assuming that the Graphics, Gameplay, and Story department are all intertwined. While some form of connection between cubicles is inevitable, lowering the costs of Graphics making doesn't automatically mean that the money cut from production will go over to the other ones (Gameplay, Story).

I certainly agree that game development is not a simple process, but I think it's safe to break it down to that if X were a typical development cycle and you removed Y( additional time spent working on your graphics suite). That you could fill that time with a number of other variables. That time could very well be spent on things other than gameplay though. It's just a likely to be sound, releasing a demo that you didn't previously plan on, simply releasing early though or some other aspect. The hope is that it would be used to polish the core design and gameplay though.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

perfect article, perfect perfect perfect
i agreed with everything said, EXCEPT...

i personally don't find the old age pixel/block graphics offensive. not as attractive as new graphics, but not offensive. i think if people weren't so head-over-heals for good graphics, they'd realize that the best of these old 'crappy-looking' games are at least as much fun as today's best titles

 

[Brother Laz]

'PC gaming is dying' only because every single new title A. is a female dog to install, partly due to DRM and mandatory account creation, and B. won't run unless you have a GeeForce9XJZROJGK Turbo II SLI setup.

There are very few gaming PCs, but there are a lot of COMPUTERS around. Make a game that will run on a mid-range netbook and the world is yours. World of Warcraft runs on anything sold in the past three years that doesn't have integrated video, and it rivals the best-selling console titles in popularity despite the monthly fee. Hell, 30K people online on *Diablo 2* beats most modern online games.

Why can't anyone just make a game that will run on a typical laptop (if at low settings), puts more effort into art direction than into anisodynamic megabloomshadows and allows anyone who doesn't know computers to install the game, create an account and download DLC without screwing up? Oh wait, the reviewers will call it a budget title. Never mind.

......

Ps. It is impossible to simulate reality properly because a lot of stimuli (like surround vision, sound, wind) are missing, so you just get a boring looking game instead of a realistic looking one. There's a reason why movies use colour filters and why Need for Speed Underground is more popular than Live for Speed.

Why not improve on reality through art design instead of attempting to copy reality? The medium is MADE for artistic creative worlds, not for perfectly recreating a drab looking battlefield.

 

[For Science]

I've believed graphics overrated since Tomb Raider 2. I had a hard time getting others to see my point in high school.

 

[Dorian Cornelius Jasper]

Why can't we just accept that graphics are getting better in games and that technology is advancing?
I payed the price for a next-gen console, so I expect the next-gen graphics, nothing less, nothing degenerative.

Well it's your money and you've got every right to expect to get your money's worth, but you missed the point. The graphics arms race is actually hurting game development and the industry at large, with ballooning budgets and more on the line with each game but less and less actual product being delivered--not to mention smaller profit margins for each sale. Combined with a poor global economy the current model is, frankly, a bit daft. Lower-graphics games don't have to sell more copies than their big-budget competition in order to be more profitable--or even near as many copies. On the PC especially.

While you're paying for better graphics, you're probably paying for less actual game while you're at it. Every dollar spent on graphics (and as an aside, celebrity voice actors) is a dollar not spent on producing more in-game content or ironing out bugs.

Valve's games run on a 5-year old graphics engine and they're still making a killing.

You might not like that people are looking at the economics of graphics bloat and shrinking back, but it doesn't change the fact that there's too much being spent for too little profit and every developer knows it. (Even Crytek, makers of Crysis, are stepping back from the bleeding edge.) The reason why they have to keep pushing graphics is because their publishers demand it, mostly to cater to gamers who keep buying the best graphics cards or leap onto the newest consoles only for graphics, all of whom are becomingly an increasingly less profitable source of income.

(There's more money to be had with casuals. Sad but true. Cheaper to make a casual game and more people are likely to buy them. The hardcore market has been effectively shooting itself in the foot for almost a decade now.)

The point most people seem to be making is that there has to be a happy medium between spending on graphics and spending on The Rest Of The Game. Good enough graphics to look competitive, at least when paired with competent art direction, but not so good that developers blow over half their budget on it.