Do graphics matter?

[justnotcricket]

Shiny graphics are nice, and can certainly help with immersion in games, but they should never be used to replace gameplay. I'm not sure about story - that's in a league of its own, but how the game looks should always complement how it plays.

I actually like the aesthetic of older games (as a trivial example, I've never liked the new boxy 3D 'better' graphics of more recent Harvest Moon Games, preferring instead the old pixely GBA-era stuff), but then there are games like Assassin's Creed and Uncharted 2 where the beautiful graphics add a lot to the experience - in Assassin's Creed by creating open world environments you actually want to look at and climb around in, and in Uncharted by cementing the cinematographic qualities of the game.

It also depends on genre for me. I find that in my RPGs, I'll be a lot more forgiving of 'bad' graphics if the story and mechanics are engrossing, whereas in action adventure games I like my scenery to create an immersive atmosphere for me to run/jump/kill in. Having said that, I wish that Oblivion would have had a character creation screen that wasn't rendered completely moot by every possible character still looking like a potato in a wig...

But I digress. In short, I like shiny graphics as much as the next person, but they have to put a shine on an already good game, not a distracting cover on a poorly made one.

 

[Xanadu84]

Do visuals matter in a book? Yes and no. Usually, they are pretty superfluous. As time and technology advance, you do expect a certain baseline increase in readability, clarity, etc: A handwritten book these day may look immaculate years ago, but just looks sloppy these days. Certain consistent improvements are necessary. But as a general rule, as long as it doesn't look absolutely outdated, it won't make or break a book. However, certain books are made to rely more heavily on the visuals. Where other novels are made to primarily be read, a few genuinely use the visuals to display its artistry. This is simply a design choice. It doesn't have to be a technique you use, but it can be used to great effect. Or sometimes, it becomes a crutch for a poor author. It's important to remember as well that a very complicated, intricate set of pictures is one potential form of artistry, but well designed, yet simple set of visuals can potentially be just as powerful.

Apparently, I can extend that metaphor pretty far.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Well, yes and no. Graphical quality is the least important part of any videogame, while art direction is one of the most important part of any videogame.

 

[Athinira]

It's all about expectations.

If a game company comes out with an FPS in early 2011, you would expect the graphics to match the FPS standards of the year. Noone wants to buy a brand new FPS shooter that looks like the original Quake.

If you download a community made mod for a game, you don't expect the story/script/gameplay etc. to match a big grand game either, do you (although they sometimes do, which can be a neat surprise)?

In other words, the lesser your expectations of the graphics from the game (or any other element), the less it matters, and your expectations change based on who is developing the game, the genre, when it will be released (or when it was released) etc. For example, when Valve finally pumps out Half-Life 2: Episode 3, i expect it to match the standards of the previous installments obviously, but since they are still using the source engine, i don't expect the graphics to be THAT impressive, and therefore it won't matter so much to me. I do, however, expect Crysis 2 running Cryengine 3 to have great graphics (with better performance than it's predecessor), else i won't buy it.

That is also one of the reasons many people loved Portal i believe. They didn't expect the game to be the "big surprise" from the Orange Box, but the humor and gameplay exceeded expectations.

 

[natster43]

Yes and no. No because if a game does not need good graphics to be a good game. And yes because if the graphics are so bad that you can't see what is going on or hurts your eyes then it will ruin how good a game could be.

 

[SideburnsPuppy]

Yes. Yes they do. Some things matter more, but graphics definitely do matter. Here is a chart I made just now in MS Paint which I feel perfectly represents how graphics matter:

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd373/SideburnsPuppy/HowGraphicsMatter.jpg?t=1286083366

 

[Kamunt]

Eversion and Cave Story will tell you that no, intense graphics are not necessary to create an amazing game. Also my PC tends to crap itself in the presence of amazing graphics.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I would rather have 2007 graphics with an excellent story than 2010 graphics with a meh story. That's why I bought New Vegas.

...you mean pre-buy (pre order on console)? or has New Vegas been released without me knowing it?

Pre-purchasing something is still purchasing it. I bought New Vegas a month or so ago. Money left my wallet and NV is on my Steam list, waiting for pre-load and the unlock key to be transmitted.

Can't wait for the unlock.

amen to this. i got mine a good 4 months ago or so when they had a deal for FO3,Oblivion,morrowind (mind you, all game of hte year editions) on sale for 80 bucks bundled with the fallout new vegas pre order, once in a lifetime deal that i could NOT pass up

 

[DementedSheep]

Yes. Yes they do. Some things matter more, but graphics definitely do matter. Here is a chart I made just now in MS Paint which I feel perfectly represents how graphics matter:

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd373/SideburnsPuppy/HowGraphicsMatter.jpg?t=1286083366

I second this. Graphics do matter especially now that the technology is there, but they aren?t the main feature.

 

[Griphphin]

I'm a big retro gamer as a lot of other people in this thread are as well. I do not care about high polygon counts or fancy shader effects if that's not what the developer was going for. It's all about the final product and graphics are important in that respect as well. Okami wouldn't have made such a huge wave if it stressed high-end graphics, but Shadow of the Colossus wouldn't have created that sense of isolation if you couldn't immerse yourself into a believable game world where it was an entire land that was just you and the Colossi.

I swear I relearn how to spell colossus every time I reference that game *high-fives spellcheck*

 

[Sinndogg]

Not necessarily. I think people often confuse art style and graphics when they're talking about this, and the first of the two is much more important, IMO.

 

[ultrachicken]

Graphics do matter. How much? That depends.

You can't deny that pretty scenery and good character models add to a game. It's when there's the gray and brown environments with the same 8 enemies that graphics matter to me.

There are some exceptions to the gray and brown rule for me, though. Fallout 3 and New Vegas stick out.

 

[Hijax]

It really depends on what is meant by "good graphics". If good graphics means poly count, then its the last thing i consider. But if good graphics means a graphical style and feel that underlies and supports the immersion of the game, then its as important as any other aspect.

Just look at any old survival horror. Poly count was crap then, compared to what it is now, but most of them manage to create an atmosphere thats, IMHO, far more immersive than what we usually see in today's games. If that counts as good graphics, then thats just as important as any other part of the game.

 

[Sinndogg]

It really depends on what is meant by "good graphics". If good graphics means poly count, then its the last thing i consider. But if good graphics means a graphical style and feel that underlies and supports the immersion of the game, then its as important as any other aspect.

Just look at any old survival horror. Poly count was crap then, compared to what it is now, but most of them manage to create an atmosphere thats, IMHO, far more immersive than what we usually see in today's games. If that counts as good graphics, then thats just as important as any other part of the game.

As I said in my post, art style isn't the same as graphics, it's how you take advantage of them.

 

[Nexus4]

I would say no, but it depends on what it is being rendered by the graphics. I find it a waste to put unnecessary detail into things players would probably not care about, kinda like in Crysis where so much detail is put into rendering the bark of a tree or a simple chair. However I reckon graphics can become a greater priority when doing something for an overall artistic effect, like the Illusive Man's office in mass effect 2 that had a really artistic design and background. What i'm saying is that graphics can take priority when it is going for artistic flair and not when it is doing so for the sake of doing so.

 

[e2density]

For bad players who have never played good games, graphics do matter.
To regular gamers, nope. They don't matter that much.

 

[Dr. HeatSync]

I understand moving ahead with the times but now it seems like core gameplay is being sacrificed for the "shiny" appeal. I've grown tried of realistic colors as it usually ends up being gritty and dirty (gta4 or perhaps the upcoming quantum theory). I don't mean we should go back to 8-bit but perhaps a bit more polish to the core would help yeah?

But what do you think?

What happens if visuals really didn't matter:

1) You'd never be able to see anything (Doom 3).
2) The characters would be completely dis-proportioned or badly represented.
3) Your game's frame rate would jitter due to poor optimisation of the engine.
4) Hitboxes would be completely wrong (due to them not being aligned to the 3D model correctly)
5) The game would actually play much worse due to the issues I'm listing (buggy framerate? Good luck timing your blows/shots)
6) Lets pick a game, TF2. Imagine instead of Blu vs Red and the cartoony look, it was a failed attempt at realism. The game is still the same, but you'd never like it as much.
7) Poor choice in object polycounts (a massively subdivided AK-47.... in the background of a platforming game).
8) Animation would be horrendous, really cheap, tacky and unconvincing (Oblivion, Fallout 3)
9) Do you like flickering normals? Bits of texture flickering black?
10) How about not being able to tell a platform from an object from the background? A fault of many an older system.

Thats just a small amount of the many many problems you'd get if the game you were playing really has bad graphics. This is relevant because many people seem to think that visuals purely mean how pretty the game looks. MineCraft? Bad Visuals? No, thats the developer comprimising because not everyone has a very strong graphics card. That is GOOD visuals because you aren't encountering major problems that affect your experience. Instead the game adds to it.

In regards to GTA IV, thats actually not 'good visuals' if you have a problem with it. Dull colours and grit clearly aren't your thing, and so the game doesn't appeal. Well, not good style anyway, but I'm willing to bet that if the game looked like TF2, you'd be more interested.

This next bit is more directed to everyone else:

If you were one of the people who quoted a SNES or other retro game, I find your argument (mainly that its visuals are apparently worse than today's games) irrelevant because 2D Sprite games have that charm. In many ways, a SNES game could actually have better visuals than, say Gears of War, but that is because of the way it is presented, the style, and the fact that it is on a system that is quite old. But it makes the best use it can of the system, and thats what makes it have good visuals alongside the forced chibi style that it has to implement (Embrace thy limitations).

You like sprite art but didn't like the greys and browns of GeOW? Thats fine, and while I'm here I'm going to recommend you Recettear, a great sprite based game about running a shop to pay off your fathers loan.

Please for the love of god can we stop this pointless view of one or the other? That a game either has good visuals or gameplay, but not both? Visuals and gameplay go hand in hand because games are a visual medium. If you don't like how brown and dirty some games are, thats ok, but you can't call it good visuals. Its not an advancement, its not appealing to you, so therefore its not appealing visuals!.

If you just mean how technically pretty it is, I suggest you remember that a game industry is made up of teams of designers who work in different areas. Asking their concept artists to do the game designers job is a stretch isn't it? If you find the gameplay lacking, you might want words with the game designers instead of the art directors.

To try and conclude this monstrously long post (I do apologise) I suggest that gamers revisit Unreal Tournament 3. Go back and look deeply into the game. Fast paced, quite fluent and well designed but has massive amounts of detail in many areas. This is because the Unreal Engine is so well optimised. Now go play CTF on Hydrosis and look at the map, the weapons and how its all laid out. There are brilliant choices in the map's design, which shows that games are not a war between mechanic and visuals. Certainly the game could be more colourful, but with the power of the engine, we've seen really damn good games (Batman Arkham Asylum).

It shouldn't be some kind of fight between Game and Graphics, it should be harmony.

 

[Dr. HeatSync]

Hahahaha, I love those threads...most people argue without thinking, they just give those funny anwers like e2density (for example).
You can't just ask "Do graphics matter?", because the answer should always be simply yes. The real question should be how much do they matter for a specific game.

Example:
BioShock...would not be so cool, if the graphics were not so good, because it would ruin the atmosphere of the game.

Graphics + Story = Atmosphere

You sir, are my absolute hero. This quote a million times.

 

[Alfador_VII]

I like pretty pictures as much as the next person, but while good graphics might attract me to a game, if the story and gameplay is crap it won't hold my attention.

And yes like many others on this thread I've put a lot of time into Minecraft, which would never sell itself on screenshots, as it's about as basic as you get these days, graphically.

I also play SNES hames from time to time, so I can cope with 16 bit, or even 8 bit sprites.

I've even played Rogue-likes which technically don't even have graphics. When you can identify with a heroic @ exploring passages with .... on the floor and walls of ***, killing random letters of the alphabet for punctuation mark loot, it shows you really don't need HD graphics to enjoy a game.

 

[Ennui]

I may have a different perspective than a lot of gamers, I'm epileptic. I also mainly play RPGs and MMORPGs. I really enjoy what others have referred to as 'pretty games' but not necessarily 'cute' ones. If the game has the option for me on my not so spectacular computer to turn down some of the graphics options, it helps because often times if the graphics begin to glitch, I get a constant flickering going on on my screen which can lead to a seizure.

While I'm all about game content, I do like having eye candy. I used to play MUDs, but keeping so much information either in my head or maps and such scattered around on other tabs also makes the game a bit more difficult to get into. Going overboard and focusing only on graphics can ruin a game, just like it can ruin a movie to only have massive amounts of special effects with no plot. There has to be a balance.

Beyond just the graphics, as some have mentioned previously, the HUD/UI in a game to me is just as important. Why bother putting in awesome graphics if half of the screen is going to be covered in junk? I'm going to fall back on WoW, though I no longer play it, as an example. I really enjoyed the graphics. I can't honestly tell you how many adjustments in my UI were made by things available by player options and how many were from addons, but having the ability to tweek each and every bit of my display to my personal preferences was part of what kept me playing for so long (4 years.) I also enjoyed being able to turn off many graphical enhancements like the weather as it lagged me which made the screen jerky.

Some games are just too full of clutter and I can't get past the HUD long enough to figure out whether I care about the story line or not. Even though a lot of these are attempts to make them more user-friendly for beginners, they are off putting. The designers need to allow for more customization so that players can hide things they don't use often.

I've found that either the epilepsy or the meds make it pretty impossible for me to do much in the lines of FPSs and games with over the top effects. On the same vein though, I miss out on most 'geek' movies these days until I can catch them in the safety of my own home in case the CGI knocks me down. So yes, graphics matter, but there has to be more than graphics for it to be worth playing.