Escapist Podcast: Is Photorealism Needed for Gaming to Advance?

[gardian06]

...snip...

I kind of agree, but at the same time you do sight your own key counter point. I like reading, and enjoy reading, but I am one of those people that takes a little longer to read things (yes I know there are systems to increase speed, but they don't work for me, and I miss details), so when it comes to sub-tittles I can understand your point, but at the same time I would like it as an option not as a force. If the company has no intention to localize to another language then don't region lock the game, but I would much prefer that when a company does the localization on a title to give the option of the different languages.

though the counter point to this that you brought out yourself Koshok is some things don't translate, or even if they do translate they are purely cultural. like what Steve was saying about the game that used "gook" to refer to Latinos if that would have been released in the US, or almost any English speaking nation for that matter the company would have been slammed as racist/xenophobic. And the same goes with some tropes of other cultures like in American games where the Latino starts speaking Spanish "to prove they are Latino" I don't think that would do to well in any Latino centered culture, and I would hope the EU for that matter, but that's just hoping (I mean I'm not even Latino myself, and as an American I am offended when I hear those things)

 

[Rainboq]

Space. Muffins. T-shirt. All of my want. And, per usual, great podcast.

 

[blackrave]

There are no white german shepherds (all are brown/black), that most probably was swiss shepherd

 

[Hitchmeister]

Photorealism is important for day one game sales. Photorealistic graphics look great in publicity shots and drive pre-orders. It becomes far less important after someone gets their hands on a game and can actually see how it plays. Photorealism isn't for gameplay, but hype. And we know what game companies are better at selling.

 

[newdarkcloud]

I really hope that Susan is right and that the 2K just really misspoke, because otherwise it would make no sense, believe it.

And I have the same problem with the Vita. There is nothing in their catalog yet that makes me want to by the system, believe it. I'd love to play some of those game, but there is nothing I'd buy the system for, believe it.

I agree that Atlus is very good at localization, believe it. It's amazing to see how much they've improved since their first foray into translation with Persona 1, believe it!

 

[DustyDrB]

Is Photorealism Needed for Gaming to Advance?

This week, we discuss 2K Games' comments about gaming needing photorealism to mature. We also discuss game localization and the announced third Hobbit film.

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Interestingly enough, current research is showing that people more quickly recognize caricatures of familiar people than actual photographs. The hypothesis is because these exaggerated, "stylized" images might be actually more like the way the brain actually stores that person's image.

Was that in Wired? I remember reading that factoid somewhere.

As for when to buy a new console: I have a games quota, and it's a bit steep. For me to buy a console, it needs twelve games that I can't already play on a system I currently have. Systems aren't guaranteed to have good first or third party support. Twelve games is enough to sustain me for a looong time, even if a lot of those games are four or more years old by the time I get to them.

I think people should have a quota. I really don't understand buying something at launch when it has a poor launch lineup and a library that looks to still be barren for the foreseeable future.

 

[Rassmusseum]

About the "Believe it!" (Dattebayo)thing, they stopped doing that past the first season of the anime I think. It was just omitted entirely later on since everyone was super annoyed hearing it all the time.

 

[Slycne]

Yes it is. These guys are way too focused on emotional involvement.

Because that's what the discussion is about...

Listen to the podcast again or read the statements 2K made - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118839-2K-New-Genres-Impossible-Without-Photorealism. The very target of the discussion is the emotional connection and development of new 'emotional' genres. You're kind of arguing against a position we are not taking.

 

[Raioken18]

I love your podcasts but first...

Don't comment on something if you don't fully understand it. The whole bit about localisation and Naruto, it's one of the top anime at the moment and making a comparison and just saying, it's not like it's Pokemon... nothing is like Pokemon, that's like saying {insert game here} isn't Ocarina of Time. The point of Naruto having annoying sayings and a scratchy voice is that you basically start off hating him, he's a whiney twerp, but as the series goes on you are able to see this character persevere and develop into someone who has suffered loss but never gives up. If you do want to compare that to Pokemon... Pokemon is a static cartoon, the characters never develop beyond the token badges they collect, they hardly ever realize it's team rocket before the disguises come off and usually it's like they take off a pair of glasses. It's cute and for younger children who want to see the hero win each day before they go to school, Naruto isn't that sort of a cartoon on the surface it's bright and colourful but it is also pretty dark and gritty.

And the annoying voice thing, let me compare that to, I know people who wouldn't touch LoZ games because Link's rolling noise and things were annoying to them and, I really think that they missed the point focusing on that one negative it doesn't really detract from the game just like it doesn't really detract from the anime.

Linking that to photo realism, it really isn't necessary to convey emotional meaning. One of the odd times I cried was in Futurama when Fry finds out his brother named his son after him and they have his funeral and it's a really touching moment. Then there is Minecraft, possibly as far away from photo realism as you could get but it can have fantastic emotional depth. Crawling through dark caves trying to avoid enemies or saving friends in trouble, you feel that emotion you can feel scared or happy or even like you want to protect someone or something. The pvp servers (hunger games style) are that sort of a brutal pvp situation and it really feels epic, you really feel the intensity of fighting someone else in that game.

Some of the best and most expressive games use cell shading and are colourful and just have so much emotional depth where as the more realistic CoD games... I felt nothing when playing through what were meant to be brutal massacres, just because it had's really engaged me. It looked realistic, but I just didn't have any emotional connection to anything.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Man I really want to see the Space Muffin T-Shirts. Any idea when they might be coming out?

 

[Dr. Dice Lord]

Two words: absolutely not.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

like what Steve was saying about the game that used "gook" to refer to Latinos if that would have been released in the US, or almost any English speaking nation for that matter the company would have been slammed as racist/xenophobic.

They'd be laughed at because 'gook' is a racist perjorative for Asians not Latinos.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I really hope that Susan is right and that the 2K just really misspoke, because otherwise it would make no sense, believe it.

This is the same Hartman who defended the FPS XCom by saying:

"Turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth," Hartmann said. "But this is not just a commercial thing - strategy games are just not contemporary." [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111614-Xcom-Publisher-Strategy-Games-Are-Not-Contemporary]

Which is a strange thing for the Publisher of the world's biggest TBS franchise (Sid Meier's Civilization) to say, let alone the fact that 2K had probably already green lit the Firaxis TBS X-Com game by the time he openned his yap.

In that context, I wouldn't hold out any serious hopes that the man can tell between his arse and his elbow.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

Yes it is. These guys are way too focused on emotional involvement.

Because that's what the discussion is about...

Listen to the podcast again or read the statements 2K made - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118839-2K-New-Genres-Impossible-Without-Photorealism. The very target of the discussion is the emotional connection and development of new 'emotional' genres. You're kind of arguing against a position we are not taking.

I'm aware of all that. Emotional involvement is frankly rather unimportant in the grand scheme of game development. While some games are supposed to emotionally engage the audience, the best selling games seem to just be games, i.e. CoD, Mario, etc. You can talk about the medium growing as an artform or whatever, but that's all secondary to technological progress. Photorealism is an incredibly important barrier from the standpoint of game design in general and technological constraints.

There's a difference between not getting what someone's saying and deliberately ignoring what they said in order to make a more important point. I was doing the latter, though I can hardly blame you for the confusion.

 

[Alterego-X]

I think the quote was misconstructed as "we" won't care about games until they are photorealistic, while it was intended to talk about expanding the market. "We" might love abstract games until our face is blue, but that won't magically make them more accepted.

All the counterexamples about non-photorealistic emotional things are either tiny niches, or seen as childish.

There is western animation for children, and anime for otaku.
Garfield Comic strips in newspapers, and Superhero comics for nerds.
Cartoonish party games for casuals, and arthouse indie games for hardcore gamers.

Paintings themselves are made by and for conisseours, while the rest of us couldn't tell a Van Gogh from a Hitler. As soon as we invented photography, ordinary people started to use that everywhere from portraits to landscapes, simply becase photorealistic is seen as superior.

So yes, I could actually agree with him, that if gaming wants to be recognized in the mainstream as an art form, it needs photorealistic dramas, romances, epics, and mysteries, not even more 2D platformers that look like expressionist paintings.

 

[surg3n]

Photorealism is a myth, computers will never be able to render at high enough quality to actually fool the eye. They might as well say that videogames won't advance until they can be plugged directly into the brain.