Graphics cards are killing creativity

[Gitsnik]

First, a confession, that title is only half right - I could explore it far more than I do. As such this is more a discussion on the defining features for some of the more mentally intense games available to us.

Today we have a myriad of games in all sorts of qualities, ranging from the pixelated awesomeness of Doom and Duke Nukem to the high resolution eye candy surrounding Halo Wars or Crysis. It seems like every time I turn around someone is touting the latest amount of channels in their graphics card, or the coolest new game available or coming out soon. Demo's and pre-releases abound of awesome looking games. And reviews are just as numerous, filled with complaints of little to no content, or a basic story line, while the reviewer is busy cutting apart as many enemies as possible with the chunkiest weapon available. Left and right we have complaints of games becoming easier. So what happened to the games that drew in your mind and made you think?

Well I'm here to tell you that they are still around. As recently as 2008 we saw a handheld release of Myst for the DS. Myst, the game so many of us spent hours slaving after trying to crack that rolling ball puzzle or get to the right spot, was re-released 16 years after the initial creation. Not even the infamous doom can claim that (though I assume a re-re-release will happen some time in the future). What, then, draws a player into a game like Myst? Certainly the graphics are a factor - and Myst was gorgeous for its time - but there is more to it than being able to see a blood spatter at 500 yards, Myst was - and is - loved for the immersion, the story, and the puzzles - puzzles so difficult you're left ranting at yourself for not getting them when you finally realise how to solve them and kick yourself for not seeing it earlier.

Perhaps my favourite game, and the one that has caused me the most grief and joy in my life, I've mentioned on numerous occasions here, usually to little or no acclaim, and some of you I am sure are getting tired of hearing about it! But there is another game of massive complexity, a game that is constantly changing, allowing you to act how you want. You want to kill that kitten? Go nuts. That shop keeper is annoying you? Blast him with a death ray. Feel like being a ninja for a day, take the armour off your samurai and run around yelling at things for a bit. Or be a tourist, put on your Hawaiian shirt and suffer the "patronage" of the local shops . The infamous nethack, the ultimate game of immersion, the ultimate game for the mind. Written 22 years ago and still under active development, nethack is a game of many qualities. The two I most enjoy are that - in an environment of patches and server updates - it has been "built like they used to". The game is solid, stable, and relatively bug free, and more importantly it will run almost anywhere, on any type of hardware. I myself run it on an old FreeBSD system that sits on the floor of my server closet - a machine that has 64MB of RAM and a 133mHz processor.

The second quality is one that many role players and book lovers will be able to, at the least, sympathise with - relative lack of graphics (I've only just upgraded to the colour tiles!) means that when you play the game it is entirely up to you. My partner is constantly laughing at me for having a moment where my entire body tenses up and I yell bloody murder at Rodney or a mass of Archon's because I can't kill them in time, or when I act out what I see in the game (I am forever convinced the game is mocking me when I identify a trap and it says "That is a hole" because I picture nethack saying that in a dead-pan deep baritone). This game, originally written by people the very year I was born, manages to capture my mind and most of my attention while others fall by the wayside. It's not just whilst playing the game though either - I cant watch the Lord of the Rings or read a fictional story without picturing how my latest Monk, Valkyrie, or Gnomish axe man is going to do in that situation. It's not just a case of "oh good sniping position" or "If I blew up those crates that guy would come running and I could rob that shop", it's far more than that. I see a stray cat on the street and think "damn, no tripe ration - no chance to use it to steal rings from shops so I can fly over that water I'm going to come up against later" - a game like nethack requires an extensive use of both your imagination, and your planning skills, granting you the chance to fully exercise your mind and your creativity.

To me, and to a lot of "ex-gamers" I speak with, the gaming industry is starting to whip the proverbial lifeless horse, endlessly repeating the same games with different settings and layouts. I don't profess to be able to come up with a better idea (mine are all rather dystopic) but I will proclaim loudly that something is very wrong. I started writing this without a very clear goal in mind - I felt that there was something wrong with the new release games I was seeing and wanted to say something about it. After the first few thoughts and sentences I realised I knew what was wrong; people don't know how to think any more. A game like Portal helps that, providing as it does an complex puzzle environment with a lot of immersion, but one game in a hundred releases is not enough to turn the tide - especially when the market is full of relatively linear games that are so obsessed with showing me as much detailed blood as possible that they let go of the story in an effort to push the games "pretty" factor to the fore. Even great games like Portal have little re-playability - you can refine your solving speed and go for the achievements, but ultimately you are progressing through the same linear levels in the same fashion.

So, that was a lot to say to ask some simple questions: What new games do we have that will cover what I've asked for above? Do you agree with my sentiment - that we are starting to go around in circles, to have our creativity stifled by games that are continuously the same thing with a slightly different story? Are there other fans of the single player think-slash-fest out there to lend a hand? And more importantly, why am I having to ask this question - what happened to the good puzzle stealth games where I still had moments of heart pounding action where enemies were coming at me?

Gitsnik, the Level 25 Warrior, died in the dungeons of doom on level 2, killed by a newt, while helpless. (Death #122,934,958)

 

[Abedeus]

I kinda agree. Even if games like Aion (pretty creative, for a MMO) look pretty, I would rather have everything STOPPED. You know. No more graphic cards. No better looking games. Just concentrate on the games, not how they look.


...I'm living in a fool's paradise.

 

[Tech Team FTW!]

It is certainly killing voice acting.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.107063

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I think that Spelunky is the best game I have played all year and since that has random level generation and old school graphics I have to agree with you. I don't think that everyone will be happy if you destroyed all of their graphics cards and told them to use their imaginations more. People are just not like that. The good thing about high end graphics card though is that they can play nethack and Spelunky even more easily than they can play Crysis. It's up to game creators to show discipline in how they use their resources and the hardware resources.

 

[ratix2]

theres a BIG problem with this theory, that is its NOT the fault of the hardware at all, its the fault of the developers/publsihers and espically the gamers.

hardware drives software development, thats a fact. without powerful hardware innovations in games wouldnt happen. we wouldnt get games like half life, deus ex, system shock, etc. ai would still be like it was in doom and quake, envirnmental interaction would be non-existent and gameplay mechanics, like those in portal or half life 2, just wouldnt be possible. better graphics help immersion and CAN make gameplay better, but its ultimatly the game developers, NOT the hardware, that determines whether or not the graphics and technology behind these games make them what they are. (from this point out im gonna be all over the place so bear with me).

mostly the gamers are at fault here. incredible games that push the envelope in terms of gameplay barely sell well for the most part.

 

[Gitsnik]

theres a BIG problem with this theory, that is its NOT the fault of the hardware at all, its the fault of the developers/publsihers and espically the gamers.

That's what I'm saying. In fact, I said something similar here:

especially when the market is full of relatively linear games that are so obsessed with showing me as much detailed blood as possible that they let go of the story in an effort to push the games "pretty" factor to the fore.

I don't mind a pretty graphics game, I regularly replay Prey just to listen to some of those guns go off at 4 in the morning with my neighbours around, but it has hardly any re-playability (I just like the noises and killing stuff) and had maybe two puzzles in it that were worth more than a 6th graders intellect levels. This is my problem, that the graphics are pushed forward to make room for... nothing. As the link Pi_Fighter posted examples for another side of the gaming aspect (by the way Pi, I've been writing the OP for about two weeks now, trying to word it right and what not so I believe the appropriate phrase here is "Damn, ninja'd")

 

[ratix2]

system shock for example, its one of the best games ever made and certanily pushed the envelope for gameplay and graphics when it was released, but it bombed, overshadowed by games like doom 2, quake and duke nukem 3d. it was only by the grace of god that there was a sequal, and even that didnt do too well either, overshadowed by half-life, sin, quake 2 and unreal. hell its only because of bioshock that most gamers these days even know about system shock 2, before that if you went on a forum and asked youd find more people who never heard of it before than those who had even heard of the game.

and its the fact that these games DONT sell, and games like halo, resistance, killzone 2, etc. DO sell well speaks to puslisher and developers, who in turn release copy and paste games year after year to make money, while games like undying sit on store shelves and its a decade before we see another like it, while halo clones run rampant. this doesent even apply to just shooters either, rts's, rpgs, racing games.

 

[ratix2]

gitsnik:
to me it appeared as more of a rant on how needing to one up each other in the graphics department was killing creativity. but thats just not the case. its the gamers who buy these copy and paste games and the publishers who give the green light for them and the red light for games that actually do something different.

one upping each other is whats called competition, and theoritically competition is a good thing. game developers would see what another is doing and try to make their games better, more interactive, better puzzles and new features and gameplay mechanics. unfortuanetly when gamers dont buy the games that actually do this it speaks to people, tells them its not worth following, and then they go make halo clones left and right.

and on that note when a game DOESENT have good graphics you hear bitching from teh gamers about it. look at stalker, after the bugs the biggest complaint about the game was the graphics, nevermind the immersive, atmospheric nature of the game.

 

[Sevre]

Oh by the way ATI and Nvidia released new Gcards about 3 weeks back guys. They won't be necessary till for another 3 years though. Still, I want.

Yeah sarcasm sucks on the internet.

 

[Charli]

*chucks wacom tablet at the threadstarters head*

Graphics cards are gooood. What you're talking about is nearly completely different.

And honestly for someone who aspires to work in this genre of media? Graphics never bother me, I still play side scrolling 2D shooters.

 

[Gitsnik]

gitsnik:
to me it appeared as more of a rant on how needing to one up each other in the graphics department was killing creativity. but thats just not the case. its the gamers who buy these copy and paste games and the publishers who give the green light for them and the red light for games that actually do something different.

Perhaps... but:

and on that note when a game DOESENT have good graphics you hear bitching from teh gamers about it. look at stalker, after the bugs the biggest complaint about the game was the graphics, nevermind the immersive, atmospheric nature of the game.

So... if they don't do good graphics they do good games, but people don't play them so much? That just reads like exactly what I'm getting at - great games (and ok I was using older, more textular, ones as examples) are left at the way side because people want better graphics. Whether this is the designers fault or the game buyers fault is something that I don't feel qualified to point out - having not written any graphics games since TAFE.

 

[Anachronism]

I kinda agree. Even if games like Aion (pretty creative, for a MMO) look pretty, I would rather have everything STOPPED. You know. No more graphic cards. No better looking games. Just concentrate on the games, not how they look.

I would love it if they were prepared to do this, but alas, they won't. Although I am prepared to admit that at least part of the reason I think this is that my graphics card is really crappy.

 

[wordsmith]

Good Graphics =/= good game.

Take Crysis for example. Great graphics, to the point that the game is unplayable for many people, and a game that is unplayable cannot be a good one.

Flip that on it's head, take STALKER. Crap graphics, great story.

EDIT: Gah, ninja'd on the Stalker point... interesting that it's the main point of bitching though. Gamers want perfection, so when games like Portal, Braid and Stalker come rolling through (each with their own merits), gamers WILL pick on the negatives. It's criticism so that the Developers do better next time.

Portal, for example- Great humour, innovative gameplay but is incredibly short.

 

[Doug]

Bleh, why can no one ever be a moderate these days? Yes, there is too much focus on graphics over gameplay. No, this doesn't mean graphics are completely unimportant, not does it mean we should return to old graphics engines.

 

[ratix2]

gitsnik:
i know im going around in circles here, and im sorry for that, but heres my point: you said in the threads title that graphics cards are killing creativity, but they arent. its the developers/publishers and espically the gamers that are. more powerful hardware CAN help developers make games more interactive, make new/better gameplay mechanics and overall just help change the game for the better becuase of the technology. look at valve and half life 2, the gravity gun and in game physics, these changed the game for the better but would NOT have been possible back 10 years ago. now look at bioshock, sure the gameplay wasant as good as it could have been but try and say the game didnt have one of the most creative settings in a game ever, and if it werent for powerful graphics hardware bioshocks's level of detail wouldnt have been anywhere near what it was.

wordsmith: crysis proves that sometimes developers go TOO far with good graphics, but under those graphics crysis was a damn good shooter.

 

[Gitsnik]

look at valve and half life 2, the gravity gun and in game physics, these changed the game for the better but would NOT have been possible back 10 years ago.

I'm not saying the creativity in game development has been stifled (though there is a solid debate for that as well with the copy and paste game movement) - rather that the gamers, the people who are buying these games, are losing their creativity in the never ending quest for better blood graphics. Even "hard" puzzles in games now are laughably easy compared to games of yester year.

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but I enjoy actually thinking before I kill, that's why games like Thief are so awesome. And yet they seem to be so few.

 

[kawligia]

The problem is that game companies devote WAY too much time and money to graphics. Graphics are important, but they are only a part of the game. Maybe as much as half, but definitely no more.

The game companies continue to sacrafice gameplay, creativity, voice-acting, length, and depth on the altar of graphics. Sure the graphics look amazing, but they are completely pointless by themselves. Gameplay, creativity, depth, etc. are the foundation of the game. They are like the body while the graphics are like clothes and jewelry.

If this trend continues, gaming as we know and love it will be nothing but a well dressed corpse, starved to death because she just couldn't waste money on food when there are pretty diamonds to be had.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Bleh, why can no one ever be a moderate these days? Yes, there is too much focus on graphics over gameplay. No, this doesn't mean graphics are completely unimportant, not does it mean we should return to old graphics engines.

If everyone was a moderator then nobody would have any views or opinions of their own.

 

[Overlord_Dave]

I don't think the industry will never come out with any more good original games.

But I do agree that developers are concentrating far too much on graphics rather than gameplay. Movie tie-ins are probably the best examples. Transformers and Iron Man had amazing graphics but (and this is from reviews cos I've never played them ) the gameplay was awful.

But then again, look at X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Batman: Arkam Asylum (probably spelt that wrong). Again this is only form previews, but it's clear they've got great graphics, and apparently good gameplay as well.

There have always been terrible games in the market. The only difference now is that publishers have enough money to relentlessly push their games into the public eye, rather than letting the games speak for themselves.

 

[sneak_copter]

Crysis: Limiting involvment to people with deep pockets = Bad idea.