Realism vs. fun

[MichaelH]

Yes, I appreciate the fact that GTA IV is as photorealistic as we've seen on a console so far, and yes, it's cute for a while that you can watch TV and go on the internet and hail cabs, but does being photorealistic and being able to watch in-game TV make the game any more fun?

The tendency in next-gen gaming right now is leaning towards realism more for the "isn't this neat that we did this?" factor and not in increasing or even maintaining the level of (for lack of a better word) fun. I'm not the first to say that as groundbreaking as the visuals and ideas behind Bioshock were, it wasn't any more FUN than the first 8-bit Metroid or a Paperboy arcade game.

Frankly, the only games making any effort to capture that insanely infectious, addictive quality of gaming these days are so-called "casual" games. Everyone else is striving to perfect a physics engine to create realistically scattering litter.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Perfect enough physics have been achieved. It's called the Havok simulator. It's a plug-in for any 3D animation program that matters, used in the Halo 3 game engine and heavily modified version was augmented into Valve's Source engine. My opinion is that we've achieved a pinnacle of sorts in that respect.
Photorealism I can dig, but not in heavy amounts. I like cartoony graphics more, and as I have already said, cartoony graphics are typically are less calculation-demanding.

And there's no contest, I'd rather have fun than be realistic.

 

[Burld]

Graphics, world detail, physics engines and all that can add to fun, though. For example, the fact that GTA allows you to do all those things increases the immersion and believability of the game and makes it better escapism than the first 8-bit metroid. I suppose it depends what you want in a game. If you want simple fun then all these things don't matter. Clearly, games in their current state require fun (there are good films that aren't fun, but games haven't managed that) but why not enhance the experience with better technology?
I do think, though, that we should never ever strive for outright photorealism in a game made for entertainment purposes. Computer-generated images are still art, and need style, aesthetic appeal, and artists to produce them.

 

[Danny610]

Fun should be the main aim for every game designer, I'll play something because I enjoy it, not because it looks so good I could eat it.

 

[MichaelH]

Graphics, world detail, physics engines and all that can add to fun, though. For example, the fact that GTA allows you to do all those things increases the immersion and believability of the game and makes it better escapism than the first 8-bit metroid. I suppose it depends what you want in a game. If you want simple fun then all these things don't matter. Clearly, games in their current state require fun (there are good films that aren't fun, but games haven't managed that) but why not enhance the experience with better technology?
I do think, though, that we should never ever strive for outright photorealism in a game made for entertainment purposes. Computer-generated images are still art, and need style, aesthetic appeal, and artists to produce them.

Immersion and believability are well and good, but should never be the final destination of any game. The very nature of something that's a "game" is something that is "fun." If one were to go for perfect realism, that's a sim, not a game.

Most of the marketing strategy behind the Wii centered on this idea -- games are focusing too much on the technology and not enough on the content. "We're going to bring the games back to gaming," they trumpeted, failing only in the fact that most of their games are bloody awful once the novelty of the joystick wears off. It was a good idea, though.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Sometimes games sacrifice fun for realism though. One immediate example I can think of is FEAR. After you go through the eighth office building, it tends to get really, really samey. Compare that to my favourite recent game, Oblivion. The world looks incredibly lush, at times beautiful, but nobody could call it realistic.

 

[Emmitt_Nervend]

This topic implies that realism can't be fun and that makes absolutely no sense.

 

[sirdanrhodes]

Games like TF2 are great, quirky, fast paced and make very little sense.

 

[Burld]

Immersion and believability are well and good, but should never be the final destination of any game. The very nature of something that's a "game" is something that is "fun." If one were to go for perfect realism, that's a sim, not a game.

Exactly- but immersion and believability enhance the fun of gaming. That's one of the reasons that I'm dissapointed with the Wii. Not many games present motion control as more than a gimmick, and when I look at the muddy textures of Twilight Princess (with bad hardware they should have stuck to the aesthetically pleasing and technically undemanding graphics of Wind Waker), I am reminded that I have much better looking games that I would find equally as fun without their technology, but are more enjoyable to me because of it.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

I think it gets to a certain point that realism and a video game whose chief activity is violence begin to induce negative feedback.

It started slowly happening for me in 'Bioshock' and I imagine as games get more realistic it'll keep increasing: having a game accurately depict me bashing someone's brains out with a wrench is disturbing. Maybe I'm getting old, but 'Doom' never had the same reaction because the graphics were still cartoony enough that it didn't really kick off anything in my head.

It's not a matter of being worried about de-sensitizing or anything. It's that I don't want to see that stuff anymore than I enjoy dissecting animals or watching snuff films. I mean really, do you actually want to see this when you come home to relax:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSU0JQKYN0E

On the other hand, I'm enjoying the Wii because it forces developers to have more stylish cartoon violence like 'No More Heroes' or this little gem from SEGA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VEg_AMmh64

 

[hamster mk 4]

In my opinion fun should be the goal of game design and realism should be a tool used to achieve it. I specify A tool, not THE tool because there are many things that can make a game fun and not all of them are very realistic.

If a program were to consist of abstract shapes and colors that you could manipulate for a while before the program tells you "you win" or "you loose", it would be game and possibly a fun game. However the learning curve would be high since new users would not know what the victory conditions are and how to achieve them.

If the abstract shapes were replaced with humans in different uniforms; a new player would stand a better chance of guessing what they need to do to win. Even if the two game dynamics were exactly the same, the more "realistic" game would be more fun.

I make this rant because I hear too many people whining about the lack of "realism" in their games, or if they could make a game it would realistically simulate (insert random thing here). Games exist to be fun not to train us on how to fight the Martians when they invade.

 

[MichaelH]

This topic implies that realism can't be fun and that makes absolutely no sense.

I can understand where one would get the implication, but that wasn't the intent.

I wasn't trying to say realism and fun couldn't co-exist, just that so far, they haven't. To wit, I can't readily call to mind any game where I said "It's so lifelike!" where I still wanted to play it 15 hours later. In fact, once I found out there would be no wackiness in GTA IV like there was in San Andres (jet packs, area 51, etc), some of the wind leaked out of my enthusiasm balloon. If I want true-to-life realism, I'll play my true-to-life life.

 

[Gahars]

I'm fine with that style, I understand why devolopers would go with that design (to make it more similar to its closest media cousins, movies and tvs), but I don't think that should be all we're striving for.

I mean, look at Okami. It had a very stylized art style, and it was really all the better for it.

 

[Emmitt_Nervend]

What about sports games? Each year, they become more and more realistic and a large population of gamers seem to find them to be fun.

 

[MichaelH]

What about sports games? Each year, they become more and more realistic and a large population of gamers seem to find them to be fun.

Touche'. I actually completely forgot that the genre existed when I originally posted this.

I officially amend the discussion to include the phrase "except for sports games."

 

[sarcastic]

Why is unrealistic inherently more fun? I personally find Burnout kinda boring while PGR (not sim but more realistic) is a total blast.

I agree there is a trend towards realism this gen but that is largely due to the fact that we can now do realism far better then before. Personally I love the realism of GTA4 and I feel it's a far better game then the previous ones.

There are also people arguing the opposite to this thread. Stating that games like COD4 are so much better then games like Halo because of the realism they ride on.

The issue with realistic games (to me) is that as each game gets more and more realistic and play more realistically they look and play more like each other. Obviously that will start to bore people at some point and then trends will shift. My favourite games are quite unrealistic ones but that doesn't mean a detachment from reality makes things more fun, we have to realize it's our personal tastes.

My favorite racers are the PGR and Extreme G franchises but a Forza or Grand Turismo fan would look at me like I'm a retarded 6 year old. Neither of us is right, it's just what we want from games.

 

[fix-the-spade]

What about sports games? Each year, they become more and more realistic and a large population of gamers seem to find them to be fun.

True, but games like Wipeout and Mario Kart exist, both about sports, both fun. But as realistic (and likely) as a baseball game on Jupiter.

Then again, taking realism to extremes can make for some fun games.
My favourite being SWAT 4, on the higher difficulties even opening doors became a "hold your breath and don't blink" moment. If your team hadn't taken damage realistically, that game wouldn't have been half as much fun.

 

[MichaelH]

Why is unrealistic inherently more fun?

Again, I'm not suggesting that adding more realism means you have to take out more fun to make room. I'm just saying that devs seems to be focusing on one or the other these days, and the more attention paid to one, the less paid to the other. This isn't a seesaw where only one side can possibly be up. More of a filing cabinet where devs forget to open both drawers at the same time.