Should games stop trying to have better graphics?

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thejboy88

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Aug 29, 2010
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I apologize in advance if this is a thread that's been done before.

As we all know by now, ever gaming generation has become better and better with the look and feel of their games, to the point where they're looking more realistic than ever. And while this is obviously a great achievement, there are a couple of things I worry about.

Better graphics require better hardware in order to make them work. After all, the kinds of graphics we have on the PS3 for example, would probably make it's predecessors explode from the effort of getting them on screen. So gaming consoles and PC's have had to become more powerful in order to play them, and thus, more expensive.

Each generation has, by way of improved graphics and details, had to be more expensive than the last. Ture, some consoles, like those of Nintendo, have managed to keep things relatively cheap by stickiong to their more famous "cartoony" look for most of their games. But as for others, like the ongoing Playstations and XBOX's, things only seem to be going in the direction of making games in such a way that they need more powerful and expensive hardware to run.

I know the games industry is a business and needs to make money, but I really do think that a time will eventually come when few, if any, will be able to afford the kinds of consoles that such companies bring out in the future, especially with so many people tightening their belts financially.

So, even though I respect all of the work that's gone into making games look more real than ever before, I have to wonder if doing so mich have started a domino effect that might, one dya, lead to a terrible blow to this medium in terms of just how many people can afford to have such games in their possession.
 

EeveeElectro

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Aug 3, 2008
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I think yes. we're at a time where graphics are brilliant and probably won't get much better and because they're only a small part of the overall gaming experience, I think they need to stop trying to better themselves when it ends up costing the consumer more.

I'm more than happy with graphics we have now and if we had them in 10 years time I'll still be happy. I know there's a few magpies out there who need something shiny and nice to enjoy a game but I would rather they spend more time sorting out a great plot than focusing on graphics.
 

Pseudoboss

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Apr 17, 2011
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I think that yes, developers need to stop putting more and more time, effort and money into graphics, and more into great stories, gameplay and style.
Toolmakers on the other hand, the people who make the programs that developers use to make games should be straining in all directions. Games have improved greatly just because better tools have become available to programmers and artists. As tools improve, developers will hopefully be able to not spend more money than they already are, and still get slightly better graphics, albeit rather slowly.
Games shouldn't be striving to look better and better, they should be striving to be better and better in every way.
 

TehCookie

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Sep 16, 2008
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No. I agree not all games should but other games should try to push the envelope and develop technology. Even all the cartoony games I play look way better in 720 than 480. If we said "oh this looks good" and stop here we'll never see improvement or what the future will bring. I'd also guess that making graphic intensive games helps pave the way for budget games to use that technology.

The industry shouldn't put all it's eggs in the realistic graphics basket, but that doesn't me they should abandon it all together. I like variety, I want to see how real games can get and I want to enjoy budget titles that look like past gen games.
 

Chimpzy_v1legacy

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Jun 21, 2009
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Though the current graphical quality is good enough for my tastes, there is no reason why the industry shouldn't invest in more visual fidelity, so long as that remains financially viable and not the only advancement it explores. Animation, physics, A.I., writing and of course gameplay mechanics, pretty much every aspect of games beside graphics still have a lot of room for improvement.

Or in short:
Pseudoboss said:
Games shouldn't be striving to look better and better, they should be striving to be better and better in every way.
What he says.
 

Casual Shinji

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Jul 18, 2009
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They should just stop trying as hard.

If games can look better, I'm all for it, but don't break the bank on it.

I'm not an expert on how graphics work, but it would be nice if they found a more efficient way to make games look good, so that they don't have to sandwich the gameworld into corridors.
 

shootthebandit

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EeveeElectro said:
I think yes. we're at a time where graphics are brilliant and probably won't get much better and because they're only a small part of the overall gaming experience, I think they need to stop trying to better themselves when it ends up costing the consumer more.

I'm more than happy with graphics we have now and if we had them in 10 years time I'll still be happy. I know there's a few magpies out there who need something shiny and nice to enjoy a game but I would rather they spend more time sorting out a great plot than focusing on graphics.
I partially agree but i dont think the industry has peaked yet, everything is pretty much spot on except for facial animation, I dont think the developers primary concern should be graphics but if they have means to improve graphics without limiting gameplay then i dont see a problem
 

Roxas1359

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Aug 8, 2009
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Casual Shinji said:
They should just stop trying as hard.

If games can look better, I'm all for it, but don't break the bank on it.
Pretty much stole my answer there Casual Shinji. We're at a point now to where we aren't going to see a huge jump in graphics like how we did when going from SD to HD or from 8-bit to 16-bit. Heck I'm seeing a return of hand drawn sprites more and more lately and I love that.
Take for example the games made by Wayforward, which are hand drawn sprites, or Rayman Legends and how it is mainly hand drawn.

While some will still try to push graphics to the limit, I've been a kind of person who has always said that graphics honestly aren't the main part of a game that I slobber over. Hell more than anything cel-shading is always a nice thing and generally ages quite well (see Wind Waker for example).
 

Johnny Novgorod

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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
A game with superb art direction will always look good (Wind Waker, Okami, Otogi)
Yes. It's a shame that gorgeous games like Okami or Shadow of the Colossus end up getting recycled as HD remakes sooner or later. The drive towards some sort of ideal graphical standard is ever pushing and even the most superbly engineered games will fall prey to HD cannibalism.
 

Hero of Lime

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I just wish that it wasn't the most important part of a new console generation like it seems to be. I want everything fine tuned besides the graphics at the moment. If you want to make the game look as good as it can be, that is fine, just don't place that above making the game as fun, interesting, unique as possible. Considering the new consoles don't look that much better than the last ones, hopefully developers will focus on everything else(gameplay mechanics, AI, story, music, character interaction and script etc.) for once.

Will it happen? Probably not, having the tagline "it looks great" on the box and previews helps sales in the end more than they should.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
420p was always kinda lousy for gaming
It wasn't. It was as good as it was going to get at the time, meaning it was perfect. It would appear lousy by today's standards, not by their own. Trust me, give this generation of 1080p game a couple more spins, it'll look as "lousy" as 420p looks today. Like every other techy thing.
 

Roxas1359

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j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
I mean, I still fire up my OG Xbox every now and then, and even I have to admit that a lot of its games look very pixelly and jaggy nowadays.
It's more of an issue with newer televisions as well when it comes to that, primarily HDTVs in which they will often times stretch and contort the images and reveal the pixel issues, or sometimes even clipping issues. I've noticed it a lot when doing my Let's Plays since I do older games.
But there are upscalers out there that do work by doing what they need to and fixing some of the contortion problems.

Look here, this is what Wind Waker looks like when played on the Wii and using the Wii 2 HDMI converter so that the game is not locked in the aspect ratio of 4:3, since it programed into that game.

 

Caiphus

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Mar 31, 2010
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I'm going to throw my hat in with j-e-f-f-e-r-s on this one: yes and no. Graphics are good enough that developers don't really need to push the envelope. That said, it's difficult not to get a little bit wet when you see nice graphics in stuff like this:


Or maybe it's just the British accent that's doing that. I don't know.

Where was I going?

Oh yeah, more British accents in games!
 

Grivahri

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Mar 26, 2012
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Yes and yes. Graphics are good enough now, the time when we drooled over graphics and looked forward to new consoles most because of the graphical boost has come to an end. Developers are now turning into George Lucas, if you get that reference
 

ShinyCharizard

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With this coming generation of consoles I think that the graphics are now good enough. I'd rather the focus be on other areas now like AI, physics, new game mechanics etc.
 

Vykrel

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they should always try to have better graphics, but not at the expense of gameplay or performance. or art direction.
 

Rose and Thorn

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If every RPG that Bethesda did from now on was on par with Skyrims graphics it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Graphics will continue to get better whether we want them to or not, graphics have never made me buy a game and are never the reasons why I love a game. That doesn't mean I am not allowed to like graphics on certain games though. Do I like Skyrims graphics better than Oblivions? Yes, but I never personally asked for the upgrade and I still loved Oblivion.
 

The_Echo

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Mar 18, 2009
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For the most part, believe it or not, developers aren't actually that concerned with graphics anymore. They don't have to really try to make you think their game looks good, because at this point even bottom-tier graphics for PS3 and 360 games look pretty dang good.

We saw people flaunting their shiny new poly counts at the beginning of this generation because that was the new thing, and we'll see a bunch of pretty art thrown at our faces at the beginning of the next generation.

David Cage made a point of the higher poly count the PS4 can provide him, and that's seriously probably the biggest example of "hey look how good my game looks" we'll get for a while.

Do you know why that is? Because it's the most easily-identifiable difference between new games and old games. Back when the SNES was new, people would repeat the phrase "16 bit" ad nauseum.

As gaming tech grows, the improvements that can be made to visuals is quickly plateauing. The difference between what the PS4 could put out and the what the PS3 could is several times smaller than the PS3 to the PS2, which was smaller than the PS2 to the PS1. By progress alone developers are concerning themselves less and less with how good their game looks compared to their competition.

As much as we all like to say "I wish developers would stop putting so much money into graaaaaaaphicssss," the truth of the matter is that they really, really aren't. I'm willing to bet that for the past three or four years, nearly all games released by AAA devs have had similar percentages of the budget allocated to the graphical fidelity. It's not as big of a deal now as it was in 2006. And it probably never will be again.