Wow, replies. I feel popular
EternallyBored said:
Statistics would probably vary a lot depending on genre, for consoles, I'd pretty much keep it on 30 FPS for the added graphical power, especially for single player, and any game that's not twitch based. Games that are twitch based, like fighters, and high paced action games, especially if they are multiplayer, are pretty much the only time I'd ever take the sacrifice.
Although, that presents a whole new series of problems, games that are heavily twitch based, would likely have to be balanced around 30 FPS, as the reverse would be much more noticeable, so you'd end up with a small genre of games being easier in order to balance them around both graphics settings. It probably wouldn't be a noticeable difference to most people, but the higher skill level players would likely notice that the game was balanced around the 30 FPS setting rather than the 60. It would probably throw off balancing in some multiplayer games too, especially fighters, though it probably wouldn't be much worse than the inequality introduced by things like internet lag.
Probably would be impossible to get a good read on the statistics before you actually tried it though, as much as gamers on internet forums like to think they are indicative of the majority of gamers as a whole, the majority of the gaming public have, quite a few times, swung in the opposite direction than the one the internet majority seems to take
A lot of this post rings true. It's why, when I think about it, I have no idea what the majority of gamers want out of their games. It's tempting for each of us to extrapolate our own experiences and preferences to the rest of the gaming community, but I never even touch most of the really popular games (CoD, DayZ, Dota, LoL, TF2 etc), and I'm also a gaming laptop user, so my experiences are probably pretty niche.
Also yes, good point, the genre of the game would also sway the statistics. I don't know about balancing games around a certain framerate. That isn't really done on PC (unless it's passed me by) where framerates can vary wildly. But it could certainly create a whole new genre of forum wars (people being accused of cheating using 60 fps would be a new one). I mean, I've played MMOs. I know how bent out of shape people can get over game balance.
One thing that I would imagine, though, that would get in the way would be how the option was presented to players. If the average gamer (especially if they're not used to graphics options) was faced with a screen saying "Warning: selecting 60 fps will cause a noticeable drop in graphical quality" would that immediately turn some of them off before they could try it? My guess is: Yes.
carnex said:
I do believe that 60FPS crowd would be horribly crushed. Most of 60FPS camper have dedicated gaming PCs of considerable value. On the other hand, most people i know consider paying more than 150USD/EUR for a graphics card that will serve you for at least 4 years is a good case to head examination unless whatever money you put in it is basically pocket change to you.
Let's be serious here. Outside collectors, games that actually use that kind of machines have no other value than cheap thrill. And key word in phrase "cheap thrill" is CHEAP.
In other words not many people don't have hardware to push 60fps on reasonable settings in AAA games. Then again not many poeple count frames in fighting games or can railgun your ass from across the map straight from the half turn and those are people who actually get gameplay benefits from higher frame rate.
I honestly don't know. You are probably right about most people, even PC gamers, not having the hardware to get 60 fps on AAA games. And this applies to the guy I'm going to respond to below, you can get a reasonable feel of what the average person is willing to spend using the steam hardware survey:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
The most popular desktop GPU in there is the GTX 660, which is pretty close to PS4 level. The most popular resolution is 1080p. But you also have tons of people playing with laptop GPUs of varying age, and almost a quarter are playing on 1366x768.
As for gameplay benefits, I dunno mate. If I limit my Skyrim to 30 fps I can certainly feel it. No idea if I could tell the difference on a console. Maybe the mouse and keyboard/sitting closer to the screen makes it easier to tell? I couldn't tell you.
But hey, lets not start too much of a witch hunt for people who spend too much on gaming hardware. I know I spent more than I'd like to admit on my laptop.
Seth Carter said:
To put in practical terms, the case study should really be
PS4/Xbone - 400 bucks for 30 FPS.
PS4.5/XXXbone - 600 bucks for 60fps
Although in practical terms, we already saw this (cross-platform) with the PS3 vs 360, which got obliterated in sales before price-dropping.
That would also be interesting, although not quite the same. We can already get a decent feel for people's willingness to pay extra money for better hardware by looking at how PC gamers spend money.*
I'd be interested in people's willingness to sacrifice graphical fidelity for framerate. Would people be interested trading their higher res textures, or maybe taking a resolution hit, to get 60 fps?
*Edit: And for that, we can have a look at the Steam hardware survey, above.
