Why did the grapics race end?

[Captainguy42]

I've heard many say "They can't get much better" why not?

Because it's unnecessary and too damn expensive for us.

I agree with The Tygerfire. At a certain point better graphics began to cost too much for what people were willing to pay. And if peoples computer can't run the game it won't sell. I don't think the Graphics race has ended all together though, but it has been slowed down considerably but the fact that most people don't want to upgrade.

 

[bloob]

Three major reasons:

1) You can't make graphics much more realistic without falling so deep into the Uncanny Valley that nobody wants to play your game anymore. Oblivion and Fallout 3 both have major immersion-breaking issues that Morrowind managed to avoid, due almost entirely to the Uncanny Valley.

i don't understand why better graphics would lead to immersion breaking? surely it would lead to better immersion? If you are talking about the "Uncanny Valley" that Yahtzee was i think he was complaining about dialogue and voice acting not graphics

 

[JRCB]

Graphics are good now, so they could try focusing on gameplay?

 

[The Rockerfly]

When final fantasy XX comes out then we can shut up about graphics, until then
I want it even smaller

 

[shaboinkin]

Ray Tracing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKqZKXwop5E
'nuff said

 

[Rajin Cajun]

Three major reasons:

1) You can't make graphics much more realistic without falling so deep into the Uncanny Valley that nobody wants to play your game anymore. Oblivion and Fallout 3 both have major immersion-breaking issues that Morrowind managed to avoid, due almost entirely to the Uncanny Valley.

2) You may have noticed there's a recession going on. It's hard to sell high-end hardware when a big chunk of your customer base is either unemployed or scared for their jobs.

3) Even if the economy were booming, there's only so much money you can put into a game before it becomes way too much of a risk to spend the money to add more content/higher-end technology. Eventually developers just have to say "look, we can stay out of the Valley and make profit more likely. Two birds, one stone" and say graphics are good enough.

Pretty much the uncanny valley is making it impossible to progress. In fact Oblivion and Fallout 3 creeped me the hell out at times with its bizarre lifeless walking dolls. There needs to be a resurgence of making quality games instead of making the next benchmark test.

 

[MarsProbe]

i don't understand why better graphics would lead to immersion breaking? surely it would lead to better immersion? If you are talking about the "Uncanny Valley" that Yahtzee was i think he was complaining about dialogue and voice acting not graphics

It's not better graphics that would break immersion, provippeaded they were "better" enough. The problem arises when the graphics are at the level where the people look realistic...but just not realistic enough. Like when an otherwise plausible looking character who doesn't blink or doesn't appear to have any knee or elbow joints. Just an example. As far I know, the Uncanny Valley specifically relates to visual apppearance.

 

[dontworryaboutit]

They were killed off by a rival species.

 

[Arachon]

Ray Tracing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKqZKXwop5E
'nuff said

Mental Ray. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCQ4garLSjA&feature=related]
'nuff said

Also, the graphics war is not over yet, take a look at CryENGINE3 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u85sf_ARiW0].

 

[DYin01]

Bollocks, it CAN get better. You just wait and see. With the next generation consoles, it will be even prettier. Really, when a new generation of consoles comes out you always think 'Wow, it can't get much better than this!', but after a while you start to notice the shortcomings. Or at least, I do.

When you get close to the walls in a lot of games you really notice that the textures aren't THAT great. Take Fallout 3 for example. It's all beautiful, till you get too close. There's always room for improvement. Till there's life-like virtual reality, it isn't done yet.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

3) Even if the economy were booming, there's only so much money you can put into a game before it becomes way too much of a risk to spend the money to add more content/higher-end technology. Eventually developers just have to say "look, we can stay out of the Valley and make profit more likely. Two birds, one stone" and say graphics are good enough.

Only so much time as well.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Ray Tracing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKqZKXwop5E
'nuff said

Eh, the only real improvement it has over the techniques we're currently using is the way it handles transparency. It's not like a magic "make everything look real" technique. It's also "expensive" to implement.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Three major reasons:

1) You can't make graphics much more realistic without falling so deep into the Uncanny Valley that nobody wants to play your game anymore. Oblivion and Fallout 3 both have major immersion-breaking issues that Morrowind managed to avoid, due almost entirely to the Uncanny Valley.

i don't understand why better graphics would lead to immersion breaking? surely it would lead to better immersion? If you are talking about the "Uncanny Valley" that Yahtzee was i think he was complaining about dialogue and voice acting not graphics

The Uncanny Valley is when a character really looks human, but just not enough to actually make it a human, making it look uncanny, 'soulless'. A good example is Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. It looked beautifull, and I had a really hard time seeing that a certain shot from an eagle flying about some mountains was not real. Now it's a whole different ballgame with the characters. They looked too real, but they miss something. They look...shallow, not really real. Imo, Team Fortress 2 characters have more personality than those highly advanced looking characters.

Also, the graphics war is not over yet, take a look at CryENGINE3 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u85sf_ARiW0].

I've heard that on some area's (texture resolution, anti-aliasing) it actually looks worse than the previous engine, for the simple reason that CryENGINE3 has to perform on the consoles as well. Not sure if it's true though.

 

[spuddyt]

A QUESTION OF ULTIMATE IMPORTANCE FOLLOWS HEREIN [/exaggeration]:
Why would you want to past the point where you can become immersed?
Although, the OP may be right - I haven't seen anything like crysis even on the horizon in recent months which makes me wonder if there is going to be in even a few years.....

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

Three major reasons:

1) You can't make graphics much more realistic without falling so deep into the Uncanny Valley that nobody wants to play your game anymore. Oblivion and Fallout 3 both have major immersion-breaking issues that Morrowind managed to avoid, due almost entirely to the Uncanny Valley.

i don't understand why better graphics would lead to immersion breaking? surely it would lead to better immersion? If you are talking about the "Uncanny Valley" that Yahtzee was i think he was complaining about dialogue and voice acting not graphics

The uncanny valley is the point where something is so close to human, yet lacking the parts to be completely humanoid, and we see it as frightening and disturbing.

 

[Avatar Roku]

Three major reasons:

1) You can't make graphics much more realistic without falling so deep into the Uncanny Valley that nobody wants to play your game anymore. Oblivion and Fallout 3 both have major immersion-breaking issues that Morrowind managed to avoid, due almost entirely to the Uncanny Valley.

i don't understand why better graphics would lead to immersion breaking? surely it would lead to better immersion? If you are talking about the "Uncanny Valley" that Yahtzee was i think he was complaining about dialogue and voice acting not graphics

I don't think you understand, so I'll let Daniel Floyd [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKTAJBQSm10] explain it.

 

[maaster_yoda]

The race hasn't come to end of course, and people will always demand greater graphics, just for the show-off factor or jsut because it's pretty!
But there's only so fast electricity can travel! so there is ultimately a limit to the speed of electric based products speeds, of course light is a much faster medium but again, is limited to how fast it can go! (although that is very very fast )

 

[hopeneverdies]

i don't understand why better graphics would lead to immersion breaking? surely it would lead to better immersion? If you are talking about the "Uncanny Valley" that Yahtzee was i think he was complaining about dialogue and voice acting not graphics

The Uncanny Valley is when a character really looks human, but just not enough to actually make it a human, making it look uncanny, 'soulless'. A good example is Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. It looked beautifull, and I had a really hard time seeing that a certain shot from an eagle flying about some mountains was not real. Now it's a whole different ballgame with the characters. They looked too real, but they miss something. They look...shallow, not really real. Imo, Team Fortress 2 characters have more personality than those highly advanced looking characters.[/quote]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKTAJBQSm10

This gives a pretty good idea of the Uncanny Valley

My reason for the graphics race ending, edit the title's spelling, was that improving graphics was taking too much time out of development and resulted in game quality that was less than what it could have been.

 

[Pyrrian]

The race for a better visual presentation will be there for years to come. All this uncanny valley talk is nonsense, at least with respect to today's games. Nothing in a game looks so real, in the first place. Second, even when that becomes a legitimate concern, companies will need to develop better technology and simply push through it. Third, the uncanny valley becomes less applicable because the consumer expectations change over time. That is, even if something looks extremely real but has wooden features or performances, people will grow to understand and expect that.

Games are still light years away from mastering a "realistic" visual presentation. I mean, look at a tree in a game versus one in real life. Everything is off. Absolutely everything. From the shading, to the various leaf shapes and sizes, to the slight discolorations, to the bug bites, to the branch formations, to the seed pods, to the little bits of moss and lichen growing on the bark, to the way various breezes cause things to sway, to the ability to change over time and grow, to the resolution in which you see things.

Things can get better - and should get better. Plants really bug me in games because they look like crap, and are often cut-and-paste versions of one another. I hope those start to get a lot of attention in the future.

People thinking that games don't need to look better are insane. People used to say that years ago, and it wasn't true then, either. People also used to say you'd never need bigger hard drives, more RAM, or faster processors. It all just shows a lack of understanding.