Videogame Graphic Advances - Not That Important?

Thanks to the IGDA for its 'Culture Clash' column discussing the recent advances in graphics quality for games, and why increased detail isn't always a good thing. The author, referencing a previously Slashdot-covered article about "unsettlingly funereal" hi-poly face models in games, points out: "Dependence on increasingly real visuals alone to generate emotion will inevitably hit a wall: at some point game graphics will look as good as real life. Developers have an arsenal of emotioneering tools at hand; to limit themselves to just one, however prominent, would be ill-advised", before further warning: "Overfocus on hyper-realistic graphics and modeling, while not a bad idea in a general sort of way, can also impede quality of gameplay."

Comments

Gameplay

[BigDork1001]

No, super realistic graphics is not the most important thing in video games. There needs to be gameplay to make a game good. One of my favorite games is Combat Mission which is an incredible WWII strategy game. The graphics are a weak by todays standards but the gameplay is amazing and very realistic which is what makes the game.

Graphics might be good to look at but if there's no gameplay what's the point of putting down $50? If it's no fun, no matter how life like it looks I'm not going to spend my hard earned money on it.

Re:Gameplay

[bigman2003]

The Graphics vs. Gameplay issue comes up on Slashdot a lot. The more vocal group (majority? dunno) seems to think that the gameplay is suffering, because the graphics are getting more attention.

My response to that is....bullshit. Games now have bigger budgets- meaning more people. They take longer to create, meaning more time. Even if graphics are 90% of that time x money formula, just 10% of the total effort that goes into most modern games is far more than what was put into the entire game 15 years ago. First comparison- the Atari 2600 had the game 'Skiing' where you move a square down a white screen with occasional green blobs that you were supposed to avoid. Consoles have games like Amped and SSX. If you can't see the improved gameplay, you are blind. And of course the graphics are like 45^99th times better too.

To me, games are a little like hairstyles. I'm sure you've seen women going around with a ridiculous 20 year old hairstyle. Well, 20 years ago was probably the best time of her life, and she is going to hang on to every part of that era that she can. A lot of gamers are the same way. 'Platformers from the 80s are the best'. Okay...chances are you are over the age of 25, and most modern games intimidate you. So, it's much easier to stick with those games essentially for the rest of your life. Oh, you'll look at them, but soon dismiss them because you understand Kaboom! so much more.

Some people think that Quake was the pinnacle of first person shooters...my guess is that they were in a college dorm (or similar situation) when Quake came out. Now, if a new game comes out, they don't have 20 guys sitting around who want to play (It's called Xbox Live..check it out) and it isn't as much fun. So therefore, the new games just aren't as good. (Even if they do have things like a real vertical plane, smarter enemies, larger/more complex maps, etc etc)

Also, as games mature, they get more complex. The computing power is available to do more, and the graphics cards can handle better/more complex graphics.

Age of Empires was a good game. Age of Empires II was a great game, and Rise of Nations was even better. I still know people who are stuck on the first AOE, and aren't willing to move on. In fact, they look at Rise of Nations, and think that all of the other stuff is un-necessary... Yet, ask someone to go backwards (somebody who played Rise of Nations first) and they will feel that the previous games were absolute crap. Well, some people have a limited capacity for learning new things (games included) and they stick with what they know.

Okay...enough rambling. Thank you for listening. (and for the record, I'm 36 years old, and I hate older games because I LIKE new games with nice graphics and more complex gameplay.)

Not a new concern...

[GrosTuba]

At GDC 2003, Jason Rubin, head and founder of Naugthy Dog, a highly successful development studio for PS1 and PS2, delivered a speech (slides available here, audio and slides available on Gamasutra (free painless reg. req.)) on a closely related subject : improvements in graphics quality will not be sustained over the next few years, and relying on them to impress potential customers is a bad idea.

Moral : as long as gameplay, character development and story do not suck, nice graphics are of course an asset, but they're useless in case of an already shitty game...

Re:emotion

[zephiros]

Scott McCloud discusses this at length in Understanding Comics. As a rendering of a person becomes more stylized and abstract, the viewer begins to fill in details on their own. Not only can our minds fill in more details than an artist can draw, but the content we fill the drawing with is our own, which makes the character more accessible.

A similar effect occurs with The Sims. Their reductionist design and behavior allows users to ascribe all sorts of baroque narratives to their simple actions.

Real-time Lighting is a breakthrough

[ILL Clinton]

I agree with the idea that higher resolution and realism may not contribute to good game-play without good game design.

That said, as someone who uses game technology for uses other than playing games (ie machinima,) I can say that the real-time lighting effects in Doom 3 are a huge change, and a sort of breakthrough in terms of what's possible.

When making Machinima, we are able to come very close to the techniques of real film-making. But the lighting has always been a limitation. Film-making is all about light. So the fact that we can now position lights in-game in real-time and create shadows, means we are that much closer to real film-making techniques.

Of course, if the past is any indication, we won't actually start to use Doom 3 for Machinima until Doom 4 is released. ; )

The ILL Clan - Machinima Pioneers

Most of you are forgetting the most important part

[Mr.Fork]

Having worked for a gaming company and in the game industry for over ten years, gameplay and graphics go hand in hand. Yes, good graphics will improve sales but it will not make the game. I think most of us are smart enough to know that while eye candy is dandy, being real is the deal. But there is a lot more to developing a decent product.

There are four important factors in a games success:
1: open sourced/editable for improvements and new version (i.e. battlefield1942 morphing into desertcombat or starwars's galactic conquest, nethack)
2: gameplay that can extend beyond the original campaign(dynamic campaigns, add-ons)
3: good customer interaction and support for the game community (ie.combat mission, halflife, quake)
4: product that does something new or is not scared of rattling the conservative right (Grand Theft Auto).

The fourth will garner attention as free marketing. Rockstar used it for GTA:Vice and it worked brilliant.
Put those into a game, you've got a home run every time.