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The Rise and Fall of Franchises
Next Generation has a piece up discussing how game franchises evolve, what makes them succeed, and (in the end) what can make a game franchise fail. From the article: "We regard the evolution of video games largely as the realization of a singular idea: realism. By 'realism' we mean capturing the external world in which we live. Like many art forms - such as photography and cinema - video games have largely been driven by developers' desire and consumers' appetite for greater realism. It is possible to argue that the popularity of cinema derives from the medium's flexibility and power to induce a sense of realism in the spectator, as movies - much like our lives - use language through dialogue, manipulate cinematography and visual effects, and sounds to represent the world or capture our imagination."
I bet if they ressurrected a bunch of old animators and had them produce a new Bugs Bunny cartoon, using old-fashioned 2D art, it would be just as big a hit as some modern/fancier show like "Ice Age".
Actually, the reason for the move to CGI in animation is that its cheaper and faster to do a CGI animation film than a conventional frame by frame hand drawn.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Yes, they have...and they still do.
Better graphics does not automatically mean lesser gameplay. This is an oft repeated mantra of the 'games were better when I was a kid' set.
Strangely, the parents of those people think that games were better when they made you THINK, like Scrabble.
And their parents thought it was best when games made you PRODUCTIVE like being chained to a loom for 60 hours a week.
But really, today's games generally have far more depth than their predecessors. It's not like Missile Command was rocket science. Compare that to something like Rise of Nations.
In fact, Rise of Nations would have been impossible to do WITHOUT the graphics, because there are so many different types of units to represent.
Or look at something like a good First Person Shooter. In Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, a key part of the game is having the enemy blend in with the environment. This just doesn't happen when you only have 256 colors at 400x600.
No reason to lie.
My kids recently dusted off a PS1 and an old Sega, and love the games. Sure they think the graphics stink, but they like how simple and fun many of the games are. Doctor Mario anyone?
meh
Believability isnt the same as realism...in fact realism in many cases damages believability for a number of reasons.
plus, realism is subjective. If i show 100 people two pics, one photo and one cg, 50% choose the photo as the real image and 50% choose the cg image...does that mean the cg is as real as real life. What if more people choose the cg image...does that mean the cg image is more real?