It’s no secret that video games are inherently tied to the technology that makes the experience possible. But as the industry continues to evolve, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve gone too far. We’ve reached a point where graphic complexity is considered the ultimate indicator of quality, making the game development process infinitely more difficult and lengthy. It seems that when a game’s graphics don’t hold up, people either completely ignore the experience or completely destroy a game that looks like it came out 10 years ago. increase. Graphics are very overrated.
Of course, the graphics are not “overrated” in the literal sense. They are visual gateways to the video games we play. Without them we cannot see anything. But when I say graphics are overrated, I’m referring to the overwhelming focus of the video game community and marketing on graphical excellence and modernity. Sometimes it feels like the quality of a game’s art and style is thrown out just to analyze how “new” and “shiny” something is.
Some people genuinely believe that games released over a decade ago are “outdated and ugly”, but it really makes me wonder how they got here. Why are people obsessed with graphics?
technology competition
There are many reasons why these advances are a fundamental part of the industry. Perhaps the biggest reason is that, after all, games are a technical medium. Hardware is required to play the game.
If games aren’t evolving hand-in-hand with technology, no hardware company can sell the same specs and survive. In that case, if the RTX 3080 is the final piece of the puzzle, what will Nvidia sell?
Yes, we can continue manufacturing the RTX 3080. But with proper care, GPUs can last a long time, so every time someone buys one, they end up losing customers for years. PC gamers usually decide to upgrade their technology because the old technology has trouble running the latest software, not because it’s broken.
My Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 (graphics card released in 2014) still works. It’s a working GPU, but the reason I upgraded to the RTX 3080 was because I was sick of games going on without me. If my GTX 970 ran perfectly with all the software I threw in, I wouldn’t need to upgrade. Basically Nvidia needs to innovate to sell new hardware. That’s how they remain profitable and financially successful companies.
Console makers have the same goal. If the hardware specs are the same as the PS4, how will PlayStation sell the PS5? What good reason would they have to convince you to move? In this fictional world, it becomes very problematic.
And of course, as the industry gets to grips with the technology, it will evolve its game engine accordingly. It’s a technical medium, and many of the great engineers who work in it are able to do more when they have better hardware.
We must also be mindful of how damaging this obsession with progress is to game developers and their work cycles. Games have become more complex to create with each passing year. Making games today is harder than ever. Development times are longer than they were a decade ago, and the amount of peril developers endure to release their biggest titles is staggering.whether we are talking The Last of Us Part II Also Cyberpunk 2077it took an awful lot of overtime to put together these giant games. How much worse do things have to go before you realize it’s not worth it?
And when the players themselves are accustomed to this cycle, they expect it to continue and get upset when it doesn’t. It’s common for players to criticize the lack of technological up-to-dateness. Character models, animations, textures, or other types of assets that look a little outdated will be pointed out and criticized. This is a trend I absolutely despise.
Art is more than just technology
The gaming industry’s obsession with graphical fidelity has made us more aware of technology flaws. The more advanced the game tries to get, the more I realize how lacking it really is. and make us realize how much more progress is still needed to reach the goals the industry is striving for.
for example, ghost of tsushimaSoaring on horseback through gorgeous fields of flowers is a moving sight, but stopping next to clusters of rocks that seem blurry, and there’s a visual setback that makes it hard for me to grasp the world. When the sun is reflecting light off the mud in an unrealistic way, it’s easy to get away from the moment.
When games try to mimic reality, my brain often uncanny processes moments that don’t look “realistic.” It just seems wrong and every time I think of the game my brain is very fixated on its flaws. Because there was no room to think “realistic” in the first place.
You can hardly mistake Super Mario 64 for an attempt at realism. In retrospect, not dealing with that technical flaw is because it used that technology to present a certain style that can’t be assumed to be close to reality. The brain can process these “flaws” as artistic intent, but when trying to render a realistic glass of milk, the brain gets caught in the imperfections, and it’s not clear what the bottle of milk should actually look like. looks different.
This is not to say that modern games lack visual style. Of course there is. I am specifically referring to how my brain processes it. And if your brain feels similar, you probably have the same problem as me.
This is also not to say that modern games are ugly. Clearly, modern games look just as breathtakingly beautiful as they did twenty years ago. I simply don’t believe in the idea that graphical complexity or modernity determines a game’s visual appeal.
You can’t tell if an illustration will look good based on the tools you used to bring it to life. Different tools just offer different styles. Dusk uses a graphic style that mimics his late 1990s first-person shooter games, and that style has nothing to do with the quality of the art itself. The style is just a tool to express the artist’s intentions.
This is not to say that there is no preference for style. everyone does We can’t fault anyone who likes the modern, realistic look of AAA games released in the last few years. It’s a perfectly understandable preference, but it’s important to remember that your game doesn’t look good just because you have high-quality textures. Yes, and if the graphics aren’t as complex as other games, I’d like the game to have more leeway.
elden ring, an experience that boasted some of the most breathtaking visual set pieces in games this year, was frequently criticized for its outdated graphics by players who believed technology was the end of everything (and now Yes, Elden Ring suffers from pop-ins, and its foliage and textures don’t look as advanced as Demon’s Souls (2020). But even though I truly believe Demon’s Souls 2009 is far better than the remake, that game was released 13 years before him.
In fact, the best game ever made was 2005’s Shadow of the Colossus. Technological prowess can’t make up for an empty aesthetic or a world devoid of inspiration. There’s more to art than just progress, and the industry needs to rethink this greedy obsession.
Conclusion
At what point do you realize that constant progress isn’t worth it? How long should your development period be? How hard is it to make a game? AAA’s development is like a time bomb, and the artform will suffer as the industry continues to obsess over progress.
i hope i am wrong. But I really believe that this cycle has a time limit. There will come a time when expectations are so incredibly high that it becomes financially impossible to continue making games of this complexity.
