How and why did we become so obsessed with graphics?

[AusWolf]

I will admit even though I was excited for the expansion doing a brand new playthrough of the game just for it I was more excited for ray reconstruction

That's exactly what I mean! Why?

I'm not saying I'm completely innocent - I was very eager to play Black Mesa for the Half-Life nostalgia factor with updated graphics, and I'm glad I did. But it's also a great game, as it is based on a great game. If the new Cyberpunk DLC is good and looks good too, then why do we care what kind of RT it uses? And if it's not good, then doubly so.

 

[wNotyarD]

But for me personally when it comes to gaming there are a few main/big things that really make the game for me.
1. music score
2. story/character/NPC development & details
3. things to do, end achievement, grindiness (overall personal enjoyment of flow/progression/acomplishment)
4. graphics
5. type/genre of game
6. intuitive controls

You just described, almost by the chart, why Persona 5 Royal to me could be the game of the decade.

 

[R-T-B]

That's good, I'm glad there's still anything well made out there.

Theres actually a ton if you go into indie land. AAA land isn't what it used to be.

No way... Outriders? You have got to be kidding. My cringe level was at maximum, anyway lol

It didn't care and that was actually kind of part of what sold it. It did a lot of potential cringey stuff but had a "fuck you I do what I want" attitude to it.

Mind you I only played the first.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

That's exactly what I mean! Why?

I'm not saying I'm completely innocent - I was very eager to play Black Mesa for the Half-Life nostalgia factor with updated graphics, and I'm glad I did. But it's also a great game, as it is based on a great game. If the new Cyberpunk DLC is good too, then why do we care what kind of RT it uses? And if it's not good, then doubly so.

Becuase it's sorta the start of them fixing the denoising issue with RT on current hardware and while it's not a fix all solution for a first version it's a very impressive technology what it fixes in general is much more noticeable than what it doesn't do well.

One of my biggest issues with older rendering technology is screen space reflections it's absolutely awful in every game and breaks easily RT reflection when done right are a massive improvement over that and Ray reconstruction generally makes them even better that's really just one example and honestly the hardware isn't quite there yet but in 2018 after seeing RT in Battlefield 5 which was terrible and also had a massive performance hit on Turing if someone showed me a Pathtraced screen shot of CP2077 and said we would be able to do that on hardware in 5 years I wouldn't believe them.

I think a lot of people are so mad at nvidia over pricing and proprietary features on their hardware that it blinds them to how much progress has been made. I mean Amd deserves some credit also look how far behind they were 5 years ago.... The best they had was a vega 64 that couldn't even at the time compete with the previous generation to Turing.

Don't get me wrong though a lot of games are like RE4 when it comes to RT where you go why is it even in the game hopefully in 10 years the baseline is CP2077 and both hardware vendors are really good at it and maybe Intel as well but I trust them about as far as I can spit to stay in the discrete gpu market.

 

[AusWolf]

Becuase it's sorta the start of them fixing the denoising issue with RT on current hardware and while it's not a fix all solution for a first version it's a very impressive technology what it fixes in general is much more noticeable than what it doesn't do well.

One of my biggest issues with older rendering technology is screen space reflections it's absolutely awful in every game and breaks easily RT reflection when done right are a massive improvement over that and Ray reconstruction generally makes them even better that's really just one example and honestly the hardware isn't quite there yet but in 2018 after seeing RT in Battlefield 5 which was terrible and also had a massive performance hit on Turing if someone showed me a Pathtraced screen shot of CP2077 and said we would be able to do that on hardware in 5 years I wouldn't believe them.

I think a lot of people are so mad at nvidia over pricing and proprietary features on their hardwar that it blinds them to how much progress has been made. I mean AMd deserves some credit also look how far behind they were 5 years ago.... The best they had was a vega 64 that couldn't even at the time compete with the previous generation to Turing.

Yes, it's progress, and it's nice, but why so much care? I mean, "denoising issues"? Why are we talking about a new thing as an "issue"? Nothing new comes without teething problems. Imo, we should be glad for what we have and not look for errors and glitches and ways to call it bad just to wait for the next improvement. That kind of mindset only brings dissatisfaction and fixation on looks rather than overall game quality.

And please don't make it an Nvidia vs AMD thing. This topic isn't about what runs on what, but on the question of why we even care instead of just enjoying the game.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Yes, it's progress, and it's nice, but why so much care? I mean, "denoising issues"? Why are we talking about a new thing as an "issue"? Nothing new comes without teething problems. Imo, we should be glad for what we have and not look for errors and glitches and ways to call it bad just to wait for the next improvement. That kind of mindset only brings dissatisfaction and fixation on looks rather than overall game quality.

And please don't make it an Nvidia vs AMD thing. This topic isn't about what runs on what, but on the question of why we even care instead of just enjoying the game.

Wasn't really what I meant was merely stating both companies have come a long way and really any new visual features are typically directed by them and or a engine like UE5

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

After reading through some of this...and seeing the inevitable diversion to tech rather than the theory...I'll offer my two cents.

I played the original system shock 2 on a Core2 Quad. It was a good game...but left a lot to be desired when you started comparing it backward to Bioshock. Thing is, because I did it out of order I saw the refinement before the origin. As such, when I heard about the remaster I was pumped because the fixes and QOL improvements from Bioshock could be put into the remake...and it was going to be visually upgraded. With both of those things, I was sold.
Let me be clear then, I believe that the driver for improved visuals is secondary to the driver for nostalgic core components. I'm tired of the latest Battlefield...because its mechanics are already played out, despite being quite graphically pleasing. I instead enjoyed Turok...despite the miserable fog and unbalanced mess of a final level. I would like to see it remastered, because it's a nostalgia hit that would be nice to not be a chunky pixel mess.


I think that the corporate side of this exists because there is nothing new under the sun. In my lifetime I've seen fads come and go...and return years later with a facelift. Graphic upgrades are just a facelift, but the trick is that these companies can sell us a new card every 3-5 years by making things more intensive...and recently we've demonstrated that poor optimization can even be "mitigated" by throwing more hardware at things. When that's the market, why wouldn't you aim to constantly raise the baseline of everything (thereby increasing your profits)?

 

[STSMiner]

Eye candy ..... that's all it is !

 

[Ruru]

Nah.... as a retro gamer I can say that graphics don't make a game..

 

[londiste]

It's not about the graphics, out of all the games marketed on their looks, none have been a success in recent memory. It's about 60/120 fps, it's about non-janky UI and fixing old game systems, and THEN it's about graphics.

Cyberpunk, Forspoken, Immortals of Aveum, Anthem, Godfall. Outside of racing games I can't even think of a game marketed on graphics alone that has done well at all.

60/120 fps might not even be possible not due to graphics limitations but CPU or whatever. Many vast openworld games have that problem, currently - Starfield (and that is not only a Bethesda thing). Plus, there are consoles as big optimization target.

Cyberpunk did/does well and it is not really marketed on graphics. Anthem failed but it was also not marketed on graphics. Even Crysis was not marketed on graphics (at first).
Visuals are definitely a marketing point but rarely is game marketing focused on purely that.

A lot of you guys seem to be describing the evolution of computer graphics, which is an awesome thing, no one in their right mind questions that. Of course everybody likes a good-looking game. My OP question was not around this. What I meant was, why are looks so terribly important (at least in some devs' eyes) that you can market games purely by graphics alone, and they still end up being popular. Why does the new Battlefield or CoD or Counter-Strike sell even though it's almost an exact copy of the previous one? And why do we, forum dwellers fight over which graphical feature you "have to" use to enjoy the game?

Gamers getting a new Battlefield or CoD have nothing to with graphics. These are online and today essentially live-service games. New maps, weapons, QoL improvements (or whatever the opposite of improvement is), FOMO, friend/contact group moving on etc. It is not graphics that drives the upgrades.
Counterstrike is Counterstrike. While graphics have improved along with it, the big upgrades have been much more about underlying technology, QoL, UI improvements etc.

 

[Hyderz]

i remember FF7 was marketed on immersion, the tv ad campaign said is your tv big enough for midgar or something
and ff7 was the first to shift to 3d from ff6

 

[las]

Even thought I respect that is your opinion, it is wrong. It's not nostalgia, how is people who never experienced the original, whether they passed on the first go around or they didn't exist yet, garner the same appreciation and level of enjoyment as the original? 30+ year old game, 20-something audience, and it's nostalgia? Make that make sense.

This is why people get pissed whenever something gets remade and the ones tasked with the remake don't respect the original and do things like "make updates for modern audiences" or "streamline" things especially if those things were points that were integral to the experience. Hardware can't and never will account for those intangibles.

Remakes and remasters are typically aimed at people who played the originals lol, sometimes they are not tho but then people who played the originals will hype them and new players will get interrested and buy them as well

There's tons of good remakes and remasters who easily beats the vanilla experience

 

[JustBenching]

Firstly, this is not an AMD vs Nvidia thread.
Secondly, this is not an FSR vs DLSS thread.
Thirdly, this is not an "RT is sooo awesome, woaoah!" thread.

Now that the (to me) obvious is out of the way, let me continue with some observations.

• A lot of (especially AAA) games are being marketed by their graphics these days, like there's not a lot behind it (and a lot of times there really isn't).
• A lot of (even not so old) games are being remade with slightly upgraded graphics, and they seem to be popular for some reason.
• There's way too much fighting in the online community over which graphical feature is important, and what one should or shouldn't use. Some people really seem to make it a crusade for some reason.

The question is simple: why?
Why are we so obsessed with graphics that we pay huge amounts of money for pretty, but soulless games and remakes of the same game that we already own?
Why do we jump at each other's throats when someone appears to have different preferences when it comes to graphical features? Why is it so hard to peacefully coexist?
Also: when did it all start and how?

That was really always the case. ALWAYS. You can argue that games were better 20 years ago or whatever but besides that lots of games were marketed based on their graphics just like today. Half life 2 and doom 3 come to mind for example

Very true!

But if we assume that we all agree on this, then why do games get marketed by graphics features? I mean, we get trailers and screenshots showing the pretty reflections and high-tech blah-blah thingies by courtesy of <insert any GPU design company here>, and barely any gameplay most of the time. We also get articles stating that "X game will support XYZ GPU feature" like our lives depended on it.

Because it's easier to market graphics than gameplay. I mean it's a video trailer,, you can't really convey how the game plays on a video. But graphics, sure you can.

 

[Kyan]

E-sports

More realism in competitive games like shooters or racing , for special effects and damage and so on.
Better graphics can give an advantage here, this becomes important when you can win prizes in these e-sport competitions.
So the "pro" players will invest in better graphics , to get to the top.
Whereas before games were much more like arcade style games for fun.

And for (flight) simulation games ofcourse.

It's totally not true, csgo(cs2), rocket league, valorant, fortnite, ... in all those games pro player play with the settings that only give the essential information, so no bright light, less smoke, ... You need to stay focus on the essential, nothing have to distract you for what you aim/what you have to see.
EDIT: It give more fps so better for reaction time. It's a win-win for e-sports.

-----

I've seen a lot of people talking about immersion but for me, the visual quality really don't help me with immersion. The story and gameplay is much more important in my eyes, even VR games that look like minecraft are generally more immersive than "realistic" looking games just because there is more interaction that make you believe that it's kind of real.
But maybe it's because I'm young (25) and started gaming with the nintendo DS and ps1 that I don't feel like graphics have never been an important part of games, I've always enjoy playing good games and with my steam deck I've recently play some ps1 games (sledstorm and croc) without the graphics being a bother, the gameplay was great and that's it, especially sledstorm

 

[agent_x007]

1) Why are we so obsessed with graphics that we pay huge amounts of money for pretty, but soulless games and remakes of the same game that we already own?
2) Why do we jump at each other's throats when someone appears to have different preferences when it comes to graphical features?
3) Why is it so hard to peacefully coexist?
4) Also: when did it all start and how?

Why ?
1) One word : Money*.
*I hope you know why everyone wants to have money
"Pretty things", sell easier than "ugly" ones.
Tinfoil hat version : Because majority of users are indoctinated by mass media to expect pretty things on screen. So, if something is meant to be succesfull it "needs to be pretty" (otherwise less people will be interested in it).
2) Why we jump at each other :
Because egos exist, also not everyone has breakes on morality when everyone is anonymus (ie. no consequences for words you write).
Also, also, misunderstandings are A LOT easier when humans don't see each others body reactions.
3) Did you seriously just asked on forum why there is no world peace in the world ?
Jealousy "If You have something I want and I can take* it - I will take it" mentality. *without major consequences
4) Since when humans like pretty things ?
I don't know, but pretty sure we are like this since a VERY long time ago.

 

[las]

It's totally not true, csgo(cs2), rocket league, valorant, fortnite, ... in all those games pro player play with the settings that only give the essential information, so no bright light, less smoke, ... You need to stay focus on the essential, nothing have to distract you for what you aim/what you have to see.
EDIT: It give more fps so better for reaction time. It's a win-win for e-sports.

-----

I've seen a lot of people talking about immersion but for me, the visual quality really don't help me with immersion. The story and gameplay is much more important in my eyes, even VR games that look like minecraft are sometimes more immersive than "realistic" looking games just because there is more interaction that make you believe that it's kind of real.
But maybe it's because I'm young (25) and started gaming with the nintendo DS and ps1 that I don't feel like graphics have never been an important part of games, I've always enjoy playing good games and with my steam deck I've recently play some ps1 games (sledstorm and croc) without the graphics being a bother, the gameplay was great and that's it, especially sledstorm

Big difference between esport gaming and AAA gaming

Besides, none of the games you mention are ugly looking anyway

If a game is fun, graphics matter less but good games can very easily have good graphics as well - AAA games should have both

 

[BSim500]

• A lot of (especially AAA) games are being marketed by their graphics these days, like there's not a lot behind it (and a lot of times there really isn't).
• A lot of (even not so old) games are being remade with slightly upgraded graphics, and they seem to be popular for some reason.
• There's way too much fighting in the online community over which graphical feature is important, and what one should or shouldn't use. Some people really seem to make it a crusade for some reason.

The question is simple: why?

1. "All we have is graphics" is certainly a problem for some games, but it's not new. Eg, going back to printed magazines / early 'text & picture but no video based' web reviews of the 90s (think pre-Youtube dial-up Internet / gaming magazine era) where you could see a pretty static screenshot but it was much harder for a reviewer to visually portray great gameplay / writing / voice acting / soundtrack on a static medium. For the same reason we were plagued with "Industry Bullshots" for a while during that era (where 'screenshots' were pre-rendered made-for-E3 demos of fake-content that wasn't even included in the final released product). For other reasons, "GPU manufacturers are pushing this / bad PC ports to force people to upgrade" has long been a conspiracy yet given how the industry has been behaving over the last few years, is also an entirely believable one...

The "graphics at any cost" over-obsession by some is rather sad in context of how "flat" everything else is. Eg, barely 10-15 years separated "PC Speaker Beeps" vs Thief's impressive 3D audio propagation physics or full orchestral soundtracks, or even inventing whole new genres (RTS, FPS, etc). Yet in terms of how "prettiness" affects enjoyment, I was just as excited and drawn into the world of System Shock (1994) than Bioshock (2007) and Prey (2017) and the same will no doubt be true vs 2027 titles. Better graphics by itself doesn't make a game better or worse, but "tickbox development" has definitely made many games more sterile / boring. "The only thing we want to improve is graphics" has gone hand in hand with an over-obsession with remakeitus / over-sequelitus all often share the same underlying "we're only interested in safe IP because our investors don't like risk" by over-centralized mega-publishers. I definitely miss the era when we had more mid-sized publishers like Eidos Interactive pushing better graphics in balance with encouraging the creation of whole new IP (Deus Ex, Thief, System Shock, Hitman, Tomb Raider, etc) rather than a substitute for "New ideas? That's what other people do right?" (Source: Yves Guillemot in front of his bathroom mirror every evening...)

2. The prime motivation for many unnecessary remasters of fairly recent games like Bioshock 1-2 that still play perfectly was a new console generation came out (porting from UE2 was harder than UE3). Same with mobiles, eg, original Baldur's Gate = PC/Mac only. BG:EE = Windows / Linux / iOS / OSX / Android / Switch / PS4 / XB1. They're definitely cashing in on other platforms there. For other publishers, after seeing a few success stories it was more a case of remaking everything for the sake of it bandwagon jumping with the least possible effort purely to use it as an excuse to bump the price of old games up, especially so for many games where there's already a well supported modding community that's already solved the "won't work on modern OS's problem" eg, original Blade Runner & The 7th Guest via ScummVM vs the remake which is 5-10x the price for... exactly the same content with exactly the same graphics & gameplay... So there's also definitely a BS cash grab going on of seeing GOG go from 5 games to 5700 and think "Hmm, old games are back in? You know if we re-released all those, we could charge $15-$20 for everything!"

3. As for online communities fighting over epeen and Correct Graphical Features (tm), I've long laughed at how Depth of Myopia, Macular Degeneration Simulator ("Eye Adaptation / Auto Exposure"), Visual Tinnitus (Film Grain), 1990's Digital Camera with a Defective Lens Simulator (Chromatic Abhorration), Giraffe with a broken neck simulator ("head bob"), etc, are seen as "realistic" in any game when they are so far removed from how eyeballs work in the real world it's comical. Doubly so if their "ultra-realistic" games involve magic, dragons or the latest 'must have' Battle Royale / CoD where after getting shot in the heart 15 times you too can auto-heal by standing underneath a stairwell for 15s before spending 3 days on Reddit complaining about the technical unrealism of a leaf on a tree 100m away... Or those "hardcore survival" games where you need to eat 19 meals per day, chop down half a forest to 'craft' 1x match-stick and will freeze to death in under 10mins on a mild autumn day then argue over the need for a $1500 GPU upgrade to have light reflected off a fish's eyeball in a stream traced properly "because this game needs to be REAL"... (You know exactly which 'communities' I mean ). The only sane thing to do is avoid them completely and simply play what you enjoy.

 

[Vayra86]

3. As for online communities fighting over epeen and Correct Graphical Features (tm), I've long laughed at how Depth of Myopia, Macular Degeneration Simulator ("Eye Adaptation / Auto Exposure"), Visual Tinnitus (Film Grain), 1990's Digital Camera with a Defective Lens Simulator (Chromatic Abhorration), Giraffe with a broken neck simulator ("head bob"), etc, are seen as "realistic" in any game when they are so far removed from how eyeballs work in the real world it's comical. Doubly so if their "ultra-realistic" games involve magic, dragons or the latest 'must have' Battle Royale / CoD where after getting shot in the heart 15 times you too can auto-heal by standing underneath a stairwell for 15s before spending 3 days on Reddit complaining about the technical unrealism of a leaf on a tree 100m away... Or those "hardcore survival" games where you need to eat 19 meals per day, chop down half a forest to 'craft' 1x match-stick and will freeze to death in under 10mins on a mild autumn day then argue over the need for a $1500 GPU upgrade to have light reflected off a fish's eyeball in a stream traced properly "because this game needs to be REAL"... (You know exactly which 'communities' I mean ). The only sane thing to do is avoid them completely and simply play what you enjoy.

Oh man, this is absolute gold, right here. Everyone should reflect on this. Long and hard.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Oh man, this is absolute gold, right here. Everyone should reflect on this. Long and hard.

I agree! Top-notch.

 

[Space Lynx]

Oh man, this is absolute gold, right here. Everyone should reflect on this. Long and hard.

that's what she said

 

[chrcoluk]

For me its a combination of a few things.

The desire to be creative and especially on new IP is now lacking in the gaming industry, instead its preferable to redo old ideas or remakes of old games, when doing this approach all that they have to offer really is better visuals and music.

Pressure from the hardware industry to make a game that makes gamers want to buy new hardware to play it, aka sponsored titles.

Kind of like the movie industry where they do lots of cgi etc. to wow people in, certian people do get lured to games just because they look nice.

Now I am not against nice graphics as such, I just dont think it should be the primary part of making a game. I feel games need to be done on a skeleton first, with maybe just wireframe models and such, and the art side of it should only be done after the gameplay is finished. I would also like to see use of standardised engines abandoned and going back to the old way of making games.

 

[neatfeatguy]

In 20 years everything will be path traced and our children won't be able to afford any gpus to play them they'll be stuck on the PSX and the Xbox Series XXX

Can't use PSX - that one goes to the original PlayStation. Without looking up why, I can't remember, but the first PlayStation is PSX.

Also, we all know that Xbox naming follows no actual naming scheme. I'm sure in 20 years from now it'll be something dumb like Xbox Homerun. It'll make no sense, not follow any previous naming scheme, but it'll just be accepted as the next best thing from MS.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Can't use PSX - that one goes to the original PlayStation. Without looking up why, I can't remember, but the first PlayStation is PSX.

Also, we all know that Xbox naming follows no actual naming scheme. I'm sure in 20 years from now it'll be something dumb like Xbox Homerun. It'll make no sense, not follow any previous naming scheme, but it'll just be accepted as the next best thing from MS.

I was joking....

 

[kurosagi01]

1.Short term wow factor -> Lets be real, we all go "wow" when we see/watch a trailer/preview of something that graphically looks amazing
2.Every publisher/developer are trying to one up each other with point 1, which leads to unpolished games but looks fantastic
3.Political agenda is getting mixed into the whole creation/development cycle which has led to barely any new creative art direction, so all we have been getting are rehashed remakes(some are good) and remasters of an old game that isn't really that old
4.Crazy amount of investment/shareholders/stakes are involved in the gaming industry more than ever before, they all want their returns from their investment

 

[Dr. Dro]

I don't believe it is an obsession any more than the natural progression of things. Games, like movies, have long since been a medium of escapism and advanced storytelling, even more so than books, and rich audiovisual effects are about as much as we can immerse ourselves in a fictitious world. It's all about living a fantasy, and honestly, censorship and old industry "boundaries" regarding video games are about to butt heads with the increasing levels of photorealism and eventually, I believe, even sensorial realism if this makes any sense to you as technology advances. Not all video games must be hyper-realistic to be enjoyed, but many of them equally benefit from having this quality. In my opinion, it's all about balance.

Due to this, I hold a firm belief that entertainment software rating boards, who have standards set in the early 1990s, and because fun is expressly disallowed in today's society due to the political climate, that the ESRB and its worldwide counterparts such as PEGI, USK and CERO have become woefully obsolete, and that the blanket ban on ESRB AO titles (basically anything that has a moderate amount of objectionable content) is extremely damaging to video game development and artistic freedom. The industry must understand that people who have experienced video games in the 1980s and 1990s in their youths are now firmly adults, and that we still enjoy gaming today.

This, of course, is from the point of view of someone who holds an immense fervor towards artistic freedom and considers video games as the evolution of the motion picture, a very high form of art, instead of a digital toy. In fact, I have had rather... unpleasant conversations with individuals who consider video games to be toys, and that may or may not have gotten me banned from the Steam forums like, 3 or 4 times already. I'm unwavering on this (very strong) opinion of mine.