What's the Importance of Graphics In Video Games?

[wraggster]

An anonymous reader writes
"I develop games as a hobby. I've experimented with games on almost every platform available. For me, the gameplay is the most influential factor of a game, with history and graphics dividing second place. But, for some reason, it's not the technical beauty of the graphics that appeal to me. I have played Crysis, and I've played Pokémon games. The graphics of the Pokémon games entertain me as much as the graphics of Crysis. I think both are beautiful. So, why is the current generation of games giving so much importance to the realism in graphic games? I think it is sufficient for a game to have objects that are recognizable. For example, while the water in some games may not look as good as in Crysis, I can still tell it's water. What are your opinions on the current direction of game graphics? Do you prefer easy-to-render 3D scenes that leave space for beautiful effects, like with Radiosity, or more complex 3D scenes that try to be realistic?"

http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/07/09/058250/Whats-the-Importance-of-Graphics-In-Video-Games

[Triv1um]

I like to game to not look real. I am playing a game, I don't want to simulate real-life.

[beetroot bertie]

I'm not fussed either way. I think it depends entirely on the type of game in question. It's not that I wouldn't like a cartoon Call Of Duty with big heads and a plastic environment, after all the gameplay would essentially be the same, but it would do a disservice to the tone of the series and some of the more serious issues associated with a game like this.

I feel it depends on the artistic direction of the game that the designers and artists choose to adopt. I do wish developers would be more adventurous with their art direction but with the costs being what they are I guess they have to consider the largest market in order to recoup costs and make profits. Shame. Maybe the artists and art directors need more praise or encouragement?

I'd like to think the artists will have more chance to create unique looking titles in the future. I never played Okami for instance, but loved the look of it and would love to see further use of distinct artistic styles in games. I'm interested to see how Inferno might turn out. Maybe the popularity and lack of comparative power in the Wii will allow folks to explore styles other than realism but I feel that might be more due to the target demographic of the Wii itself.

While I applaud the lovely styles in games like Killer7, ICO, Team Fortress 2, Jet Set Radio etc I still find beautifully realistic scenes quite staggering so maybe I'm a bit of a graphics tart too. :) Playing Gears the first time was pretty awesome.

I think some of it comes from growing up in the 80's through the 8 and 16 bit eras. The constant leaps in the quality of the graphics (number of colours/resolution/size of sprites etc) was always amazing for me and I always looked forward to checking out screen shots of new games and gawping at the then amazing graphics. When I first saw a SNES or an Amiga in action I thought that was it, you know, an arcade machine quality at home. I didn't think it would get much better.

Then 3D started coming in and I remember seeing the animated lamp (it was probably Pixar's) on Tomorrow's World and it was like, wow that looks real. I mean really real. It was simply stunning. So now I still get excited about how real things can and will get.

I'd like to see a rejuvination of 2D games too as I'm sure there's plenty of room for lovely 2D hand drawn sprites these days. Just look at Braid - what a fantastic style it has, one of it's own.