Why do people care so much about graphics in modern day gaming? 4K resolution, HD textures, smooth character animations...

Why do people care so much about graphics in modern day gaming? 4K resolution, HD textures, smooth character animations, long draw distances, etc. Some of the most enjoyable gaming experiences are either 2D or have very dated 3D graphics, yet every new game that comes out has to meet some ridiculous tech standard to be considered a good game. Gameplay should matter above all else, yet if some game comes out with dated visuals people will instantly write the game off as garbage or indie trash.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/medium
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

graphics appeal more to people than an interesting story

Because if you ever took a high school media class you'd know that the medium of communication/entertainment not also conveys the message of the work, the medium itself in fact IS the message.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

>"The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in any message it would transmit or convey, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.

This means that the graphics are in fact part of the entire package.

i never understood people who care about the graphics unless the graphics make the game close to unplayable

beautiful graphics make games better, most good looking games aren't 4K or HD or whatever

But Super Metroid looks really good and at the time had great graphics for a home console 2D game. RE: There are thousands upon thousands of indie games flooding the Steam store every year. You glance at them. They have amateur graphics. You instantly pass on them. Don't act like it's not true-- that's why graphics matter.

gameplay is all that matters

Because millenials have shit tastes

Gayest shit I ever herd

diversity>gameplay

Graphics don't matter. Most classics are better than modern day garbage because more time was spent on gameplay

>I'm still in middle school! I call everything that confuses me gay!

leave this place child

Same reason people judge music on how hard to play the guitar solo is. The muh 4K 60FPS or it's shit people are the same kind of person as the "it's not real music if you don't play an instrument" losers who listen to prog metal and classic rock all day.

The average consymer supposedly cares less for gameplay than "fantasy" (roughly coolness of the semiotics) and audiovisuals (in single-player games). That's at least what direction implies at the studio I work at (AAA, 100-200 man bracket).

Boobs.

Coming from somebody who thinks
>> not also conveys
is proper grammar

>A light bulb is a medium
>food analogy
What is this nonsense? You don't actually believe this, right user?

you really got me, what a great job you did there refuting my point with well thought out arguments

"Most classics are better than modern day garbage"
Note the wording: "classics" not "retro games". No duh a game established as good (classic) is going to be better than "all modern day games", which I assume is what you meant, unless you're meant to be literal insaying that good games are better than bad (garbage) games.

You can't have not of something than also have something. It totally makes your point useless. Art is greater than the medium anyway bro

Media (the singular form of which is medium)[1] is the collective communication outlets or tools that are used to store and deliver information or data.[2][3]

sorry that you don't understand what words mean user

But you're saying graphics are the most therefore retro games for classics won't hold up but they do. Just like any artform

>You can't have not of something than also have something
Wow. Truly an incredible series of words. I can tell that you're an extremely educated individual. The fact that you say"art is greater then the medium" just displays how little you know about anything. The medium and the art are incapable of being seperated, they are one and the same. You'll make it through high school one day friendo don't worry you'll make it.

Enlighten :^) me then what information/data a light bulb stores/delivers.

Because the only point of console is that they afford kinda flagship level of graphics for affordable price.
Otherwise everyone would just get cheap PC with integrated graphics.

Agreed. Graphics are a nice bonus, but good gameplay is king.

People should care about how a game looks and not how powerful it is. Just cause a game is 1080p doesn't mean it automatically looks more appealing to the eye. It's not how powerful it is but what you make with what you have. I wish more developers understood this.

>Why do people care so much about graphics in modern day gaming?
Marketing.

It is easier to state and market high resolution graphics, shadowing, and draw distances than something like control scheme, level design, or framerate. And so, they advertise the fuck out of the 4K HD skin features. They blow up a character model to show it off. And they don't care about the shit gameplay, because by then everyone would've preordered it and given them their money.

And it is easier for everyone caught up in the hype to talk about the same things.

perhaps you should enlighten me as to what definition of the word "medium" you're using

en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/medium

>a light bulb is a medium

I am using the word medium as I stated before, as the word media. It appears to me that you are using the word medium to mean "An agency or means of doing something."

If you replace the phase as "the media is the message" it should make more sense to you. A light bulb is not the media. "The medium is the message" is just the way the phrase was coined. Make sense?

Reminder you don't need hardware better than a GameCube or an Xbox to make a good game

>But you're saying graphics are the most
Where did I say that?
>therefore retro games for classics won't hold up but they do.
Old games that are classics, that are good, do have good graphics because graphics have all to do with limitation. Within those limitations artists have made good art. Doom looks good. Mario 3 looks good.
>Just like any artform
The only people who bash old black and white movies for being black and white are ten-year-old children.

Apparently you are too young to remember when sony execs axed localizations of 2d games on PS1 because they were deemed not cool enough.

Just because old games aren't as pretty as newer ones, doesn't mean "caring about graphics" is a new thing. Even back in the 80's, people cared about graphics.

>Whoa! Nice graphics! I'd like to get my hands on that game!

>Some of the most enjoyable gaming experiences are either 2D or have very dated 3D graphics, yet every new game that comes out has to meet some ridiculous tech standard to be considered a good game.

While I agree with you.... lots of people already played the fuck out of those old school games back in the days. It was fine back then.

Plus these days... most games that are shitty 2d indie crap are not worth the time and are pure shit. Every indie dev wants to be the next great indie game that they are willing to pay for shilled reviews, fuck for reviews or just pay for steam reviews. It's sickening how the industry has become these days thanks to corrupted gaming journalists and sjws. Even lots of 3d games are pure shit these days and get by from just shilled reviews.

If they're willing to go the extra mile to make it 4k and HD textures with good framerate, then you can almost guarantee that it's better than most indie shit.

>Reminder you don't need hardware better than a GameCube or an Xbox to make a good game
Unless you want to make a game with a lot of physics calculating, or a game set in huge maps with a lot of actors buzzing around. Sure not everyone goes in that direction, but some do.

Honestly, this seems like a wide misconception among the studio whom employs you and the majority of AAA studios.

If the collective effort is invested into a single area of your game the entirety of your product staggers.

But, hey, at least it makes it easier to sell on extravagant trailers.

Yep Strife which is best of doom clones is completely obscure because Quake with "great graphics" happened

>implying 16 bit art isn't timeless
>implying Super Metroid didn't have state of the art graphics

Because its easier to demonstrate a graphics engine to a boardroom full of marketing suits then it is to demonstrate a clever game mechanism.

People have been looking at graphics for decades though. Hell the war over bits had mostly to do with graphics.

I was just quoting the linked wikipedia article dumb nigger. Fuck off with this shit.

>state of the art graphics
Super Metroid had good art direction, lot of effort was put into drawing the sprites and detailing the environments. But there were more advanced graphical engines back then, especially with very basic 3D games starting to appear and expanding the realms of possibility for future games.

>Because if you ever took a high school media class

>I'm still in middle school

>Apparently you are too young to remember

What's up with all of the redditors on Sup Forums lately?

I used to think this as well, but I'm not so sure anymore. I now tend to think major publishers and by extension the studios working with/for them actually have a very exact understanding of consumer priorities.

At that time there was still room for improvement in terms of graphical fidelity , therefore graphical advancement was embraced by the consumer.

Currently, graphical fidelity is beginning to peak, which in return is making it meaningless to push it as one of the main pillars of game development.

Besides, what will happen when video game graphics begin replicate ultrarealism?

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

Missing the point. The content is not the relevant bit, it's the medium. It could be a text adventure, and it would still be a video game because of the medium it is presented.

He was talking in the more broad sense of social impact. A singular game can't be the measure of all games.

Autism. Pure autism. These are the same people that think buying a smartphone with a 1080p screen is worth it. People who think 4K is any better than 1080 on a computer monitor, and people who would rather have super detailed arm hair in the new Call of Duty than have a game that's actually fresh and interesting

In a sense I believe you're right, I mean, the major hardware manufacturers aren't extracting personal and behavioural online data for no reason.

Ironically, AAA product quality is generally suffering and its not a good sign if it keeps heading this way.

It appears that AAA marketing departments are targetting the most unreliable and impressionable consumers.

are you implying that 1080p is the same as 4k?