An amusing graph about gaming

I came across this graph:



And, no, not from the codex.

It got me thinking. If graphical quality does continue to forever improve until we are at some point at practically equal to 'reality', then what is the difference going to be between watching a movie, and occasionally clicking options in a video game. Or indeed simply moving towards living inside a movie via VR.

Are we at a crossroads where video-games are going to become a subgenre of video-products, or have we already passed that point.

How can we evolve our computer games mechanically in a way that is both possible and interesting so that all future actual video-games don't soon become simply copy-paste versions of previous games (with all the loss of definition one would expect from photocopying the photocopy multiple times)?

Where is the mechanical innovation in the modern gaming environment? PCs? Consoles? Mobiles? VR? AAA? AA? Indy? Other?

What are some really good examples of mechanical innovation in the modern and current gaming sphere that you've found recently (or even in the last decade)?

Or just know exist from word of mouth.

That graph is totally wrong about movies or it's creator does not know movies are also made outside of Hollywood. Yes, "AAA" movies.

About books dunno.

About AAA videogames, well, a videogame with balancing weight or you fall mechanics while presenting a postman job as fun was released last year.
I say we're still a long way from been there done that, some designers love to try something new instead of cloning.

Well yeah, AAA games might as well be dubbed movie games in a lot of cases. ie. Some minimal gameplay then some long cinematic sequence rinse repeat. Lots of the casual market have played nothing but these types of games, this is gaming to them, and it won't change anytime soon.

However, in a way this is good for the niche because the media will focus on the AAA space exclusively and be endlessly molested by media types and woke authoritarians. Movie games are easier to insert woke messaging into after all. A relevant example for us is that the VtM2: Bloodlines developer was reportedly fired for being too woke but no surprise really for current day. This repels the casual audience who will then look for other things. It is only a matter of time until that AAA ceiling gets broken as the level of graphical improvement possible now in no way will continue to impress the way it has in the past.

Indie games will be much more directly comparable to AAA offerings and far outdo them in many cases. As for the marketing angle, word of mouth is still a powerful force and being dissed by game journo's is a positive ring of endorsement.

Not sure where you found this graph and its context, but it looks pessimistic and even not very realistic.

Sure, if we can afford the luxury of 3D, and better-rendered scenes, some games will bet on that, there will always be a good ratio of customers who stop at the superficial appearance to guide their choices. We have seen this trend since the 3D cards were available, or even since 3D games were getting mainstream.

I have the impression that AAA titles, with bigger and bigger investments, will not take any risk and take a formula that has been proven, so little innovation should be expected from them.

Indies are the ones who take risks and bring new concepts, which are integrated by bigger budget products once they seem to work well. And fortunately they seem to keep sprouting, new patterns like crowdfunding are a precious source for that.

We can hope that enough people remain critical about what they buy and how they want to spend their time. Being critical is a concept that is more developed early at school these days (a by-product of using Internet and learning how to sort out information), so there's a chance it will go in the right direction.

lackblogger said:

What are some really good examples of mechanical innovation in the modern and current gaming sphere that you've found recently (or even in the last decade)?

Click to expand...

The dialog wheel ?

I find this graph very realistic, just look at the difference between DDO and Far Cry (my prime example) !

Plus, how much visually realistic brutality and violence in games have become !

I just don't know about books. The books I like most are those who give me a strong "head cinema".

Movies … Well, I don't know. I'm not seeing movies much in recent times. But I guess that this is also a kind of cultural and other preferences : Extrovert people like other things than introvert people like, for example.

But for games, yes, I find this very realistic. Just take a look at how many traditional toy shops have died out within the last 20 years ! I know no traditional toy shop within this town anymore ! (Comic shops and special shops like role-playing ssystems shops have also nearly died out. Only board games are keeping them alive.)

I think that it is inevitable that graphical quality will continue to increase in the manner you describe. It is also noticeable that there has been games released recently that focus on story rather than game mechanics ( What Remains of Edith Finch and Observation are two that I have "played").

I think part of this is that there is so much entertainment now available - streaming services, twitching, "home" videos and so on. So time for gaming, not all people I hasten to add, has declined. And once lockdown stops then there are "outside" attractions. So streamlining games is bound to happen (are phone games in this category?).

I also think (and hope) that there will be a niche for pure gamers where the focus is on gameplay. Some of the RPGs over recent years give me hope - PoE, DOS and so on.

As an aside - one of the problems with focusing mainly on graphics is that the replay value can be very low or zero. I remember Civ 2 cut scenes back in the day. Watched them once - WOW, second time yes still good, third time where is the ESC button. I think that amazing picture quality has a transitory impact though bad quality will have an adverse impact.

Someone posted in another forum another amusing thing about gaming - at least I find it amusing, purely personally.

https://www.limelight.com/resources/white-paper/state-of-online-gaming-2019/#perf
https://media.limelight.com/images/SOOG_2019_IMG29.PNG

That person is argueing with that that "performance is the most critoical thing to gamers".
That has the background, however, of lag in games, where it is discussed in that forum.