Production director Jonty Barnes says platform holders like Microsoft and Sony are "magnifying" the importance of graphical benchmarks.

Destiny production director Jonty Barnes is more interested in achieving great gameplay than hitting benchmarks like 1080p or 60fps. In a new interview with The Sixth Axis, Barnes says although platform holders like Microsoft and Sony like to make a big deal about which console is more powerful, gamers overall are caring less and less about statistics.

"I feel like as an industry, people are caring less and less about numbers, which is great," Barnes said. "It always used to be about graphics, and though 1080p and 60Hz are still out there, and as platform providers get competitive around those things it seems to magnify the importance of it."

"But it isn't about that," he adds. "It's actually what is an awesome gameplay experience for the player and anything that gets in the way of the best player experience is baggage. I'm quoting directly from [Bungie co-founder Jason Jones] there. And, you know, as we've seen over the last few years, computer games are so much better, they're so much higher quality, and it's much more about the experience and less about those statistics."

Barnes' comments came in the context of a response regarding criticisms about Destiny's world being too small. Like he said in a previous interview, Jones explained that Destiny's four main planets--the Moon, Venus, Mars, and Earth--are incredibly deep worlds with many places to explore and activities to do.

"I mean, when people think of it as being four things, it's really hard for them to understand the real estate that is there and the complexity of all the different spaces that you can visit," Jones said. "Then, when you add it to another layer, which is that you may be going back to places that are familiar to you, but there's going to be completely different activities for you to participate in. So you'll be getting a very different experience even though you get some familiarity. We actually like that property, because we want people to be able to navigate and go through things."

Destiny launches September 9 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-dev-gameplay-is-what-matters-not-necessari/1100-6421873/

"Barnes says although platform holders like Microsoft and Sony like to make a big deal about which console is more powerful, gamers overall are caring less and less about statistics."

HAHAHA

good he doesnt visit VGC.

Clearly the Parity Clause Contracts obligates him to make such ridiculous comments.

They are caring less and less, yet the console that has the most graphical muscle in specs sells lot more than the competition.

Sony even markets the console as the most powerful console in existence, and I think its working.

It's actually what is an awesome gameplay experience for the player and anything that gets in the way of the best player experience is baggage.

1080p doesn't get in the way of gameplay, excessive effects, bloom, motion blur, SSAO, all that stuff that cripples framerate is what gets in the way. Everyone playing competitive multiplayer on PC goes for higher res and lower effects to be able to see clearly.

I guess he doesn't visit the internet much. Games forums are like riots at a daycare center

Good that there are still guys like him or every game would be as linear and scripted as possible just to have the shiniest graphics.

But I still believe that the areas in Destiny will be too small for what I expected from Destiny when I first heard about the concepts.

I don't think the game will be small. Bungie said its the biggest game they've ever made and were surprised that people thought the game was too short. 

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/bungie-surprised-by-criticisms-that-destiny-is-too/1100-6421857/

I don't say that it is small but from the beta and what I saw from earth and also the moon part I simply doubt that it wil be as big as I was hoping for all the time so that it is "too small" compared to what I and how it seems many others imagined. I expected to get as example the Old Chicago area as well in the game at release and not only Old Russia.

That the areas aren't small compared to most other games should be obvious since it's not a CoD or whatever...

All of their Halos are under 10 hours though. 10 hours is not long for a game like Destiny so I would hope its bigger than those.