The drive for graphical performance is detrimental to the industry

[palou]

Conina said:

palou said:

The proposition is more against higher definition, more polygons than needed, etc... 

Modern games could be played just fine in 480 p...

That's totally subjective where you draw the arbitrary line of "good enough".

 

palou said:

I never said that. 

However, good graphics take up alot of ressources, that could be used to produce several games, or further unique concepts in the game being made.

What good graphics are is a completely relative term, we always fawn upon whatever currently is the highest standard, even if the same graphical performance could give us difficulty appreciating the game ten years later.

I believe, would progress stop in this partocular aspect of the industry, or simply develop more slowly, so that all companies would have no trouble catching up to the standards, more games would be considered to have «good graphics» by the current generation.

Yeah, good graphics take up a lot of resources. But you are forgetting that these resources to spend for games would be smaller, if graphic standards were frozen on 2003 levels. A lot of people wouldn't be interested in these games and wouldn't spend money for video games.

Ockham's razor: if better graphics wouldn't broaden the audience and improve sales in general, the publishers wouldn't invest in that area.

I never said that graphics have no impact in a game's enjoyment. I simply state that this value is PURELY RELATIVE.

Take the example of television. As long as you remain with the same model at home (and don't look around too much), you are fully able to enjoy the content shown for as many years as you want to. If, suddenly, after a decade or so, you decide to purchase the newest product on the market, you would be, at first, amazed with the quality of the image. After a week or two, however, you will not even register anything special about the image quality. Going back to your old model, the shows suddenly become unwatchable - your eyes having adjusted to a higher standard. And the problem is, the negative effect lasts longer than the positive one, thamks to an innate cognitive bias that we possess.

Publishers invest in graphics, because it has a double effect - temporarily improving what the consumer thinks of their product, and making it more difficult for the consumer to appreciate the competition.

However, for the consumer, on a long term, the overall effect of ever improving graphics is nill (or even negative, because, as stated beforehand, we perceive underperformance more than overperformance).