I think maybe graphics is the wrong word here. Maybe production design would be better?

I'm not sure if one style is better than another. An artistic style that accurately reflects the real world works for some games; an artistic style that embellishes upon reality is important for others. It's a tough call. I guess if I had to choose one it would be "stylized," since those games tend to make the experience more interesting and unusual.

BOTH

What about... let's say Avatar the movie? or hmmm, photography as art?

I like both, but creativity is more important for me. Realistic graphics impress me a bit, but nothing memorable.

HoloDust said: TheShape31 said: HoloDust said: Hm, I see people are confusing things here massively. This is also realistic: Please, stop mixing up "creativeness" with graphic style. That is highly detailed surrealism.  The opposite of realism.  It is a fine example of creative. Of course is surrealism (neo surrealsim, to be presice) - with realistic graphic style. As opposed to, say Dali... ...which is also surrealism, but in the context of this debate could be called stylized.   Point is - photorealistic or stylized does not determine whether is something creative or not.

From Merriam-Webster.com:

Creative : having the quality of something created rather than imitated : imaginative

This isn't something we're going to agree upon.  

Take a look at Gears of War again.  The graphical design of world, characters, colors... everything came completely from the imagination of the developers.  Nothing existed before, it was Created in their minds.  Creativity achieved through a high level of detail.

Now look at Battlefield 4 again.  Every world, character, vehicle, weapon... everything already exists in this world.  It's imitating something we see already.  Turn on the news, watch a war documentary.   Nothing new is being Created within the imagination of the developers.  Realism acheived through a high level of detail.

Without getting into what creative means (too much of that word is being misused in last few decades, specially in games industry), it seems you're misinterpreting what I'm saying, so here it is again:

Photorealistic or Stylized does not determine whether is something creative or not

Take for example some potential future Blade Runner game (not the excellent Westwood's P&C adventure from '97). Blade Runner movie is wonderfully designed, and lot of creativity went into it, both in picture and sound.

Now, this potential game could be made to look Photorealistic, like the movie, and if done right, we would say it is a product of some very creative people. Of course, it could be completely Stylized, and done cell shaded like Journey for example, and if done right we would say exactly the same thing.

Whether that game looks Photorealistic or Stylized will not determine if it's done creatively or not.

No one's misinterpreting anything here.  You act as if there's one truth in this whole discussion.  There's only opinion, and maybe you can't agree to disagree but I can.  I've understood where you've come from on every point, I just see things very differently.  Give it a try.  Acceptance is bliss.

I prefer cool fake looking stuff.

I mean, i spend my whole day looking at realistic stuff.

Bioshock Infinite is the coolest looking game i've ever seen... and I'll be shocked if anything changes my opinion of that anytime soon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_%28art%29

Realism in the arts may be generally defined as the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements.

I think that if we stick too close to these definitions, few videogames can actually be called "realistic", as it's hard to find examples of them that don't include exotic locations, have only natural lightning/effects/colors or are entirely plausible.

In the context of this discussion, I would call "realistic" graphic design (or art style) to those visual designs that try to convince you that take place in our world/universe, despite any exotic element or visual distinction they might include. For example, Killzone, Uncharted, Resident Evil and The Last of Us would qualify as "realistic" design to me as their character design, lightning, textures, color palette and so on try to stay close to what we see in our world. These games strive for photorealism and believability in its designs, even when they portray supernatural or extraordinary elements/situations.

On the other hand, something like Street Fighter IV or Fable would qualify as "fantasy" graphic design to me because of their character design and the way they're portrayed, or some elements of its scenery, use of colors, proportions, etc.

On a related note, and from my point of view, I'm seeing nowadays an increasing interest of making fantasy media more realistic in some form or another, which fits into what I mentioned earlier about how realism is generally more respected these days... Street Fighter IV reminded me of that...

Anyway... Just an opinion...

Stylized vs Realism is a better comparison. And for me it depends on the content.

Plenty of things with realism have lots of creative things in them.

Creative vs Technical is another comparison. And should not be mutually exclusive. A lot of "Creative" games get by with creative artstyles and things but is technically deficient. One of the most annoying techniques I've seen in a lot of games is applying bloom and using that as a main lighting source, so when you mod on PC, you see all kinds of bad lighting, or broken lights, and all sorts of blur to everything to fix aliasing on consoles. A lot of technically good games lack a creative, uniform style.

A game with both creativity and sound technical features is most desired.

Edit: Holodust comparison, basically says what I'm trying to say in one picture.