people buy games for graphics?

dude: this game is so fun!
other dude: yeah but tis game has better grapix lets buy this instead!

Gilgamesh said: When we finally get to the point of realism in graphics from all consoles, probably by the end of this gen or next gen, what are gaming companies going to have to do to attract it's customers to make them buy their product? Graphics is no longer a selling feature what do they bring?

This gen isn't powerful enough and next gen probably will not powerful enough to provide the point of realism in graphics. Look at movies, then again at the games with the best graphics you have and notice the immense amount of shortcomings of the games. We will not have relistic graphics in games for some decades with affordable tech. Some point I wish would put more attention to is more realistic physics though. I don't talk about explosions, but look at simple things like the sword of the hero is sticking through a wall if you're near it. Look at how vegetation moves if you run through it. there is a lot of areas were physics could improve a lot, but I think this too will take too much resources to be affordable in the next decades. But if the point of realistic graphics will be reached, probably I will be more than hundred years old by then, I will start my computer and enjoy a session of nethack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nethack

Games like Counter Strike Global Offensive have 200k players at the same time pretty much the whole day. Graphics aren't needed to attract people. At least not those who care about gameplay because then, you will be happy about graphics but they won't sell you a game.

I never bought a game because of graphics (only for artstyle). Sure, it's great when graphics get better but I and millions of other wouldn't buy games like Minecraft or whatever else when graphics would be really as important as some seem to think. Some buy games because of graphics but most not.

Games will do fine even without getting better graphics. Some games which have graphics as selling point would have a problem but the other games not. Wouldn't be great for hardware manufacturers but games will be fine.

Roma said: people buy games for graphics? dude: this game is so fun! other dude: yeah but tis game has better grapix lets buy this instead!

Yeah, the most successful games aren't about graphics (LoL, WoT, Diablo, CoD and so on). Maybe about artstyle but not graphics as like "it has the best textures"

There are a few exception. Racing games like GT or Forza need to look better as their predecessor or they have a problem. If GT7 will look like GT5 and will only have a few changes in physics it would get problems to reach high sales. They would need to change or add a lot of tracks to be still a selling point for people. 

Let's first wait and see how long it takes to reach this level of realism. It certainly won't be reached by the end of this generation, in any case.

Advancement in AI. Animation etc. I think that we'll have near photorealism by the end of this gen, and true photrealism by next gen.

Still think we're a good twenty years off from this concern. Besides, removing limitations will hopefully create freedom of choice in game design so not worried.

If we assume the impossible happens, it'll be the thing that's the easiest to market after graphics. What that is, I don't know for sure. AI, player numbers, maybe audio? Perhaps they'll turn to procedural content generation and advertise the amount of content, as bad as it may be.

Story / Design / Gameplay.

It will not happen before 1 or 2 decades, if ever. Without talking about cost, I doubt it's even achievable technically speaking. Look at a movies, they can spend hours with multiple computer for a single frame, and it's still not near realism or the end of competition. Even if it was achieved, it would not end the war for graphics : vision depth, effects, number of character on screen, speed, etc. And even if it was over, it would not stop the contest on design : who designed the best character, spacecraft, etc.