So I am wondering what is really the difference between a game that is graphically demanding (say The Order 1886) vs a game that is beautiful styled (say Ori and the Blind Forest?)  The obvious is take is that one game will hold up better over time than the other (artstyle will always win) but with that said is it not appreciating the exact same thing between the two styles? Are they not both considered visual stimulation?  Why is it we can love a game that is artstyled so beautifully but when a game is beautiful via raw graphics, we can get shamed as graphic whores, for what is essentially the same difference.

  I will share an honest truth about myself with you and that truth is I love visually appealing games. I am a man and as a man (of certain tastes) I very much enjoy things that are visually stunning. That isn't to say the visual aspect is king in my life over everything but I will never let myself be shamed for appreciating a game visually whether it's artstyled or raw graphics.  So with all that said, what is the difference or is it really the same thing but just different preceptions? Is there a standard between the 2 and if so why does it exist?

I don't think they're the same and can't really be compared (even though some people will). For example, The Order has a steampunk realistic artstyle and is very heavy on textures, while, let's say the Trine games have a more fantasy-esque artstyle and is heavy on lighting bloom and particle effects.

I think a good example is Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead. They belong to same genre and were built on the same engine. They look and have aged differently. TF2 still looks pretty while L4D is already showing its age. Despite this L4D is more demanding on hardware. Realistic games are much harder to pull off IMO. Another example is artistic Unreal games like Dishonoured and BioShock Infinite in comparison to stereotypical "brown and grey" shooters on the same engine.
That said I do appreciate photorealistic games more because it takes tons of effort and looks really cool. Sometimes it feels as if you are actually there. I last got that feeling with Last Light Redux and Alien Isolation.

One is more about the composition of it all, the interplay of colors and contrast, of shapes and line, of space and negative space, a unity of visual themes. That's art direction and nearly every game has that to some degree. Without art direction, you really just have reality slapped onto a computer screen and reality unfiltered by some sort of artistic direction can make for a pretty blah visual experience.

The other is purely about impressing through the display of technological prowess. Few games focus (almost) entirely on this.  You cannot have a game that will have any lasting appeal that way because quite frankly, there will always be a bigger show. The original Crysis is the epitome of this. The majority of that game is as generic as it gets but at the time it was gushed over as the pinnacle of technical achievement. Now? Hardly. This isn't to say it's ugly, it's just that there's a bigger show to see. That's the key difference. You can appreciate both, that's fine, but there is a reason why art direction is given such weight.

Art style is best: you can make the game look great, have it age better overtime, and grant the game great performance.

People will probably hate me for this but raw technical prowess matters more than ever!

No matter how good of an artsyle developers push, their games may end up been limited on a technical front ...

The preaching about artstyle aging better than realistic technical marvel is unfounded drivel or baloney. ALL gamers should go ask themselves what their most fondly remembered games are and some will be surprised enough to realize that a fair portion of them includes those types of games ...

When you like at the what the highest selling games are currently, most of them are the graphically intense games and NOT the ones trying to deviate from that ...

The statement of artstyle aging better than graphics is one of the biggest lies I ever heard ...

I would not say that realistic games are harder to pull off
It totally depends on how you look at it.

Realism is much harder to accomplish from a technical standpoint but the laziest designer can make games look realistic.
E.g today you can just scan rocks and wood and whatnot and then just reduce the polycount until it fits. Or even if you dont scan the stuff you just have to to copy existing design.

Making good art style is pretty hard and requires talented designers even more so when you want everything to fit together in a plausible way. Its less demanding from a technical standpoint (most of the time) but more from an artistic one.

Its like saying designing a completely new car and then producing it is not as hard as using an existing car design and then just printing it with a 3D printer.

So saying a realistic game is harder to pull off than a art-style focused one is not really correct. I mean I am pretty sure inventing stuff like the Eifel Tower was harder than just copying it for Las Vegas right?


Edit:
Stuff like Killzone tho is exactly inbetween. Its realistic but has so much art style stuff going on (all the futuristic designs) IMO this belongs more into the art style category that into realism.

i doubt the orders graphics will be outdated at any point in the future. While on the other hand Oris sprite based graphics will be outdated on higher resolutions at some point, while the Order can run at any resolution cuz its 3D 

Do you think modelling a stylised rain forest is harder than modelling a photorealistic one? Taking a look at crysis, it requires tons of different plants, shrubs, rocks, animals, insects and trees. It needs actual blades of grass and not flat grass textures. All textures have to look crisp and clean and fit in as well. Different surfaces and materials have to look and respond as they would in real life

With things like subsurface scattering, tessellation and physically based rendering Id say realistic is much harder to pull off, no questions asked. There's a reason most indie/budget games opt for stylised visuals over photorealistic ones.

Having a realistic looking game sure makes the experience more immersive and "real". But I would have to go with Art style as it is simply beautiful, and amazing experiences that is unforgettable and unique.
That is imo closer to art than realistic graphics because it relies on innovation and imaginative thinking