Why are some players so shallow about graphics and aesthetics?

[MonkeySage]

I've probably brought this up before, but I've got two people in mind here.

The first player won't even touch Psychonauts, simply because he dislikes the aesthetics of the game.

The second player won't play games with a more primitive or retro aesthetic; I've been playing undertale quite a bit lately, and he simply can't understand why I like the game. Because to him, it has "bad graphics". This same player, for some reason, sees nothing wrong with Minecraft.

Is that shallow of them?

Why are some players so ready to judge a game on appearances alone?

[Lethologica]

First, appearances are an important part of player experience. Disliking a game because of its aesthetic is perfectly valid.

Second, appearances are subjective to varying degrees. Opinions on the graphics of The Last of Us will probably vary less than opinions on the graphics of Undertale. It's perfectly valid for someone else to have different tastes in appearances.

Third, appearances often signal things about the rest of the game. When someone says they don't like the game from how it looks, they may also be associating that look with games and gameplay they dislike.

[Flickerdart]

Imagine a book. The greatest book ever, your friends tell you. It's wonderful, it will change your life. When you open the book, it's typeset in Curlz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curlz).

Imagine a movie. An amazing movie, a review reads. Fantastic special effects. Great acting. When you watch the movie, the plot makes no sense at all.

Imagine a song. A groundbreaking song. The lyrics are brilliant poetry, the instruments are played with unprecedented mastery. You download the song, but it is only available as an .mp3 file with an 8 Kbps bit rate.

If one aspect of the experience is lacking, the entire experience suffers.

[factotum]

I have to agree with the others. Disliking a game for bad graphics is no more shallow, IMHO, than disliking one for bad story or bad controls.

[JadedDM]

Why are some players so ready to judge a game on appearances alone?
Mostly due to media hype. When a new game comes out, the graphics are always placed at the forefront. Because they make for good trailers. (This is also why most game trailers are comprised entirely of CGI cutscenes instead of actual gameplay, because they look even better.) If a game with a good story or amazing mechanics, it's a lot harder to showcase those on trailers.

So as a result, there's super heavy focus on graphics. And this bleeds into the players, so that they eventually start to accept the idea of 'good graphics = good game.' So you get to the point where people will actually say things like, "I'm not going to play that. It looks like it was made in 2014!" Like that was the frickin' Stone Age instead of two years ago.

Indie games are helping to reverse that trend a bit. Stuff like Minecraft, Undertale, and so forth. But the big AAA games are another story altogether.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Imagine a book. The greatest book ever, your friends tell you. It's wonderful, it will change your life. When you open the book, it's typeset in Curlz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curlz).

No. Imagine a book. It has just the right size of a main cast to flesh them all out while the storyline progresses. But one entire area is described as a pink castle with white pillars (The Ruins). And since we're not actually reading a book where we can use our imagination, the book would have to go into detail about how there's one room with nothing but a bunch of gray panels on the ground and a closed door. Are the walls crumbling? Or does everything look like it was just built? Are they rough stone? Smooth marble? Drywall? We don't know.

And I can deal with how The Ruins look, which is worse than the rest of Undertale's graphics. If they've only seen The Ruins and the main character, show them more.

However, I still think complaining about graphics is fairly shallow.

Aesthetic, though. Heh. This is hugely important. Imagine if, in Bayonetta, you did not play Bayonetta, but a bunch of pipes and circles stuck together. And all the angels look like this too. They're different shapes and have flat pieces for wings, but the same color. Imagine if the weapon shop isn't a dimly-lit bar run by a big guy, but simply a building with brown walls and a gray floor that don't have any texture to them, with a single counter that the shopkeep uses. Imagine if the first city you're in looks exactly the same as Vigrid; no waterfalls, no constant rays of sunlight, no painted glass windows, no cobblestone roads.

So what do you get? Well, the gameplay's pretty good. The dialogue's still good, though let's toss out the voice-acting as long as we're removing aesthetic, which means it's not as good. The story's always been bad. And the aesthetic is somewhere between bland and nonexistent. Bayonetta has a poor story, but because the aesthetic is so good, people still buy into it as much as necessary to support the dialogue, which gives them enough breaks to continue the combat sections.

You can still get good aesthetic in poor graphics, and that's why I don't like when people criticize graphics. The judgement hall in Undertale has that color showing warm light, those windows, that flooring that gives it an aesthetic not all that different from Bayonetta's Vigrid.

[Starwulf]

I personally don't see why people dismiss older games because of the type of graphics, but I don't have an issue with people who dismiss games because of the STYLE of graphics. Example: I love NES games, I have no issue with 8-bit graphics or whatever it is that was used back then, the original Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior(and DWIV) are some of my most favorite games. The graphics just add to the charm imo. On the other hand, I HATE games that use graphical styles used in games like Legend of Zelda Wind Waker, ie: Cel-Shaded graphics. I don't care how good a game is, it could literally be the most amazing, ground breaking game in the world, with universally perfect 10 scores from every critic and gamer in existence, and I still wouldn't play it, because I hate Cel-Shaded graphics. They make me nauseous and give me headaches looking at them, and I also personally find them to be horrendously ugly on top of that.

I really don't get gamers from my era who won't play games with older graphics though. I mean, you played them when they were the BIG NEW AWESOME THING, but now that there's another new BIG NEW AWESOME THING, you think they are awful? Bleh.

[Blackhawk748]

I generally don't really care about graphics. As long as i can tell what is what when im looking at it, i dont care. However, there are certain games, Morrowind comes to mind, that i cant play for a long period of time, because the graphics are so bad as to give me a headache. Oddly enough Cel SHaded, 8-Bit or other early 3d Games (Super Mario RPG for example) don't negatively impact me.

[Starwulf]

I generally don't really care about graphics. As long as i can tell what is what when im looking at it, i dont care. However, there are certain games, Morrowind comes to mind, that i cant play for a long period of time, because the graphics are so bad as to give me a headache. Oddly enough Cel SHaded, 8-Bit or other early 3d Games (Super Mario RPG for example) don't negatively impact me.

Can I ask what it is about Morrowinds graphics that give you a headache? It's one of my most played games, I still break it out at least twice a year to play it for a few hundreds hours, and I've never had an issue with it, and I don't even use mods. On the topic of mods, have you tried downloading some of the major graphical overhaul mods for it? The game is one of the best TES games there is(2nd behind Daggerfall imo.), so if you could find a workaround for the headache in the form of a graphical mod overhaul I'd totally suggest it :)

[Blackhawk748]

Can I ask what it is about Morrowinds graphics that give you a headache? It's one of my most played games, I still break it out at least twice a year to play it for a few hundreds hours, and I've never had an issue with it, and I don't even use mods. On the topic of mods, have you tried downloading some of the major graphical overhaul mods for it? The game is one of the best TES games there is(2nd behind Daggerfall imo.), so if you could find a workaround for the headache in the form of a graphical mod overhaul I'd totally suggest it :)

I dont know for sure, my guess is its all the hard angles, as theres no True Curve in it. Also i did, i downloaded the one that gives it Oblivion level graphics an another mod that made the hitboxes not stupid, so that greatly improved my play experience.

Edit: another thought i had was, was the fact that it was very monotone in coloration in the early parts of the game, or at least i remember a ton of brown, and that doesnt help.

[Starwulf]

I dont know for sure, my guess is its all the hard angles, as theres no True Curve in it. Also i did, i downloaded the one that gives it Oblivion level graphics an another mod that made the hitboxes not stupid, so that greatly improved my play experience.

Edit: another thought i had was, was the fact that it was very monotone in coloration in the early parts of the game, or at least i remember a ton of brown, and that doesnt help.

Yeah, that is an issue of it, though it is alleviated in several areas, especially ones where the landscape starts looking entirely alien ^^. I'm glad you were able to find a solution to allow you to enjoy the game, Morrowind is in my all-time Top 5 games, and I recommend it to anyone who shows even the slightest interest in rpgs or open world gaming.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I really don't get gamers from my era who won't play games with older graphics though. I mean, you played them when they were the BIG NEW AWESOME THING, but now that there's another new BIG NEW AWESOME THING, you think they are awful? Bleh.

3D graphics often ARE awful. Morrowind was the big new thing once. Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. Unlike with 16-bit and 8-bit graphics, you can see the detail in it, and you can see the clear technical limitations of that detail. Even with 16-bit, Shovel Knight looks better than Megaman X and Super Metroid, but it's far less polarizing. None of those games have textures. The Varia Suit doesn't look blocky compared to Shovel Knight's armor.

The sheer blockiness of Minecraft and even Final Fantasy 7 beat the mutant that is Morrowind's graphics. And I still would play it if I wanted to spend 200 hours in a game with what is a single-character RNG combat system.

[Starwulf]

3D graphics often ARE awful. Morrowind was the big new thing once. Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. Unlike with 16-bit and 8-bit graphics, you can see the detail in it, and you can see the clear technical limitations of that detail. Even with 16-bit, Shovel Knight looks better than Megaman X and Super Metroid, but it's far less polarizing. None of those games have textures. The Varia Suit doesn't look blocky compared to Shovel Knight's armor.

The sheer blockiness of Minecraft and even Final Fantasy 7 beat the mutant that is Morrowind's graphics. And I still would play it if I wanted to spend 200 hours in a game with what is a single-character RNG combat system.

See, I just can't understand that viewpoint. I'm an old gamer(obviously, talking about NES games. Atari was my first system actually, with frogger being my very first game), so I can safely say it's not some sordid love affair with games of the PS1 era. But yeah, I have/see no issues with games like Final Fantasy VII, or other games of that style in that era. Hell, I regularly load up Mario 64 for the N64(which is pretty close to that style of graphics), and I love how it looks.

I just really don't understand the concept of "graphics that you enjoyed back in the day haven't aged well". Graphics don't "age". They are the same graphics that they were when you first played them. They didn't change, or get worse, they are the same thing that you played and enjoyed in the first place. If you enjoyed it once, why can't you enjoy it again? (Barring of course games that just really are only meant to be played once, but that's obviously not a graphical issue).

[Hiro Protagonest]

Graphics don't age. We do. Perceptions change with experiences.

[Starwulf]

Graphics don't age. We do. Perceptions change with experiences.

Hrm. Can't say that makes anymore sense, as I've certainly aged, and I've definitely changed and grown up, especially over the last thirteen years(two daughters, oldest is 13 now, and raising them has changed my viewpoints immensely, including on the very major topic of being accepting of the lbgt community). And yet, none of my perceptions of video games have changed even a single mote. What I enjoy now, is what I enjoyed years ago. I've added one or two genres that I wasn't into back then, but I haven't gotten rid of any.

I'll be honest, it just sounds more like an excuse to accommodate exactly what the OP was talking about, which is people being shallow in their preferences of new graphics over older ones. I mean, I could be way off, but that's kind of how that statement comes off to me. "Oh, I've changed, the stuff I enjoyed 10 years ago I can't stand now because it looks clunky". Now, if you were instead to say "My preferences have changed over the years", that's a viable reason/excuse to not enjoy older games that you once used to, but this entire conversation has been based solely on graphics, and again, I just don't see how the passage of time would change your mind on the looks of something you once enjoyed.

[Blackhawk748]

I think its a comparative thing. I mean, i used to think Oblivion was pretty, then i played Skyrim and i thought it was pretty, then i played Fallout 4. Basically it looks far less impressive as time goes on and you see how dated things look. Now, this doenst stop my enjoyment, ill still load up Oblivion or Fable and play them for hours, but they dont look nearly as good as i thought they did back in the day, and for some people thats a turn off.

I agree that it seems like a goofy thing, but for some people its a big deal.

[Starwulf]

I think its a comparative thing. I mean, i used to think Oblivion was pretty, then i played Skyrim and i thought it was pretty, then i played Fallout 4. Basically it looks far less impressive as time goes on and you see how dated things look. Now, this doenst stop my enjoyment, ill still load up Oblivion or Fable and play them for hours, but they dont look nearly as good as i thought they did back in the day, and for some people thats a turn off.

I agree that it seems like a goofy thing, but for some people its a big deal.

Alright, that makes more sense, but it does seem to prove the point of the OP I think. Thank you though, that was a much better explanation then Hiro's brief "people change" thing. I'm just glad that I'm one of fortunate people for whom older graphics don't pose a problem. Would suck to not be able to enjoy the games I grew up playing nowadays, considering how often I load up older games.

[Knaight]

It's worth drawing a line between the graphics and the aesthetics. The graphics are just the technical side - what sort of rendering is there, for 2D is it pixel or vector or what, etc. There's something functional at just about every level of graphics, regardless of how primitive. The aesthetics are the art that is done with the graphics, and there are very few aesthetic designs that actually depend on the latest graphics anymore - relatively little functionality has been added. There's also room for a jarring and ugly aesthetic at any level of graphics. A lot of the indie retro games use early pixel art and more than that do so really poorly. Psychonauts had a very distinctive aesthetic that is going to be off-putting to some people while key to the experience for others. There's noting shallow about having aesthetic considerations for an aesthetic medium.

[factotum]

I just really don't understand the concept of "graphics that you enjoyed back in the day haven't aged well". Graphics don't "age". They are the same graphics that they were when you first played them. They didn't change, or get worse, they are the same thing that you played and enjoyed in the first place.

Do you watch a lot of old black and white movies? Because the same thing applies in that case--those are no worse than when they were originally released, but we're conditioned to expect things to look nicer now. My main bugbear with old graphics is the resolution rather than the style, though--can't stand the blockiness now; didn't really like it much back in the day, which is why I was gobsmacked when I could run Duke Nukem 3D at 800x600 (imagine!) compared to the 320x200 Doom forced you to use.

I will never play Undertale, partly because the combat system (essentially a bullet hell where you can't shoot back) is about as far from what I find enjoyable as you can get, but also partly because of the low resolution blocky graphics.

[Starwulf]

Do you watch a lot of old black and white movies? Because the same thing applies in that case--those are no worse than when they were originally released, but we're conditioned to expect things to look nicer now. My main bugbear with old graphics is the resolution rather than the style, though--can't stand the blockiness now; didn't really like it much back in the day, which is why I was gobsmacked when I could run Duke Nukem 3D at 800x600 (imagine!) compared to the 320x200 Doom forced you to use.

I will never play Undertale, partly because the combat system (essentially a bullet hell where you can't shoot back) is about as far from what I find enjoyable as you can get, but also partly because of the low resolution blocky graphics.

mmm, I actually do watch a fair amount of them, though mostly Horror Movies(I have a boxed set of 50 classic horror films, including my all-time favorite movie, Night of the Dead ^^). I guess I just didn't become conditioned to adapting to newer graphics and only wanting them, probably because I've always mixed up the games I play. I can go from playing The Last of Us(just started a while back), to Secret of Evermore, to Mario 64 and not be bothered at all.

As I said though, I do understand a bit better now why others don't. I think I've always just had issues with people ragging on them, because usually in the same breath they start claiming I'm just seeing those older games through "Rose-tinted glasses", which couldn't be further from the truth.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Here's a thought:

There's thousands of decent games you could be playing, perhaps tens of thousands, right now.

Why choose one with a visual style (or anything else) that is grating, for whatever reason?

I was not impressed by what I saw of Undertale; the aesthetic is ugly. Even if the writing is good, I'd have to go in knowing that I'd be constantly enduring an annoyance while trying to enjoy the game.

Bayonetta's soundtrack and aesthetic were grating for me to listen/see. I won't be playing that game for the reason that there's plenty of games in the action-y beat-em-up genre I could play instead, where those things are not the case.

On the topic of things being aged, Starfox's (SNES) framerate did not age well.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

It's worth drawing a line between the graphics and the aesthetics.

This is a very important distinction! For me Undertale fails in it's visuals not because of the technical aspects of the graphics but because the style strikes me as pretty crap. They characters are ugly and look poorly made because they were made to look that way.

[Avian Overlord]

I know! You'd almost think people play video games by looking at them.

[Avilan the Grey]

Good, or even mediocre 2D graphics are always better than bad 3D graphics.
Other than that I really don't have much to say.

[gooddragon1]

There's some games I won't play because of the aesthetics. But I play exile 2 crystal souls on 2d and skyrim on 3d. Whatever works as long as it doesn't 'look dumb'.

[Knaight]

Good, or even mediocre 2D graphics are always better than bad 3D graphics.
Other than that I really don't have much to say.

Putting aside the quibbles about graphics as technology and aesthetics as art style: You could also say that good or even mediocre 3D graphics are always better than bad 2D graphics. Any artistic technology can be used to produce absolute garbage. Take oil paints on canvas - there's a lot of extremely impressive work that's been done with oil paints on canvas. It's a style with a long tradition and a well established canon of brilliant works. Then there's stuff like this incident (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19349921).

[Avilan the Grey]

Putting aside the quibbles about graphics as technology and aesthetics as art style: You could also say that good or even mediocre 3D graphics are always better than bad 2D graphics. Any artistic technology can be used to produce absolute garbage. Take oil paints on canvas - there's a lot of extremely impressive work that's been done with oil paints on canvas. It's a style with a long tradition and a well established canon of brilliant works. Then there's stuff like this incident (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19349921).

I don't think you use the word "bad" the same way I do. I am talking about technically bad. Not bad art style.

[Alent]

For me, it's purely a matter of refinement.

See, I'm very much a "Burn out doing your best or get the frack out" person when it comes to art. I've spent quite a bit of time over the years studying art and struggling to improve my own art with the dream of making games, so I don't want to see someone more capable than myself sandbagging it with graphics that are clearly effortless garbage while I'm sitting here, lamenting my own inability to draw as well as I need to. Or worse, effort that is just flat out inappropriate and misplaced- like photorealism in general. (Why spend all that time developing photorealistic art if it's going to look dated before you even release your game?)

Some games like Wind Waker make it easy to identify them as sandbagged by being so laughably and deliberately disgustingly bad that you feel sorry for the dev team members who were forced to write their real names in the credits instead of Alan Smithee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Smithee), and some Indie games look terrible but represent some truly amazing growth on the part of the artist. (I definitely think positively of such improvements even if I don't play the game. I'd play more games if time and money were not limited so. :smallfrown: )

For a long time, tho', I didn't understand why it bothered me so much. During the early 3D era of the N64 and PSX, I thought it was just "3D = automatically bad art", because most of the early 3D games were so visually terrible as to be unplayable. The SNES era was full of absolutely beautiful and sharp artwork and suddenly all this infantile, malshapen super low poly 3D with blurry interpolated textures came onto the market in it's place. I was sure that 3D was to blame, and in a way it was, but not the way I thought. Quite a few of those games were 3D by publisher requirement or executive meddling, so there's no telling how many bad 3D games would've been amazing 2D or 2.5D classics otherwise.

Reinforcing that misunderstanding was some amazing titles of the era that were half 2D or mostly 2D, like Wild ARMs 1 and 2, Suikoden 1 and 2, Star Ocean 2, FFT, Valkyrie Profile, etc. It seemed an obvious conclusion that the presence or absence of 2D sprites were directly indicative of game quality. Time and the capabilities of 3D finally catching up to where 2D was at the end of the SNES era broke me of that misunderstanding, but there's still games from that era I just will not play because I still can't see them as anything but intentionally terrible art.

My case is probably not applicable to most, but yeah, watching people sandbag it when they've done better in the past or when little things here and there convince me that they know better? I find it absolutely infuriating and keeps me from enjoying a game.

[cobaltstarfire]

Is that shallow of them?




Which is more shallow, avoiding a game because something about it is unappealing, or judging someone because their tastes and interests differ from yours?

[Ailurus]

First, graphics are the most obvious part of the game so it's quite understandable that it's one of the main things that people talk about. Screenshots and trailers will at best show you only the most superficial aspects of the plot and gameplay, and while reviews will usually touch on at least the core gameplay loops they often get far enough in to talk about all the details. So a good graphical presentation is important.

Also, when you're playing a game the main thing you're going to be doing is looking at it - if you don't like how a painting looks, you're certainly not going to buy it to hang on your wall. So why would you buy a game that you don't like looking at. For example, that's why I will not play Undertale. From the screenshots and videos I've seen, something about the main character's face simultaneously enrages and nauseates me, especially when the character's facing left and right. I don't know why exactly I feel that way, but it's how I've felt since I first saw it and I'm not going to spend money and a lot of time on something I can't stand looking at regardless of how the rest of it might be. So I fully understand the psychonauts friend.

That said, I think people who write off whole genres simply because of old graphics are missing out on experiences. Someone who says they'll write off all 8-bit graphics games because they're 8-bit is ignoring not only the fact that you can have good and bad looking games regardless of the type of graphics, but also that 8-bit graphics encompasses a huge variety of games. I mean, FTL, Shovel Knight and Undertale are all 8-bit, but all three were well received and all three have virtually nothing else in common. Still, people are free to spend or not spend their money however they want. If you want to try to change their opinion so they explore more games don't just keep saying things like "Undertale's a good game!" Friend #2 obviously decided he (or she) doesn't like how it looks. Try showing him some other 8-bit games, and if you can find one he likes the asthetic of and actually plays then he may be more open to trying other ones later on.

[Corlindale]

Graphics do matter to me, but how much depends a lot on the genre and the games' other qualities.

Especially in the initial phase of playing a game, I pay a lot of attention to graphics. But if I really get into something, graphics become less and less of an issue.

My best example is Tales of Maj'Eyal. I bought this based on recommendations, but I must admit that I found it really hard to get into the simplistic graphics (even though it's actually pretty extravagant as roguelikes go!). I was very close to giving up the game after a few sessions, but then the gameplay somehow clicked for me, and after that I didn't really pay much attention to the graphics anymore.

I would have trouble getting into a roguelike with Ascii graphics, though. I suppose one might get to the point of "seeing the code" and thinking of whatever weird symbol as a "troll" or "wizard", but I like things to at least nominally look like what they are.

[Eldan]

I like good looking games. It's just that. I like looking at pretty things .They don't have to be cutting edge pretty things, there's plenty of 2D sprite games that are very, very pretty.

But since you brought up Undertale... I found that one eyesearingly ugly. There's games more than twenty years older that look better. And it's not just the technology. It's unappealing and bland, and a lot of things are just represented as vague shapes. That was one strong turn off. THe other thing was that I hate boring round-based JPRG combat and bullet hell games.

[factotum]

But since you brought up Undertale... I found that one eyesearingly ugly. There's games more than twenty years older that look better.

I think that happens a lot, to be honest. A lot of modern "retro" games seem to think you can put any old graphical cobblers together, and as long as it's low resolution enough everyone will think it's great. I was actually playing games 30+ years ago, and am still amazed how good some of the games back then managed to look given the graphical limitations of the platforms they were running on.

[AdmiralCheez]

I think that happens a lot, to be honest. A lot of modern "retro" games seem to think you can put any old graphical cobblers together, and as long as it's low resolution enough everyone will think it's great. I was actually playing games 30+ years ago, and am still amazed how good some of the games back then managed to look given the graphical limitations of the platforms they were running on.

Yeah, a huge problem for me and "retro" graphic styles is that a lot of indie developers seem to think that the 8-bit style is an easy, cheap way to do graphics. They seem to think that they can make a quick game without putting thought or effort into the art, and just label it "retro," like they were making some great homage to the games of old.

It's actually really hard to emulate 8-bit and older art styles well, and very few have pulled it off. Back then, they made the most of their technical limitations, and they had to think about every pixel they used. Nowadays, you don't have that limit, so people often get lazy and just throw something together real quick.

[JeenLeen]

I think a lot of it might depend on the given gamer. Some folk grew up on older style graphics; others didn't. Of both categories, some folk care about the graphics more, so that the degree to which it influences how much they enjoy the game differs from other people. (And probably for some given games graphics matter more. I care less about it for a turn-based game than live action.)

For graphics aging, Final Fantasy 7 is the big 'wow' to me in this. When it came out, I played it for hours just to watch the awesome graphics. I think the first time I could rest at an inn and go fight random battles (Sector 7 Slums), I got to a relatively high level just because I was enjoying the awesome graphics.
I tried replaying a few years ago, and the graphics had almost no appeal.
A similar thing happened with Final Fantasy 8.

I think it's natural for standards and perceptions of graphics to change as we experience more. It does not mean that a good game is no longer a good game, but it does mean that the graphics are reasonably, at least for some players, no longer an appealing factor.

As an inverse (?) example, I really enjoyed Ogre Tactics for the Playstation. The graphics were okay for what it was, but not great by any means. I don't think that game would seem any worse to me nowadays, but the graphics were never part of the draw.

As I think about it, how prominently the main characters are displayed might matter, too. In Ogre Tactics, you don't really look at character images much. In some games like Earthbound or, I reckon (haven't played it), Undertale, the images of PCs are small compared to the rest of the map.
In contrast, Final Fantasy 7-8 have 'full-size' images for people, and games like Bayonetta, Dishonored, etc. show PCs prominently. Graphics are more an integral part of the experience, I think, so the game 'ages' more than some others.

[Flickerdart]

As I think about it, how prominently the main characters are displayed might matter, too. In Ogre Tactics, you don't really look at character images much. In some games like Earthbound or, I reckon (haven't played it), Undertale, the images of PCs are small compared to the rest of the map.
In contrast, Final Fantasy 7-8 have 'full-size' images for people, and games like Bayonetta, Dishonored, etc. show PCs prominently. Graphics are more an integral part of the experience, I think, so the game 'ages' more than some others.

I do think that's part of it, but it's also that environments age better. It's really easy to take a wall and slap a pretty texture on it, but trickier to do an animated thing. Compare the environment to the characters in the following image (PoP: Sands of Time, 2003):

http://thehypedgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/princeofpersia.jpg


The walls look brick-y, the floor looks tile-y. Sure, the texture could be crisper, but grab a screencap from something like Skyrim (2013) and it will look largely the same.

But the models have not aged well at all! Look at those arms on the monster with the hammer. It wouldn't be out of place in Majora's Mask, except Sands of Time was not cel-shaded.

[The_Jackal]

I've probably brought this up before, but I've got two people in mind here.

The first player won't even touch Psychonauts, simply because he dislikes the aesthetics of the game.

The second player won't play games with a more primitive or retro aesthetic; I've been playing undertale quite a bit lately, and he simply can't understand why I like the game. Because to him, it has "bad graphics". This same player, for some reason, sees nothing wrong with Minecraft.

Is that shallow of them?

Why are some players so ready to judge a game on appearances alone?

Don't confused different priorities with depth, or lack thereof. It's a game, people do this for fun, so there can be no objective criteria for what is enjoyable or satisfying.

[Rodin]

The technology level of the image (or apparent technology level, with retro games) isn't as important as how much effort was put into the actual art of the game.

Consider Hyperlight Drifter:

http://static2.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1406/14063904/3045253-hyperlightdrifter+2016-03-30+10-18-15-64.jpg



Heavily pixelated, yes. Despite that, the artwork is downright beautiful. The game drew a gasp from me on several occasions when I emerged onto the top of a mountain for a fantastic view.

A lot of games don't get that. They have graphics that are, at best, functional. "Real is brown" is often a major offender - one of the reasons I couldn't get into Age of Decadence was the the game's graphics were thoroughly uninspiring. They need to not look Amateurish, which The Storm Guard failed to do - I believe that game was another one-man project, and his thing wasn't graphics and it showed.

Having the game be visually appealing cures a lot of sins when it comes to video game design. Make it retro or whatever you like, it has to look good, even if your game is 8-bit. If your graphic design choices impact gameplay...hoo boy. That's about the worst failure out there.

[factotum]

I think Terraria and Starbound are good examples of games with an 8-bit style, but where the graphics have been crafted with some care so they look good. Your mileage may vary, of course!

[danzibr]

Interesting thread so far. I'm into retro games, so to speak, or at least games with a retro style, as I'm a novice game designer (though to be fair, I don't know if I'm worthy of even that title).

I completely understand not liking certain graphics. And I can even see refusing to play a game you consider hideous. Likewise, if a game just had awful, awful sound, I could see not playing it (though you can mute it, unlike graphics).

One thing that I *don't* understand is when people associate graphics of any sort with gameplay or plot or the like. I've seen people say things along the lines of, "They put so much time into the graphics, the gameplay must stink." Where does this come from? It's completely absurd.

[Lethologica]

Hm. The complaint I most often hear showing those lines is something more like "When they spent all that time and money on pretty graphics, why didn't they have the budget for decent writers/designers?" You're saying people expected worse gameplay because of good graphics? That is bizarre.

[danzibr]

Hm. The complaint I most often hear showing those lines is something more like "When they spent all that time and money on pretty graphics, why didn't they have the budget for decent writers/designers?" You're saying people expected worse gameplay because of good graphics? That is bizarre.
Yeah, I've actually heard similar arguments on this very forum (it's more common elsewhere though).

[factotum]

I think that might be because having really, really awesome looking games that are little more than graphics technology demonstrators and have all the depth of a child's paddling pool seems to be a thing. Most of the XBox One and PS4 launch titles fall into this category. It's entirely possible to have a game demonstrating the capabilities of a new engine which is also *good*, though--just see Far Cry or Half-Life 2 for examples.

[thracian]

I just really don't understand the concept of "graphics that you enjoyed back in the day haven't aged well". Graphics don't "age". They are the same graphics that they were when you first played them. They didn't change, or get worse, they are the same thing that you played and enjoyed in the first place. If you enjoyed it once, why can't you enjoy it again? (Barring of course games that just really are only meant to be played once, but that's obviously not a graphical issue).

This is going back a ways in the thread, but this quote baffled me. There are vast swathes of books, movies and TV shows that I used to like that I no longer enjoy, and for various reasons. Hell, horses pulling carts is a perfectly adequate way of moving things from point A to point B, which do people insist on automobiles?

Look at something like Resident Evil. I do not find that game to be fun because the controls are difficult to use, having become accustomed to modern control conventions. The game has aged poorly, even though it was well-received at the time. The controls are perfectly functional, everything that needs to be done can be done using the control scheme, but it isn't as good as what came after. Being used to what came after has made the older stuff worse in comparison. It is a combination of new things improving and the user experiencing these new things that cause a game to age. Obviously a game isn't bad because it's older. A older game is seen as bad because newer games did things better. It's all relative.

[Sianthus]

Everything's a matter of taste in terms of aesthetic. Some people might really dislike the cell-shading style of Borderlands, some people can't stand the voxel based graphics of Minecraft. There's nothing shallow about liking one or the other. No one can objectively say the bright whimsical cartoon style of Wind Waker is objectively better than say, COD. Don't you notice you're implicitly judging Minecraft's aesthetics negatively as well?

There are a few exceptions to this rule. One is if games attempt to do photorealism. This allows a more objective comparison.

Another is if the graphics is really. Just. Horrible. Google Bad Ass Babes game as an example. Something that displays a clear lack of effort. However, at the same time, this aesthetic might be done for purposes of satire and parody. So even I can't say it might be objectively bad. Just generally horribly offensive to many people's sense of aesthetics.

[NichG]

The main thing with a game's aesthetic for me is whether its clear that the aesthetic choices are made with a purposeful, cohesive intent. There's a difference between a game that uses pixel art because that is an intentional stylistic choice, and a game that uses pixel art because its all the developers can manage (or because their artist is just making choices based on what they like, and it has nothing at all to do with the feel or style of the other aspects of the game).

Something like Undertale, I wouldn't say it has good graphics, but I would say that it has very intentional graphics. The artistic choices aren't carelessly made, and there are the various details, polish, and refinement so that its clearly not a matter of laziness or convenience. When I play it, I can understand the point of the graphics being that way, so it doesn't bother me. Or for a more overt example, Evoland starts with highly pixellated monochrome graphics - but it wouldn't work at making its point if it didn't. It has to, or the game is lessened.

On the other hand, there are indie games which just use this style of art because its cheaper or easier than the alternative (much as there are plenty of indie games that slap something together into a 3d engine but which don't manage to make it look like things belong or match - like combining 20-poly models with minimal texturing and no normal maps with depth-of-field, refraction shaders, and volumetric fog; or combining really nice 2d art assets with a really primitive 3d environment; or things like that).

It's not usually a deal-breaker, but it does bug me.

[warty goblin]

I've got absolute buckets of games; why on earth wouldn't I be shallow about graphics? My limiting factor isn't games, or money to spend on them, but the amount of time that's available and that I'm willing to squander playing them. Sure I might miss out on something fun because I don't think it looks good enough, but if I were to play that, I'd almost certainly miss out on something equally fun that also didn't look like ass. I'm sure Torchlight 2 is a perfectly good hack'n'slash loot fest, but I can't stand the way it looks, so I'm not gonna play it when I've got the much more visually appealing Sacred, Sacred II, Titan Quest and totally marvelous in every single way Grim Dawn also available.

Plus, a lot of the sorts of games I dislike also have art styles that I dislike. I don't enjoy platformers and have zilch patience with arty indie stuff, which gets most of the less pleasant sorts of pixel art that I also happen to find unpleasant to look at. Now if only early access multiplayer survival crafting games would settle on some sort of particular look, so I could filter them out a bit easier...

[Gnome de plume]

Mmmmm

I hold a games storyline far above its graphics, and still happily play the early Monkey Islands for their whimsy.

The replies here worry me though, I'm trying to make an RPG that relies heavily on storyline, and to save time and money am using RPGmaker.

If the responses to this post are any indication, it looks like I've been wasting my time though as no one will be interested in it.

[factotum]

If Spiderweb can still sell RPGs with the sort of graphics they use (which are basically unchanged for about 20 years) then you'll probably be OK. I think the main issue with RPGMaker products is more an aesthetic one, though--if you just use the graphics supplied by the product, rather than drawing your own, then your game will look generic as all heck and few people will be interested in it.

[Blue Lantern]

Because most people, especially in the 15-25 demographic that most game target, are shallow.

[Sylian]

Which is more shallow, avoiding a game because something about it is unappealing, or judging someone because their tastes and interests differ from yours?Interesting question, although the answer should be rather obvious.

First off, we should define the "shallow" used in this context. I would define it as something like "Caring about looks more than anything else". So, judging someone based on their tastes and interests is not shallow, since it requires you to make an analysis of their tastes and interests. Avoiding a game because you don't think it looks pretty enough? That's pretty much the definition of shallow (judging a book by its cover, so to speak).

Personally, I think gamers miss out on a lot if they avoid games that don't look pretty enough for them. I'm guessing the majority that do have a somewhat limited taste in game anyway (Call of Duty and such). Their loss, I suppose.

People not playing Undertale because of the graphics are really missing out. I agree that the graphics aren't that great, but chances are you'll get over it fairly quickly, it has an average score of 94.11% for a reason.

Wind Waker HD is, in my opinion, the best 3D Zelda game. The original is really good too, but the remake solved many of the gameplay issues that the original had (and improved the graphics).

[Rodin]

I feel like there's an important distinction that has to be made here.

If I look at the game, and the graphics do not appeal, there is nothing wrong with the decision not to play it.

However, if a friend of mine knows what type of game I like to play, and I respect their opinion, and they tell me this is one of the best games of all time? Then I'd better have pretty darn compelling reasons for not picking it up. If I'm a big Zelda fan and someone tells me Wind Waker is the best in the series, "it's cel-shaded" is a very poor excuse for not playing it.

[Delicious Taffy]

I have to admit, there are some games I'll avoid based entirely on how they look. There are exceptions to that, though, most of the time. For example, I absolutely loathe when a game's primary color scheme is composed of dull beige and greys, especially in a desert setting. However, Metal Gear Solid 4 and the Gears of War games are some of my favorites to play. With MGS4, my main reason is that it's a Metal Gear game, and I haven't found one I didn't like, yet. With Gears, my reasons are less clear, even to me. If I had to come up with something, I suppose I'd say that Gears of War, despite its relatively-weak story, voice acting, aesthetic, and sound design, is still fun for the same reasons it's bad. I mean, I'm a guy who will gladly sit through every single episode of Power Rangers produced since 1993, and there are some BAD episodes (and indeed series) to be had.

[Flickerdart]

Because most people, especially in the 15-25 demographic that most game target, are shallow.
I take it that you, a deep and thoughtful person, shun any video content in more than 240i.

[Lethologica]

Interesting question, although the answer should be rather obvious.

First off, we should define the "shallow" used in this context. I would define it as something like "Caring about looks more than anything else". So, judging someone based on their tastes and interests is not shallow, since it requires you to make an analysis of their tastes and interests. Avoiding a game because you don't think it looks pretty enough? That's pretty much the definition of shallow (judging a book by its cover, so to speak).

Personally, I think gamers miss out on a lot if they avoid games that don't look pretty enough for them. I'm guessing the majority that do have a somewhat limited taste in game anyway (Call of Duty and such). Their loss, I suppose.
Thank you for an excellent demonstration of cobaltstarfire's point.

Your definition arbitrarily narrows 'shallow' to exclusively considering looks, as opposed to considering surface characteristics generally. This is convenient if you want to define yourself to victory, but it isn't intellectually honest; 'shallow' in cobaltstarfire's usage as well as in general usage covers all forms of superficial judgment, not just superficial appearance-based judgment.

Even by your definition, it's not clear that people who avoid games based on graphics are being shallow. For example, they may in fact be demanding--they care about all elements, and a deficiency in any element turns them off. Graphics just happen to be the most obvious and accessible element, so they reject games on that basis more often than on other bases. Another example--they may recognize that certain graphic styles typically imply gameplay they dislike, and avoid games with those styles on that basis. So it's not reasonable to leap to the conclusion that such gamers care more about looks than anything else.

You, meanwhile, are judging gamers' tastes based only on the surface characteristic of knowing that they judge games by aesthetics. You didn't "make an analysis of their tastes and interests" at all; you made no effort to understand their perspective in depth. Instead, you simply dismissed them as lesser gamers with limited tastes because you observed a single element of their preferences. This fits the definition of shallowness exactly.

This is not to say that you are shallow, only that your argument about which judgment is shallow is wholly incorrect.

[The_Jackal]

Thank you for an excellent demonstration of cobaltstarfire's point.

Your definition arbitrarily narrows 'shallow' to exclusively considering looks, as opposed to considering surface characteristics generally. This is convenient if you want to define yourself to victory, but it isn't intellectually honest; 'shallow' in cobaltstarfire's usage as well as in general usage covers all forms of superficial judgment, not just superficial appearance-based judgment.

Even by your definition, it's not clear that people who avoid games based on graphics are being shallow. For example, they may in fact be demanding--they care about all elements, and a deficiency in any element turns them off. Graphics just happen to be the most obvious and accessible element, so they reject games on that basis more often than on other bases. Another example--they may recognize that certain graphic styles typically imply gameplay they dislike, and avoid games with those styles on that basis. So it's not reasonable to leap to the conclusion that such gamers care more about looks than anything else.

You, meanwhile, are judging gamers' tastes based only on the surface characteristic of knowing that they judge games by aesthetics. You didn't "make an analysis of their tastes and interests" at all; you made no effort to understand their perspective in depth. Instead, you simply dismissed them as lesser gamers with limited tastes because you observed a single element of their preferences. This fits the definition of shallowness exactly.

This is not to say that you are shallow, only that your argument about which judgment is shallow is wholly incorrect.

At day's end, criticism in any form is bound to succumb to some type of snobbery or another. What one person might find puerile and insulting, another person may think is pretty cool. That's why it's important to realize that this is entertainment, and everyone's choices are completely legitimate. In brief, games have no absolute merits or virtues, the only measure of their quality is subjective. Personally, I loathe most indie titles, as I value production values and aesthetics quite highly, and even when pixel sprites were state of the art, I hated platformers, and that seems to be the most common manifestation of the indie game. But I still respect the choices of people who enjoy them, and I like that they're out there, because their low development cost opens up the creative space for new ideas to flourish, where if only AAA titles existed, we'd have 10,000,000 variants of Doom, with different color palattes.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Hm. The complaint I most often hear showing those lines is something more like "When they spent all that time and money on pretty graphics, why didn't they have the budget for decent writers/designers?" You're saying people expected worse gameplay because of good graphics? That is bizarre.
Between the budget given to a studio for a game, the short timeline that they're expected to release on (because of audience expectations), and the perceived need for AAA games to "keep up" with their competition graphics-wise, other aspects of the game aren't given as much attention or development time. Game development is a limited-resource thing--and studios are already infamous for "crunch time" production. Game developers are already working 70-80 hour weeks. They can't simply spend more time on writing/game design.

And when you look at the market, most of the best-selling games (with the notable exception of Nintendo and Blizzard) are the ones with hyper-realistic graphics. This is particularly true in the PC sphere. Call of Duty is huge. Assassin's Creed is super-big. Even something like Warframe, heavy on the realistic graphics.

The complaint exists because games are developed with so much budget on the graphics that there isn't necessarily much left for other areas, like writing, level design, gameplay design, and proper coding.

[danzibr]

I've got absolute buckets of games; why on earth wouldn't I be shallow about graphics? My limiting factor isn't games, or money to spend on them, but the amount of time that's available and that I'm willing to squander playing them. Sure I might miss out on something fun because I don't think it looks good enough, but if I were to play that, I'd almost certainly miss out on something equally fun that also didn't look like ass. I'm sure Torchlight 2 is a perfectly good hack'n'slash loot fest, but I can't stand the way it looks, so I'm not gonna play it when I've got the much more visually appealing Sacred, Sacred II, Titan Quest and totally marvelous in every single way Grim Dawn also available.

Plus, a lot of the sorts of games I dislike also have art styles that I dislike. I don't enjoy platformers and have zilch patience with arty indie stuff, which gets most of the less pleasant sorts of pixel art that I also happen to find unpleasant to look at. Now if only early access multiplayer survival crafting games would settle on some sort of particular look, so I could filter them out a bit easier...
I disagree here. While I, too, have precious little time to spend on games, I find only a select few fun.

Mmmmm

I hold a games storyline far above its graphics, and still happily play the early Monkey Islands for their whimsy.

The replies here worry me though, I'm trying to make an RPG that relies heavily on storyline, and to save time and money am using RPGmaker.

If the responses to this post are any indication, it looks like I've been wasting my time though as no one will be interested in it.
There are several solid RPGMaker games. To the Moon is a great example. I've played several horror-type games made in RPGMaker, quite a few good. The biggest problem with RPGMaker is (ironically) the battle system. But still, I had an awful lot of fun with A Blurred Line.

[The_Jackal]

Between the budget given to a studio for a game, the short timeline that they're expected to release on (because of audience expectations), and the perceived need for AAA games to "keep up" with their competition graphics-wise, other aspects of the game aren't given as much attention or development time. Game development is a limited-resource thing--and studios are already infamous for "crunch time" production. Game developers are already working 70-80 hour weeks. They can't simply spend more time on writing/game design.

And when you look at the market, most of the best-selling games (with the notable exception of Nintendo and Blizzard) are the ones with hyper-realistic graphics. This is particularly true in the PC sphere. Call of Duty is huge. Assassin's Creed is super-big. Even something like Warframe, heavy on the realistic graphics.

The complaint exists because games are developed with so much budget on the graphics that there isn't necessarily much left for other areas, like writing, level design, gameplay design, and proper coding.

Disagree. AAA Game development choices are more often stymied by timid management choices or arbitrary marketing requirements, rather than limitations on development budget, graphical horse-racing, or other externalities. Let's look at why:

1) The same factors that make Hollywood make big-budget drek are the same factors that effect the game industry. The people paying for the development aren't passionate about the product, they're simply looking for return on investment.

2) Modern AAA game development is tailored toward consoles. That means that games are developed to a common standard of hardware capability, or even lower standards if they want to access a larger market. I'm not saying that making more detailed textures and animations is free, but many people underestimate the amount that modern tools can improve the output that 3D artists can produce. Working on a model with a higher polygon count or more textures increases the amount of money the IT budget will spend on workstations and renderers, but that's not where most of the money a AAA studio spends on a game goes. It goes to developer payroll.

3) Many times marketing choices dictate design decisions and allocation of resources. Whether that's developing a demo segment for E3, or adding a facet or feature to a game that the developers didn't intend when they designed the game, simply for the sake of 'broadening appeal', like putting PVP modes into single player FPS games, or adding social media integration or some other non-feature which marketers magically believe will precipitate money, but rarely does.

There's plenty of empirical examples of high budget games under-performing in the market while cheaper games have gone and crushed. My favorite example is WoW versus SW:TOR. WoW cost $63M and 4.5 years of development time. SW:TOR cost over $150M and ~3 years of development time. SW:TOR's feature list got bloated by EA as they added klunky rail-shooting space combat, fully voiced and animated cutscenes, and launched with PvP, while WoW took their time to get their core gameplay right, and were able to implement PvP and other features post-launch. And in case you get the idea that developers are incapable of screw-ups in their own right, you need only look at the sagas of Daikatana or Duke Nukem to find examples of studios who frittered away millions of dollars of funding to product either incredibly late or utterly terrible games.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I mean, sure, that's a better way of putting what I was saying down.

Fundamentally, it's about the fact that graphics are given the lion's share of the budget by major studios, which means less budget can be spent on other aspects.

[Rodin]

I mean, sure, that's a better way of putting what I was saying down.

Fundamentally, it's about the fact that graphics are given the lion's share of the budget by major studios, which means less budget can be spent on other aspects.

I'm still not even sure that's the case.

More programmers doesn't necessarily equal better quality - that whole "too many cooks spoil the broth" bit. Additional programmers can be used to add extra features, but those may just wind up bloating the game. As the size of the game grows, so does the need for larger and larger QA. Those new features themselves need to have new graphics, etc.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is finding the proper balance. Get the number of developers you think you'll need, then go hit the graphics.

The one place I do think most studios under-invest is QA testing. The number of game-breaking bugs feels like it's risen exponentially as games have gotten more complex, and the QA testing just hasn't kept up.

[mangosta71]

The one place I do think most studios under-invest is QA testing. The number of game-breaking bugs feels like it's risen exponentially as games have gotten more complex, and the QA testing just hasn't kept up.
The new design paradigm seems to be "get it onto Steam Early Access and let the players pay to do our testing so we don't even have to hire a QA department. And if they find any bugs, sell DLC packs to patch them".

[Sylian]

Even by your definition, it's not clear that people who avoid games based on graphics are being shallow. For example, they may in fact be demanding--they care about all elements, and a deficiency in any element turns them off. Graphics just happen to be the most obvious and accessible element, so they reject games on that basis more often than on other bases. Another example--they may recognize that certain graphic styles typically imply gameplay they dislike, and avoid games with those styles on that basis. So it's not reasonable to leap to the conclusion that such gamers care more about looks than anything else.This is not what we've been discussing. The argument hasn't been "Graphic X implies Y, and I don't like Y, therefore I probably won't like X". Instead, it has been "Graphic X is bad, so I won't play the game." Do you agree that it is shallow to refuse to play a game solely based on the graphics and/or aesthetics?


This is not to say that you are shallow, only that your argument about which judgment is shallow is wholly incorrect.It's possible for both arguments to be shallow. I won't deny that this subject is not one I have researched or studied or even discussed much, so in that sense my analysis is fairly basic and is only touching the surface (and my guess about Call of Duty is a generalization that I only have some data to back up).

I do think it's rather shallow to avoid Psychonauts just because of the aesthetics (assuming it's a game that person would likely enjoy), and I do think it's shallow to argue that Undertale is a bad game because it has "bad graphics".

[Tvtyrant]

This is not what we've been discussing. The argument hasn't been "Graphic X implies Y, and I don't like Y, therefore I probably won't like X". Instead, it has been "Graphic X is bad, so I won't play the game." Do you agree that it is shallow to refuse to play a game solely based on the graphics and/or aesthetics?

It's possible for both arguments to be shallow. I won't deny that this subject is not one I have researched or studied or even discussed much, so in that sense my analysis is fairly basic and is only touching the surface (and my guess about Call of Duty is a generalization that I only have some data to back up).

I do think it's rather shallow to avoid Psychonauts just because of the aesthetics (assuming it's a game that person would likely enjoy), and I do think it's shallow to argue that Undertale is a bad game because it has "bad graphics".

I disagree entirely. Visuals are a large component of video games, otherwise we would have stuck with the first system to have achieved the functional ability to fulfill all game archetypes (Windows XP/PS2 era.) Even at that point it is hard to argue that game archetypes were evolving in a meaningful way beyond just graphical improvements, since as far as I know one new game archetype has come out since then (MOBAs.)

The whole "graphics and ascetics are shallow" argument feels fairly capricious. The counter argument that liking games for their gameplay is shallow and not for the purely art based love of ascetics is equally invalid as a stance.

[Sylian]

I disagree entirely. Visuals are a large component of video games, otherwise we would have stuck with the first system to have achieved the functional ability to fulfill all game archetypes (Windows XP/PS2 era.)There's nothing wrong with good graphics, and given the choice between bad graphics and good graphics (everything else equal), I would go for good graphics. Still, if someone refuses to play, say, Crash Bandicoot because of the graphics, then I would argue that would be pretty shallow (and a mistake). I can't think of a single game that I have refused to play due to the graphics. Why limit your choices? If a game is amazing in every aspect except the graphics, would the graphics really ruin the experience?


The whole "graphics and ascetics are shallow" argument feels fairly capricious. The counter argument that liking games for their gameplay is shallow and not for the purely art based love of ascetics is equally invalid as a stance.Not playing a game because it doesn't look pretty is very different from not playing a game because it has poor gameplay, and you know it is.

[The_Jackal]

Do you agree that it is shallow to refuse to play a game solely based on the graphics and/or aesthetics?

I don't agree, because shallow is pejorative, and I'm not wild about casting aspersions upon someone else's aesthetic values. I also find much of the 'how do you know you won't like it if you won't try it' to be also based on questionable reasoning. If the purpose of advertising is to match a product with its perspective audience, then being able to 'judge a book by its cover' is something that we should WANT to have occur, and when it doesn't, it usually means that someone in charge of promoting your game is doing a crummy job.

In effect, I think it's somewhat condescending of the OP to presume that he knows better what his friends should like, better than they themselves do. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the OP's friends have had earlier experiences with less than stellar recommendations, which might account for some reticence in trying Psychonauts.

[Tvtyrant]

Not playing a game because it doesn't look pretty is very different from not playing a game because it has poor gameplay, and you know it is.

Of course it is. Bioshock infinite was pretty and had a great plot, along with some of the worst gameplay I have ever put myself through. The combat was loose, bland and got in the way of the game. I honestly wished by the end that it was a movie instead, or one of those Telltale games. I still enjoyed it because of the other aspects, because they are all of equal inportance.

An even better example is Asura'd Wrath, which features jamming a single button over and over during cut scenes, and gorgeous graphics.

[Blue Ghost]

A game is about delivering an experience. Graphics are a core component of the experience, especially given that video games are a visual medium. If a core component of the experience is poor, the experience as a whole suffers. Nothing shallow about it.

[danzibr]

A game is about delivering an experience. Graphics are a core component of the experience, especially given that video games are a visual medium. If a core component of the experience is poor, the experience as a whole suffers. Nothing shallow about it.
There's a difference between graphics being poor, and them not being PS2+ quality (not saying you're saying this, just sayin').

[Sylian]

If the purpose of advertising is to match a product with its perspective audience, then being able to 'judge a book by its cover' is something that we should WANT to have occur, and when it doesn't, it usually means that someone in charge of promoting your game is doing a crummy job.Or that technology improves. Look at The Elder's Scrool IV: Oblivion . At release it used to be considered beautiful, but these days it's not.


In effect, I think it's somewhat condescending of the OP to presume that he knows better what his friends should like, better than they themselves do.It might still be true though (or maybe it's not and his friend would dislike it for other reasons, who knows?).


I also have a sneaking suspicion that the OP's friends have had earlier experiences with less than stellar recommendations, which might account for some reticence in trying Psychonauts.If they do, then they should come up with a better argument than "I don't like the aesthetics, so I probably wouldn't like it".


Of course it is. Bioshock infinite was pretty and had a great plot, along with some of the worst gameplay I have ever put myself through. The combat was loose, bland and got in the way of the game. I honestly wished by the end that it was a movie instead, or one of those Telltale games. I still enjoyed it because of the other aspects, because they are all of equal inportance.Of course, a good story can lift a game with bad gameplay (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a prime example of this). I've yet to see a game where good graphics alone made it good, but perhaps it could be doable (perhaps as an art exhibition of some sort). I've also never seen a game where bad graphics ruined an otherwise good game, though.

[Lethologica]

This is not what we've been discussing. The argument hasn't been "Graphic X implies Y, and I don't like Y, therefore I probably won't like X". Instead, it has been "Graphic X is bad, so I won't play the game." Do you agree that it is shallow to refuse to play a game solely based on the graphics and/or aesthetics?
Maybe you haven't been talking about it. I brought it up in the second post in the thread. warty goblin brought it up a few posts before you made your argument. It's been part of the conversation. And "Graphic X is bad, so I won't play the game" includes people who make that conclusion with intermediate steps where they predict gameplay from graphics, so your description of the argument isn't helping your point here.

Also, no, I don't agree with your last statement, because the example you want to skip wasn't the only counterexample I offered, and I also didn't claim those were the only counterexamples. And we still have to discuss how important the graphics actually are to the gameplay experience before we can conclude that making judgments based on graphics is shallow.


I do think it's rather shallow to avoid Psychonauts just because of the aesthetics (assuming it's a game that person would likely enjoy), and I do think it's shallow to argue that Undertale is a bad game because it has "bad graphics".
I disagree on the first, challenge your stated assumption because the person literally just concluded that it was a game they likely wouldn't enjoy, and disagree that an objective claim like the second was ever made.

[druid91]

Some games like Wind Waker make it easy to identify them as sandbagged by being so laughably and deliberately disgustingly bad that you feel sorry for the dev team members who were forced to write their real names in the credits instead of Alan Smithee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Smithee), and some Indie games look terrible but represent some truly amazing growth on the part of the artist. (I definitely think positively of such improvements even if I don't play the game. I'd play more games if time and money were not limited so. :smallfrown: )

Really? Personally I really liked Wind Waker's Graphics.

[Sylian]

And "Graphic X is bad, so I won't play the game" includes people who make that conclusion with intermediate steps where they predict gameplay from graphics, so your description of the argument isn't helping your point here.The thing is, at this point you are no longer saying "I'm not interested in the game because of the graphics", instead you're saying "The graphics imply Y, and I'm not interested in the game because of Y". If that is true, then Y is the issue, not the graphics. Perhaps someone doesn't like party racing games, and they see a few pictures of the latest Mario Kart and conclude that they probably wouldn't like that game. At that point, though, it would be unfair to state that "Person A didn't play Mario Kart because of the graphics". A more fair assessment would be: "Person A didn't play Mario Kart because Mario Part seemed like it might be Y".


And we still have to discuss how important the graphics actually are to the gameplay experience before we can conclude that making judgments based on graphics is shallow.They're pretty important at a basic level, but they face serious diminishing returns. Even simple things like having enemies pop in a shoot 'em up adds to the enjoyment, and other details might make a game more enjoyable as well. I still think it's a mistake to disregard older games just because of their outdated graphics, a lot of them are still worth playing.


I disagree on the first, challenge your stated assumption because the person literally just concluded that it was a game they likely wouldn't enjoy, and disagree that an objective claim like the second was ever made.Let's look at what the OP said again, shall we?

"The first player won't even touch Psychonauts, simply because he dislikes the aesthetics of the game."

He might otherwise enjoy Psychonauts, but he dislikes the aesthetics and thus refuses to play it.

"The second player won't play games with a more primitive or retro aesthetic; I've been playing undertale quite a bit lately, and he simply can't understand why I like the game. Because to him, it has "bad graphics"."

He cannot understand why the OP might like Undertale due to "bad graphics".


I'm sure Torchlight 2 is a perfectly good hack'n'slash loot fest, but I can't stand the way it looks, so I'm not gonna play it when I've got the much more visually appealing Sacred, Sacred II, Titan Quest and totally marvelous in every single way Grim Dawn also available.Torchlight II is amazing, it might even (possibly) be better than Diablo II. I think you're making a mistake not playing it over Titan Quest but hey, your choice.

I've seen so many people pass up on great games just because they didn't like the graphics/aesthetics. I think Animal Crossing is a great example.

[Alent]

Really? Personally I really liked Wind Waker's Graphics.

To each his own, I guess, but you'd be in a minority with that. Me, I could write a book on everything intentionally done wrong in Wind Waker.

I mean, the faces alone are uncomfortable to even see. That **** is as creepy and unsettling as a black and white horror movie.

[NeoVid]

Heh, the Wind Waker reaction makes for some impressive irony, considering that the reason Miyamoto wanted that art style is because cartoonish graphics hold up better than photorealism.

[NichG]

Graphics do matter to me, but how much depends a lot on the genre and the games' other qualities.

Especially in the initial phase of playing a game, I pay a lot of attention to graphics. But if I really get into something, graphics become less and less of an issue.

My best example is Tales of Maj'Eyal. I bought this based on recommendations, but I must admit that I found it really hard to get into the simplistic graphics (even though it's actually pretty extravagant as roguelikes go!). I was very close to giving up the game after a few sessions, but then the gameplay somehow clicked for me, and after that I didn't really pay much attention to the graphics anymore.

I would have trouble getting into a roguelike with Ascii graphics, though. I suppose one might get to the point of "seeing the code" and thinking of whatever weird symbol as a "troll" or "wizard", but I like things to at least nominally look like what they are.

I think Tales of Maj'Eyal is a good example of incoherency. The precursor to it was an Ascii roguelike also called TOME, which was originally something called PernBand. TOME, relative to other Angband derivatives, looked really good - there was terrain in the dungeons, color and symbol variations used to suggest different environments, animations for the Ascii effects (fireballs, ...), etc. It was, in its way, coherent. But Tales of Maj'Eyal switched over to a high res graphical tileset and particle effects and things like that, and as a result it kind of sits in an uncanny valley for me: for being high-res it doesn't really look good enough to pass muster.

That said, I do like Tales of Maj'Eyal as a game and I've played quite a bit of it. But its a good example of an indie game where the graphics just persistently bother me. In some sense, I'd prefer the Ascii in this case because for Ascii, it looked good.

This is why making things highly stylized is effective for games with a lower art budget. If you make a game with really carefully designed triangles and squares, drop-shadows, good antialiasing, subtle differences in the line thickness, subtle lighting, etc, then they look like really good triangles and squares - it looks classy, even if its simple. But if you try to make representational art and get the proportions wrong in a way that doesn't look like it was intentional (e.g. caricature), or have some aliasing artefacts, bits of alpha fuzz beyond the outline where you missed a pixel or two when erasing, then the result looks really amateurish and shoddy.

[Velaryon]

They can't hold up well if they're terrible in the first place. I refused to play Wind Waker despite significant pressure from one of my friends because I absolutely loathe the art style of the game (and all other Zelda games that use the more cartoony style). I used to lump cel-shading in with the things I didn't like about the game, but the Borderlands series proved that games can have cel-shaded graphics and still look good (though I struggle to think of any other examples besides Borderlands where I liked them).

In Wind Waker's case, if they had made the exact same game using the art and graphical style of Ocarina of Time, I would have played it and probably enjoyed it. Heck, even if they released it today with N64-era, OoT-style graphics and art, I would probably try it. For me it's 100% not about the graphical limitations, but the artistic style. It's the same reason I cannot stand the cartoon Home Movies, even though the same people made Metalocalypse which I liked a lot.

I can understand why people might hesitate to go back and play older games because the graphics aged poorly, especially if they weren't around back when those games were new and that was the height of video game graphics. It's particularly noticeable with the early 3-D games, not just the N64 and PS1 but also some of the later SNES games. Everything looks blocky, especially character models, and animations are usually choppy. I can still enjoy those games (though it's harder for games I didn't play back then, which means nostalgia definitely plays into it).

[Hiro Protagonest]

To each his own, I guess, but you'd be in a minority with that.

Really? Every single time we've gotten a damn thread about graphics, someone (mostly Starwulf) has complained about Wind Waker's graphics and then it was decided that there are people who hate them who aren't the majority.

Wind Waker looks better than both Ocarina and Borderlands. There.

[Alent]

Heh, the Wind Waker reaction makes for some impressive irony, considering that the reason Miyamoto wanted that art style is because cartoonish graphics hold up better than photorealism.

That snark doesn't hold water. Cartoonish has a huge range of available techniques and styles, it's not like photorealism stands as the only alternative to what Windwaker did. The root of my criticism is that Wind Waker wasn't good by cartoonish standards, it was intentionally badly drawn cartooning, intentionally making as many mistakes as possible. (Symmetry where it will always look odd, round contours where hard edges are needed, bad arm and leg balance, etc.)

Wind Waker did itself no favors by diving into cel shading during the tech's infancy, so by simple technology limits it has no chance of comparing favorably to more recent masterpieces like Valkyria Chronicles, but cartoony doesn't mean comicbook style outlining - there's plenty of good looking cartoonish 3D games it could have been inspired by in it's own era, ranging from Super donkey Kong*, Super Mario RPG*, FFT*, Skies of Arcadia, Smash Bros... even as far as the early shaders, low texture size limits, and accounting for how the super smashed drunk camera wouldn't ever show you Mario, Mario 64 was more than sufficient proof that Nintendo understood the foundation of how to render a reasonable cartoon style from the beginning of the 3D era, and Miyamoto abandoned that understanding to make an ugly mess.

For any graphic style to hold up over time, it has to be presentable when first published, which Wind Waker's style simply wasn't.

* Given that by Wind Waker era, the old prerender game art was within the reach of real time rendering, I don't feel it unfair to use prerendered games as examples.

Then again, to play devil's advocate for a moment... Wind waker had to happen so that the fan outrage at Wind Waker's art would cause Twilight Princess' sales stats to skyrocket (practically 2x the sales of the next nearest Zelda title), and it would also fuel April Fools jokes for years to come. :smalltongue:


Really? Every single time we've gotten a damn thread about graphics, someone (mostly Starwulf) has complained about Wind Waker's graphics and then it was decided that there are people who hate them who aren't the majority.

Wind Waker looks better than both Ocarina and Borderlands. There.

I just have to laugh at myself with this anecdote. The last few forums I've been on have had the opposite conclusion, so I figured Wind Walker was a safe "autobad" example.

[Starwulf]

Really? Every single time we've gotten a damn thread about graphics, someone (mostly Starwulf) has complained about Wind Waker's graphics and then it was decided that there are people who hate them who aren't the majority.

Wind Waker looks better than both Ocarina and Borderlands. There.

Hehe, yeah Wind Waker is my antithesis, and I take all chances to state how much I hate it, for the sole reason that I LOVE the Legend of Zelda series. I've been playing them since I was a kid, and I own EVERY single one of them, including the gameboy/ds games. Except Wind Waker. The Art style as I've mentioned actually makes me physically ill looking at it, and it makes me angry that because they went with a completely against the norm style choice, I've been excluded from being able to play one of my all-time favorite game series.

But you are right, I am pretty damn sure that I am absolutely in the minority when it comes to this forum and Wind Waker. I've seen about 85% of posts being in favor of it(and at least half of those loving it), and then the remaining 15% disliking it for the same reason as me: Cel Shaded graphics.

Edit: Actually, I was a bit disingenuous. I do actually own Wind Waker. It was bought for me as a birthday present(Or something like that) before I knew the type of graphics it was using. So, it sits on my shelf gathering dust, I can't bring myself to sell it on Ebay for a few bucks, but neither can I force myself to suffer the effects of staring at it's Cel-Shadedness.

[Rodin]

Cel-shaded is one area where I've never understood the blinding hate for it. It's just another form of graphics to me, and it can be cartoony or not depending on the overall artwork. Saying that Borderlands and Wind Wakers art bothers people for the same reason because they're both cel-shaded is (to me) like saying someone hates Game of Thrones and Full House because they're both TV shows.

Wind Waker is kinda a weird case for me - when I saw the stills, I didn't like the cartoony Link, and I didn't own a Gamecube so the whole thing was rather academic. However, I recently saw the HD remake in action on a big screen at a Zelda concert and I was blown away. Seeing it in motion made all the difference in the world.


I think Tales of Maj'Eyal is a good example of incoherency. The precursor to it was an Ascii roguelike also called TOME, which was originally something called PernBand. TOME, relative to other Angband derivatives, looked really good - there was terrain in the dungeons, color and symbol variations used to suggest different environments, animations for the Ascii effects (fireballs, ...), etc. It was, in its way, coherent. But Tales of Maj'Eyal switched over to a high res graphical tileset and particle effects and things like that, and as a result it kind of sits in an uncanny valley for me: for being high-res it doesn't really look good enough to pass muster.

That said, I do like Tales of Maj'Eyal as a game and I've played quite a bit of it. But its a good example of an indie game where the graphics just persistently bother me. In some sense, I'd prefer the Ascii in this case because for Ascii, it looked good.

This is why making things highly stylized is effective for games with a lower art budget. If you make a game with really carefully designed triangles and squares, drop-shadows, good antialiasing, subtle differences in the line thickness, subtle lighting, etc, then they look like really good triangles and squares - it looks classy, even if its simple. But if you try to make representational art and get the proportions wrong in a way that doesn't look like it was intentional (e.g. caricature), or have some aliasing artefacts, bits of alpha fuzz beyond the outline where you missed a pixel or two when erasing, then the result looks really amateurish and shoddy.

I'm glad to know I'm not alone in this. I used to play a version of Rogue called 10Rogue back in the day, and I spent a bit of time tooling around with TOME. I also generally love Roguelikes in general. However, every time Tales shows up in my Steam queue I can never quite bring myself to buy it. The graphics look REALLY bad in the screenshots that they have on the store page, and it makes me wonder why they bothered moving it off ASCII.

Why couldn't they have done something simple and stylized like Desktop Dungeons? That game looks fantastic considering how basic the graphics are, and that sort of setup seems perfect for making a Rogue game.

[Starwulf]

Cel-shaded is one area where I've never understood the blinding hate for it. It's just another form of graphics to me, and it can be cartoony or not depending on the overall artwork. Saying that Borderlands and Wind Wakers art bothers people for the same reason because they're both cel-shaded is (to me) like saying someone hates Game of Thrones and Full House because they're both TV shows.


It's less a blinding hate for me, and more an actual physical reaction to it. Something about it doesn't sit right inside my brain and I actually get sick to my stomach looking at it, and Borderlands evokes the same effect(best friend loved Borderlands back in the day and played it all the time, and I happened to catch the end of a session one day when I went to visit him).

[Eldan]

There's nothing wrong with good graphics, and given the choice between bad graphics and good graphics (everything else equal), I would go for good graphics. Still, if someone refuses to play, say, Crash Bandicoot because of the graphics, then I would argue that would be pretty shallow (and a mistake). I can't think of a single game that I have refused to play due to the graphics. Why limit your choices? If a game is amazing in every aspect except the graphics, would the graphics really ruin the experience?

Not playing a game because it doesn't look pretty is very different from not playing a game because it has poor gameplay, and you know it is.

I can think of two games which I stopped playing because of graphics off the top of my head. Undertale and the original Fallout. Though in both cases, there were other factors too.

[Alent]

It's less a blinding hate for me, and more an actual physical reaction to it. Something about it doesn't sit right inside my brain and I actually get sick to my stomach looking at it, and Borderlands evokes the same effect(best friend loved Borderlands back in the day and played it all the time, and I happened to catch the end of a session one day when I went to visit him).

It's probably the high refresh rate combined with the cel shading. For some reason the brain really does NOT like outlined 3D animation that exceeds a certain framerate. Does Guilty Gear the xrd cause the same reaction?

[Gnoman]

Cel-shaded is one area where I've never understood the blinding hate for it. It's just another form of graphics to me, and it can be cartoony or not depending on the overall artwork. Saying that Borderlands and Wind Wakers art bothers people for the same reason because they're both cel-shaded is (to me) like saying someone hates Game of Thrones and Full House because they're both TV shows.

Wind Waker is kinda a weird case for me - when I saw the stills, I didn't like the cartoony Link, and I didn't own a Gamecube so the whole thing was rather academic. However, I recently saw the HD remake in action on a big screen at a Zelda concert and I was blown away. Seeing it in motion made all the difference in the world.



I'm glad to know I'm not alone in this. I used to play a version of Rogue called 10Rogue back in the day, and I spent a bit of time tooling around with TOME. I also generally love Roguelikes in general. However, every time Tales shows up in my Steam queue I can never quite bring myself to buy it. The graphics look REALLY bad in the screenshots that they have on the store page, and it makes me wonder why they bothered moving it off ASCII.

Why couldn't they have done something simple and stylized like Desktop Dungeons? That game looks fantastic considering how basic the graphics are, and that sort of setup seems perfect for making a Rogue game.

Graphicized ASCII games (be they RLs or something like Dwarf Fortress) have never made much sense to me. Either you make the tiles massively bigger (greatly reducing how far you can see, and preventing you from looking at the entire map at once), or you wind up with tiny blobs that convey far less information than the characters they replace. Games built with graphics in the first place tend to avoid these problems in the development stage, but when you slap a graphical tileset on ADOM, Nethack, or DF you lose far more than you gain.

[Sylian]

To each his own, I guess, but you'd be in a minority with that.I seem to recall a lot of people praising the graphical style. I think it holds up better than Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword (though the HD remake is obviously better than the original). Though my main reason for thinking Wind Waker is the best 3D Zelda has to do with gameplay, not graphics.

I wonder how many people that answered "Yes, graphics are important" have played games like VVVVVV or Thomas Was Alone? Both really good games (though Thomas Was Alone falls off a bit near the end, in my opinion), and both with rather lackluster (but functional) graphics. Here's a picture from Thomas Was Alone: https://www.commonsense.org/education/sites/default/files/experience-media-file/thomas_was_alone_4.jpg


In Wind Waker's case, if they had made the exact same game using the art and graphical style of Ocarina of Time, I would have played it and probably enjoyed it. Heck, even if they released it today with N64-era, OoT-style graphics and art, I would probably try it. For me it's 100% not about the graphical limitations, but the artistic style.I find this kind of strange, since OoT looked terrible, even back when it was still new. Did you give Wind Waker a fair shot? A lot of people think it's the best Zelda ever made (especially the HD remake for the Wii U, which improved on most major issues with the original).


I can understand why people might hesitate to go back and play older games because the graphics aged poorly, especially if they weren't around back when those games were new and that was the height of video game graphics.I think a lot of the classics still hold up. I think playing the 9.5-10/10 games might still be worth it. In some cases, some games got better sequels that make playing the original somewhat redundant, not just because of the graphics though. For instance, playing Mario Kart 64 or Team Fortress Classic now (aside from nostalgia) is not really worth it when newer Mario Kart games and Team Fortress 2 (and Overwatch) are available. Still, I think if someone says "I don't want to play Mass Effect because the graphics are outdated" is really missing out on one of the best action-RPGs of all time.


It's less a blinding hate for me, and more an actual physical reaction to it. Something about it doesn't sit right inside my brain and I actually get sick to my stomach looking at it, and Borderlands evokes the same effect(best friend loved Borderlands back in the day and played it all the time, and I happened to catch the end of a session one day when I went to visit him).Now, you see, this is a pretty good reason to not play a game. If the graphics causes physical malady of some kind, then avoiding it makes perfect sense. Same with a game that features lots of flashing lights for someone who is sensitive to that kind of stuff. I find it a bit strange than Wind Waker and Borderlands would evoke that kind of reaction though.


I can think of two games which I stopped playing because of graphics off the top of my head. Undertale and the original Fallout. Though in both cases, there were other factors too.It's a shame you're missing out on Undertale, nearly everyone I've seen play it enjoyed it tremendously, and it won GameFAQ's poll for Best Game Ever (and above 94% average reviews on GameRankings). How long did you play it?

[factotum]

I'm going to switch the example slightly here. Let's take your favourite game, whatever it happens to be. Now, remove the music, and replace all the sound effects with baby crying and vuvuzela noises. Would a game with such terrible sound design still be as fun to play? Would you even finish it?

Now, how is that good game with awful sound effects fundamentally different from a good game that looks awful?

[Rodin]

Graphicized ASCII games (be they RLs or something like Dwarf Fortress) have never made much sense to me. Either you make the tiles massively bigger (greatly reducing how far you can see, and preventing you from looking at the entire map at once), or you wind up with tiny blobs that convey far less information than the characters they replace. Games built with graphics in the first place tend to avoid these problems in the development stage, but when you slap a graphical tileset on ADOM, Nethack, or DF you lose far more than you gain.

Hence my referral to Desktop Dungeons. Reference image:

http://indiehaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/DesktopDungeons_Screenshot_3.png

You can easily see the whole map at once, but instead of ASCII it's replaced with colorful graphics and appropriate icons for shops and the like. Even a lot of the GUI on the right could be removed to make room for more map space, you'd just need a small window at the bottom (or maybe bottom right) for the action log. Simple, effective, and you lose nothing gameplay related by doing so.

[NichG]

I'm glad to know I'm not alone in this. I used to play a version of Rogue called 10Rogue back in the day, and I spent a bit of time tooling around with TOME. I also generally love Roguelikes in general. However, every time Tales shows up in my Steam queue I can never quite bring myself to buy it. The graphics look REALLY bad in the screenshots that they have on the store page, and it makes me wonder why they bothered moving it off ASCII.

Why couldn't they have done something simple and stylized like Desktop Dungeons? That game looks fantastic considering how basic the graphics are, and that sort of setup seems perfect for making a Rogue game.

I don't know the actual story, but one thing that tends to happen with popular, promising, or interesting projects is that there's a passionate fan, they make some art and 'donate' it, and if someone spent a lot of time and effort on making art unasked for, for something you yourself just made out of your own passion and interest, its really hard to tell that person 'thanks for your interest, but we're not going to use your art, we're just going to stay Ascii'. Even if its the right decision for the game, you're going to feel like a jerk and its going to be really hard to make the other person feel okay about it because of the obvious 'but, your game is just Ascii now, how can my art possibly make it worse?!' response. It's one of those things that's awkward about stuff that is trying to move across the line between 'this is a business' and 'this is a hobby'.

From my own experience of making a game, I didn't realize just how big the difference was between the process of commissioning a professional artist and the kind of hodge-podge way of 'programmer art' plus contributions, etc until I actually went and spent the money to commission the professional artist. In retrospect, the decision should have been obvious and we should have done that from the start. It probably would have been the difference between 'okay, our sales paid for the website and banner ads' and 'okay, our sales paid for our time'.

[Sylian]

I'm going to switch the example slightly here. Let's take your favourite game, whatever it happens to be. Now, remove the music, and replace all the sound effects with baby crying and vuvuzela noises. Would a game with such terrible sound design still be as fun to play? Would you even finish it?This is a false equivalence since there is no good game (as far as I know) that has graphics that even come close to that level of terribleness. I did think about what role sound and music could play, and it's true that good sound and music can really enhance a game, and poor music and sound can make it less enjoyable to play. Old Game & Watch games tended to have pretty poor sound quality. Luckily enough, most games are mutable, and when it comes to PC games you can often adjust individual aspects, so you could mute the sound and keep the music, or vice versa. That way, if a game has mediocre music you could mute the music and play some music on your own.

And yes, if someone said "I don't want to play that game because I don't like the music/sound effects", then that would be something I'd be likely to object to as well. Unless it's a music/rhythm game. I don't think I've ever avoided a game solely because of poor music/sound, though.

[Gnoman]

Hence my referral to Desktop Dungeons. Reference image:

http://indiehaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/DesktopDungeons_Screenshot_3.png

You can easily see the whole map at once, but instead of ASCII it's replaced with colorful graphics and appropriate icons for shops and the like. Even a lot of the GUI on the right could be removed to make room for more map space, you'd just need a small window at the bottom (or maybe bottom right) for the action log. Simple, effective, and you lose nothing gameplay related by doing so.

I've never even heard of this game before - so I can't parse the screen to accurately judge information content - but I doubt that it would work well for most games. I question how well it would handle the variety of monsters that populate a typical RL game (all the monsters in that screen are visibly very different, but I'd very much like to see how it would portray a jackal, jackalwere, dog, and blink dog (ADOM monsters, all of which represent different threat levels and require different tactics) on screen at once while making them instantly discernible (ASCII ADOM uses the letter "d" in different colors, all of which are easy to tell apart). Not to mention that many such games have intricate status screens that would take up much more screen real estate than the rather minimal one there, yet are important enough that you would still want them present. Besides this, that still shows a much smaller window onto the game than you could get by pure ASCII.

[warty goblin]

Torchlight II is amazing, it might even (possibly) be better than Diablo II. I think you're making a mistake not playing it over Titan Quest but hey, your choice.

I tried Torchlight 2. It was a fine hack'n'slash, but my character always looked, at least to me, bad. Started out that way, and the better the equipment the dumber and sillier she looked. That really sucked the fun out of the loot grind, because I want to play a character who looks cool and finds cool stuff.


I' ve seen so many people pass up on great games just because they didn't like the graphics/aesthetics. I think Animal Crossing is a great example.

Here' s the thing, as I hope my Torchlight example showed, some graphical styles can make a potentially fun game unfun. For some people (like me) this is sometimes true for cartoons graphics. For some, it's games that go for high fidelity realism. It's a totally subjective personal thing, but people aren't going bto play games that they don't find fun, for whatever reason.

[danzibr]

I'm going to switch the example slightly here. Let's take your favourite game, whatever it happens to be. Now, remove the music, and replace all the sound effects with baby crying and vuvuzela noises. Would a game with such terrible sound design still be as fun to play? Would you even finish it?

Now, how is that good game with awful sound effects fundamentally different from a good game that looks awful?

This is a false equivalence since there is no good game (as far as I know) that has graphics that even come close to that level of terribleness. I did think about what role sound and music could play, and it's true that good sound and music can really enhance a game, and poor music and sound can make it less enjoyable to play. Old Game & Watch games tended to have pretty poor sound quality. Luckily enough, most games are mutable, and when it comes to PC games you can often adjust individual aspects, so you could mute the sound and keep the music, or vice versa. That way, if a game has mediocre music you could mute the music and play some music on your own.

And yes, if someone said "I don't want to play that game because I don't like the music/sound effects", then that would be something I'd be likely to object to as well. Unless it's a music/rhythm game. I don't think I've ever avoided a game solely because of poor music/sound, though.
Sylian beat me to it. Any company putting any amount of effort into graphics would produce something of higher quality to look at than baby cries and vuvuzela horns are to hear.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I've never seen a game I'd rate below a 2 on the graphics scale, whereas the baby cries and vuvuzela horns would be a -7.

But, to be fair, to answer your question factotum, if there were indeed a game with such graphics, I would not play it. I can (and often do) play games muted, but it's hard to turn off the graphics >.>

[factotum]

Sylian beat me to it. Any company putting any amount of effort into graphics would produce something of higher quality to look at than baby cries and vuvuzela horns are to hear.

But that's the thing--the person complaining about bad graphics might well think the graphics in whatever game is under discussion *are* as bad as baby cries and vuvuzela horns. You might not think the graphics are that bad, but not everyone is you! The point of my thought experiment was to get people to try and see things from the other point of view, but I guess that failed miserably, judging from the responses.

[Knaight]

There's nothing wrong with good graphics, and given the choice between bad graphics and good graphics (everything else equal), I would go for good graphics. Still, if someone refuses to play, say, Crash Bandicoot because of the graphics, then I would argue that would be pretty shallow (and a mistake). I can't think of a single game that I have refused to play due to the graphics. Why limit your choices? If a game is amazing in every aspect except the graphics, would the graphics really ruin the experience?

If we're still using the term "graphics" for the aesthetics of the game and not just the underlying technology, absolutely. Undertale is, for me, screeching babies and vuvuzelas bad (granted, I suspect I mind neither of those things as much as a lot of people do). It's not the only thing that I have against it, but it's a major contributor that can kill the experience all on its own. It's not because the pixel art is too low fidelity or anything - I enjoyed the early Metroid games, I like Battle for Wesnoth (which has 16 bit sprites and not 8 bit sprites but is still far from the cutting edge), I liked Master of Orion 1, Spacechem and DROD are favorites and picking just about any gameplay video of either will show how sophisticated the graphics are (not very).

It's not the only case either. There have been games where I didn't get into them because the style made it impossible to see what was going on (Dungeon Keeper), games which I know cause headaches and similar by having a way too small field of view in a first person game, so on and so forth.

[Starwulf]

@Sylian: I think there is one thing you are discounting when it comes to people excluding games because they don't like the graphics: Everyone has a finite amount of time to play video games. Why would(or should) someone waste that time playing a game that is unpleasing to the eye, even if it's really fun, if they can instead find a game that is both fun to play AND pleasing to the eye? A person can only play so many video games in their lifetime, and it makes no sense to play a game that they don't find all aspects enjoyable.

[Ailurus]

But that's the thing--the person complaining about bad graphics might well think the graphics in whatever game is under discussion *are* as bad as baby cries and vuvuzela horns. You might not think the graphics are that bad, but not everyone is you!

Agreed. And while I doubt many people would likely say they like crying and vuvuzelas as their audio, there's plenty of more controversial sound selections that some people would be fine with and others would hate - a heavy metal soundtrack would be awful to me while a know a lot of people would like it. Conversely, a soundtrack composed purely of bagpipes would likely be fine for me while I know other people who would despise it.

Why can't the same thing apply to visuals, which are even more important than the audio since you can't turn them off. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, just just screenshots of the Undertale MC in profile is literally enough to make me start feeling sick to my stomach. Watching the trailer = nausea. I can't imagine anything closer to the visual equivalent of a vuvuzela choir and crying than a game that makes me feel physically ill.

[Blue Lantern]

I take it that you, a deep and thoughtful person, shun any video content in more than 240i.

If you really want to know, yes, I usually get the the lowest version of whatever series or movie I am getting, I still enjoy it and I save some money.

Dumb me right?

[BeerMug Paladin]

It's been a while since I looked in here, but I was surprised by a mention that Borderlands looked good compared to Windwaker.

I liked Borderlands a lot as a game, but the color palette was absolutely atrocious, so after a while just looking at it was kind of sickeningly samey and dull. Borderlands 2 improved things by a very significant margin, but it still had a rather pukey, bland choice of color palette.

For my tastes, Windwaker looks far better than both. But that subject is an aside and entirely personal taste.

I consider it worth mentioning that sometimes a game's panoramic vistas are going to be one of the impressive points to a game, and contribute to the overall experience. For a personal example, I recently played Xenoblade Chronicles X, and at a few points in the game where I found a new vantage point, looked at the environment from a new perspective or discovered a hidden area, I was just kind of impressed by the sight of it and spent a little bit of time just enjoying the spectacle. Not accomplishing any objective or engaging the game with any significant input. Just admiring what I saw.

I imagine in, say 5 (if not, 10) or more years that game would no longer be capable of producing that reaction in its potential audience. Thus an essential component to my personal experience with the game would simply no longer be repeatable to an audience displaced in time.

If part of what someone ultimately wants in a game is that part of the gaming experience, then graphics matter a whole lot. Sometimes, it can be nice to be distracted by a shiny thing. After all, what's wrong with shinys?