Graphics are over rated

From the first days of video games (or any other visual media) your eyes are the first things to be treated to what the form has to offer. Graphics have always been the measure to which the common gamer judged a game. Back in the day graphics mattered, but not all that much. All you needed was a visual representation of your character on screen A La Mega Man or Mario, and you were pleased. Your imagination pretty much took off from there (I barely recognized Toadstool to be a person). So with that in mind visual representation in the world of gaming has probably been a big thing since the days of PSX, Saturn, and N64 era.

Pros—there is a lot to be said by watching a visual tour de force. Seeing the perfect visual to match what you imagine in your head can be oh so satisfying. The proper graphics can take you to places you could only have hoped to dream of. Think back to GTA 3 when the city was sprawling with life. The cars in that game resembled real life vehicles. The people (although deformed by todays standards) were pretty ground breaking. Pop-up and texturing were acceptable because what the scope of the game was presenting to you the gamer. How about Super Mario Bros.? When you plugged in that new NES for the first time and you saw Mario and Luigi jump on their Goomba enemies with a satisfying squash you just knew you had arrived. The point is with the proper visuals you can escape real life and enjoy whatever quest, mission, or adventure presented. Motion capture, a thing that is still fairly new also lends credibility to graphics. Do you know what bad motion-capturing can do to a game? Think WWE Attitude where Stone Cold Steve Austin appeared to be a drunken bum stumbling to the ring. When done right it can lend so much to a game. When Madden football started using the process every tackle, block, and catch appeared that much more life like. As Solid Snake you felt along the walls of Shadow Moses or crawled through vents making things appear that much more real. Bottom line graphics are top selling point for about 80% of games these days.

Cons—With the positives out the way it can also be argued that graphics can take a back seat to an otherwise outstanding game. There are tons of examples to fit this bill. A “TRUE” gamer can dismiss graphics as long as gameplay, story, and certain other features pull a game together. In other cases graphics aren’t even the main point of the game and it can be wildly successful. Games like Tetris, early Pokemon games, Tecmo Bowl, and a few others were wildly popular despite graphics. Let’s talk about bad graphics period. When a game comes out gamers have a certain expectation. When those expectations aren’t filled consumers may feel duped. Texture problems; pop up, shading, collision detection, and plain old ugly design can out right ruin the experience. E.T. was an awful mess of a game. Who could stomach to look at any wrestling game in the 90’s? As of late Duke Nukem forever was horrible looking mess (to say the least). The point here is games can succeed or fail hinging on its graphics, but it has been proven that you don’t NEED good graphics to have a great game.

Although graphics are a large part of gaming the conclusion is that they aren’t the end all be all. Sure they bring the package of a far off land full circle, but gamers had just as much fun when Link looked like a fat elf as oppose to his often-cartoony princely look these days. Hell you can have a game not even be outrageously good looking; like Candy crush or Flappy Bird for gamers to be addicted and loving it. So in the end graphics aren’t all that important. Don’t get things twisted in this case cake taste great, but with the right frosting it can be exquisite. What’s your opinion? Are graphics a big selling or enjoyable point for you? Let me know! Until next time “If you can’t be GOOD be GOOD at it!!”

Minecraft is living proof that a video game can look as subpar as that down to the most compressed pixel and still be wildly popular, same logic is applied with most of Telltale games (not that I'am a huge fan of their work, but sales say otherwise to my opinion) Dark souls, elder scrolls and Fallout all look quiet average IMO, but they're still great games regardless. And also IMO, someone shouldn't choose one version of a game on one platform over the other because of minor graphical differences.

TL DR, but I agree. As long as the graphics are passable/don't get in the way, I don't really care. Nice graphics are nice, sure. But every other aspect of gaming is way more important to me. Be it gameplay, story, sound, anything.

Even just on an aesthetic level, the truth of the matter (and this is the case for the special effects boom of movies as well) is that visual fidelity can be brute forced. Game developers and Michael Bay can throw money at something and get "graphics."

Unfortunately art design and direction can't be bought.

Indeed they are

I don't find graphics to be overrated at all. In fact, I think there's a tendency of many to downplay their role and importance. Are they the end all be all decisive element to base whether a game is worthwhile or not? Of course not, but visuals are nonetheless an integral part of the enjoyment of this medium; a large one. I'm refusing to play Dark Souls II, for example, until all versions are released and hopefully the graphics will eventually live up to what FROM has been showing since the reveal.

"Gameplay is all that matters" I find to be overly idealistic hogwash. Graphics do matter more than people want to admit.

If gameplay was hella fun, sure. But if everyone was honest with themselves they'd take good graphics over bad or subpar anyday. It's called aesthetics, and that's something every human being fancies.

Graphics

Immersion

Voice Actors.

All those things are overated.

However thats only because of how the industry is now. Its not an absolute. for instance graphics can be used to improve reflections and draw distances for the sake of gameplay. Perhaps you need to plan your attack in an open world game from very far away. Improving the the resolution, textures and draw distances would go an extremely long way to making that happen. Same with Reflections, in LA Noire Cole Phelps used a reflection in a high window to spot a clue sitting on the roof of a building just below the window.

The problem is developers just arent doing this to improve the most important aspect of a game, the gameplay. Instead they use them to improve character models, which is fucked up because beyond cutscenes it doesn't make a difference, which means their wasting their time so they add more cutscenes to make it seem worth it, which couldve been time spent playing the game instead of watching it. Unless its a game like LA Noire where the detailed Character Models are a core Aspect of the GAMEPLAY, it would literally break the game if you had to do interviews using character models from i don't know.... Arkham City or Skyrim. same applies to voice acting.

But Immersion is definately Overated, and that is an Absolute. Its far too subjective, somethings are beyond the scope of what a game can do to make you, whos needs will vary drastically, immersed in its world.

Yes graphics are overrated, and so is storytelling for that matter (although not quite as overrated as graphics), despite popular belief, gameplay is the most important part of a game. I also consider graphics to be overrated because the quality of a games graphics is judged on the popularity of a game, not the actual graphical quality, take Mass Effect 2 for example, everyone praised it's visuals and yes, the character models and cutscenes looked great but the actual levels were flat, boring and lacked detail, take Just Cause 2 and Tomb Raider Underworld as other examples, those games had rich, beautiful and detailed environments (although JC2 lacked a few upfront details in the city, it was still a rich world which was fun to explore), yet those games got no praise for their visuals.

You act as though everyone says that, yet I'm the only one around here that says stuff like that, everyone else thinks that story is the only thing that matters, anyway, fact is gameplay is the most important aspect of a game, graphics and story are nice to have, but they should not be focused on if the gameplay is either lacking or subpar.

On a side note, Saints Row 2 is my personal GOTY, yes, it's graphics are dated, but that doesn't' matter because it's actually fun to play and has great value for money.

You can say it's over rated but u can't deny its impact u know, it helps having a better n authentic atmosphere , u wanna a play game with a perfect story n gameplay so what's wrong having perfect graphics beside them ? so many great games that we've played had stunningly beautiful graphics like The Last of Us ...

And we can't be like "Gameplay matters , screw graphics" , u'd be fooling yourself if u think devs by not giving shit to graphics are gonna focus more on gameplay ...

U need good graphics to immerse yourself into the world without it I think games would suffer.

@ mjorh

The Last Of Us's Graphics only looked Beuatifull in Cutscenes (which look alil prerenderish to me, they were too good to be in real time). Theres actually many many.....many areas were the textures are just straight up bad. I mean it looks odd from far away, and a closer look confirms your worst fear. Theres also an unintended flickering problem in one of the levels but I think thats just one of those one time bugs. If you wana see some real graphics.... In Real Time, take a shot a Beyond Two Souls. Theres this one level thats pretty big and massive and yet not a single blurry texture upon the closest inpection, there will be framerate issues though but nothing below 15fps. And it will only be a short dip in between long intervals so you'l only notice it the 1st time. And thats just the Massive Level. The rest of the game is pretty much perfect.... Graphically speaking ofcourse.

@ sukraj

There goes the " I " word again.

Its not the games that actually suffer, its just your perception of of them. Immersion is not a fair criteria to judge a game by, atleast not in a review, if you're just stating your preferences and prerequisites then its not an issue. So long as the graphics remain with in the scope of allowing you to play the game, then you're good. Midnight Clubs Graphics were bad, specifically the lighting and draw distances. You'l only notice this when moving at 200mph. Couple that with the motion blur and shitty physics, Rubber band AI (I saw one plough straight throught a trick and didn't lose speed) and it makes for a very horrible game, as Rockstar games usually are. Thats one scenario where graphics should definately have been better, one time they dropped an invisible Tram in front of me, its not a bug, drive fast enough and you'l notice the game loading objects before it loads their visibilty.

yeah i think Stalker is a bit more immersive game than Wolf3D.

that said, graphics don't obviously make a game, but they sure matter. and there's one thing that goes almost hand in hand with graphics; technical improvements like physics that really affect the gameplay. as the pure processing power increases, these aspects can be driven forward along with graphics. gameworlds can be truly made more dynamic and more interactive, and not just prettier.

i had hours and hours of fun in Crysis for example, cos wreacking havok was simply so much fun because of the advanced game engine. also, what would've HL2 been without physics? not much.

but yeah, bad games bad, even if it has state of the art graphics.

Yeah i know what u mean , i think first we should define what we mean by "Graphics" , u know one can say The Last of Us is more about story rather than graphics because what he means by "Graphics" is "BF4-like" graphics...

"Graphics" as far as my opinion goes , is an element which helps u get immersed in the experience and doesn't count as a downgrading factor which kinda ruins the experience, so Bioshock Infinite is perfect on "Graphics' because it does its job of making u feel the game , get immersed into it ...

Who knows? Maybe Minecraft wouldn't be this much popular if it had AAA title graphics....so based on the game it self , "graphics" should be defined.

I'm on my 10 playthrough of Fallout New Vegas (on console at that), and still love every minute of it.

Yeah, you don't need amazing visuals.

@ mjorh

The Last Of Us has a good story but it as I mentioned before... Cutscenes.

In Gameplay its just small talk to stave off the tedium of scavenging for supplies which you may not even find because of it being survival. Speaking of Immersion, I hear the Weapon Sway and Infected's annoying behavoir is to make the game more immersive.... And yet the reason gun weilding enemies don't drop ammo and clickers are not lured away by noise being made somewhere else once already aware of you is for difficulty's sake, yet this hurts immersion. I suspect this is the case for many games, or maybe Naughty Dog simply didn't think this through.

Not Only do I believe Immersion is overated, I also believe it can come in the way of making a good game great because of the great lengths it goes at the gameplay's expense.

Heres a graphics related immersion Breaker: if I'm out in the blinding snow storm or a very dark building how do the bad guys immediately recognize me.... Why don't they accidentily shoot each other ? Granted they sometime communicate. But still....

I could go on and on and on. But you get the idea, how far should a game go to accomomdate somebody who can't get immersed in it because the Shadows aren't dynamic or whatever ?

Theres no where one can draw the line, its just way too subjective.

You know, we haven't talked about LudoNarrative dissonance here in a while. Although this is more like Ludo-Immersional Dissonance. :D haha, I made a word !

If every third-person-shooter-action-adventure game on this generation looked like Tomb Raider (2013), Uncharted 3, The Last of Us or inFamous: Second Son I wouldn't care. I'd rather that then another "artistically" pixelated "indie" game. If every shooter this gen looked no better than Killzone: Shadow Fall and Battlefield 4, I wouldn't care. Developers, come up with new gameplay mechanics, do some things that advance FPS, racing games, action-adventure games. I'm not talking about new controls or making an "indie" game as I love me some AAA games. But I SERIOUSLY don't care about "true" 1080p or "must run at" 60FPS. Just make GOOD games. Don't get caught up in the hype people.

Good graphics do not equal good game.

1) Dishonored. The game won a ton of awards for art style, story, characters, gameplay and so on but not so much for graphics. The game looked better on the PC than the ps3 but every single thing that made the game good was still there in both version. The game wasn't somehow "better" on the pc because it had the same story, the same gameplay, the same sound effects, the same weapons because the game did not change at all.

2) If graphics really did somehow make a game good or bad then no one would play angry birds or tetris and no one certainly would ever play an older game. But we know everyone does. Infact more people play tetris or bejeweled than say assasins creed 4 despite them being vastly inferior graphics wise. Why do game like journey win tons of awards and win millions of players praise when it is graphically inferior to say

Visual design is a huge part of games I would say, which are part o graphics. I would say technical graphics power is not as important. There are many beautiful wii games that look nice because of great visual design, and there are ugly games that are still incredibly fun despite poor graphics.

@ Gargus

1) Agreed ! Its only the perception thats affected and thats not the game's responsibilty.

2) I have no Idea ! Just tell me I'm pretty and I'l agree with anything you say.

I personally care more about art direction/design > technical prowess. I don't care about how realistic it looks, or frame rate or detailed textures or whatever; it's all about the art design. I've played a lot of mediocre games or games that I probably wouldn't enjoy as much if it hadn't been for the artstyle (Under the Skin, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Haunting Ground, Um Jammer Lammy, Catherine, any Grasshopper Manufacture game).

@mesomorphin: Oh man I couldn't agree with you more on all your points. I totally forgot about mine craft. Oh and it use to kill me when ppl use to say Xbox version was better graphically than Ps3. I have several games on both systems and the differences were so minute you'd need a magnifying glass for it to matter.

@Shmiity: I love Chrono trigger to this day because of what you just said it wasn't a graphical power house in any way (well maybe for its time) but the other elements brought it together excellently

hmm graphics matter to me quite a lot, but its more about having a cool artstyle tbh.... and that doesnt always take the latest powerful hardware to achieve.

I think the thing I'm fussy about the most are resolutions....i like things to looks sharp not pixelated. This is why i much preffer playing my indie games on my vita vs my pc...the smaller screen makes them all look a lot sharper.

To each their own honestly.

One person in this thread mentioned Good Art styles being more important and I certainly can agree with that.

I'm on the same page as you though, I feel like way to much emphasis on put on the graphics all I care about is how fun it is to play.

Umm I can respect where you're coming from, but Id have to disagree. there are tons of games with sub par graphics that gamers would play. I enjoyed Rumble Roses XX on xbox and it had sub par graphics (just one example) but to each their own.

yes, top of the line, cutting-edge graphics are overrated and a waste of money.

so is advertising, getting star personalities, voice-acting and "cinematic presentation."

just produce great gameplay and let the fluff be adequate side-issues.

It goes along with this whole stupid "immersion" thing. It really bugs me, but tthe short of it is that people over value "immersion" waaaaay too much. Plus, a truly great game can immerse you in its world even if it has bad graphics. The old N64 Zelda games? I can still get myself lost in those worlds despite the fact that they look like ass by today's standards. If a game needs good graphics to "immerse" the player and it's not a horror game or something like that, it's probably not as good as some people say.

Its "Teh Immersion" and "Teh Downgrade"

its all I hear these days. I hope this is just a launch year thing.

@Lulu_Lulu:

for me, immersion is all about gameplay design, is very important and graphics have nothing to do with it.

@ udUbdaWgz1

Everybody has Different requirements.

Graphics are just the obvious ones.

Graphics have gotten immensely better over the years, yet it's still one of the most nit-picked things about games. Resolution this, frame rates that, blah blah blah. I do appreciate a nice looking game. But a nice looking game can still be boring as hell. There are much more important aspects in a game. A game can be amazing without outstanding visuals. That's not to say I don't think graphics can play a great role in immersing you into the game, but the constant screenshot comparisons, this game is going to run in xxxxp and xxfps stuff is getting really old.

It all depends on the game. A Mario type platform game doesn't need high end graphics, it's all about gameplay and not so much about immersion. The opposite end of the scale would be Star Citizen where top notch graphics (to the point that running it on full bung at release will require a massive rig) will help with the games immersion and 'realism' as well as, hopefully, having fantastic gameplay (We'll start to get a taste of the gameplay within a month or so :) ).

@Lulu_Lulu:

I agree we are all different, but, (for fun arguments sake!) I am literally saying that graphics have NOTHING to do with immersion. for me, immersion is not being allowed to swim in heavy armor, potions over time, no potion spamming, no immediate health regen, weather/armor penalties, no fast-travel, degradation, no hud, etc..

immersion, for me, is accomplished through in-game mechanics that impact gameplay.

not graphical issues associated with looking more "real" on a tv.

@Lulu_Lulu : Gotcha man , thanks .

Yeah , the perfect example is Ryse ! :D

i do not care about graphics at all. If it works with the gameplay then that's all i care about. I just want a smooth fps. That's all i am asking for

A smooth ride is what I'm after bro - just kidding around.

I will have to agree on every point stated here.
It just really pisses me off when people start arguing which plataform is better and they use graphics quality as an argument, its just plain stupid.
I dare to say that if you're a true "gamer" (boy is this term overused) you don't really care about graphics at all.

there are many aspects to games but in the end the game has to be enjoyable to play and graphics are only one part of the formula. Graphics are overrated if the game is built around graphics alone and the gameplay is broken and sucks. Most people enjoy beautiful graphics if it compliments the gameplay. The ultimate game for me would be a modern console graphics engine with good architecture, level design, story, characters, gameplay variety and complexity with old school mini games. A game could have it all if the developers tried. If developers wanted you could be playing a MGS game and Snake could take a nap and then you could play and entire old school pixel challenged game to unlock weapons parts etc. whatever, a game could have all the best of modern gaming and old school all in one game.

Sometimes I enjoy beut scenery in games. Somewhy in Just Cause 2 when I fly a plane I get stuck watching the passing mountains and accidentally crash my plane, BTW JC2 is on sale pretty much all the time. The story will take you about 20h but it will most likely extend to a 50-70h. If you find it on a Steam, PSN sale, go get it.

I think it all depends on the audience and what they desire in the game they are playing. Obviously if you are looking for graphics, you would pay more than at least 60 dollars for games that are known not only for their storyline but also the graphics. If you are say, looking for a game that is quick to download, quick to play and quick to win, then I guess you would go for the low end games which are either free or less than 10 bucks such as tf2, cs or XShot (you can marry other players in this game for special gifts haha srsly not joking though http://goo.gl/iLMgbj ). All FPS games that have pretty big communities who still play the games because of the gameplay and not the graphics.

True that the main aspect of a game is being able to play it the graphics make it look nice but without a solid story or lastability it could end up being garbage. I mean look at the games from the SNES era like Super Metroid and Mario World.

Graphics are what they are. As someone whose first PC experience was in 1982, while playing things like Galaga and Pac-Man at the local bowling alley, I've come to appreciate nice graphics when I can experience them, but they are not my reason for playing a game. I enjoy everything from Flappy Bird to Crysis 3 and just about anything in-between. What I play is dictated by the play-time I have available.

If you want nice graphics, you can watch just about any movie that's come out that uses any CGI. I know Metal Gear Solid IV sure had plenty to watch.

I agree 100%. However, I learned this about 3 years back when I upgraded my PC for around $1500.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE when a game has a nice presentation. However, to me that doesn't mean realistic graphics.

For example, I think Titanfall has a great presentation. It doesn't look realistic, and it runs at 792p on my Xbox One, but everything looks well put together and the interface is good.

I think because of this I'm not quite as thrilled about the PS4 as other gamers. I've used my PS4 to play some great games so far, but when it came time to review inFamous: Second Son the graphics just didn't do a whole lot for me. Consequently, I didn't enjoy the game because the other parts of the title weren't as excellent as its graphics.

@mesomorphin:

most minecraft players are bunch of kids. or trolls. other wise the game is horrible.

It was definitely a graphical powerhouse in its day. Can't think of many SNES games that look better.

The game is horrible? yes, in your opinion it is.

If Watchdogs had 8 bit graphics and looked like it was made for the NES....

Hell no.

I disagree. There are things like draw distance and fluid animation that go hand in hand with gameplay. If I'm driving a car and things constantly pop up rather than be in your immediate view then that breaks the whole immersion and thus doesn't make it very fun.

Saying that graphics don't matter in video-games is akin to saying that cinematography doesn't matter in film or that diction is irrelevant in prose.

Gameplay matters. Graphics(and a good soundtrack) is just there to enhance the experience.

Lots of my favourite games have really dated graphics, but for new games I don't mind having some nice graphics since I have a good PC i want to use its power. It bugs me though when I see people making games with worse graphics then SNES games, this is just lazy and lacks talent