Crytek: It's Getting Hard To 'Wow' Gamers With Graphics

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Been gaming on 4K for a few months now with 2 GTX 780 classifieds, there have been some rough edges but the driver has finally smoothed things out at least on BF4 getting 70-80 fps ultra.
 
Could just be me, but personally, I'm more about gameplay now than graphics (and have been for several years now).

I've had more fun and more play time spent on rinky dink indie titles over the last year or so than all the AAA games that I own combined in my Steam library. For instance - spent an hour or so playing Risk of Rain on Saturday night, and had a blast. Kept my interest a lot more than the last several Call of Duty's have.

Again though - could just be me.
 
I wonder if game developers think everyone with a pc can afford a powerful gaming rig. I cant speak for anyone else but I cant. I would love to play these games but I am falling behind big time because I cant afford the i7s, high end gpus and even a new operating system (still on Vista 32bit).

I do think a lot of people are like me and that by setting computer games at such a high end expense companies are missing out on revenue. The point I am making though is it would be a big leap for people like myself but its far too expensive to make it.
 
For me it has always been more about gameplay and story than graphics. I'm pretty sure tons of people agree, why else would someone play World of Warcraft, lol. If the gameplay is fun and/or the story immersive, the graphics are a much lower priority. Blizzard is the poster child for this. Gameplay graphics are decent (cinematics are awesome tho) but the game is fun and the story is pretty good (historically the story has been better, but the current ones are decent).

Putting graphic quality over gameplay and story is like putting perfume on a pig.
 
Here's a fun thing to consider, since the PlayStation two I don't believe the graphics have gotten much better in video games at all. This is gonna take a little bit of explaining.

Sure the poly counts of gotten better the textures have gotten better anti aliasing shadows all that crap has gotten better... However look at a game like Psychonauts, would higher polygon counts make the game better? Would more lighting effects make the game just fantastic?

Take a look at the game Crysis, when everything is moving tell me that it's just not as easy to see your enemies as it would be in a game where all the scenery didn't move. See your enemies are crack shots, they can see you no matter what, all the scenery moving only affects your ability to see them... Crysis is a very pretty looking game, but it sacrifices some of the playability to look that good.

Back to Psychonauts, all the game could really use is just higher resolution textures, that's it.

But then take a look at a game like skyrim, Bethesda did such a crappy job texturing the game that even using their high resolution texture pack the game doesn't look that good. However other people have taken that game and re-textured everything, was lower resolution textures, but they look like they are higher resolution.

The further we push technology the crapier and lazier the devs are actually going to be when it comes to graphics, they get four gigs of RAM there to use that four gigs of RAM regardless if the game could actually use it or not. they're not going to try and make the littlest texture possible that looks the best, they will use the bigger texture even if it looks like crap just because its bigger.
 
I've always been an advocate for resolution over graphics. Two branches of the same tree. Which probably explains why I find the constant lowering of res on the modern consoles such a silly idea.

Graphics in a 3D title can look as good or as bad as they want, but, unless the game is running on a high enough res, or, preferably the native res to your screen - It's just going to look blurry.

To give an example, Batman: Arkham Asylum. Definitely not the most visually impressive of titles but it didn't really matter when things looked crisp and clear.

I would much rather the developers dropped some of the eye-candy in their console versions and kept it at 1080p, than to keep them and drop to 900, or 720p.

Not that it matters as a PC gamer but hey, the poor sods need to experience 1080p sometime in the next decade, right?
 

the average gamer may not be able to play the latest AAA titles at max settings right away, but everyone eventually upgrades their computers. over time, games and computer parts get cheaper. for example, the 780ti has dropped in price by a couple hundred dollars recently, and bioshock infinite is now half the price it was at launch. eventually, 4k screens will get cheaper, and the GPUs needed to drive 4k gaming will get cheaper, and you can game at 4k without selling a kidney.
 
Graphics quality has barely moved for years, most decently written games don't push high end gpus at all. What we get now is console junk which needs a high end gpu to run at max.
 
Yeah there's really only so much better you can push polygons before the eye notices less and less graphics detail and you run into the law of diminishing returns. I didn't get started in PC gaming until the late 90s with a 1280x1024 monitor with the likes of Quake II and Half Life. While primitive today, it was light years ahead in visuals compared to my N64 console with 480p TV graphics at the time.

Throughout the 00s it seemed more transitional in upgrades, even with moving up to 1080p graphics. Crysis though in 2007 really set the bar to the next level of graphics, and it would be two years before my next PC build that I could play that at high level with decent frame rates. In my opinion, even today playing the likes of Crysis 3, BF4, and Far Cry 3 and using a 1440p monitor was not nearly a leap in graphics awesomeness as was that very first Crysis experience on a 1080p monitor from seven years ago.
 
I spent a large portion of my time gaming with graphics < Gameplay. I have come to the realization that you do not need to sacrifice graphics for gameplay,. However I would prefer something more modern to my graphics. Something that Cloud Point Darter was advertising, but something that actually works. If you really want to wow me, create a game/engine where your character taking a step into the sand and have that exact physical encounter work exactly as it should where the sand reacts to the foots force. This goes along with water with how objects interact with it and especially would love to see realistic crashing waves and the physics behind it as well. I'd just love to see this extra step come to fruition, but just as ray tracing was out of sight several years ago, I expect it to be several more before this becomes reality.

 
Personally I think graphics are at the point where we are not seeing leaps and bounds in anything, while lithography process developments are both slowing down and becoming longer used with less of a performance gain and more R and D between. Yet games are still hindered by console performance and ports, and it will continue to be like this until there is a reason for the developers to change. I am currently playing a couple games right now, and including the half life and far cry series being the newest I see how inefficient FC3 is compared to the source engine. Where I can get 300+ FPS with a 650 Ti in HL2 on high 1280x1024 I am probably getting 40 on medium settings in FC3. Yes this is due to the graphics and over 60 is moot anyway but FC3 was available on PS3, and does not negate the fact that HL2 is only using 3- 15% of the available resources while FC3 is using much more.
 
Hate to say it, it's because too many companies are going for all the eye candy, and completely borking on stability and game play, let alone replay value. And unfortunately, the short attention span, eyecandy theater we've been receiving lately has had a bad effect on the general quality of gamer as well.

I agree with others, been having way more fun with indie titles like Terraria, etc, that put game play and fun before graphics.
 
I wasn't wowed by the graphics of any of their games except Far Cry. Crysis came close, but they made some stupid decisions, like toning down the violence to completely ruin the immersion.
 


calling BS on that
 
it's been hard to impress gamers in graphic? well since you make your latest game xbox one exclusive while your older title was PC gaming optimized (except crysis 2). Don't believe at M$'s money, look what they did to Nokia, and lately you also bitching about ur company on the edge of bankruptcy, Crytek. Please continue to make games that you are best at, PC Games. Your idea to always melt pc gamers rig is what always push your games to "WOW" us, not making a game for consoles (look at Crysis 2 not as epic as Crysis since it was console optimized).
 
What about Photogrammetry? Has Crytek considered using that technique? Graphics still have a long way to go especially in terms of photorealism and texture quality IMO. The character models and facial features (skin, eyes, hair) still look too much like plastic. Some games have made some strides, but there is really so much more that can be done in terms of wow factor.
 
To be honest, I'm pretty happy with where graphics are at. What i'm not happy with is the amount of absolutely crap games out there. There are a few cames i've played recently for only a few hours, before getting bored and deleting them from my hard drive. Make good games and people wont care so much about the graphics. Look at Minecraft...hardly a breakthrough in graphics technology.
 

Same for me. The game I have enjoyed the most in the past five years is Portal2 which happens to have some of the blandest graphics of any game I have played over the past decade other than Portal1.
 

Couldnt agree more with this. there is really no reason to do it. I remember when i first went from a 1440x900 monitor to a 1920x1080 and playing starcraft. I had to drop details at the time to get it playable, but you were able to see more detail at the higher res with lower detail settings than with the lower resolution and higher setail settings.
 
It will eventually reach a point that producing such better textures and graphics will become too costly and time-consuming for developers. That is why so many prefer to develop console games - easier and less graphics to design.
 
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