Any of you feel like we’ve become so fixated on graphics and perfomance to the point where the actual game part of a video game is often overlooked, or at least underemphasized?
all I come across on social media regarding gaming is about resolution, ray tracing, DLSS/FSR, frame rates, frame time, CPU and GPU untilization, and all of that stuff,
That’s because those are measurable factors in a game, things that can be objectively measured. “Fun” and “playability” though are subjective, so a journalist has a harder time telling you if a game will work for you.
Tbh… no, i don’t feel like we did. Those things have always been discussed on the mainstream ever since gaming became a thing. It mostly sounds like you have an algorithm/internet bubble problem, maybe it’s time to curate your feeds more to cater to your tastes? If you’re interested in a nice gaming podcast that doesn’t focus on graphics i can very much recommend “Gaming in the Wild”, it’s very chill and covers a variety of games, i like the way he describes things.
Everything you said is just telling us what You’ve been focusing on. If you don’t want to focus on resolution, frame rates, etc, then don’t.
There are hundreds and hundreds of great games easily available. Play them. Ive been living the days of just installing a game and playing it for decades. And I’ll continue to do so with no problem.
Valheim was one of the best selling games and is still a huge success. Indies are getting better and more popular to the point that even big companies like Nexon are indiewashing their studio and pretending that Dave the Diver is an indie game with pixel art instead of a work of one of the biggest publishers there is. In my experience most of the gamers nowadays are people that grew up on minecraft, terraria or probably more likely today - roblox.
So basically no, I don't think so. Maybe big studios want you to believe that and it might be true for a casual FIFA or CoD gamer but for anyone else, there are more options than ever and the supply of good smaller simpler games is just overwhelming, the days are too short to even keep track of them anymore.
I didn’t actually know about Dave the Driver being a big publisher until just now. I felt that game was kinda under-developed for how hyper it was and now I’m even more disappointed.
It only has like 6 major areas and the levels didn’t have that much variety. Plus the side content is fairly under polished. I enjoyed it for the first 60ish percent but was kinda forcing myself to finish it by the end.
Currently playing FF7 Remake for the first time, as a huge fan of the original. The other games I purchased is to make the pile of shame bigger and to play when I have some time – I’m not ashamed! For some reason I did not have the original DOOM games on Steam; this was the perfect opportunity.
there’s plenty of “ugly” games here’s some I’ve played recently that came out this year:
UFO 50: A collection of new games in the style (mechanically and visually) of the 8bit games. 8 bit graphics
Balatro: A GOTY nominee, it’s a roguelike that is extremely loosely based on poker. modern pixel art style static images
Children of the sun: a puzzle game where you are a sniper that bends and deflects bullets to kill whole rooms of people with 1 bullet. Graphics are pretty imo but not advanced.
Echo Point Nova: a movement focused shooter. games plays on a potato. There is technically a a ray tracing option, but I think it’s more of a future proofing thing/a personal interest of the dev.
What is starting to annoy me is context button prompts. One button to rule them all i mean. What is this, an elaborate power point presentation? Feels like a relic of the mouse in action.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, old games were just as fucking janky on release, and most of them took years of modders fixing all those issues for them to get better.
Fallout 1 & 2 - janky on release
Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 - janky on release
Morrowind - janky on release
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Chernobyl - janky on release
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 - janky on release
All of these were capable of being installed and “just playing” them on release. There were countless bugs and janky behavior and that’s normal and we’re now spoiled by day 1 patches. STALKER 2 has been out a month and has had three major patches for bug fixes. STALKER Call of Chernobyl probably could have used the same but in 2007 the infrastructure to push quick updates just wasn’t there yet. Steam had only released by Valve in late 2003, roughly three and a half years earlier.
Nope, because I don’t give one shit about those kinds of games. Nintendo and indie games have never cared about graphics and performance. I haven’t owned a PlayStation since the PS2, and I’ve never owned an Xbox. Crazy how if your only console is a Nintendo then you never really care about that stuff. I do have a gaming pc but still play mostly indie games.
A Breath of the Wild / Tears of the Kingdom aren’t the prettiest games but they have two very big deals about them.
Stylization. Games with a specific art style tend to age better than ones with ultra realistic art styles. Team Fortress 2 aged better than a lot of things because it leaned into the Pixar-cartoony style. ABotW and TotK both have their own unique style that will age incredibly well.
Instead of the focus being graphics, the gameplay is the core loop. Tears of the Kingdom especially deserves accolades for how well the entire system of combining weapons and items just works. Who cares about the graphics, the crazy shit you do in the game isn’t causing the game to crash or fall to pieces. The game expected this, it was built to handle this, and this is proof that it was way more important to the developers than the graphics.
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