How Important Are Graphics?
I often hear or read claims that graphics aren’t important. People who say that they would play a game no matter what it looks like visually as long as it has great mechanics, story, and so on. If you’re reading this, you’ll know that this is almost always not the case. I’ve claimed the same before, but what do I do any time I hear about a new game? First, I get an idea of what the game is about. The genre, the feature list, etc. Then, I search for the button that leads me to their screenshots or, failing that, any concept art they may have on the website. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not the only one who does that.
Which leads to the questions: How important are graphics? Are they the main reason some (or even most) potential players are attracted to a game? Do they have to be bright and flashy, or can they be gritty and real? Do they have to simply measure up to one’s expectations of what good graphics are at the time? Does a game need to have advanced graphics in order to be a blockbuster? Is there a universal measure of what good graphics are anyway?
I’ve always known that graphics are extremely important in selling a game. It’s unfortunate, because some of the best stories and even literary accomplishments came in the form of MUDs a long time ago, and they have all but died away into the void, at least in the mainstream. What I don’t know is exactly what sort of graphics are absolutely necessary for a game to sell well. Let’s use the top 10 selling PC games (at retail. I won’t get into why NPD needs to start including digital download data given the importance of the digital distribution medium to modern PC games) for 2005 from Gamasutra (via NPD) as reference.
One thing you may note if you take a look at screenshots from each of those Top 10 games is that none of them, with the exception of the FPS games, push the boundary in terms of technical graphical capabilities. In fact, a few could even be said to be “behind the times” in terms of how good the graphics are. One thing they all have in common, however, is that they all have graphics that are appropriate for the game. The graphics fit the genre, they meet the expectations of potential players, and they just happen to be right for what the game is trying to accomplish.
So that is probably the important lesson to be learned from browsing the list. As long as the graphics fit the game and meet the expectations of genre players, they are okay. Well, not exactly. You will also note that none of the games on that list has bad graphics. You can’t look at any of the screenshots and outright say that their graphics aren’t competitively decent with the rest of the market. There are definitely games out there with graphics that blow each of these (again with the potential exception of the FPSes on there) out of the water, but the graphics are by no means bad.
Let me interpose something rather briefly before moving on. I’ve parenthetically commented a couple times now about the FPSes on the list having good graphics. Graphics that actually push boundaries. What you might find if you were to thoroughly investigate the graphical capabilities of successful FPS games in the past is that almost all of them push boundaries. The FPS genre is the most competitive in terms of graphics, and it is therefore most important to have groundbreaking graphics in an FPS game for it to become a blockbuster. I blame the players (like me) who have come to expect the next big FPS to look gorgeous. And they do, so I don’t feel too bad.
I guess at this point I’ve come to some conclusions. How important are graphics to have a highly successful game? Very important. The graphics must meet or exceed the standards within the game’s genre, and the only way to make up for sub-par graphics is with incredibly compelling gameplay. The graphics must also be appropriate for the game itself. Bright and cartoony graphics are appropriate for a lighthearted adventure, black and white movie style graphics are appropriate in some settings, etc. You can get away with less visually impressive graphics in some genres, such as city builders and sim type games, since they aren’t as important in the scope of things to actual gameplay.
Is there a universal measure of what good graphics are anyway? Yes and no. Good or, more appropriately, great graphics are only great if they are better than what people have seen or are used to in a similar game. There have been times when I’ve seen screenshots for an upcoming game and been pretty well blown away, even though I knew the game was years down the line. Then, when that game came out, it was no longer the cream of the crop in terms of gaming as a whole, and may have only been average or slightly above average when compared to other similar games. As long as a game’s graphics are appropriate for the game type/style/mood/flavor and meet the expectations of players, all you have to do is make a great game for it to be successful. Easy, isn’t it?
As long as it?s well done on not full of eyesores. Graphics can be cell animation, fully-fledged eye candy or even stick figures, as long as it?s well done and fits.
All too often I see crap graphics and wonder why they just didn?t aim to do something easier, something in a different style, but just not crap.
For me graphics are imporant. Music and background sounds as well. But on the other hand, while a game’s nice atmospheric outfit might initially attract new players, it cannot make up for badly designed game mechanics or lacking variety of ingame activities on the long run.
Some years ago I purchased Lineage 2 only after watching ingame videos and screenshots (no trial available). And its graphics and music it were very very fine and atmospheric. But the actual game was not so attractive and I cancelled my account after 6 months. Good graphics couldn’t do anything about it.
Then I tested the US open beta of WoW. Graphics were rather mediocre, not so much the overly colcourful landscapes, but nore the lack of polygones spend at the particular items: having to see eight-edged tree stems in the forest and eight-edged wheels of dwarven machinery was rather distracting for me. Nevertheless, the game itself was quite more interesting than L2.
I didn’t subscribe though, as I then already had myself dug into EVE Online, which has both very nice graphics and an unparallelled rich amount of ingame activities and complex game mechanics, that prevents it from becoming boring. I still play it after nearly two years.
We need to refine what we mean by “good (or great) graphics”. For example, Dyardawen above says,
[WoW's g]raphics were rather mediocre, not so much the overly colcourful landscapes, but nore the lack of polygones spend at the particular items: having to see eight-edged tree stems in the forest and eight-edged wheels of dwarven machinery was rather distracting for me.
Yes, some of WoW’s common models might have been low-poly, but the trees were simple so that they could put more of them in a scene without going over the polygon budget. Also, most of the textures in the game have a significant amount of detail. In addition, WoW used some hardware effects with tremendous results. So, it’s important to keep in mind that graphics aren’t a simple boolean measure (good/not good), but that there are many different pieces of the puzzle here. WoW had very appealing graphics, even if a few of the models weren’t cutting-edge.
Let me give a great example of how appealing the graphics in WoW were at launch. One of the most interesting things to happen here was that Nick Yee, a noted online game researcher, put up a gallery of WoW screenshots on his site. Why? Not because he was researching anything, but because he thought everything was so damned pretty. You’ll notice a lot of those screenshots are pretty ordinary, views of docks or of a griffon’s head: it was just the graphical “wow” (pun intended, perhaps?) that drew the attention, not anything dealing with gameplay.
The trick here is to realize the true role of graphics. Appealing graphics attract people to the game: WoW got a lot of attention because people were posting up screenshots. Yet, I’m sure there are few people still playing the game due to graphics. “I hate the gameplay, I have no friends, but these graphics are enough to keep me here!” Yeah, I don’t imagine many people saying anything like that, either.
But, I think this is why people say, “graphics don’t matter” even though they do for most people, even ones that say that. After you play a game a while you don’t care about the graphics. You get desensitized to the “pretty”, and you don’t feel like filling up a gallery full of screenshots of “ordinary” stuff. Yet, when you’re trying out something new, graphics are a factor. If they aren’t up to snuff, most people will immediately have a bias against the game, no matter how fun the game is. This is why you still have people playing “classic” games enthusiastically, while few new people can get past the initial poor impression.
Some insight.
Psychochild: Yet, when you?re trying out something new, graphics are a factor. If they aren?t up to snuff, most people will immediately have a bias against the game, no matter how fun the game is. (end of quote)
Yes, that’s true. Nice graphics are good for the first look and to attract new players. And bad gfx does the opposite, regardless how well designed the game might be in game mechanics and in-game activities.
And for the WoW graphics: that is true as well: the WoW landscape has been designed with much love and detail, cities and villages look very nice. But the too-low-polygon issue is clearly existing. It wouldn’t stop me from subscribing though, if I would be a friend of endless level grinding that the usual MMOG mainly consist of
For most people, say 90%, looks are more important than game play. This is why the web took off in ways newsgroups never did. The web is a visual medium and humans have a strong bias towards visual stimulation. This is why the web shifted from mostly text to gaudy nightmares with next to no content.
It is the same with games. People are attracted to the games with better graphics. They are also attracted to games with the sexier girls on the box but that is a different story. There are still some people out there that prefer substance over style and appreciate the occational game that has good game play but poor graphics. Unfortunately, such people don’t congregate in large enougth numbers to keep programmers making games with good game play but not necesarily good graphics employed.
I would argue that a website like this, which has a low graphics to content ratio, would attract more of the latter, hence why we would hear how graphics aren’t important here but if we applied it in the real world it would fall flat on its face.
My only issue when it comes to graphics is the insistance of many game companies to truly “push the envelope”. The result of design graphics to be “good” on the latest hardware is that they usually look crappy on last year’s hardware. So many games come out with a “required” and a “recommended” spec, where recommended means the game will be “okay”, if you exceed recommended the game will be good or great, and if you just have the required, the game will border on unplayable.
Either companies need to reign in their designers and artists to actually meet the game box specifications, or their marketing teams need to stop trying to bilk consumers by using specifications that don’t fit reality.
To me, WoW looks better than EQ2. The world just fits together better, and if you have the “required” system or better, most people’s experience will be pretty graphically similar. EQ2, on the other hand, you have to have a system that exceeds the “recommended” specs for it to look decent. If you are down at the required spec, the game looks awful. And there is a huge difference in a game that is designed for the low end, and a game that is design for higher but can be “tuned down” to the low end.
I am one of those people who usually calls for “less graphics” mostly because of this disparity, and because there are a great number of pretty but empty games where the game looks good, has a great feature list, but the execution of those features leaves alot to be desired.
The graphics need to be right for the mood of the game. Mood is the all-important hit here – remember XIII with the cartoon-sequence graphics an that SIN CITY-style noir? Dead easy, not cutting edge, worked perfectly.
WoW is a fairly happy upbeat game – the graphics demonstrate it perfectly.
EQ2 doesn’t seem to know how it wants to “feel” which may be why some people (mentioning no Penny Arcades) seem to have issues with it.
You don’t have to make everything more gorgeous than the game before. You DO have to know what you’re making and know how you need it to feel.
s graphics are appropriate for the game type/style/mood/flavor and meet the expectations of players, all you have to do is make a great game for it to be successful. Easy, isn’t it? posted by Ryan Shwayder @ 6:53 pm Comments Off
[...] Grouchy Gnome posted on a topic that’s currently dear to my heart … the importance of graphics in games. I too, have said, “I don’t care if graphics are crap.? Game play is more important.” Often said … but almost certainly not true. [...]
You know… I once said graphics didn’t matter. That statement lead me to try Asheron’s Call in 2004. I kept hearing about how beloved that game was by the people who played it.
Guess what? Graphics mattered. It was horribly outdated and a big turnoff. Oh, I supposed I could have lived with them, and they weren’t the sole reason I didn’t make it past the first month (the disjointed combat mechanics were the primary failing point to me) but they sure did contribute to its fast exit from my hard drive.
Graphics do matter. A lot. Just read the message boards and sift through the number of posts of players wanting to know if there will be capes, or custom emblams, or pointy wizard hats, or neat armor, etc. Graphics are huge, no doubt.
[...] Over at Nerfbat, Blackguard has posted about the need for good graphics in games and its gotten me thinking… [...]
While I agree that good graphics do pull new people in and lure them as it were to the game. I will have to agree with “Jason” (above) as well. I, as well as many of my online friends I played first EQ for 4 years and then EQ2 now for well over a year, am disabled, and so cannot always afford to have the latest, best high end hardware. I have a 2GB AMD processor, 128 MB GEforce FX5200 Graphics Card, 1.5 GB or RAM (all set in an MSI Motherboard) and I can’t even play in “balanced” graphics mode if I am solo, and if I get in a group I have to start turning down graphics or I start lagging so bad that I can’t do my job as a tank unless I do.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the game, my guild is like family, I like the quests, storylines and other content, but My system is above the required specs the game suggested, and I say the specs are nowhere NEAR the truth.
When does good graphics become … “Too much”? Yes graphics draws people in, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing… The graphics, I feel, should match the hardware of what the majority of the customers are using, and I know that EQ2 in particular scans my system regularly to see what hardware I use. I have a lot of friends in EQ2 and from what I have witnessed, it is a minority of the players that have a system that can handle the full graphics, I mean I would LOVE to be able to play in “pretty mode” as I call it, (max graphics), lol, but my frame rate goes to a frame like every five seconds if I turn em all the way up.
Sorry to ramble, anyways, Nice graphics are good to a point, then they become bad, when they lag a computer and effect gameplay, they are bad, no matter how good they look.
I think the answer is a question: How good is the immersion?
I didn’t play WoW for the longest time, until one of our team left and joined Blizzard. The graphics look terrible in screenshots. Cartoony, low-detail and icky. EQ2, on the other hand, makes breathtaking screenshots.
I played WoW for about 3-4 months until the end of last year. Then I returned to EQ2. But honestly, I felt more connected to the game world in WoW than I do in EQ2 in many zones unless I turn down the graphics options. The extra level of detail makes certain incongruities stand out.
The eye is very good at providing detail that isn’t there, but its not so quick to correct detail that is there. We think it is because you can spend an hour looking at your desk and not see your keys. But that’s because you didn’t look at them. But when you’re looking at a screen things tend to get looked at. So you see the anomalies.
Some time after I’d started adventuring in Ro (which filled me with quivers of delight harkening back to my first explorations of Ro back in ’99) and Maj’Dul, I’d turned down the graphics to “High performance”, and I remember at one point genuinely standing there trying to figure out how to get from here to “that other zone”. Doh, that’s Astranar, in WoW dummy.
As an outsider, I’ve been guessing since beta that the decision to build longevity into all of the graphics in EQ2 has proven to be extremely expensive. EQ2 seems to have an “attention to minutae” like making sure that a table surface looks rough and hewn, where WoW’s approach allows them to have attention to detail – the table will look crude but it’ll have a stein on it, and a place mat, and maybe a fork and knife, a plate with grapes on. The EQ2 table might have a scroll or a candle.
So I guess the second question is: Does your budget allow for both exquisite detail and variety and novelty? EQ2 has a handful of different shield appearances. If you turn the graphics up to Extreme, they have minute details that distinguish them, but if you run in any of the medium-low settings they all look exactly alike.
I agree with EQ2ShadowKnight… If you are a player that graphics matter so much to you, on any PC game in order to play ANY game that would meet your graphical “needs” you would need to drop a good 500 dollars every year to stay on top of these new graphical breakthroughs… like take for instance.. when eq 2 first came out.. how many people you think could play the game with MAX graphics? (you know..like the beautiful screen shots that made your mouth water).. not many… so im sure alot of the first people to play eq, werent really playing the best looking game ever.. maybe with consoles you can base alot on graphics because every console is the same, meaning if one game on the console is awsome..there is NO reason but the companys lazyness when another game cant look just as beautiful…..
Anyone ever heard of Daggerfall? Old school elder scrolls game?…. I first played that game in like 98… when polygons were the way to go.. and it didnt stop me from enjoying it.. Ultima Online still has a fan base and those graphics are litteraly OFFENSIVE to me… never playd it..but im sure it has to be nice for people to still pay for expansions and play it…
There is a big difference between graphics quality and visual appearance. And, provided I enjoy the visual appearance of a game, graphics quality is a moot point. One thing I personally hate, is 2D models in a 3D world. This is essentially a flat panel model, that gives depth from a side view, but is a line across your screen when looked at directly. No matter how it is cut, it looks like crap to me.
Now, the easiest way to split up my feelings on the subject would be to give a few examples:
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: I picked up Oblivion shortly after it went live. The graphics were great, but visually, they were lacking for me. Nothing really appealed to me. Which is why Oblivion is sitting re-packaged on top of my bureau.
Asheron’s Call: I picked up Asheron’s Call while I was still playing Meridian 59 and Ultima Online. I had a chance to beta test the game and the graphics quality was a little below par for the time. On the flipside, I really enjoyed the community, gameplay and visual appearance of Dereth. These are the biggest reasons why I still play Asheron’s Call today, even though it’s graphics are horribly outdated. I even prefer the old-style graphics, pre the Turbine graphics update.
Starsiege: Tribes: When people were playing Quake, Counter-Strike and DOOM, I was playing Tribes. Some of the guys over at Dynamix got me hooked on the game when it was released and after eight years, I still enjoy a good sitdown session of the game. Since it’s initial release, it has survived the launch of two more additions to the series: Tribes 2 and Tribes: Vengeance. By gameplay comparison, the sequels got worse, even though each one had superior graphics quality over it’s predecessor.
Even now, I don’t mind going back and playing DOS and NES games. I can enjoy playing Terminal Velocity or Legend of Zelda, just as much as I would enjoy playing FarCry. Which of course brings me to the conclusion that when making a game, everything matters a little bit. Each person varies and while some may enjoy top of the line graphics, others may enjoy older games, with gameplay they consider much better.
The two games I mentioned having outdated graphics, originally enticed me when their graphics were considered to be okay. I think provided with graphics within the range of current standards, which I consider to be around Battlefield: 1942 quality, and decent gameplay, any game could succeed with proper development.
Haha, Septa Scarabae, I LOVE to play the old Legend of Zelda games, tho ‘link to the past’ was my favorite. I have actually been playing several of my old NES and SNES favorites of late via Emulator on my computer, the “Breath of Fire” series was awesome too.
Heh, there I go rambling again, I guess the point is that you can have a lasting, enjoyable game that people come back to over and over again, but it takes more than just graphics, it takes great story, great game play, be user friendly and console/computer friendly, the biggest turn off for me with a MMO is if it is a hardware hog. I stated what my system consisted of in the previous post so won’t repeat that, it is just when a game’s graphics start interfering with gameplay (primarily lag) then it is too much.
If MMOs would run a survey and ask the players what graphics setting they have to play on to play the game, I think they will find out that the majority of the players aren’t seeing the uber graphics anyways, because they can’t play on the higher settings.
A bit late for a follow up, but I agree. A lot of the players I played with in Asheron’s Call 2: Fallen Kings actually played on the lowest graphics settings. The lowest settings to me, looked awful, so I didn’t join them, but took a small hit to performance. Most people prefer performance, and with the older games with outdated graphics, that is what they get. Except at a price they can afford and with more attention paid to gameplay.