Actually, literal cases the of the reverse pixel tax, while rare, is very visible: When you try to create a game that's technically impressive, or even one that

Actually, literal cases the of the reverse pixel tax, while rare, is very visible: When you try to create a game that's technically impressive, or even one that's not especially so, and you don't have the time or technical chops to back it, you wind up in a bad situation: Assassin's Creed: Unity would have been the mess it was without this, but the attempt to be technically impressive and up the crowds just made the problems worse, and further highlighted the embarassing pop-in, and embarrasing problems prior games never had. Meanwhile, the latest Call of Duty makes a hojillion dollars, still running on a heavily modified Quake 3 engine, with relatively unimpressive graphics for its time. Meanwhile meanwhile, Valve makes another smash hit, still running off of a heavily modified Quake 1 engine.