6 ms·

The 6x investment needed to move from 16bit to 32bit, in the author's estimation and experience, makes me understand the trend toward 8-bit retro games a little

The 6x investment needed to move from 16bit to 32bit, in the author's estimation and experience, makes me understand the trend toward 8-bit retro games a little better. Even if no modern "8-bit" games are that in anything but name and some graphics only. I've been hoping in vain for a couple years that the trend toward faux "8-bit" would pass as a fad, but it seems to really have become a niche with staying power. Is there something I'm missing that's driving this trend? Or am I alone in preferring line art or other styles over "8-bit" graphics?

tcfunk 9y ago
The curious thing about this is that vector graphics for 2d games is soooo much easier to make than pixel graphics. It scales better, it's easier to animate, and it's easier to edit. Pixel art requires hand-animating each frame of each sprite. Want to change something about the character? You're now changing 20 frames worth of that same something.
- yumaikas 9y ago
  It really depends on how you're displaying those vectors. Depending on the game engine, bitmaps are often much easier to display.
- Narishma 9y ago
  They may be easier to make but I find 2d vector graphics tend to look very bland and generic.
  - virgil_disgr4ce 9y ago
    My thoughts exactly. It's really hard to get any kind of interesting textures with vector graphics.
- jtolmar 9y ago
  It's been years since I last tried, but I remember vector graphics being much harder to import. Not only do you have to bring in considerations more familiar to 3D like consistent units and origin points, but it's also just not supported by most libraries. Even random tiny game engines that some hobbyist put on github and abandoned support bitmaps.
- davexunit 9y ago
  Personally I really dislike almost all vector art in games and prefer things pixelated. Vector graphics make me think Angry Birds, pixel art makes me think Secret of Mana. SNES era pixel art is my favorite.
- ido 9y ago
  depends on the style, pixel art often doesn't require that many frames per animation (especially at low res). It's also generally a lot harder to find people who can competently animate at all so animation-light style are often preferable.
Jach 9y ago
Gaming is just a much bigger market than a lot of people seem to realize, niches can still be profitable and so you'll just see more and more of those types of games, making it seem like a trend, even if you look at it from an overall market revenue standpoint they're still pretty niche. Like you might think there's a trend for more and more unoriginal sports games, you wonder if they'll ever stop making so many, but even so those only account for ~12% of the market. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/189592/breakdown-of-us-video-game-sales-2009-by-genre/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/189592/breakdown-of-us-v... and broken down slightly http://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/28870/ESA-Report-Best-selling-video-games-and-super-genres-of-2016.aspx http://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/28870/ES...) Plus anything that is cheap to produce that still makes a profit will tend to have more representatives. I doubt I'll ever play any of those anime visual novel 'games' Steam keeps showing to me but sometimes it feels like that's a trend that won't go away, and I have to wonder if I knew an artist whether he and I could make one that would sell if not well, at least generate a bit of extra income even after the cost of the effort. Meanwhile it'd be fun to work on something like Dark Souls but that's not the sort of game you'd want to take on solo or with a tiny team. Similarly there are lots of indie "8-bit" or just "pixel graphics" games I'll never play, but I find that I usually object to them more on gameplay rather than their often lazy art. e.g. sometimes I find something fun like Rabi-Ribi... Meanwhile Cuphead looks like a good game that also has a way different, you might say truly retro, art style but I don't really have an interest in playing it since I've never had a desire for more of that art style plus I feel like I'll just be disappointed it's not Contra 3 in terms of gameplay.
- ido 9y ago
  Additionally something being unprofitable doesn't mean people won't still make loads of it :) My unscientific anecdotal experience with the European game dev scene suggests that the vast majority of indie/small developers are people working on their first game who then go out of business upon release and/or are funded by government funds for "creative media" and the like.
scott_s 9y ago
Yes, I think the trend is driven by, ultimately, digital distribution. I don't think we would have independent developers without digital distribution. It allows small developers and publishers to create games with a smaller scope than AAA games, and to sell them for less. I think this is allowed because of the reduced logistics of digital distribution versus physical. But smaller scope will also mean smaller teams - sometimes even just one or two developers. A sprite-based, retro-ish game is much more realistic for a handful of developers to finish in a reasonable time. Personally, I greatly enjoy the graphics that tend more to the 16-bit, SNES era
- ido 9y ago
  SNES-era (relatively) high-res pixel art is where it starts getting not actually cheaper/easier to produce than just 'normal' 2d art made in photoshop at native resolution. That's why you mostly see 8-bit/early 16-bit style pixel art.
jtolmar 9y ago
Pixel art has a ton of advantages: * It's cheap. It takes as much talent to make great pixel art as anything, but it takes less time to do than most styles. Some cartoon vector styles or voxel styles could compete here. * Passable pixel art is relatively easy. A team with mediocre art skills can still do something okay this way. And even a team with a great artist can get away with letting the programmer draw some objects. * It's a well-defined aesthetic. A lot of the work of art is defining an art direction for the project. Some pixel art games have great art direction, but most get away with looking roughly like Final Fantasy 4. Only photorealism does better at being pre-defined. * It's already accepted. If you go for a non-traditional low-fi aesthetic, even if it is artistically stunning, some people will see a low resolution or low polycount and say the graphics are bad. * The toolchains exist. You can build cool artistic styles around a novel way of rendering things like making everything out of particles or using triangular pixels. But Photoshop won't draw on a triangular grid. * The artists are already there. You can hire someone who knows pixel art. It's harder to find someone who can draw Cuphead or do good work in a janky one-off tool chain. * It plays well with the medium. Pixels and polygons are the native elements of the way games are rendered. Any minimalist style other than low-res or low-poly is just a simulacra of minimalism: you could draw stick figures, but that requires the same graphical freedom as a high-res game.

tcfunk 9y ago

The curious thing about this is that vector graphics for 2d games is soooo much easier to make than pixel graphics. It scales better, it's easier to animate, and it's easier to edit. Pixel art requires hand-animating each frame of each sprite. Want to change something about the character? You're now changing 20 frames worth of that same something.

yumaikas 9y ago
It really depends on how you're displaying those vectors. Depending on the game engine, bitmaps are often much easier to display.
Narishma 9y ago
They may be easier to make but I find 2d vector graphics tend to look very bland and generic.
- virgil_disgr4ce 9y ago
  My thoughts exactly. It's really hard to get any kind of interesting textures with vector graphics.
jtolmar 9y ago
It's been years since I last tried, but I remember vector graphics being much harder to import. Not only do you have to bring in considerations more familiar to 3D like consistent units and origin points, but it's also just not supported by most libraries. Even random tiny game engines that some hobbyist put on github and abandoned support bitmaps.
davexunit 9y ago
Personally I really dislike almost all vector art in games and prefer things pixelated. Vector graphics make me think Angry Birds, pixel art makes me think Secret of Mana. SNES era pixel art is my favorite.
ido 9y ago
depends on the style, pixel art often doesn't require that many frames per animation (especially at low res). It's also generally a lot harder to find people who can competently animate at all so animation-light style are often preferable.

Jach 9y ago

Gaming is just a much bigger market than a lot of people seem to realize, niches can still be profitable and so you'll just see more and more of those types of games, making it seem like a trend, even if you look at it from an overall market revenue standpoint they're still pretty niche. Like you might think there's a trend for more and more unoriginal sports games, you wonder if they'll ever stop making so many, but even so those only account for ~12% of the market. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/189592/breakdown-of-us-video-game-sales-2009-by-genre/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/189592/breakdown-of-us-v... and broken down slightly http://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/28870/ESA-Report-Best-selling-video-games-and-super-genres-of-2016.aspx http://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/28870/ES...) Plus anything that is cheap to produce that still makes a profit will tend to have more representatives. I doubt I'll ever play any of those anime visual novel 'games' Steam keeps showing to me but sometimes it feels like that's a trend that won't go away, and I have to wonder if I knew an artist whether he and I could make one that would sell if not well, at least generate a bit of extra income even after the cost of the effort. Meanwhile it'd be fun to work on something like Dark Souls but that's not the sort of game you'd want to take on solo or with a tiny team. Similarly there are lots of indie "8-bit" or just "pixel graphics" games I'll never play, but I find that I usually object to them more on gameplay rather than their often lazy art. e.g. sometimes I find something fun like Rabi-Ribi... Meanwhile Cuphead looks like a good game that also has a way different, you might say truly retro, art style but I don't really have an interest in playing it since I've never had a desire for more of that art style plus I feel like I'll just be disappointed it's not Contra 3 in terms of gameplay.

ido 9y ago
Additionally something being unprofitable doesn't mean people won't still make loads of it :) My unscientific anecdotal experience with the European game dev scene suggests that the vast majority of indie/small developers are people working on their first game who then go out of business upon release and/or are funded by government funds for "creative media" and the like.

scott_s 9y ago

Yes, I think the trend is driven by, ultimately, digital distribution. I don't think we would have independent developers without digital distribution. It allows small developers and publishers to create games with a smaller scope than AAA games, and to sell them for less. I think this is allowed because of the reduced logistics of digital distribution versus physical. But smaller scope will also mean smaller teams - sometimes even just one or two developers. A sprite-based, retro-ish game is much more realistic for a handful of developers to finish in a reasonable time. Personally, I greatly enjoy the graphics that tend more to the 16-bit, SNES era

ido 9y ago
SNES-era (relatively) high-res pixel art is where it starts getting not actually cheaper/easier to produce than just 'normal' 2d art made in photoshop at native resolution. That's why you mostly see 8-bit/early 16-bit style pixel art.

jtolmar 9y ago

Pixel art has a ton of advantages: * It's cheap. It takes as much talent to make great pixel art as anything, but it takes less time to do than most styles. Some cartoon vector styles or voxel styles could compete here. * Passable pixel art is relatively easy. A team with mediocre art skills can still do something okay this way. And even a team with a great artist can get away with letting the programmer draw some objects. * It's a well-defined aesthetic. A lot of the work of art is defining an art direction for the project. Some pixel art games have great art direction, but most get away with looking roughly like Final Fantasy 4. Only photorealism does better at being pre-defined. * It's already accepted. If you go for a non-traditional low-fi aesthetic, even if it is artistically stunning, some people will see a low resolution or low polycount and say the graphics are bad. * The toolchains exist. You can build cool artistic styles around a novel way of rendering things like making everything out of particles or using triangular pixels. But Photoshop won't draw on a triangular grid. * The artists are already there. You can hire someone who knows pixel art. It's harder to find someone who can draw Cuphead or do good work in a janky one-off tool chain. * It plays well with the medium. Pixels and polygons are the native elements of the way games are rendered. Any minimalist style other than low-res or low-poly is just a simulacra of minimalism: you could draw stick figures, but that requires the same graphical freedom as a high-res game.