To a point. I think, however, as the technology increases and gets better, the trend towards realism will overpower. Consider: as assets get more and more com

To a point. I think, however, as the technology increases and gets better, the trend towards realism will overpower. Consider: as assets get more and more complex, the uniqueness of an individual asset will actually decrease. I can easily point out the difference between a tree in the witness and mario 64, because they're both low poly games that do their own thing _instead_ of emulating the real world. If, instead, you ask me to differentiate between a tree in skyrim and one in the last of us, well, they both just look like trees. At this stage, what matters is the visual aesthetic that you're able to create with lighting, with combination of different assets. Whether you happened to make an individual asset yourself will matter increasingly less as time goes on.