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I think this blog post only applies to simplistic time-sink videogames designed to seamlessly fit between the finely oiled cogs of capitalism. Anything story-d

I think this blog post only applies to simplistic time-sink videogames designed to seamlessly fit between the finely oiled cogs of capitalism. Anything story-driven and/or single-player with even a pretense of artistic integrity should stay as far away from wasting man-hours behind optimizing the graphics, UI and general aesthetic to please the h.264 overlords.

vorpalhex 4y ago
Lots of streamers stream single player games and many fans consume those games purely via stream. Some of those viewers may have accessibility needs. All of them benefit from clear text on text heavy games.
- AstixAndBelix 4y ago
  This sounds like PR speak. Games are meant to be played, optimizing for watching should be at the bottom of any developer's to-do list. Some minor quirks with noise or the UI are not enough to justify pouring God knows how many hours to create alternative viewing modes and rendering options. Streaming optimization is missing the forest for the trees, namely that in a world with better internet connections not only would streaming quality be solved but also every other problem with slow internet would be too
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    It's easier to disable an effect (it's usually an engine boolean) than it is to run hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber optic cable. We can disable an effect in a patch cycle - and meaningfully improve accessibility for players. Literally millions of people watch streamers play games. There are, at the time of me writing this comment, 4,800,000 people watching twitch right now (according to TwitchTracker) - that excludes Youtube Live, Facebook Live, Steam, etc. Many games (Five nights at Freddy's, Minecraft, Fall Guys) owe their extreme popularity to streamers. The issues here apply even to recordings of your game. If you are ignoring streamers, you are ignoring a major part of your base, and an extremely public part of your base at that. You're also actively telling your players who need accessibility tools that you don't value them enough to invest some time over basic settings tweaks (that you should probably have anyways...).
  - joseda-hg 4y ago
    There's plenty of games I've enjoyed exclusively via streaming Like TloU (Both) or Some Assasins Creed Games I did eventually buy most of those games, and maybe in a future I shall play them, but in the mean time they got a sale out of me, and to care more for future releases (Or even merchandise)
    - AstixAndBelix 4y ago
      And did you give a single thought about some occasional video compression artifacts?
      - joseda-hg 4y ago
        Not really, Maybe on Dark scenes or particle heavy enviroments, which being fair, are a bit more common on history driven games But, considering the lengths most streamers go to have everything on ultra because more quality really doesn't really hurt either, it doesn't seem like it'd be an unwelcome change I'd love some of the things sugested here, like a separate stream so text doesn't get lost to compression or changes like that
brucethemoose2 4y ago
I dont think grain is central to the "artistic integrity" of a game. I turn it off in every Mass Effect run with zero regrets. And games look better if other high frequency effects, like texture shimmering or shadow flicker, are denoised away.

vorpalhex 4y ago

Lots of streamers stream single player games and many fans consume those games purely via stream. Some of those viewers may have accessibility needs. All of them benefit from clear text on text heavy games.

AstixAndBelix 4y ago
This sounds like PR speak. Games are meant to be played, optimizing for watching should be at the bottom of any developer's to-do list. Some minor quirks with noise or the UI are not enough to justify pouring God knows how many hours to create alternative viewing modes and rendering options. Streaming optimization is missing the forest for the trees, namely that in a world with better internet connections not only would streaming quality be solved but also every other problem with slow internet would be too
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  It's easier to disable an effect (it's usually an engine boolean) than it is to run hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber optic cable. We can disable an effect in a patch cycle - and meaningfully improve accessibility for players. Literally millions of people watch streamers play games. There are, at the time of me writing this comment, 4,800,000 people watching twitch right now (according to TwitchTracker) - that excludes Youtube Live, Facebook Live, Steam, etc. Many games (Five nights at Freddy's, Minecraft, Fall Guys) owe their extreme popularity to streamers. The issues here apply even to recordings of your game. If you are ignoring streamers, you are ignoring a major part of your base, and an extremely public part of your base at that. You're also actively telling your players who need accessibility tools that you don't value them enough to invest some time over basic settings tweaks (that you should probably have anyways...).
- joseda-hg 4y ago
  There's plenty of games I've enjoyed exclusively via streaming Like TloU (Both) or Some Assasins Creed Games I did eventually buy most of those games, and maybe in a future I shall play them, but in the mean time they got a sale out of me, and to care more for future releases (Or even merchandise)
  - AstixAndBelix 4y ago
    And did you give a single thought about some occasional video compression artifacts?
    - joseda-hg 4y ago
      Not really, Maybe on Dark scenes or particle heavy enviroments, which being fair, are a bit more common on history driven games But, considering the lengths most streamers go to have everything on ultra because more quality really doesn't really hurt either, it doesn't seem like it'd be an unwelcome change I'd love some of the things sugested here, like a separate stream so text doesn't get lost to compression or changes like that

brucethemoose2 4y ago

I dont think grain is central to the "artistic integrity" of a game. I turn it off in every Mass Effect run with zero regrets. And games look better if other high frequency effects, like texture shimmering or shadow flicker, are denoised away.