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>aren't enough to deliver smooth immersive graphics I'm just not sold. Do I really think that BG3 being slightly prettier than, say, Dragon Age / Skyrim / etc

>aren't enough to deliver smooth immersive graphics I'm just not sold. Do I really think that BG3 being slightly prettier than, say, Dragon Age / Skyrim / etc made it a more enticing game? Not to me certainly. Was cyberpunk prettier than Witcher 3? Did it need to be for me to play it? My query isn't about whether you can get people to upgrade to play new stuff (always true). But whether they'd still upgrade if they could play on the old console with worse graphics. I also don't think anyone is going to suddenly start playing video games because the graphics improve further.

keyringlight 1y ago
Two aspects I keep thinking about: -How difficult it must be for the art/technical teams at game studios to figure out for all the detail they are capable of putting on screen how much of it will be appreciated by gamers. Essentially making sure that anything they're going to be budgeting significant amount of worker time to creating, gamers aren't going to run right past it and ignore or doesn't contribute meaningfully to 'more than the sum of its parts'. -As much as technology is an enabler for art, alongside the install base issue how well does pursuing new methods fit how their studio is used to working, and is the payoff there if they spend time adapting. A lot of gaming business is about shipping product, and the studios concern is primarily about getting content to gamers than chasing tech as that is what lets their business continue, selling GPUs/consoles is another company's business.
rafaelmn 1y ago
> Do I really think that BG3 being slightly prettier than, say, Dragon Age / Skyrim / etc made it a more enticing game? Absolutely - graphical improvements make the game more immersive for me and I don't want to go back and replay the games I spent hundreds of hours in mid two thousands, like say NVN or Icewind Dale (never played BG 2). It's just not the same feeling now that I've played games with incomparable graphics, polished mechanics and movie level voice acting/mocap cutscenes. I even picked up Mass Effect recently out of nostalgia but gave up fast because it just isn't as captivating as it was back when it was peak graphics.
- adlpz 1y ago
  Well this goes to show that, as some other commenter said, the gamer community (whatever that is) is indeed very fragmented. I routinely re-play games like Diablo 2 or BG1/2 and I couldn't care less about graphics, voice acting or motion capture.
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  > Absolutely - graphical improvements make the game more immersive for me Exactly. Graphics are not the end all be all for assessing games, but it’s odd how quickly people handwave away graphics in a visual medium.
  - kbolino 1y ago
    Maximal "realism" is neither the only nor even necessarily the best use of that medium.
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      When did I say anything like that? When did anybody in this thread?
      - kbolino 1y ago
        I don't know what these words mean to you vs. what they mean to me. But whatever you call the visual quality that Baldur's Gate 3, CyberPunk 2077, and most flagship AAA titles, etc. are chasing after that makes them have "better graphics" and be "more immersive", whatever that is, is not the only way to paint the medium. Very successful games are still being made that use sprites, low-res polygons, cel shading, etc. While these techniques still can run into hardware limits, they generally don't benefit from the sort of improvements (and that word is becoming ever more debatable with things like AI frame generation) that make for better looking [whatever that quality is called] games.
        Forgeties79 1y ago

keyringlight 1y ago

Two aspects I keep thinking about: -How difficult it must be for the art/technical teams at game studios to figure out for all the detail they are capable of putting on screen how much of it will be appreciated by gamers. Essentially making sure that anything they're going to be budgeting significant amount of worker time to creating, gamers aren't going to run right past it and ignore or doesn't contribute meaningfully to 'more than the sum of its parts'. -As much as technology is an enabler for art, alongside the install base issue how well does pursuing new methods fit how their studio is used to working, and is the payoff there if they spend time adapting. A lot of gaming business is about shipping product, and the studios concern is primarily about getting content to gamers than chasing tech as that is what lets their business continue, selling GPUs/consoles is another company's business.

rafaelmn 1y ago

> Do I really think that BG3 being slightly prettier than, say, Dragon Age / Skyrim / etc made it a more enticing game? Absolutely - graphical improvements make the game more immersive for me and I don't want to go back and replay the games I spent hundreds of hours in mid two thousands, like say NVN or Icewind Dale (never played BG 2). It's just not the same feeling now that I've played games with incomparable graphics, polished mechanics and movie level voice acting/mocap cutscenes. I even picked up Mass Effect recently out of nostalgia but gave up fast because it just isn't as captivating as it was back when it was peak graphics.

adlpz 1y ago
Well this goes to show that, as some other commenter said, the gamer community (whatever that is) is indeed very fragmented. I routinely re-play games like Diablo 2 or BG1/2 and I couldn't care less about graphics, voice acting or motion capture.
Forgeties79 1y ago
> Absolutely - graphical improvements make the game more immersive for me Exactly. Graphics are not the end all be all for assessing games, but it’s odd how quickly people handwave away graphics in a visual medium.
- kbolino 1y ago
  Maximal "realism" is neither the only nor even necessarily the best use of that medium.
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    When did I say anything like that? When did anybody in this thread?
    - kbolino 1y ago
      I don't know what these words mean to you vs. what they mean to me. But whatever you call the visual quality that Baldur's Gate 3, CyberPunk 2077, and most flagship AAA titles, etc. are chasing after that makes them have "better graphics" and be "more immersive", whatever that is, is not the only way to paint the medium. Very successful games are still being made that use sprites, low-res polygons, cel shading, etc. While these techniques still can run into hardware limits, they generally don't benefit from the sort of improvements (and that word is becoming ever more debatable with things like AI frame generation) that make for better looking [whatever that quality is called] games.
      - Forgeties79 1y ago