No one buys games for graphics.

[Launcestonian]

I agree with the OP.
Have hundreds of hrs already racked up on TES V, gave it a rest for a few yrs & returned with about 35 mods added to it (SE edition) & now can't stop playing cause' its too much fun & challenge...
This, with already new games downloaded & waiting on my storage devices for me to play... but no, a 12 year old game with some tasty mods can still kill it with superior gameplay imo & only a few of those mods are for graphics. No wonder the original was as popular & big as it was & still ranks pretty high on the currently playing steam list atm.
TES VI can not come soon enough!

 

[KrazyT]

And now suppose you have my specs (which is only an inch away from absolute fastest a 2023 gaming PC gets, with the most exotic OLED panel you can buy for HDR gaming). Do you still feel that way? Will you really not enjoy the latest generation games with the most advanced graphics around if budget wasn't an issue?

Yes, and I still don't care.
OLED ... HDR gaming ... seriously ?
Is that your definition of gaming ?

You got it right in the first paragraph, using "I". However, you've no business speaking about what anyone else might feel is important.

So no, it's not at all as "simple as that". Very far from it.

And you're right !
I'm sure you're enjoying the lastest AAA games maxed out.

 

[Frick]

Without watching the movies or reading the replies I think a game with only graphics is a movie and not a game, so yeah. People might like good graphics but it's not what makes a game a game.

 

[Belfaborac]

I'm sure you're enjoying the lastest AAA games maxed out.

I'm not even sure which games are triple-A, double-B or anything else; I just buy whatever games I'm pretty sure I want to play.

But yes, I certainly enjoy maxing them out, no matter what they may be.

 

[wolf]

No one buys games for graphics.​

False, I have and do on occasion. Love me some insane graphics, whether going for realism or some out there art style, I am a gfx junkie, unashamedly so.

 

[Jun]

I feel like the push for better graphics hurts interactivity. Not all games but it feels like things are going backwards in that department in most. Some game balance interactivity and graphics really well. Remember in Crysis, trees and buildings would get chewed up by bullets. It complements the graphics and it felt more immersive. It also adds another dimension to the game play where you could sneak around or just blow the camp up. Games by Remedy is a great example. From Max Payne to Control, in those games' objects would goes flying, walls and pillars flaking from your bullets was so fun.

 

[GerKNG]

tbh i only bought cyberpunk because of the graphics. and now phantom liberty because of pathtracing.
the game still sucks tho but it looks so good that i play it only for that reason alone.

otherwise i agree. Gameplay first.

 

[Todestrieb]

I looked at the 2nd post, thought I would have looked at some others' nostalgia racing games or trip of memory lane, and saw a flame. I should have known better.

I'm sure that my dad bought Gran Turismo 2 (along with a few games) just to look at the awesome graphics at its time. But then he got no time to enjoy the gameplay, and I enjoyed too much that I will play once in a while to appreciate how good it was , how good we have gone, and self-imposed challenges like seeing how far I can go with a kei car.

And then I ended up buying games for branding. GT7, FM8, The Crew Motorfest are some actual racing games that I think I will get at least some enjoyments just because of their previous works.
I do feel what they have tried to be a great game, but also fell short due to various reasons (IMO: GT7 for an extremely meh single player content, though I can feel the devs really love cars; FM8 for horrible initial release and 'controversial' gameplay design; time will tell if it's indeed a great game though I appreciate the git gud part of gameplay, Motorfest suffers from VRAM leak that sometimes renders the game a literal slideshow of <5fps even at 1080p, and an overdose of car manufacturer marketing material)
Also, being very heavily addicted to arcade rhythm games which the important gameplay graphics are still 2D for like 25yrs, I'm very sure I don't play games for graphics.

And there goes the pursue of a perfect simcade racing games...

 

[Ruru]

What did you think, it looks better? I don't have the remastered version, but going by a video comparison I thought the remaster looked mostly the same and in some instances worse and again in some instance better.

I recently (about 8 months back) played through Crysis again - still a fun game and still looks good in my opinion. I then played Crysis: Warhead, never played it before, but found it just as much fun as Crysis.

As for the topic, I don't buy for graphics. I buy game that looks interesting for gameplay and story all while hoping that controls are good, too. Graphics, while they can make things look purdy, are not a reason for why I buy a game. I find the recent path tracing to games to be laughable and downright unnecessary. Some people will clearly swear by it, like they do DLSS because they think the game is now better with it enabled, but that's all just a matter of opinion.

I've been enjoying some Dungeon Siege: Legend of Aranna. Sure, it's not flashy in the graphics department, but the game is still fun to play. I'd much rather play that game over something that even makes top end hardware these days cry. I don't need super duper fancy graphics, in fact I used to play games around medium settings back in my GTX 570 SLI days when playing at 5700x1080 days. I liked putting graphics down to enjoy the ultrawide resolution over playing games maxed out on a single 1080p monitor back then.

To be honest, the original looks practically almost as good as the remastered.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

Technically advanced games (not only graphics) are appealing to me, something like Crysis/Half-Life 2/Doom 3 come to mind, the advancement in technology made a change.

More recently BF1 was great, the game looked great, played very well, in hardcore mode it's fantastic.

Now games stupidly add the useless RT that destroys performance for barely improved lighting, while physics, AI, real graphics (textures and geometry) are ignored, Alan Wake 2 while requiring high-end hardware still has pathetic clothes, Horizon Forbidden west has better clothes while being an open world.

 

[Ruru]

Technically advanced games (not only graphics) are appealing to me, something like Crysis/Half-Life 2/Doom 3 come to mind, the advancement in technology made a change.

More recently BF1 was great, the game looked great, played very well, in hardcore mode it's fantastic.

Now games stupidly add the useless RT that destroys performance for barely improved lighting, while physics, AI, real graphics (textures and geometry) are ignored, Alan Wake 2 while requiring high-end hardware still has pathetic clothes, Horizon Forbidden west has better clothes while being an open world.

Don't forget Far Cry! And yeah, BF1 kicks ass, the best in the BF series if you ask me.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I'll never play games that look like minecraft.....

There were several games that got me excited because of the description and when I actually seen the game play, I was turned off immediately because it looked like a modified minecrap.

 

[Calmmo]

I only buy games that don't support HWT&L or pixel shaders because they are evil features that dilute the gaming experience.

 

[P4-630]

I guess I'm just spoiled with games with better graphics, when I was young I played everything....
Standards got higher since then..

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I think the reality is, most people WOULD put a high value on graphical quality in games, IF it didn't require very expensive GPUs and wasn't fraught with performance, stability and other tech problems. So I feel the question therefore isn't really do you like games with high end graphics, it's are you willing to and can you afford to do what it takes to get them?

It's clear to me that gaming hardware tech is like a run away train lately, on pricing and availability. We're also at a point where developers are hard pressed to keep up with it all, especially with greedy publishers breathing down their necks with unrealistic budgets and timelines. I was hoping the unemployment situation settling down post pandemic would help, but global problems seem at an all time high, and inflation remains. People are even to some degree still in a panic state, doing their Christmas shopping in late summer.

It's a wild and weird world anymore, and it can make it hard to make predictions with ANY product, tech, price, or availability wise.

 

[boomstik360]

I mean I do agree, I don't.

But we have a new modern issue... optimization.

Good video.

Ok we can look passed all the visuals, but games are just not really much better than N64, it's not that I am right in an objective sense, it's just the fact I am seeing how much we are regressing gameplay wise.

Forza, it looks amazing in the right conditions and like absolute anus everywhere else all because they wanted RT...

Again though there is no soul to Forza... it lost it.

FM2 is technically inferior not just visually, but it has the fun factor.

GT has also gone the wrong way too.

Technically inferior... massively even.. still way more fun.

Multiplayer games are going downhill fast.

BF is on a big downwards slope due to design and not listening to what people want.

COD is... unfun and braindead.

CS is a cheat fest.

Honestly stuck playing older games because nothing new really is... good


Just an opinion, share yours and talk about the topic.

I love BF2042, they are always updating it seems like. Maybe I’m one of the few! It’s all I want to play these days LOL.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

I disagree, because the premise is flawed. "The Graphics" refers to everything from the underlying tech to the visual style...and there most definitely are games that suck without some basic requirements for graphical fidelity.

Allow me to explain. There are plenty of games whose graphical output is low...and to make-up for it they use things like cell shading. Note that stuff like this is a big deal...because it's how you make a compelling experience while gaming rather than Detroit: Be Human or Heavy Rain. Likewise, there are good games which ascend to being legendary based upon graphics...one coming to mind is Crysis.

That said, I view it as a basic barrier to adoption rather than a feature. A game that sucks you in can often have much less robust systems, and even be pretty mediocre in execution. Think Ico, or even recent diving games (Subnautica) where the scale of enemy leviathans (a visual choice) is what makes a game. I don't think that graphics are the thing that is responsible for defining a good game...but I think they contribute to that definition so substantially that their absence prevents many games and game genres from being good. It's tricky to say...but I disagree with the OP's absolutism. Subjectively, I see the roots...but it's misconstruing a component as not necessary...because the industry is putting the wrong weight to its importance.

 

[Belfaborac]

Very well put.

 

[wolf]

I disagree, because the premise is flawed. "The Graphics" refers to everything from the underlying tech to the visual style.

Spot on, at a fundamental level they must matter, because they are video games. Plus I never can agree with an absolute (only the sith deal in absolutes), and more specifically this notion online where people go "Nobody likes/does XYZ", claiming that is virtually certain to be wrong, because as soon as one person does it/disagrees, it's false.