Poll of the Day > Gaming really has not advanced much in the past 10+ years

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://youtu.be/-7o9VHxXTwg

I'm very happy to see Youtube comments agree with me. I thought there was gonna be lots of "Wow the draw distance and graphics are so much more advanced now!"
They both look identical to me. Draw distance is whatever

Arkham Knight had a lot of frame rate issues though.

Wait, WTF
the one with the girl is actually the one that came 7 years after?!? I got bamboozled.
So games can actually look worse. Lmfao

I'm just fine with the visual level we've reached. I think it would be ideal to keep the focus now on improving general performance or possibly innovating in other ways.

keyblader1985 posted...

I'm just fine with the visual level we've reached. I think it would be ideal to keep the focus now on improving general performance or possibly innovating in other ways.

I think we need to develop more unique IPs instead of rehashing the same bs cash cows.

genuinely feels like the only games that come out each year are sequels. I understand giving people what they like but how about taking a risk and creating all new worlds for us to fall in love with like we did with mass effect and bioshock (although you could argue those were semi sequels in themselves)

Problem with gaming is we reached the point where cutting edge technology and techniques are only really achievable with a nice bank roll. Sadly the only companies with that kind of bank roll are ones like Activision, EA, etc that only care about profits.

Graphics are fine. Let's focus on eliminating LOD, pop in, and load times completely.

early 2000s added voice acting as a standard feature... since then i don't think there's been any new universal tech, although VR is getting close

The big difference I'm seeing is style. Arkham Knight clearly has a more interesting city with more going on. But in terms of graphical fidelity Gotham Knights looks better in some ways. Kind of just looks like the devs could have done more with it but didn't.

keyblader1985 posted...

I'm just fine with the visual level we've reached. I think it would be ideal to keep the focus now on improving general performance or possibly innovating in other ways.

I feel graphical improvement should be every other Gen. Make better graphics then next generation make bigger better games with the same graphics. Next Gen put even better graphics on that rinse and repeat

keyblader1985 posted...

I'm just fine with the visual level we've reached. I think it would be ideal to keep the focus now on improving general performance or possibly innovating in other ways.

If chess masters can do it, then devs can figure out performance enhancing anal beads for multiplayer games dammit

There's been a lot of "advancements" in the past decade or so.
It's just that most of them are bad changes and anti-consumer. Mostly dealing with monetization schemes to squeeze out every last penny from the customer and intentionally making playing the game normally a boring fucking slog, so you'll want to pay the company money to skip over playing the game. Companies have been VERY innovative on that front!

That's why gaming sucks today.

Gotham Knights is getting pretty panned I think, it's not a good example. It does seem like this kind of thing is more common, but that could just be because game discussion is so omnipresent now. One thing that's definitely real and doesn't help though is that developers have gotten way too liberal about using patches to fix clearly unready games instead of just obscure or minor bugs.

Gaming in general is fine imo. Every time one of these topics come up people talk about practices from shitty games like CoD and Ass Creed and act like that's the entire industry (those games do sell a ton tho)

dud posted...

Gotham Knights is getting pretty panned I think, it's not a good example. It does seem like this kind of thing is more common, but that could just be because game discussion is so omnipresent now. One thing that's definitely real and doesn't help though is that developers have gotten way too liberal about using patches to fix clearly unready games instead of just obscure or minor bugs.

Gaming in general is fine imo. Every time one of these topics come up people talk about practices from shitty games like CoD and Ass Creed and act like that's the entire industry (those games do sell a ton tho)

I think that's more the executives than anything else. They just want to meet their original launch dates when it would be better to just wait.

We've kind of reached the point where games aren't really limited by tech anymore and are more limited by how much money you're willing to throw into the development cycle. Gone are the days where a developer has to rely on some fancy tricks to fully push the hardware to its limits.

Generally speaking, in the modern era, most companies are far more constrained by their budget than their platform.

Sad that the most innovative gaming move in the last decade was something as braindead as battle royale.
I still maintain that gaming peaked with whatever generation was the ps2

Sufferedphoneix posted...

I feel graphical improvement should be every other Gen. Make better graphics then next generation make bigger better games with the same graphics. Next Gen put even better graphics on that rinse and repeat

Better idea, stop pinning improvement to console generations. Improve games alongside PC hardware. I demand freedom from console oppression.

jiffdiff posted...

Better idea, stop pinning improvement to console generations. Improve games alongside PC hardware. I demand freedom from console oppression.

Not gonna happen. Majority will always prefer the convenience of a console.

jiffdiff posted...

Better idea, stop pinning improvement to console generations. Improve games alongside PC hardware. I demand freedom from console oppression.

Nobody can afford upgrading a PC every time a new game is released.

The past 10 years have seen a huge rise in indie games, fueled largely by digital distribution platforms that allow small scale titles to sell without publisher support. Stuff like Undertale, The Stanley Parable and Vampire Survivors wouldn't have existed in previous generations.

Ferarri619 posted...

Wait, WTF
the one with the girl is actually the one that came 7 years after?!? I got bamboozled.
So games can actually look worse. Lmfao

i mean sure if you literally just pick two random games

Past 10 years have been the best 10 years of gaming to me so its advanced perfectly fine for me.

Sufferedphoneix posted...

Not gonna happen. Majority will always prefer the convenience of a console.

They can still have that, they'll just be running it on low settings while I'm playing it as it's meant to be played. Don't gimp my experience because their hardware can't keep up.

Revelation34 posted...

Nobody can afford upgrading a PC every time a new game is released.

Good thing PC games let you toggle graphical fidelity settings.

jiffdiff posted...

They can still have that, they'll just be running it on low settings while I'm playing it as it's meant to be played. Don't gimp my experience because their hardware can't keep up.

Generally speaking, developing with a minority of potential players in mind is a bad idea for anyone operating with a large enough budget to actually take full advantage of what top-end hardware can do. Even if PC's were to completely replace consoles, the vast majority of games would still be designed around the kind of hardware the average player will have, with very few bothering to design high settings that need hardware very few people have.

adjl posted...

Generally speaking, developing with a minority of potential players in mind is a bad idea for anyone operating with a large enough budget to actually take full advantage of what top-end hardware can do. Even if PC's were to completely replace consoles, the vast majority of games would still be designed around the kind of hardware the average player will have, with very few bothering to design high settings that need hardware very few people have.

True, but on the other hand, fuck consoles for making my games stagnate. Besides, only like 5 people have PS5s at this point and no one wants the new Xbox, surely PC is catching up to next gen ownership.

jiffdiff posted...

True, but on the other hand, f*** consoles for making my games stagnate.

You misunderstand: It's not consoles that do that, it's the inevitable reality that mainstream audiences will never have the cutting-edge hardware needed to push the boundaries of how technically demanding games can be. Those developers that actually want to push those boundaries despite the risk of alienating some consumers/platforms already do, because the high-end market is as large now as it will ever be. There's just no money in taking it any further, as much as I'm sure you'd love to find a justification for spending as much as you did on your PC.

There's also the simple fact that making games that can push PC hardware to the limit is expensive. That means you don't do it unless you either expect to sell many copies (which means catering to mainstream hardware) or expect to be able to generate significant post-purchase revenue (which many of the self-styled "hardcore gamers" that invest heavily in their gaming rigs are averse to).

jiffdiff posted...

They can still have that, they'll just be running it on low settings while I'm playing it as it's meant to be played. Don't gimp my experience because their hardware can't keep up.

Good thing PC games let you toggle graphical fidelity settings.

Having to toggle settings means not pushing boundaries.

Revelation34 posted...

Having to toggle settings means not pushing boundaries.

????????

ReturnOfFa posted...

????????

His point was developers should develop games for modern technology which always changes too fast. So toggling settings sis against that idea.

"10+" could mean 40 years.

games have certainly advanced since then

Revelation34 posted...

His point was developers should develop games for modern technology which always changes too fast. So toggling settings sis against that idea.

toggling settings is just...toggling settings. it isn't 'against' the idea of developing a game for a specific technology. if everything was developed for the latest and greatest GPU/CPU, nobody could play it.

why not push boundaries by making all the graphical settings look really great even between low/medium/high?

Revelation34 posted...

Having to toggle settings means not pushing boundaries.

Pushing boundaries is something the game does whether you personally are able to take advantage of it or not. If you have to toggle settings, it just means the game has pushed past your personal boundary.

jiffdiff posted...

True, but on the other hand, fuck consoles for making my games stagnate. Besides, only like 5 people have PS5s at this point and no one wants the new Xbox, surely PC is catching up to next gen ownership.

I mean I love PC gaming and all but it arguably peaked in 2000 with Thief 2 and Deus Ex. After that it just became "Look how pretty my game looks compared to the console version!" Sure, there was some of that beforehand, but games by mid-high end studios no longer were developed with the PC in mind after that. PC games got simplified so they could easily be played on consoles, and console games became more and more like mid-late 90's PC games.

adjl posted...

Pushing boundaries is something the game does whether you personally are able to take advantage of it or not. If you have to toggle settings, it just means the game has pushed past your personal boundary.

Idk why but it made me think of the time I was watching someone play Oblivion. They had character models set to max but environment on low. Looked horrendous.

Like I'd have to have everything set to the same level or close at least.