It's their fault.
I've been meaning to write this for a long time...but well, here's what I think:
I've been happy with game graphics since the GC days, to me , being an older gamer ( I started playing around 1979 - 1980 at the arcades, games like Asteroids, Frogger, Mario Bros, Amidar were my favorites ) after the humble jump to 3d graphics in the early PSX days, everything that comes with the Dreamcast era and onward is gorgeous looking !
But then we had a major jump to HD TV, now we needed more power and more eye candy to look good on those 1080p displays, therefore a jump in computer / videogames graphics had to be done and it was justified.
With it, of course we had a great increase in development costs as well.
Today, the result is that companies need 100 million budget to produce a AAA game and for very diminishing investment returns.
Seriously, in the 80s you could only dream of such sales figures on our Spectrums and C64s.
But the industry survived because games could be ( and in fact were ) programmed by very small teams of 1 - 4 people, often working from their bed rooms !
Now we have developing teams of 200+ people !
Of course it cost more to develop games !
That leads me to my next point.
I have a fairly decent gaming laptop.
It runs Batman AC, TR, Black Ops 2 and other games of that caliber at 60fps with medium to high settings.
Those games look absolutely gorgeous for me, even though you see a few low res textures here and there, I'm really happy with it.
But developers push for more.
I tried Need for Speed Most Wanted ( 2013 ) and Far cry 3 and I had to lower the graphic quality to the bare minimum in order to achieve a playable frame rate.
Developers make more complex, better looking games. But WHY ??
I mean why can't we settle to a good game engine like Batman AC and keep developing games that look great, play smooth and don't cost so outrageously much to produce ?
My guess is ( other then satisfying you games whores out there
) is to push the industry forward, and sell more hardware.
In fact, I've had this PC for 8 months and I'm already thinking of buying a better one so I can play the latest games at decent speed.
It's a PROFIT DEAL ( stole the line from Pachter ) !!
The industry is greedy and they want you to buy new consoles, new graphic cards, new PCs, so that they can develop even better looking games to justify a price increase ( maybe $60 to $70 ).
Well, I'm glad their strategy is back firing at them and now the industry is at the verge of collapsing.
Like I said, I'm so happy with the level of performance I get out of my PC for 2010 - 2012 games, but why, WHY they need to improve graphics at the cost of gameplay ?
Why can't I be a happy gamer on this PC for the next 4 - 5 years ?
Why they need to spend so much money for games development and then cry over poor sales ( with unrealistic expectations ) and blame it on us , the gamers, because apparently we are all a bunch of pirates and we buy too many used games !
I'm sick and tired of these little games the industry is playing on us, give us some good video games that run well on our PC/PS360s and don't charge us a fortune !
By the way, thanks to kwartel for pointing out that this post should be a Blog !
I've been meaning to write this for a long time...but well, here's what I think:
I've been happy with game graphics since the GC days, to me , being an older gamer ( I started playing around 1979 - 1980 at the arcades, games like Asteroids, Frogger, Mario Bros, Amidar were my favorites ) after the humble jump to 3d graphics in the early PSX days, everything that comes with the Dreamcast era and onward is gorgeous looking !
But then we had a major jump to HD TV, now we needed more power and more eye candy to look good on those 1080p displays, therefore a jump in computer / videogames graphics had to be done and it was justified.
With it, of course we had a great increase in development costs as well.
Today, the result is that companies need 100 million budget to produce a AAA game and for very diminishing investment returns.
Seriously, in the 80s you could only dream of such sales figures on our Spectrums and C64s.
But the industry survived because games could be ( and in fact were ) programmed by very small teams of 1 - 4 people, often working from their bed rooms !
Now we have developing teams of 200+ people !
Of course it cost more to develop games !
That leads me to my next point.
I have a fairly decent gaming laptop.
It runs Batman AC, TR, Black Ops 2 and other games of that caliber at 60fps with medium to high settings.
Those games look absolutely gorgeous for me, even though you see a few low res textures here and there, I'm really happy with it.
But developers push for more.
I tried Need for Speed Most Wanted ( 2013 ) and Far cry 3 and I had to lower the graphic quality to the bare minimum in order to achieve a playable frame rate.
Developers make more complex, better looking games. But WHY ??
I mean why can't we settle to a good game engine like Batman AC and keep developing games that look great, play smooth and don't cost so outrageously much to produce ?
My guess is ( other then satisfying you games whores out there
) is to push the industry forward, and sell more hardware.In fact, I've had this PC for 8 months and I'm already thinking of buying a better one so I can play the latest games at decent speed.
It's a PROFIT DEAL ( stole the line from Pachter ) !!
The industry is greedy and they want you to buy new consoles, new graphic cards, new PCs, so that they can develop even better looking games to justify a price increase ( maybe $60 to $70 ).
Well, I'm glad their strategy is back firing at them and now the industry is at the verge of collapsing.
Like I said, I'm so happy with the level of performance I get out of my PC for 2010 - 2012 games, but why, WHY they need to improve graphics at the cost of gameplay ?
Why can't I be a happy gamer on this PC for the next 4 - 5 years ?
Why they need to spend so much money for games development and then cry over poor sales ( with unrealistic expectations ) and blame it on us , the gamers, because apparently we are all a bunch of pirates and we buy too many used games !
I'm sick and tired of these little games the industry is playing on us, give us some good video games that run well on our PC/PS360s and don't charge us a fortune !
By the way, thanks to kwartel for pointing out that this post should be a Blog
!
