The Future of Videogame Aesthetics

daniil writes "Here's another look at the 'Realism vs Style' debate. David Hayward, a level designer involved with UT2004 mod Alien Swarm, among others, has written an interesting essay on the aesthetics of videogames, suggesting that, similar to other art forms, the peak of realism in computer games might also be a plateau that acts as precursor to wider experimentation: "We've come a long way since the flint-carved figures of early 3D games, but there's still progress to make before we're producing the game equivalent of sixteenth century marbles. Though it makes for a myopic obsession when compared to the vastness of the picture plane, photo-realism is nonetheless a worthwhile technological achievement to aim for, because it is through this that games will attain the sensation of a lucid dream.""

Selling Gameplay Over Graphics

[Variz]

Perhaps after we reach true photorealism game companies will actually start to sell their products based on good gameplay instead of the latest flashy graphics.

Realism IS a style!

[Crazy Man on Fire]

I'm so sick of this. Style and realism are not opposites. Realism is just one of many visual styles that a game could adopt.

The problem is the fanbase

[Pxtl]

Here's the problem - the people who buy games - lots of games, not just once every few months, are teenaged boys. They're insecure, hormonal, and rather stupid. So, games must market to them.

First of all, they violently object to anything stylized as being "kiddy" and "stupid faggy crap" - witness the reaction to "celda". Second, they don't have very complicated tastes.

Also, as costs go up the game industry will become increasingly risk-averse.

So, the games of the future are $200 million titles that feature photorealistic graphics, voices provided by pop artists, and lots and lots of explosions and tits. Plus, since the market grows up in roughly 8 years (assume they start on hardcore action games at 12, and grow out of them in college when they can chase RL tits and beer) then they don't need to worry about rehashing - it doesn't matter if your gameplay has been done 1000 times, these kids never played the original Doom and all it's ripoffs.

Yay future.

Re:Realism IS a style!

[Junks Jerzey]

I'm so sick of this. Style and realism are not opposites. Realism is just one of many visual styles that a game could adopt.

And just because you choose realism, that doesn't say much about the visual style or flair of your game. The vast majority of photography is realistic, and no one would argue that all photographers have the same style.

Limited Immersion

[SpasticThinker]

Photo-realistic graphics will only go so far toward immersing a player in the game, when those graphics are displayed on a flat screen several feet/inches in front of the gamer's face. Looking at pictures on my computer rarely, if ever, makes me feel like I am in that place where the photo was taken.

The thing that will make games more immersive is holographic technology - when a 3D image can be thrown all around you rather than on a comparatively small rectangle in front of you.

Imersion

[lapagecp]

Photo realism is not the key to imerision and never has been. Games that are truley great make you feel like you are in the game. The characters acomplishments become your own. Its kinda sick when you think of it that way but its true. Anyway the key is in better interfaces. Pressing keys doesn't make me feel like I am in the game. The paddle vibrating is a start but we need to improve on the interface not how it looks. Personally if I could feel like I am walking around in a virtual world then I could live with the graphics as they are today.

Context is key to the need.

[Shivetya]

I look at it this way, if your trying to sell a flight sim, racing sim, or Army-Sim then yet photo realism is going to be a good feature to have.

Yet for games like the "Sims" there isn't a need. The context of the sims isn't emulating real life in the same sense as the other games.

A lot can be said by adapting a style that is not trying to be realistic to create an environment more beneficial to the story you are telling. World of Warcraft is a great example. While many other MMOPRGs tried harder to look more "realistic" WOW went a whole another direction.

The problem with trying to make realistic appearing models is that the little errors of those models become glaring. Half-Life2 has many examples of approaching a realistic setting but having incosistencies that totally blow it. Examples include objects of a type that are not destructible while others of the same type are. MMORPGs suffer more as they have to meet the limitations imposed by lesser machines. This leads to a game that looks great on the high end machines and downright atrocious on lower end machines.

Context should be the deciding factor. Don't do it just because you can.

its not really a dupe

[mixtape5]

Here's another look at the 'Realism vs Style' debate. David Hayward, a level designer involved with UT2004 mod Alien Swarm... I don't see how you guys can call it a dupe when the first sentance clearly states that it is "another look" at the realism vs. style debate. Just because something is on the same subject does not make it a dupe!

What else then??

[tprime]

I will be very glad when photorealism is actually EASILY possible in games. Then, maybe game companies will stop dedicating all of their resources to making their games 'pretty.'

One of the problems that I can see on the horizon is that games will get ALMOST perfect photorealism and start causing nausea when playing. When the brain starts to believe that what it is seeing is real but has problems with certain aspects, angles, reflections or refresh rates, motion sickness like symptoms start to occur. Couple this with larger monitors and TVs that completely occupy your FOV, denying your sense of real world perspective and it gets interesting. Half-Life2 seems to be one of the first mainstream games inwhich this might be starting to occur; the hovercraft level seemed to be particularly troublesome for many.

The Uncanny Valley

[g_adams27]

There's an article (wish I could find it - came from someone in Japan associated with Nintendo maybe?) that pointed out something I found rather interesting: the closer you get to photo-realistic images (especially humans, for example), the more jarring will be the elements of the image that are not human-like.

Take Half-Life 2, for example. It has some of the best renditions of humans I've ever seen in any game. But once you look past that, it becomes glaringly obvious that these characters are still missing something. A character finishes talking to you, then goes into a "trance", staring straight ahead. HL2 tries to fix this by having the character "wobble" a bit to give the illusion of a living, breathing, not-perfectly-motionless human, or by having them turn their heads and look around from time to time. But there's still something... just not quite human about them.

Compare that to Mario in (let's say) Super Mario World. He's obviously human, but drawn and animated in such a whimsical way that you don't find it odd at all that he stands perfectly still, never moves a facial muscle, etc.

This isn't the article I was thinking of, but have a look at the Wikipedia article on The Uncanny Valley [wikipedia.org] if you're interested in more. See also this blog [intelligent-artifice.com] for speculation on why The Incredibles did so well while The Polar Express just creeped people out.

Re:The problem is the fanbase

[Kazzahdrane]

You're correct in a general sense, but I'm an avid gamer AND a teenage "boy" (like to think of myself as a man, but maybe that's the "rather stupid" part) who likes gameplay over graphics. However, far too many gamers who try to distance themselves from the moronic public say "graphics aren't what matters! Gameplay is the only thing that matters to me" Of course, that's until Nintendo shows off a new game trailer with realism as the style (new Zelda for instance)and they go "my god that game looks gorgeous." or I mention Grim Fandango and they say "I tried to play that recently but y'know the graphics..." I hate fanboys. Sorry for the rant, I'm on a course which is about 50% made up of Nintendo fanboys. Back ontopic: we're not all like that and impressed by flashy graphics with no gameplay to back them up. However, just because a game looks great doesn't mean it doesn't have great content behind it. Half-Life 2 was a game I loved to pieces, and also looks beautiful.

Re:Realism IS a style!

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Well, I'm still waiting for a post-modern abstractist style FPS

I know this was meant as a joke, but it really illustrates the lack of innovation in the game industry. They have so many options open to them, yet the exercise so few. I know many people don't feel the same, but gameplay is first for me. The fancy graphics won't win me over if the gamplay isn't there. Innovative gameplay and unique graphics are largely missing from most new games. Sad.

Re:The problem is the fanbase

[SenatorOrrinHatch]

The fanbase is growing up. The reason most average videogamers are young is because they've only existed since the late 70s. My parents have never played more than an hour in their whole lives, combined. But you can rest assured that when my friends and I are sitting in a nursing home 50 years from now, we won't be sitting around wondering why our kids don't call. We'll be playing slow-paced, reflex-insensitive strategy games and vmmorpg's with millions of other oldsters around the world on super broadband.

Re:The problem is the fanbase

[briancarnell]

According to the Entertainment Software Assocation, the average game is age 30, and the average purchaser of games is 37. There are, in fact, more women > 18 who play games than there are young boys 6-17 who do so according to the ESA. Some segments of the video game/computer game industry are clearly geared to teenage boys, but you seem to be relying largely on anecdotes and stereotypes.

That said, your last point is the real problem. What happens to game production costs when photorealism is the standard. Do we reach the point where a game costs as much to produce and develop as a high-end Hollywood production? If so, then we'll likely see the same stagnation and lack of creativity that we see in the film industry.

Except it will be even worse, since technology has actually brought production costs for film and video down while the production costs for video/computer games have skyrocketed. Yes there are still a lot of great independent titles for the PC, but the consoles are pretty stagnant.

Re:Video Games as Reality

[F_Scentura]

If the kid's not grounded in reality, he's going to fall victim to any immersive medium. Better keep him away from television, movies, and literature.

Your anecdotal evidence also doesn't hold true for the majority of the game-playing audience.

Re:Selling Gameplay Over Graphics

[SatanicPuppy]

It doesn't work that way...Look at CGI films. As the technology becomes more widely adopted, the tools become cheaper and more accessable, and everybody starts using them, while the super high-end blockbuster effects types start working on the next generation, which costs a mint today but will be the cheapo standard tomorrow.

So when super real graphics become the standard, the focus will shift away from them. It's simply inevitable.

Reality sucks

[dangitman]

most people try not to see the world with anything approaching realism. We love getting drunk. When we go to parties, we use UV and special FX lighting. People use makeup, fashion and cosmetic surgery to alter their appearance. We like to read magazines about celebrity lives. We like our egos, we like to think we are always right. We like to believe political lies and delusions that make us feel good. We like to think we work much harder than other people. We like to think our nation is the world's best. We like to think that we are super-strong commandos, who can slay an army with only an M-16 and 1337 pwning skillz. We like to think we are badass car thieves struggling against society.

In short, what the fuck to videogames have to do with reality? Aren't they about escapism, just like almost everything else we spend our money on?

The real problem with photorealism

[adam31]

It looks worse. When you see an attempt photo-realism, the mind is faced with a true/false dilemma and focuses on the details that are wrong. When you see good looking stylized environments, the judgement becomes more aesthetic.

This is a large reason why Pixar had such a small screen-time of humans in Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, etc... because humans are really, really honed in to the visual qualities of other humans. If anything looks wrong, an expression, an animation, the skin folding, the hair, cloth, it all looks wrong. Even Geri's Game was very stylized, instead of trying to mimic the photo-realistic visuals of an old man.

Most artists aren't even capable of it (I guess we should call it "video-realism" instead, since the motion is at least as important as the still image). And for the few that are, it takes a long, long time.

How should they reinvent the genre?

[CyricZ]

But how do you want the gameplay "reinvented"? I often hear people request this with respect to games, but they never really seem to be able to pinpoint what specific changes they'd like. Perhaps you can offer some suggestions?

I'm just not sure that there's really any way to reinvent the killing of people and monsters. Unless you want to transition to virtual reality suits and holodecks, there probably isn't much more that could be done. Such games are already in 3D, and thus already at the level of reality. And if they add more environmental/story interaction to the basic DooM-esque theme, you end up with an RPG. Many people play shooters because they don't want the hassle of an RPG storyline.

Re:The real problem with photorealism

[Wiseazz]

I read an article recently (hell, it may have been posted here - I can't remember). It was essentially describing the same thing, only with machines/robots. We tend to attribute human characteristics to simple robots (think Roomba - some people treat those things like pets), but when they look too human, then we are repulsed by them - they just look too damned creepy.

One thing the article misses...

[Anaphiel]

Great read overall, but most articles I've read on this subject miss one important limiting factor when pushing for more photorealistic games: the ability of the artists to deliver.

In the old days of low-poly monsters and low-res textures, any slightly artistic geek could build a model or a level and it would look as good as anybody elses. That is changing as the tools and processing power evolve. The newer games require very high-quality assets that not every artist has the skill to produce. It's no longer enough to be an arty geek, now you need to be a geeky artist.

Imagine you take two people and sit them down with a pencil and a piece of paper. One's just some guy from off the street, the other is a fine arts major from t he local art school. You tell them each to draw a figure using only six lines and in the shortest possible time. They each draw a stick figure, and both look pretty much alike. You then say draw another person, no limit on the number of lines, take a half an hour. You've now removed the limitations that were hiding the disparity of talent, so at the end of that time the first guy has a stick figure (maybe a stick figure with hair) and the art student has a passable portrait of the first guy.

The same thing seems to be happening with game visuals: the improved tools and increased polygon pushing abilities of modern consoles have removed most of the limits that in a way protected less-talented artists, and their limitations are now made more glaring. If you really want to push for photorealism, how long before you get to the point where you need a Francisco Cortina to make your models? There are'nt a whole lot of those guys out there.

Re: the larger "stylized vs. realistic" issue, I think overall it's easier to be "Boris" than it is to be "Frazetta". Mimicing real life is always easier than developing a distinctive and original visual style.

Re:What else then??

[j_snare]

People have gotten nausea from games for a long time now, and different things affect different people.

For instance, for FPS games, I could play Wolfenstein and Heretic, but not Doom. All of the ones after that made me sick until Dark Forces, and that one still affected me after a while. Then I was pretty much stuck getting sick with all of them until the Unreal Tournament line came out. I don't know why, but the UT line is the only one out of the current lines that doesn't make me ill (even after very long sessions). The Doom engine, Elite Force, etc, all make me sick. Deus Ex made me slightly ill, but was slow paced enough for me to fight through it a couple hours at a time (at most).

To this day, I'll try out about any game, but most FPS games still affect me, though some take longer to make me ill than others. Other people I know have had worse experiences. UT seems to have the least affect on people, and it still kills a few of my friends.

I haven't noticed the realism really helping or hurting. Doom made me sick faster than Dark Forces, and the UT still doesn't make me sick, though games of lesser graphics do. Based on that, I think it's all in how the engine works, not how realistic it looks.

The box still looks better than the screenshots

[Animats]

Everquest, the box. [binaryjungle.com]
Everquest, the screenshots. [everquest-online.com]

We have a long way to go.

It's not about the publishers selling.

[CyricZ]

Remember, it's not so much about what the publishers will sell, but rather about what the consumers will buy. After all, the publishers could offer a game with a great storyline and semi-decent graphics. And you know what? It may very well not well.

I'm sure many of the major game publishers have looked into the possibility of offering games like you describe. But the potential benefits most likely do not outweigh the risks. When you're dealing with millions upon millions of dollars, you usually don't want to go wrong.

Um...

[mattthomas]

Videogame graphics are a form of art. Like other forms of art, they reflect the vision of the artist and the tastes of the patron--in this case, the graphic designer and target audience of the game. Like other forms of art, there will be visual and stylistic trends, but always some great individual works.
As technology advanced in other forms of art, the ability of the artist to transform artistic vision into a medium has increased, stylistic variety has increased and (arguably) the tastes of patrons has increased. Think about how many genres of music there are. Think about how many instruments. Think about the variety of painting styles. All of this variety was made possible by technological advances. Is there any reason to think it'll be any different for video games?

Re:Video games as lucid dreams.

[Nuskrad]

Well, actually, there are considered to be 4 types of Lucid Dreams, each with a different level of control

I. You are aware of the fact you're dreaming, but can't seem to control even your own actions in the dream
II. You are aware that you're dreaming, can't control your actions within the dream, but you are able to wake up at will (I have these quite often)
III. You are able to control your own actions within the dream
IV. You are able to control your own actions, aswell as the entire dream environment. Very fun ;)

Simplicity is King

[ninjakoala]

"but there's still progress to make before we're producing the game equivalent of sixteenth century marbles"

Not really. Experimentation with fancy technology won't win the hearts of the masses - good ideas will. That was true for marbles and that is also true for games today. Down the road people won't look back at Far Cry, Half Life 2 or other technological wonders as marvels. Nor will they look at the wonderfully wacky world of Viewtiful Joe, Jet Set Radio or other stylized creations.

If you want to look at the modern day marbles, look at Tetris. It's beautiful in its simplicity and that's what made it an instant classic.

Re:One thing the article misses...

[torchdragon]

I can't agree with your argument model. Being one of those students from a local art college, I can tell you that my 6 lines would not be of a stick figure. And there is the real difference between the artist-geek and the geek-artist. Look at how icons have improved over time. Most of the time (in the Windows world) you were looking at a 16x16 or 32x32 pixel image. Some looked good, most looked like crap. Limitations don't make things look like crap, crap looks like crap.

You can compare the graphics of Metroid to Super Metroid to Metroid Prime. You'll probably agree that MP > SM > M in terms of graphic fidelity. The problem is they all have the same style and even in its 8-bit glory Metroid was put together well.

The medium is not an excuse to push crap. Also, the medium will not make crap look better. Next-Gen games won't look better because their rendering hardware/software can support Pimple-Shading 45.2 and Normalized Vectored Nanomorphic Boob-Mapping. If you put crap in the box, you'll simply have Pimple-Shaded Normalized Vectored Nanomorphic Boob-Mapped crap.

Wouldn't that be nice.

[freidog]

but it won't happen.
The more 'photorealistic' the engine can make the game world, the more art and design is needed to take advantage of that. You might not spend those dev dollars on stretching every last polygon out of the engine, but you will spent them making those polygons look good. If you have 2GiB of video memory availible for textures and associated maps, you'd better make good use of it. No more repeating the same box image over and over in every level.

Honestly I think graphcis are an adivsary to game play; and probalby will continue to be after we reach a point where more graphics rendering power is of no benifit. (Which I doubt will be anytime soon) The simple fact is there is generally a limited budget to do everything, and right now limited CPU / GPU cycles. If you have to develope tons of super high quality and complex models and textures to take advantage of Really super fast rendering engine(TM) then the AI, the story, ect suffer. If you have to optimize out every last CPU cycle of waste in the Really pretty slow and boring rendering engine(TM) then the AI, story ect suffer.

I think the fact is, graphics sell games, gameplay keeps you playing. Only one of those is useful for a companies bottom line. (Unless you're making The Sims and have 457 expansion packs you need to sell)

Re:Video games as lucid dreams.

[KDR_11k]

How can you tell it's lucid? When I dream, I usually feel that I'm in control, sometimes even realizing I'm dreaming and manipulating the dream (e.g. rewinding if I don't like the way a scene played out) but in dreams you can believe literally everything. Dreams have total suspension of disbelief so even the most insane scenarios will seem plausible. Contradictions won't be apparent until you (or at least I) wake up. I often see recurring objects and even attribute them correctly to the dream but the dream still seems real even after that. Even if they are as blurry as your memories you will believe they are clear. Because of that I don't think I was really in control and merely believed it. So, are there any special signs that separate a lucid dream from a normal one?

By the way, I think most people do ejaculate when they dream of sex.