I’ve noticed that people who just skip the entire thread and post often reiterate what’s been said, already. It’s a major annoyance when the discussion has a potential to reach new territory, then someone just slams down the same thing that’s been said and 4 people Like it… and the discussion resets. It’s virtually impossible to have a real, serious conversation that ever covers new ground. It would be interesting if you had to qualify to post. Or, if people could downvote posts… while that’s probably far too negative for most people’s tastes, an upvote/downvote system really keeps people in check. Also encourages more people to participate in discussions they would be too timid to post in. We have threads with a couple thousand views, that could be massive numbers of up/downvotes on especially standout posts.
I don’t necessarily think that repeating things is bad. For starters, I’ll often jump in and quickly say something which might be helpful knowing full well that it may already have been said, just on the off chance it hasn’t - two or three people saying something which should be said is far better than nobody saying it.
Secondly, as I say a lot, the conclusion isn’t always the important part of a conversation. There’s no real reason to stop new people from having a conversation just because other people have had similar conversations in the past. Otherwise we can all shut up right now about virtually everything, because there’s surprisingly little to talk about that has never been talked about before.
I tend to think everything should be going somewhere, seeking a resolution. I see covering the same ground as returning to parts of the dungeon where all the enemies have respawned, but all exp. & loot is gone.
From my perspective, I’ve seen way to much “flak” given if graphics don’t conform to modern AAA standards. Personally it’s not something I’ll risk, it doesn’t have to be as shiny as the latest and greatest but in the world of 3D as a games developer you should be hugely concerned about it.
If you’re doing it for yourself, well then it doesn’t really matter. If you’re wanting to head down a commercial path in PC and console then yes, graphics do matter greatly and whatever I or you personally think on the subject is irrelevant. It’s what your potential customer base thinks and nobody cares if you’re a AAA developer or an Indie, what people care about is your end product.
I never heard anyone say Crysis 3 looks crap, so it’s not really subjective either…
Sure there are stylistic and realistic types of games, but both need to conform to competition.
I was really tired, yet I find the topic very interesting. Something I was thinking about a lot. Although I realized that my reply was too obvious to even be worth posting … 
Every game developer should focus on the graphics above all else. Even a basically empty shell of a game can be awesome if the graphics are appealing enough. Don’t waste time on play mechanics, feedback and other superficial elements. Instead focus on delivering beautiful graphics and you are well on your way to success. Also it is nearly 2015 so every game should be in 3D. Nobody plays 2D games any more!
I truly wish all game developers would follow this path to success.
People do play 2D but only clean vector style art. Took me a second to detect the sarcasm, but you were almost correct in your sarcasm. Except that you start with attractive visuals, then people take you seriously. Then you blow them away with gameplay. That’s how you win.
It’s sort of like if you show up to a job interview in street attire. You could be a genius, but you’ll likely not be considered. You get farther with a better appearance, that’s just the way it’s always been.
Just like if you submit a manuscript with a typo in the first sentence, you’re fucked. Could be the best story ever written.
We live in a world of snap judgements, with people’s attention being drawn in 1,000 different directions. Give them even one reason to stop paying attention to you and they will. There’s 6.5 billion people, it’s the year 2015… Nobody is looking to find you, you have to MAKE them see you.
That is very true! All of the best 2D games are those that look like a cartoon! Still it is probably best to do 2D only for mobile or web games even with the cartoon graphics. If game devs spent less time on game design for play mechanics, AI and so forth and more time creating awesome 2D cartoons and 3D highly detailed textured models with advanced lighting they’d see a lot more success. It’s what everybody wants!
Even though I detect sarcasm, you’re firing on all cylinders now.
I think games are cartoons that you can play. Shigeru Miyamoto was a cartoonist, he has created or had a part in many of the most successful games in history. WoW is a cartoon, avatars are even called toons.
Realism in games is a cute gimmick but holy crap, people keep coming back for toons again and again and again. Home console gaming could have gone the same way as disco squares in a heartbeat. They evolved into cartoons, then evolved into a semi-realistic form… but the realism could sink gaming if that’s all we had.
Why???
Games are supposed to be FUN.
Not SERIOUS.
Most people could care less about gaming. But they’ll look at a cute little frog… and say, “how’s that damn thing work?” And they’ll give it ten or fifteen seconds… If you don’t hook them in 10 or 15 seconds, it’s over.
I’ve seen how people play games, they’re mostly not savvy folks. If you can reach average Joe though, you will be a very successful person.
It’s all about understanding your audience, and in order to understand your audience you have to communicate with your audience, you have to go where they go and do the things that they do and see the world the way they see the world. You have to become one of them.
My audience is going to be people who are around the age of 30 many of them are going to be single or recently in a relationship although some may be married with children, my target audience is going to be mostly hipsters or at least people who are somewhat trendy… Interested in technology and the game development scene but not necessarily tech savvy. Predominantly people with either independent or liberal-leaning viewpoints of the world many of them non religious but possibly spiritual. People who generally don’t take everything too seriously, and even though I don’t do drugs many people who you might consider potheads are inside of my target demographic. I know all this because I know what kind of people tend to think the way that I do and what people tend to get along with me. I looked into their interests and I understand the kind of crap that they’re interested in. He thought that the Scott Pilgrim movie was amazing, they love watching shows like the Regular Show and gravity falls, they’re going to like my games.
I have definitely noticed all classic games look like cartoons. Pac-man graphics for example actually look very much like modern day cartoony vector art. Of course the resolution of the time makes it blockier than today’s vector art. Anyway, yeah all art in classic games is essentially cartoons. And taking that thinking a step further… nearly all clip art is cartoony vector art. So it seems like clip art is the key for a great game!
The problem with cartoony art styles is that they can suffer from poor conveyance. Is this a dagger made from meteoric iron, or is it a nice, big, black dil… er, “stress reliever.”
I suppose I just don’t buy into this “games of the past were cartoons, so games of today should be cartoons” notion. The entire reason games used to be cartoon like was because they were just sigils and glyphs being rasterized through a limited color palette that were mostly bright colors. The only place you ever found any context was in the manual.
Nobody said you can’t have decent mechanics and a good looking game, also being a developer who earns money. Is there a market for 2D that would even pay the $750K a year staff costs? That’s only for a small team as well, not talking more than 15 - 20 here.
As an indie were not trying to beat the competition graphically, just use what ground they have already set. It’s not like it can’t be done, there’s enough single enviro artists out there proving it can be done.
So what’s the suggestion here? We should all do 2D because that’s not an oversaturated mobile based market is it? Or shall we all just focus on nothing but mechanics, yeah screw immersion we don’t care about that crap.!
Or what we could do is make a game that is balanced, we may not get the OMG GRFX award but it would stand up to competition and avoid customers tearing you a new one.
I remembered something. An interesting point that we don’t trust the game to have a good gameplay if it looks bad and amateur, so we would most likely avoid it if it looks that way.
I am saying I think everyone should focus on the graphics. If necessary one can always use free open source clip art or other free game art to save time and improve the presentation. Cartoony vector art is very popular with modern 2D games so using modern 2D vector clip art makes good sense.
I sense trolling or jealousy. Yet clean and professional (with high artistic value) vector art does fit those games best, and makes customers trust that game is made buy professionals, is well polished, and fun. Then it feels good to play, especially talking about casual gamers. That’s only one of the components of those games’ success.
LOL. Your powers are strong Jedi. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I am just having fun. I am a game-play is king kind of person. Maybe it is because I am not an artist. Not sure. All I know is I have never not played a game because I thought it didn’t look good enough. Never. That doesn’t even make sense to me. Anyway, so to help me to understand the other side of the coin that graphics quality is super duper important I am trying to defend/support that argument. And also because I believe game play is most important I like the idea of everyone focusing only on graphics.
I do believe graphics style is important. A common style shared among all graphic elements. Misterselmo helped me to see that is what is missing from my own graphics work. I have always thought graphics and sounds (sometimes music too) are super important. But not absolute quality of those elements. To me the importance is in communicating with the player. Feedback. But of course it is nice to have things look good.
Anyway you get the award! This is the first time in all of my time on various forums someone has “sensed trolling”. Lol
If games look bad, It would have a tough time convincing most players that it is any good. If game looks fantastic but has bad game design (is frustrating in some way), it won’t get anywhere too. Successful mobile games are simplistic and pretty. They have good game design as far as I’m concerned, even though I find them boring. And for the purpose of those games graphics are more important then they are for other games. Because casual games are made for casual fun gameplay, and their aesthetics are well developed so those game feel feel good and rewarding.
I am not a fan of those games, but people like them for good reasons.
That makes sense. And I am beginning to see there are distinct types of gamers. I have personally heard a couple people say “how can you play that game? It looks like crap” and the other person say “who cares how it look? It is fun!”. And it is probably based on each of our experiences here. I know far more gamers who while always appreciating an excellent looking game will try any game and judge it on how fun it is.
And from what I have seen many gamers do not care. I remember playing KoC on FB when the graphics were very primitive. It was only after it became successful the devs updated all of the graphics. The same was true for Tibia and Runescape. They used to look like basically “programmer art”. At the time they were released there were far better looking games. But people got hooked on the games anyway. As time passed and the devs were able to afford it they had the graphics updated. Because of course every dev wants their game to look as best as they can. We all do. But I just don’t believe a game will live or die by how it looks.
That’s not entirely accurate, because Tibia and Runescape’s old graphics weren’t bad… only bad compared to AAA games of the time. Nobody’s saying graphics should be able to compete with the top guys. But they shouldn’t just be god awful. There are great looking games with few players, too. This isn’t an either-or situation.
I think it largely depends on a market. In mobile market no one has time to give poor looking game a go because it is more likely that it is not good. But when it comes to projects like Runescape, that came out back when there was not a lot of options, people would be more willing to give it a go, as they would look for a game of that genre.
Same thing with today’s indie games. If idea looks compelling and fresh, people will buy into it even if it was drawn by a programmer that goes by the name Notch.
And if I were looking for a game to kill time on my mobile (which I don’t do), I would most definitely skip those that don’t look like they have something unique to offer except sprites created in MS Paint.
So it depends also on a market and genre.