I don’t mean to completely disagree with you, I do think that graphics actually get somewhat of a bad rap, just that I think the tradeoff is real even if it doesn’t really scale linearly.
I mean, seeing Half-Life 1 pop up as an example of drive-by game development is interesting
Its true that Half Life 1 marked the turning point from systems focused games to content focused games with its scripted sequences and setpieces. Its also where Valve created the “cabal” development process, which was supposed to be more organized than the development for games like Quake.
I included it mainly because in the making of Half Life 1 documentary the texture artist mentioned that whenever she would make a new texture oftentimes a level designer would just grab it and use it simply because it was new and exciting. The problem was that if every level used every texture then they started to look same-y, so she actually had to start labeling the files as groups and tell people to try to avoid mixing them together. And this was supposed to be more organized than earlier games lol, you can imagine how thrown together they must’ve been.
I’m reminded of a similar story from the development of Deus Ex 1. There’s one level where you walk around an abandoned mansion searching for clues. Unlike the rest of the game, which is mainly stealth / fps, in that level you have to explore and solve a puzzle while listening to an NPC talk about her childhood growing up there. Apparently the guy making the level had to yell at his fellow level designers to stop adding enemies to the rooms of the mansion.
Anyway, sorry if my posts are really long and rambling, I just like talking about games.
I mean, that all depends on the game I suppose, but you’re assuming that sort of anecdotal interaction doesn’t happen now, which I would argue may have more to do with games not doing as much behind the scenes content right away as other media.
And if something killed it (big if), it was producers getting good, rather than graphics.
Look, games have changed a lot, nobody is denying that. The spaces for flexibility and creativity have moved around in some places, but not necessarily disappeared. It’s also true that games are more diverse now than they used to be. There are also more of them, by a lot. I have a hard time making uniform blanket statements about these things. Which of course also makes it hard to push back against inaccurate but simple, consumable statements like “the pores on characters’ skins killed fun gameplay” or whatever.
But there are tradeoffs in lots of directions here. People are talking a lot this month about Expedition 33 getting to those visuals with a small team by effectively using Epic’s third party tech very directly. That’s not wrong. You may have more moving pieces today, but you also don’t have to build a whole engine to render them or code each of them directly instead of having tools to set them up.
I wish the general public was a bit more savvy about this, though, because there are plenty of modern development practices and attitudes that deserve more scrutiny. It loops back around to the behind the scenes access, though. Nobody has time or interest in sitting down and arguing about prototyping, or why the modern games industry sucks at having any concept of pre-production or whatever. Gamers have always been quick to anger driven by barely informed takes in ways disproportionate to their interest in how games are actually made, and that part of the industry hasn’t changed.
You may have more moving pieces today, but you also don’t have to build a whole engine to render them or code each of them directly instead of having tools to set them up.
That’s definitely true. Even with my ice gun example there’s actually a system in UE5 that does exactly what I was talking about with the 3D ice crystals (though, whether it works for animated objects with deforming meshes I don’t know).
I don’t mean to completely disagree with you, I do think that graphics actually get somewhat of a bad rap, just that I think the tradeoff is real even if it doesn’t really scale linearly.
Its true that Half Life 1 marked the turning point from systems focused games to content focused games with its scripted sequences and setpieces. Its also where Valve created the “cabal” development process, which was supposed to be more organized than the development for games like Quake.
I included it mainly because in the making of Half Life 1 documentary the texture artist mentioned that whenever she would make a new texture oftentimes a level designer would just grab it and use it simply because it was new and exciting. The problem was that if every level used every texture then they started to look same-y, so she actually had to start labeling the files as groups and tell people to try to avoid mixing them together. And this was supposed to be more organized than earlier games lol, you can imagine how thrown together they must’ve been.
I’m reminded of a similar story from the development of Deus Ex 1. There’s one level where you walk around an abandoned mansion searching for clues. Unlike the rest of the game, which is mainly stealth / fps, in that level you have to explore and solve a puzzle while listening to an NPC talk about her childhood growing up there. Apparently the guy making the level had to yell at his fellow level designers to stop adding enemies to the rooms of the mansion.
Anyway, sorry if my posts are really long and rambling, I just like talking about games.
I mean, that all depends on the game I suppose, but you’re assuming that sort of anecdotal interaction doesn’t happen now, which I would argue may have more to do with games not doing as much behind the scenes content right away as other media.
And if something killed it (big if), it was producers getting good, rather than graphics.
Look, games have changed a lot, nobody is denying that. The spaces for flexibility and creativity have moved around in some places, but not necessarily disappeared. It’s also true that games are more diverse now than they used to be. There are also more of them, by a lot. I have a hard time making uniform blanket statements about these things. Which of course also makes it hard to push back against inaccurate but simple, consumable statements like “the pores on characters’ skins killed fun gameplay” or whatever.
But there are tradeoffs in lots of directions here. People are talking a lot this month about Expedition 33 getting to those visuals with a small team by effectively using Epic’s third party tech very directly. That’s not wrong. You may have more moving pieces today, but you also don’t have to build a whole engine to render them or code each of them directly instead of having tools to set them up.
I wish the general public was a bit more savvy about this, though, because there are plenty of modern development practices and attitudes that deserve more scrutiny. It loops back around to the behind the scenes access, though. Nobody has time or interest in sitting down and arguing about prototyping, or why the modern games industry sucks at having any concept of pre-production or whatever. Gamers have always been quick to anger driven by barely informed takes in ways disproportionate to their interest in how games are actually made, and that part of the industry hasn’t changed.
That’s definitely true. Even with my ice gun example there’s actually a system in UE5 that does exactly what I was talking about with the 3D ice crystals (though, whether it works for animated objects with deforming meshes I don’t know).