Klay3d ago
graphics don't sell games... right? it seems "obvious" that if you want your game to sell as well as Undertale or Balatro then you need to make it run on last-gen computers that are already in everyone's homes. you just have a dramatically larger market if your game runs on a potato.

but they keep making high-spec games anyway. why? without doing any research, my intuition is that two things must be true. first, there must exist a "dark matter demographic" who does buy games based on graphics alone, and two, they must be cutting costs on everything other than graphics. Is that why they want AI? because automated plagarism keeps costs down? Is that why we keep hearing about union-busting and "crunch time"? because they need to cut production costs?

Why don't they just make cheaper games???

#videogames #aipol
Show threadChamomile 🐑

@nycki Visual fidelity (and scope) is a significant competitive advantage for AAA studios. You need a talented crew with a vision and a fair bit of luck to make a new smash hit with brilliant writing and innovative design, and that's a risk that they don't want to take. In contrast, you can throw boatloads of money (and therefore bodies) at the problem of making a bigger, prettier game with lots of detail and market the game on that.

And I mean, I don't think it should be surprising that players like games that look impressive and promise a lot to do, right? You and I don't prioritize high visual fidelity, but we're a bunch of nerds on federated social media; we're absolutely in a filter bubble here. Even I like games that look good, I just don't view photorealism as the only way to do that. However, lots of gamers have grown up for decades ingesting media that tells them it is, and that tends to stick.

Mar 20 at 3:10amWeb