I miss the days of pushing raw graphics

[Astraea]

Like kalin said above me, part of that is a lot of AAA developers make their games multiplatform, so gamers are more or less dependent on the beginning of a new console generation for seeing huge improvements in graphics. This includes pc gamers, even though their machines might have much more power than current gen consoles, which sucks for them but that's how it is at the moment.

On the other hand I think it's not that big of a loss, because I value stability of graphics and gameplay way more for my gaming experience. Steady framerates, no pushing and excellent gameplay. Those points are more likely to be focused on with how the market works right now. Which doesn't mean there aren't any shitty games with good graphics right now, it just means they could have been more beautiful and more shitty at the same time.

[Merlin]

At this point I don't really care. So long as the art style is cohesive and evokes a good mood. You can see an asset flip game with better graphics than older games but be an ugly looking mess compared to it.

I've asserted that I think we reached eternally acceptable graphics fidelity in the XB360/PS3 era. We can always push it further, but it is more effort for so little. It wastes dev time and money and I just don't care.

I'd also like to point out that its more important to optimize graphics development. I didn't think we'd see any sort of ray tracing or related tech in live graphics but Nvidia has done it. Now, they've done it poorly and half-heartedly, but it exists and it works sort of. This will hopefully make the development process less complex for graphics teams. But even in terms of pushing more or leaving it as is, I don't want to have to keep buying more expensive GPUs every few years just to keep up. It is getting better, but prices are still unusually high on that tech at the moment.

So I think while it was exciting, ultimately the goal was to reach some singularity, and hey, we are getting close enough that I'm happy and I'm glad we are where we are.

I prefer if we have nice graphics, but need to spend less and less on the tech needed to play it. I mean, there is a reason I didn't buy a PS3, expensive. Same with the Xbox1(at least on launch, what a blunder).

I think what is more important is streamlining and making cheaper both the hardware for games and the process to create games. We hit the ceiling where its too impractical to make higher level graphics without wasting time needlessly. A lot of indies use less detailed graphics or 2d pixel art because it is a time sink to play ball with AAA games in that regard. Just food for thought.

[Irritablesquid]

I don't care about realistic graphics, I'd rather have good gameplay and a good story.