From GameSpy Weekly (not sure I can provide the link as it shows up in my e-mail . . . I guess their site has it but I'm LAZY):
I gotta agree.At last month's Game Developer's Conference, Naughty Dog founder Jason Rubin (Jak and Daxter, Crash Bandicoot) gave a lecture entitled "Great Game Graphics: Who Cares?" Coming from a company known for pushing systems to the limit and selling tens of millions of games due (in part) to having some of the most incredible graphics available for their respective system, the tone of the presentation was a bit of a shocker.
Rubin wasn't trying to say that graphics in games were no longer important. He was saying that the breakneck pace of graphical development that defined the first 30-odd years of the industry is no longer going to be the driving force behind the types of games people make and the types of games that sell. By way of example he traced the history of several game genres. For example: Tennis. You start with Pong, which had the essential elements: two players and a ball. By the time you get to the Intellivision or Nintendo 8-bit era, you can switch perspectives, allowing you to show the height of the ball and adding depth (literally) to gameplay. Later hardware was actually able to put 3D modeled players on a 3D court, strengthening gameplay by giving gamers realistic player positions and timing. With the current generation of hardware, the player models are so good that game developers feel obliged to zoom in on them after each volley to show them off. Videogame tennis is, from a distance, indistinguishable from a real live tennis match on TV.
Graphically, it's still possible to do more: in subsequent generations of hardware, we could (for instance) render each hair on the tennis player's head, or add in beads of sweat. Their eyes could follow the ball. Hell, we could render each individual racket string. But here's Rubin's point: "How's it gonna change the game?" he asks. Current graphics technology is able to provide all the fundamentals needed for a realistic tennis game.
You can trace a similar evolution with fighting games (from 2D sprites to digitized people to 3D flat-shaded models to what we have today -- fully rendered 3D environments and realistic 3D characters moving within them). Or first-person shooters. Each generation of graphical technology added a whole new depth to the gameplay ... until today. There's no doubt that the lighting effects of Doom 3 or Deus Ex 2 are visually stunning, but the technological leap won't affect gameplay as much as the leap from, say, the "flat-3D" fakery of Doom 1 to the full 3D environment of Quake 1.
Graphics No Longer Need to be "Cutting Edge" to Impress
The success of games like Grand Theft Auto 3 and the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series underscore the point. Both games use the Renderware game engine, which (owing in part to its flexibility) isn't a state-of-the-art system. Your typical screenshot from Tony Hawk isn't pushing nearly as many polygons or showing off nearly as many effects as a cutting-edge PS2 game. But most gamers are hard-pressed to notice the difference; the game still works and it's damn fun. With previous generations of hardware (such as the PSOne) the difference between a cutting-edge game and typical games was significant; gamers noticed the difference between a few hundred polygons or a few thousand, and many games (ones with intricate levels, for instance) weren't even possible without pushing the envelope. The situation is different today: the difference between a 50,000 polygon model and a 150,000 polygon model is mostly cosmetic. Everything necessary to create living breathing characters capable of depicting action and emotion onscreen is available. Future enhancements are just gravy, not gameplay.
This is a pretty big shift, and it's going to shift the way people make games and the way people buy them. "What are we going to do to expand what we do?" Rubin asked his audience. "How are we going to draw people in?" His talk left the question unanswered. In fact, it was a kind of challenge directed at the audience. What's next?
What Will Sell in 2004 and Beyond?
I'm going to take a st@b ["forbidden word - haha"] at picking up where Rubin left off. Obviously one way to bring people to a new game is to attach it to a license, be it a sequel or a movie license. But if you're like me, you're a lover of original games, fresh ideas and new characters created for gaming alone. So I'm going to tackle it from that angle: What will make original games sell?
The short (but by no means definitive) answer I suggest is two things: Artistry and Interactivity. Let's assume that great graphics are a given. Within the next generation of tech (or perhaps you can argue the time is already here), even run-of-the-mill developers will have the ability to render fully-functional 3D worlds with as much detail as needed to impact gameplay. What will the crucial differences be?
Artistry: A Unified Vision
What do I mean by artistry? It's the writing of a game's story and the style of its graphics. Blizzard's PC games are brilliant examples of artistry. When you play WarCraft III, every element of the game world, every character, every tree, every voice oozes style -- a style uniquely WarCraft. Despite the size of the creative team, a single unified vision was behind the game that made it stronger and more engrossing.
An even better example is found in Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. There is absolutely nothing technically cutting-edge about the graphics: The cel-shading and sprites and lighting effects aren't technologically groundbreaking. But look at what happens when they're executed with a unique and focused artistic direction! Players are dropped into a living cartoon where characters express emotions as big as the epic story they find themselves a part of. The simplicity of the way the world is rendered strengthens the game because nearly everything that IS on the screen is relevant; every rock can be interacted with, and even the very blades of grass can hold secrets.
While I was playing through the game, I was climbing a cliff on a particular island and I decided to stop, take a breather, and look around with my telescope. Way up toward the top of the mountain I saw an outcropping with a bird's nest on top. The bird was up there, chillin' out, looking around. "I'll probably have to go up there someday," I said to myself. (I did, a few hours later.) I swiveled my telescope over and spent a little while watching the seagulls swoop and dive and float around on the breezes. Then I checked out some distant islands. One just looked like a rock jutting out to the sea -- I didn't think it would be too interesting. A little bit over though, I saw a big island with several mesas and structures -- I figured someday I would have to visit there. I traced my telescope along the shore until I saw my boat in the harbor where I'd left it. I zoomed in on my boat's figurehead/face, and then while I was watching my boat YAWNED.
There was no scripted sequence in the game's story that called for me to pull out my telescope -- it was my decision. And yet every detail in the world was active and alive all around me, promising future adventures. The designers made it easy for me to get lost in Zelda's world, completely and utterly. That's artistry.
Interactivity: Come Play in My Sandbox
Interactivity is what sets games apart from nearly every other entertainment. In previous eras, due perhaps to the limits of the size of levels that could be created and objects that could be placed in them, graphically intense games played very linearly. But as game developers and gamers we're beginning to step outside the box. When I played Deus Ex for the PC, I was impressed by how many ways I could tackle each particular level, solving problems in any of a dozen different ways. But when Grand Theft Auto 3 hit the scene for PS2, I, like many others, was simply blown away by how open the world was. Here was a whole city as my playground. If it had wheels, I could steal it. If it had a gas tank, I could blow it up. Most missions could be solved on my own terms. Yet, despite all I could do, there was still more that I wanted: I wanted to go inside of buildings. I wanted to be able to hire thugs, form my own gangs, claim my own turf ... you name it. GTA3 simultaneously opened our eyes to what's possible with today's technology and how much more there is to be done.
Graphics can give us game worlds, but interactivity -- clever, fun, focused interactivity -- will bring them to life.
Sadly, the examples I used above are almost all sequels. Which perhaps kills my argument on behalf of "original" games. Still, I believe that artistry and interactivity will be the defining characteristics of gaming's future. If only they were as easily shown on the back of a box as flashy screenshots! . . .