Are game developers tricking us?

[dprog1995]

I can't help but to think that developers artificially make their games too damanding to force us to buy newer graphic cards and CPUs.

-For example, they can easily add few thousand polygons to every object in the game to increase the game's system requirement without making graphics look better.(Since these days, higher poly objects are very hard to notice compared to let's say jumping from 600 polygon character model to a 3000 polygon character model)
Few weeks ago, I saw a youtube video of someone that managed to bring a RTX 4090 to it's knees by importing 4 or 5 very high poly models of doors into a Unreal Engine 5 software.

-Developers use compression methods less and less to force us to buy more/bigger SSDs.(I think in a few years new games might ask us to have 1 Terabyte space despite the games looking worse than Crysis 1.)

-They are also forcing people to get ray tracing supported graphic cards for the newest games even though there is still too much debate on whether ray tracing actually makes the games look better or not.(And sometimes you have to pause the game and zoom at the puddles to notice the differences)

[Wolfpig]

Oprindeligt skrevet af dprog1995:

-Developers use compression methods less and less to force us to buy more/bigger SSDs.(I think in a few years new games might ask us to have 1 Terabyte space despite the games looking worse than Crysis 1.)

Compression can only go as much.... and you would still need a PC capable of decompressing the files and handle those. (and of course you would need the discspace or ram to store the devompressed files temporary)


And games dont get bigger cause of missing Compression (most devs do compress the files), but because the games get bigger itself.

[Chompman]

New game engines can require better hardware and this is nothing new.

Some games may use higher tier textures and this can cause them to increase in larger file size or the length of the game itself or just do less work on compression or optimization.

They are not doing this to make you buy new hardware as they have no interest in doing that but instead put out the game they want to make for the budget they have.

[fluxtorrent]

Most game developers have 0 interest in forcing people to get new hardware.

[Nx Machina]

Purchasing is voluntary not mandatory and technology moves forward. You either upgrade or not.

[T9]

you are supposed to bruteforce their bad code with super hardware.

[Chika Ogiue]

Oprindeligt skrevet af dprog1995:

I can't help but to think that developers artificially make their games too damanding to force us to buy newer graphic cards and CPUs.

Developers want you buying THEIR games, not buying hardware manufactured by someone else. But, developers also want to reach the highest possible audience and will cater to that audience.

In other words, if the target audience wants high-end graphics on cutting edge hardware, that's who developers with develop for. So, perhaps you're not the target audience...

[Ben Lubar]

Ah, I see that Helpful Development Showcase 1 has escaped into the real world:
https://stanleyparable.com/hds/1/

[ꉔꏂ꒐꒒ꇙ]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Chika Ogiue:

Oprindeligt skrevet af dprog1995:

I can't help but to think that developers artificially make their games too damanding to force us to buy newer graphic cards and CPUs.

In other words, if the target audience wants high-end graphics on cutting edge hardware, that's who developers with develop for. So, perhaps you're not the target audience...

So, their "Target Audience" is basically anyone who is Rich/Wealthy, a Sheep/Whale who has enough money to cough up $1,000+ bucks on a gaming PC (pre-built or so) + buy these Devs overpriced games + their overpriced/cash grab expansions/DLC.

Their "target audience" should be more than just the people who are living good. These Sheep/Whales etc will always cough up the full price for a game, beg for DLC and more. I guess I know why that's usually their (the Devs/Companies) target audience.

Oprindeligt skrevet af Chompman:

New game engines can require better hardware and this is nothing new.

From what I've seen, these new games are riding the "Unreal Engine 5" wave. Not all of them but most and that is just not great at all. Nothing was wrong with Unreal Engine 4, to me.

Oprindeligt skrevet af dprog1995:

I can't help but to think that developers artificially make their games too damanding to force us

-They are also forcing people

I mean, you aren't forced to buy anything. It's just with new tech coming around, new this/that, it will just be harder to run almost every game you want.

If you rock consoles, get the games you can't play on PC for one of the consoles.

If a game needs "Ray Tracing" to look good, that game isn't all that. You shouldn't need a graphics card for this/that, a game should look good on its own without forcing/needing people to get certain graphics cards.

You don't have to buy every new game that comes out. Just be more smart and wise with your money and with what you buy. Games are all about looking really good (nowadays, too focused on graphics) but that's only half of the game. It should be more than just about "looks/graphics"

Stick to indies/smaller titles. Not as demanding as Triple A games etc

[Lithurge]

Oprindeligt skrevet af ꉔꏂ꒐꒒ꇙ:

If a game needs "Ray Tracing" to look good, that game isn't all that. You shouldn't need a graphics card for this/that, a game should look good on its own without forcing/needing people to get certain graphics cards.

That ship sailed when the first dedicated 3d card shipped, if not before. The reality is that PC gaming moves on as new tech becomes available, it always has. If you're going to game on PC you need to accept that as part of it, the same way people who play on console have to accept that every X years they'll need to buy a new one to play the latest games.

People seem to ignore the fact popular franchises end up with sequels only being available on newer consoles, e.g. Uncharted or the Halo series, forcing them to get the new one.

[dprog1995]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Lithurge:

Oprindeligt skrevet af ꉔꏂ꒐꒒ꇙ:

If a game needs "Ray Tracing" to look good, that game isn't all that. You shouldn't need a graphics card for this/that, a game should look good on its own without forcing/needing people to get certain graphics cards.

That ship sailed when the first dedicated 3d card shipped, if not before. The reality is that PC gaming moves on as new tech becomes available, it always has. If you're going to game on PC you need to accept that as part of it, the same way people who play on console have to accept that every X years they'll need to buy a new one to play the latest games.

People seem to ignore the fact popular franchises end up with sequels only being available on newer consoles, e.g. Uncharted or the Halo series, forcing them to get the new one.

At least at that time better hardware meant new gameplay features that weren't possible on previous consoles.(No distance fog, More NPCs on screen, more complex NPC AI, bigger areas, more destruction, euphoria ragdolls, fully 3D areas instead of using pre rendered backgrounds, better draw distance, better animations etc)

But now, developers use better hardware to just add raytracing and more polygons per scene.(It feels like they have made a deal with graphic manufacturers to help them to sell more graphic cards)

[Darkwave Dahlia]

"Developers artificially increase polygon counts"

Sure, and they also control the weather. The idea that game developers are secretly inflating polygon counts just to tank performance is laughable. Optimization is a crucial part of game development, and no studio wants their game to run like garbage for no reason. Yes, we all know that there are many games out there which aren't ... optimized. But not because somebody sits there with a shake in his hand going like: "Uh huhuhu huhuhu. Let's crank it all up to 1000! Let those suckers sweat and beg for new tech ..." Just because one YouTuber managed to crash a system by spamming high-poly doors in Unreal Engine does not mean real games do this on purpose.

"Developers are using less compression"

Yeah, because it’s 2025, not 2005.
Games today stream large amounts of data in real-time. If everything was aggressively compressed, loading times would skyrocket, textures would look like PlayStation 2 assets, and people would complain about "lazy developers".

The real reason game sizes are increasing? 4K textures, advanced physics, massive worlds, high-quality soundtracks, and voice acting.

It’s called progress.

"Ray tracing is forced on us"

Or maybe technology evolves? Nobody is forcing anyone to turn on ray tracing. It’s optional in almost every game that supports it. The fact that early implementations weren’t groundbreaking doesn’t mean the technology is useless. It’s like arguing in the 90s that 3D graphics were pointless because Doom looked just fine.

So ... no.

Developers are not sitting in dark rooms scheming about how to make your PC obsolete. They’re trying to push boundaries and make better games. If that means you eventually need an upgrade, well ...

... welcome to 2025!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnAS3_TYcaw

[Lithurge]

Oprindeligt skrevet af dprog1995:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Lithurge:

That ship sailed when the first dedicated 3d card shipped, if not before. The reality is that PC gaming moves on as new tech becomes available, it always has. If you're going to game on PC you need to accept that as part of it, the same way people who play on console have to accept that every X years they'll need to buy a new one to play the latest games.

People seem to ignore the fact popular franchises end up with sequels only being available on newer consoles, e.g. Uncharted or the Halo series, forcing them to get the new one.

At least at that time better hardware meant new gameplay features that weren't possible on previous consoles.(No distance fog, More NPCs on screen, more complex NPC AI, bigger areas, more destruction, euphoria ragdolls, fully 3D areas instead of using pre rendered backgrounds, better draw distance, better animations etc)

But now, developers use better hardware to just add raytracing and more polygons per scene.(It feels like they have made a deal with graphic manufacturers to help them to sell more graphic cards)

No they don't just use new hardware to just add ray tracing and more polygons, there's a rose tint to people claiming older games looked really good compared to today. My memories of Far Cry were way out of line with what it actually looked like when I got round to reinstalling and playing it.

The problem is you've got people insisting they have to play with everything turned up to maximum at 4K then wondering why they're system can't cope with it. I played through the recent Indiana Jones game on my 5 year old, 9700k and RTX 2070 at 70+fps because I've been gaming long enough to know and accept that hardware will date and I will need to lower settings.

Where I will aim criticism is at the likes of Nvidia claiming their cards are 4K for the latest titles when they simply don't have the raw power to do it natively and never really have.

[Chika Ogiue]

Oprindeligt skrevet af ꉔꏂ꒐꒒ꇙ:

So, their "Target Audience" is basically anyone who is Rich/Wealthy, a Sheep/Whale who has enough money to cough up $1,000+ bucks on a gaming PC (pre-built or so) + buy these Devs overpriced games + their overpriced/cash grab expansions/DLC.

Their "target audience" should be more than just the people who are living good. These Sheep/Whales etc will always cough up the full price for a game, beg for DLC and more. I guess I know why that's usually their (the Devs/Companies) target audience.

Not all devs target the same audience. But as it is, games are a luxury. They are not a basic human right. If you can't afford a game, you are not entitled to it.

---
Yay. FREE POINTS!!! (Still, would have been nice if you'd also had a counter argument instead of admitting I was right so easily)

[John Henry Eden]

Oprindeligt skrevet af dprog1995:

I can't help but to think that developers artificially make their games too damanding to force us to buy newer graphic cards and CPUs.

-For example, they can easily add few thousand polygons to every object in the game to increase the game's system requirement without making graphics look better.(Since these days, higher poly objects are very hard to notice compared to let's say jumping from 600 polygon character model to a 3000 polygon character model)
Few weeks ago, I saw a youtube video of someone that managed to bring a RTX 4090 to it's knees by importing 4 or 5 very high poly models of doors into a Unreal Engine 5 software.

-Developers use compression methods less and less to force us to buy more/bigger SSDs.(I think in a few years new games might ask us to have 1 Terabyte space despite the games looking worse than Crysis 1.)

-They are also forcing people to get ray tracing supported graphic cards for the newest games even though there is still too much debate on whether ray tracing actually makes the games look better or not.(And sometimes you have to pause the game and zoom at the puddles to notice the differences)

yeah developers do that all the time, look at stalker call of pripyat and stalker 2, call of pripyat was only 6gb and had tons and tons of content and lore, and stalker 2 was released at 159gb.......................and it plays just like far cry lmfao

[SKARDAVNELNATE]

Why? I get how it seems like that's what developers are doing. But why do that? What's the incentive for them?