Why is the gaming industry constantly trying to reinvent the wheel?

[Iggy Wolf]

I'd like to think we've reached a point where graphics these days are "good enough" that you DON'T need to constantly add more new fancy graphics and shiny reflections just to release a game with an acceptable level of graphics. And yet, UE5 for example has half the problems it does because of Lumen or Nanite. As if somehow a game LACKING these things these days would look that much worse or feel much worse that no one would buy the game.

I don't remember ANYONE ever complaining about Uncharted 4, Days Gone, Gears of War 5, or Stray looking bad, and they're considered a few of the best looking UE4 games. I'm not creating this post because it's another "UE5" rant either. Rather, I feel that the engine is perfectly capable of being optimized if it wasn't trying to run the "best of the best" all at once, before any of these new things have been optimized. Let's not forget that raytracing itself already carries a higher FPS penalty, even WITHOUT dedicated raytracing software or hardware settings. And even with raytracing capable hardware, still taxes a game.

All those games I mentioned didn't even have raytracing, and yet, didn't look any worse without it. A game is meant to be a GAME, first and foremost, and that means that the gameplay should matter MORE than how the game looks. Mods have always existed for those who wanted more fancy eye candy, because older games DIDN'T look as good. I guess that's why we get so many remasters and remakes these days. But a remaster/remake need NOT be more unnecessarily demanding just to make an old game look good (see Tomb Raider Remastered or RE2/3 Remake).

I don't buy it that the consumers are somehow "asking" for it. Most console gamers weren't even necessarily asking for 1080P or 60 FPS back in the 360 or PS3 days. It was understood that you bought a PC if you cared about that. No, Sony and Microsoft convinced people that they NEEDED higher res and FPS. Sure, we needed that, but the current crop of new games goes AGAINST that, because it destroys performance with unnecessary eye candy for the sake of "looking good". Am I playing "real life simulator" or a video game here? I recently played Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, and that game looks gorgeous even WITHOUT raytracing. Those proprietary engines could actually pull off some amazing things. Just look at RAGE, CryEngine, 4A Engine, and Frostbite.

TL;DR Gaming companies don't need to keep pushing fancy graphics just to sell games. People would be content with just good enough looking games as long as they're well-optimized and fun to play.

[Worlds fastest turtle]

The wheel has never existed.

[Venom]

They haven't reinvented the wheel since like 2011-2012. It's all about graphics and not gameplay now. The only company that cares more about gameplay is Nintendo.

[Ghost Robertson]

Yeah you can use old game engines and make a fun game.

It's a bit like Wolfenstein 3D's engine was used to make better games, They didn't reinvent that.

[Coinkydink]

Because they are trying to produce ever more detailed simulations of the real world for the psycholgical manipulation of the masses, they are not interested in gameplay primarily.

Most big AAA games are 3D simulations with an overlay of shallow gameplay because the driving force is not gaming but military applications.

[𝕊𝕠𝕝𝕚𝕕𝕦𝕤 𝕊𝕟𝕒𝕜𝕖]

TL;DR.

[Iggy Wolf]

Originally posted by nagu_al:

Because they are trying to produce ever more detailed simulations of the real world for the psycholgical manipulation of the masses, they are not interested in gameplay primarily.

Most big AAA games are 3D simulations with an overlay of shallow gameplay because the driving force is not gaming but military applications.

That's giving them too much credit. They can't even get that much right. If ARMA for example is a good example of trying to teach one how to simulate war and military tactics, then it's also one of the few games that ISN'T overly focused on graphics, because knowing how to use a gun matters more than how many pixels that gun has.

[Coinkydink]

I think the idea is that the more accurate the simulation the more "immersive" it will be ... but it's more about trying to get people into VR and artifical realities at this point

[Defective Dopamine Pez Dispenser]

Graphical fidelity was already more than good enough for my tastes in 2006 or 07. I didn't need much better than that and think we've long since reached diminishing returns in that regard.

That said, increased geometric density can still matter for actual game design reasons. I'm thinking of all the games people routinely complain don't have enough enterable interiors, or enough interactive world elements, or enough behavioral dynamism on the part of NPCs, or enough visual feedback in the form of environmental damage, etc.

As long as people keep demanding more sheer stuff in games (and complain about repetition of said stuff, aka railing against the nature of procgen) more compute and render (and labor) will be required.

[Crystal Sharrd]

I blame shareholders.

[Magma Dragoon]

It's inflation pressuring everyone to do everything faster and cheaper. Everything is getting worse over time. Check out the prices for Corollas from the 90s, there's a reason they cost more than new ones.

[admiral1018]

GPU developers went in a bizarre direction where they decided the emphasis on lighting and slight improvement to shadows and surface reflections should be the impetus for buying $1500+ cards. As a result, games are barely any better looking than they were a decade ago, yet they demand an absurdly high amount of processing power per unit of performance. It's the worst of both worlds, really.

It annoys me to no end that there hasn't been a real focus on improving game physics. Why don't games have water and fluids that behave realistically yet? Why don't things have appropriate acceleration and falling speeds based on their shape and air resistance? How about gases with different densities interacting in real-time? How about destructible environments that actually crumble based on the materials and building weight loads?

All of those actually affect *gameplay* are would be so much more noticeable than some ray-tracing garbage that can barely be appreciated because you need AI-generated frames just to be able to use the setting. Game physics doesn't feel like it's gotten any better than it was in Half-Life 2, and that's a damn shame.

[Bind0fGod]

Nvidia is a trillion dollar company.
The push for graphically intense and more demanding games comes from a severe amount of pressure from Nvidia so they can still sell cards.

The reality is developers could still be making amazing looking games that would run on a 1080ti with just a little bit of clever programming and an eye for artistic design.

That's not the industry right now though. It's a factory line to support an ever expanding greed from the tech industry.

Originally posted by admiral1018:

GPU developers went in a bizarre direction where they decided the emphasis on lighting and slight improvement to shadows and surface reflections should be the impetus for buying $1500+ cards. As a result, games are barely any better looking than they were a decade ago, yet they demand an absurdly high amount of processing power per unit of performance. It's the worst of both worlds, really.

It annoys me to no end that there hasn't been a real focus on improving game physics. Why don't games have water and fluids that behave realistically yet? Why don't things have appropriate acceleration and falling speeds based on their shape and air resistance? How about gases with different densities interacting in real-time? How about destructible environments that actually crumble based on the materials and building weight loads?

All of those actually affect *gameplay* are would be so much more noticeable than some ray-tracing garbage that can barely be appreciated because you need AI-generated frames just to be able to use the setting. Game physics doesn't feel like it's gotten any better than it was in Half-Life 2, and that's a damn shame.

What youre talking about would require that games were still made by software engineers and nerds,

These days games are made by Starbucks enjoyers that have a passion for "design" and only know how to work with unreal.

In order to get better physics and realistic air speed calculations you'd need a proprietary engine, And a darned good one. That would require a genius to maintain and years to develop.

No publisher is going to go for that when they can just use Unreal and have their game ready to be monetized in half the time.

[skOsH♥]

Originally posted by nagu_al:

Because they are trying to produce ever more detailed simulations of the real world for the psycholgical manipulation of the masses, they are not interested in gameplay primarily.

This is sadly the direction we're headed

I mean ever since film was invented people had a field day making propaganda or hidden messaging

More detail, more fps, higher refresh rates, wider aspect ratios, make people more entranced...and I do it to myself

[Goldias]

Like every merchandise.
When your goods is not quite good enough to compete, a fancy package can lure a lot of customers.

[90054321564584560]

Because Nvidia used to sell cards exclusively.
When you found a working formula on this world, you will try to invest anything to keep it running. This includes their whole AI chip monology later.