I'll start by saying it: I don't like the way mainstream games are going. I play a game 80% for game play and I am being marketed at with 100% graphics. This blog post and some other things (sins of a solar empire selling .5 million) got me thinking. When we make games look good when we know we have good game play are people going to focus on our not quite triple A graphics and overlook potential great game play? What I am getting at is that (me, we?) as indies may be shooting are selves in the foot trying to make are graphics good enough that the screen shots look like they are from 2005, rather then 97-01. When someone thinks about downloading / buying a game and they see ok, but not modern graphics do they overlook it- and go for the game with the outdated graphics and the obvious promise of good game play (because all that time and effort sure wasn't spent on art)? Looking at spiderweb games, the eschalon series, N, and others as examples of this idea. Thoughts?

In my experience, most gamers do overlook games that don't look beautiful, but they don't tend to be that discerning of gameplay either. On the other hand, when I (as a programmer) go to find a game, I prefer Dwarf Fortress to Spore. The gameplay is deeper, and the graphics don't really matter - if graphics were all I cares about, movies deliver perfectly - without the tacky gameplay attached.

I think a lot of indie developers are coming round to the idea though - apart from the aforementioned Dwarf Fortress, all of Introversion's games go for a very retro look that is light on asset creation, Eskil's Love does similar. I thing having a distinct style is key for all of these - graphics don't have to realistic if they exhibit a strong enough style.

Personally, I wouldn't say that those listed games have bad/poor graphics. Maybe not on the leading technology list, but they are consistent and while maybe not the most impressive art in the world, they are in my opinion polished/cleaned up.


Visuals are the first thing they get to experience. If you have something that's really really just complete crap, they're going to think you took shortcuts everywhere else too. So it is important to not fail on the art, unless you're targeting an audience that you know is going to play anyway and give it a shot.

It doesn't have to be amazing, but at least clean enough they can identify what's going on, there aren't any obvious clashes such as tears in textures or in between tiles in a 2D game, etc. In my opinion (and I think many others??) we're looking for something that works visually with everything else in the game. Something like not using alpha blending and leaving like a white background behind units tiles would bother me. Also having clashing shading, or harsh color schemes can ruin whole scenes.

Though if gameplay is what you're trying to sell to an audience, such as a tech demo at school or among some group, where you know they're going to play your game anyway, the most important thing is simply that they can understand what's going on the screen and indentify what things are. Also if you're making a game yourself, you can always use place holder art, and go about getting the better quality stuff later.


This is my take on game art and it's importance anyway in presentation in a game. I'm curious to see what other people say too :)

I know teenagers who won't play professionally-made ps1-era games because they can't stand the graphics. So going for lower-quality graphics might lose you whatever segment of your audience hadn't started gaming yet when those graphics were considered good. If you were marketing to an 18+ audience it might not matter.

Me personally, I don't care for pixel art too much, but I'll happily look at 70's era anime or vector graphics.

I know people who don't play newer games because of the graphics, mostly in strategy games.

Graphics and interface is what gives the first impressions, which tend to stick. Nice graphics doesn't necessarily mean realistic though.

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Original post by sunandshadow I know teenagers who won't play professionally-made ps1-era games because they can't stand the graphics. So going for lower-quality graphics might lose you whatever segment of your audience hadn't started gaming yet when those graphics were considered good. If you were marketing to an 18+ audience it might not matter.

Typical gamer teenagers aren't typically a good market segment to aim for with indie games. They're well catered for by the mainstream, plus they're the segment most inclined to piracy.

There's a difference between stylish inexpensive art and just plain poor art. The former is fine, and can aid a quirky niche project if done well. The latter is always a negative.

Personally, I don't judge a game by its aesthetics. But I can see patterns that give me hints about depth and gameplay.

One sign is based on show for effort. Developers want their expensive assets fully exposed to everyone that plays. If a game uses voices for NPC characters, I will assume a lack of detailed interactive depth in its character-character dialog system. I know I won't experience very many things in that dialog system that are difficult or complex to reach. Everything is easy to find, right on the surface. Simple and boring.

Another sign is unique design. If any resource in a game appears to be unique, you can bet the objects that use it won't be very interesting or dynamic. If almost all objects in the game appear only once, what does that tell me? An example would be Half Life 2 compared to Oblivion. Half Life 2 had a better physics engine, and slightly better visuals. But it also had doors that couldn't be opened, and some props that couldn't be interacted with. Many totally static objects. Oblivion, being modular based, made just about everything interactive. Developers can afford to put more time into small individual components when they're expected to be used more than once.

The list goes on.

I've sort of been obsessed with this idea of late, to the point that I think even the artistic style and perspective you choose sets up the expectations for the game. If you're going for photorealistic graphics from a first person perspective, people seem to expect far more interactivity than a game set from the old isometric 45 degree bird's eye perspective (expecting, in turn, greater tactical and environmental variety, I think).

I've been playing games sense Defender, Battlezone and Pac-Man were coin ops, and I've gone from buying 4 to 5 boxed titles a month to buying maybe one a year, mostly because so much is so similar to what has come before. I think that we live in the game design hell Chris Crawford prophecied about: A future where technology improves immensely, and game design stays static-- versus a future where tech varied little, but creative pressure forced games to be highly varied and different. Heck, I think I'd prefer to still have to be mucking around with memory managers over playing the same thing again and again, but with a different story and art assets.

I think that if you find the loyal core that something like spiderweb has found, graphics won't really be an issue.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid Quote: Original post by sunandshadow I know teenagers who won't play professionally-made ps1-era games because they can't stand the graphics. So going for lower-quality graphics might lose you whatever segment of your audience hadn't started gaming yet when those graphics were considered good. If you were marketing to an 18+ audience it might not matter. Typical gamer teenagers aren't typically a good market segment to aim for with indie games. They're well catered for by the mainstream, plus they're the segment most inclined to piracy. There's a difference between stylish inexpensive art and just plain poor art. The former is fine, and can aid a quirky niche project if done well. The latter is always a negative.

Well teenagers are the best market for any kind of online or handheld game, and in both of those cases piracy is less of a problem, but for standard single-player computer games, yes I agree.

From the OP's linked blog:

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Graphics that everyone “oohed” and “aahed” over a year ago are considered “ancient” today. And the “bleeding edge” visuals of today will be “ugly” tomorrow. This seems to be a never-ending cycle. I’ve been wondering for quite awhile when (if ever) the plateau will be reached. Is there a limit to what can be done graphically? When all the visuals are “photo-realistic” and packed with “real world physics”, what could come next? Real 3D representation? And after that?

There's something that makes me think there is a limit, and one that is not imposed by hardware or technological considerations.

Photo-realism to my mind takes away a degree of fantasy that is enjoyable, shifting from the realm of artwork to the mundane real world.