Hopefully pixelfanatics will die a horrible death so we can get some enjoyable games, seriously. This religious belief that pixels somehow is the all to go to answer for everything is sickening. They don't even try to make the game look pleasurable, "But it's pixals! It's suppooooosed to lewk lajk dat y00! Retro maaaan!".

Judging from the down vote (you obviously got from one of those fanatics :)) there is a niche for pixel games and indeed some see it as religion. But I would not bet on blindly making your game pixel art (it not always work).

Overall, I agree that some people "But it's pixals! It's suppooooosed to lewk lajk dat y00! Retro maaaan!" are going for pixelart alone without any content or soul in the game (but again, it's not working in the end).

The key aspect here is money. You can make pixelart cheaply, so it's a critical factor for indies.

Another aspect is that people (and I'm not talking about pixelart fanatics, even on people I ask on the streets) are tired of AAA. No one (of course exceptions) desire AAA art anymore, sure they might like it or whatever but it's not a selling point anymore. I think people got used to it sooo much they see super graphics as standard, and kind of see "ugly minecraft blocks" as originality. Honestly, I secretly suspect they do not realize how hard is to make AAA art and they thing that since hardware can render it it's not an issue and that people who do stylized art (asciiart/voxels) don't do it because they can't do AAA but because they want to convey some artistic vision or something :)

A funny story from one of my games. I had no budget and I made sticky white/black people figures (I mean really uglish, I spend like 30 seconds per picture (including saving the file). Then I got real decent graphics and I replaced these. What happenbs? Some people were outraged and were saying "I'm destroying the game" :D

(I even sold some t-shirts with my original programmer art...)

The funny thing is, most people I was talking to was assuming I did my art because "I had artistic vision" (and frequently they added that "their 6 year old brother could draw it prettier", which I would not deny). I think the gfx got fans because I did it super ugly (but consistent, consistency it always critical for making people believe you did it on purpose), if I was trying to do it slightly better I think they would not find it appealing (I mean, if someone draw much worse than a small kid it can't be because of skills, right? It must mean it's art or vision or something like that :D)

It's not that i want 4k graphics, it's that i want any graphics at all. The thing is they don't even try to bring any graphics to their game, they rely on people blindly thinking its retro and cool to show as little detail as possible. There is a difference in trying to be as detailed as possible in the little space given, and what they do, trying to fit as little detail as possible. It's like they don't want you to be able to distinguish that the blob on the middle of the screen is supposed to represent a human being. Just look as old NES games and many of the pixelgames today, an extremely big difference in detail.

It's absolutely laziness behind it, so what if your games becomes 20mb larger with larger sprites and more detail, its not like be are on 56kbit modems anymore. If it would have been anything else they would at least try to be more detailed, but no...

Well, I would compare it to the movies...

In the beginning, movies were just intended as entertainment. But as the medium matured, more and more movie makers set out to create art.

True to that, most of these movies created as "art" are actually highly controversial. Some love it, I most often wouldn't know if I should laugh or cry, if I could stay awake long enough because most often these things are just so boring.

But the fact that these movies exist is actually a good thing. It shows that the medium has found its way into the mainstream, and has a diverse fanbase now that spans all kind of people...

Some of these want to see art, not entertainment.

Same is happening with games now. As the medium matures, the playerbase gets more diverse. New niches open up, and there seems to be quite a good portion of the playerbase that are into artsy / retro / minimalistic looking games. Some of these players want to play something "retro", some want to play something that is "art", some just don't care about the graphic and just look for good gameplay.

Whatever the reason is, some players seem to dig the style.

On the other hand, if we are talking about "thomas was alone" extrem minimalistic styles, we are now getting into real "art" territory. Is a red dot on a large black canvas art? Is an old naturalistic masterpiece from the Renaissance masters art (even though back in the day, this art was extremly non-artsy work-for-pay)?

Ther are just as many rasons why the creator of the game might have chosen the art style as there are reasons why players like it (I admit sometimes I suspect it was "I need a radically different art style to make my game unique")...

But isn't that a good thing? Is there a shortage on realistic looking games? No? Is there a shortage on realistic looking non-mainstream games? Yes? Why don't YOU set out and change that?

Another aspect is that people (and I'm not talking about pixelart fanatics, even on people I ask on the streets) are tired of AAA. No one (of course exceptions) desire AAA art anymore, sure they might like it or whatever but it's not a selling point anymore. I think people got used to it sooo much they see super graphics as standard, and kind of see "ugly minecraft blocks" as originality. Honestly, I secretly suspect they do not realize how hard is to make AAA art and they thing that since hardware can render it it's not an issue and that people who do stylized art (asciiart/voxels) don't do it because they can't do AAA but because they want to convey some artistic vision or something

I think it is much simpler: todays AAA games are mainly so unimaginative, that a good portion of players would put up with ANY kind of graphics just to get different gameplay.

If somebody puts another version of Call of Halo / Medal of modern Battlefield Trash in one of my gaming machines, he will be kicked out of my appartment :)

If I read the AAA game anouncements, I always get a deja vu ("aren't these the same games as last years... oh, its AC 5, not AC4, and Modern Warfare 4, not 3... ").

Most good AAA games these days are brand new IPs from new studios and leftfield reboots. And I usually am prepared to scratch of the series with the first sequel, because by that time most game series fall into the routine of rehash and rebrand last years game.

I have played some of the Indie titles available on Steam even though I am a mild graphics junkie. Some I actually enjoyed quite a lot, nevermind the lower graphics quality. I do not fire up a game to play a (not-so) interactive movie. Cut out your cutscenes and QTE, give me some solid mechanics to waste some time on.

I agree Gian! I've been replaying a lot of ps1 games and I understand if people think it looks "ugly". But as of late I've been finding an artistic beauty in its abstract nature of rendering things. Some may mark it up to nostalgia but in all honesty I don't think it is.

Acharis; That's kinda part of the point. Even hand drawn scribbles on paper offer more detail then the useless pixels, and it's a lot cheaper. So it all comes down to the pixel "artists" wanting to do as little as possible. It's very much possible to make very pretty graphics without using much effort or money at all. This fanatic belief in pixels is sickening.

Gian: No, it doesn't compare to the movies. If you would compare it to the movies you'd have to compare the pixel"artists" to people not using any camera at all and trying their best to mess up the medium while saying they are doing it retro by going hieroglyph style. Heck, not long ago i was in high belief the indieera has killed itself when all that was released were pixel TD's, people don't even try...

So it all comes down to the pixel "artists" wanting to do as little as possible. It's very much possible to make very pretty graphics without using much effort or money at all. This fanatic belief in pixels is sickening.

Bad art made by lazy artists will be bad regardless of the style though, I don't think that's a problem that's necessarily specific to pixel art -- pixel art just happens to have been fairly popular for the past few years, and being reasonably easy for a lazy/bad artist to get started in and produce (admittedly often poor) results there are a lot of examples of crappy pixel art.

Pixel art can be detailed and beautiful if done correctly by a skilled artist, and most other styles can look just as bad if rushed or done poorly.

Acharis; That's kinda part of the point. Even hand drawn scribbles on paper offer more detail then the useless pixels, and it's a lot cheaper. So it all comes down to the pixel "artists" wanting to do as little as possible. It's very much possible to make very pretty graphics without using much effort or money at all. This fanatic belief in pixels is sickening.

Gian: No, it doesn't compare to the movies. If you would compare it to the movies you'd have to compare the pixel"artists" to people not using any camera at all and trying their best to mess up the medium while saying they are doing it retro by going hieroglyph style. Heck, not long ago i was in high belief the indieera has killed itself when all that was released were pixel TD's, people don't even try...

Look, that's just... like your opinion, man (to quote the Dude).

I could go on the same hate rant on all the artsy movies I had to watch over the years because I didn't knew any better. 1 hour of my life wasted (well, I rarely watch a movie that is this bad to the end).

But I won't. Because in the end, everything that can be seen as "art" will attract artists. Which means wildly divergent quality levels, some lazy bums that sadly are supported by people with a... different taste in arts, some incredibly talented people that just have a style I personally do not dig, some people that try forcefully to be different, even if it means creating edge case stuff... but it will also give you good, sometimes weird and wacky, stuff that you do admire.

So while I personally think a boring Movie consisting of one single, 1hr long shot showing a blank concrete wall is just trash... someone else might rave for years how enlightening the expierience was, and about the genious of its creator. No point in arguing with that person really.

Taste differs. Artists / Game Devs and anyone else will in the end cater to all tastes out there, and some of them do in the safest / quickest / most provocative way possible. That is a good thing, not a bad one.

Question from my side: do you think the proliferation of pixel art games has somehow slowed down the release of other games? Do you think the pixel art devs would have been able to create / woul have created non-pixel art games if the hype wouldn't be there?

Or would there rather be just less games produced? What is the gain for anyone, save less pixel art noise on steam and similar outlets?

In all honesty people would mark up making a ps1 looking game up to laziness but isn't it harder to achieve that affect? As someone said you would have to make an engine that limits all the special conveniences and tools we have today. I know it would also require fixed point math as opposed to floating point. I think it would be an artistic choice as it's clearly harder to limit yourself. I read a bunch of forums with people who were positive towards the idea and thought it would be cool. I didn't expect this community to act in a completely opposite way.

Maybe not many in the way of graphics but gameplay-wise yeah. The games being inspired by SNES games are taking the 2D graphic style primarily because they enjoy the simplicity of 2D gameplay. The pixel graphics are just an easy way to get nostalgia points and because pixel art still looks pleasing to the eye even today. However as someone who was born in the 90s I do miss the gameplay from N64 and PS1 games. Specifically the 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Crash Bandicoot. We don't see all that many games like those from AAA developers anymore and I think it would be an interesting thing for indies to explore. They might take on similar art styles (over stylized anthropomorphic characters) but I doubt many would purposefully make their game non-HD these days.

Will indies have ps1 throwback games?

Ye gads, I hope not. There were a few charmers I can remember, like Parappa, but for the most part PS1 titles looked like crap. The PS1 is to 3D what the Atari was to 2D -- amazing for its time, but in hindsight utterly failing to deliver on the promise.

I can't imagine a stylistic choice to emulate the PS1's shortcomes -- not the abysmal polygon counts and miniscule draw distances, not the wonky clipping, nor lack of perspective-correct texturing. There's no charm in that. There are more interesting ways to do minimalist 3D.

Also keep in mind that almost no one makes indie games (let alone successful ones) that emulate poor 2D tech -- very few games even look like the more powerful computer contemporaries of the Atari, let alone the 2600. 2D retros today mostly look like they'd be home on SNES, NES, or Geneis, which were the pinnacle of tile-based GPU 2D tech, and also a huge base of nostalgia for just about any gamer in their 20s or 30s. At best the PS1 was a stepping stone to better things with a few memorable-looking games; arguably, even the failed Sega Saturn was more interesting -- it had non-tile-based 2D capabilities that rivaled the best contemporary 2D arcade machines, and actually had a higher capacity to do 3D well, if used right, than the PS1. Sega's arcade engineers played a big role in defining the Saturn, which was in part why I failed -- it had 8 processors counting the different CPU, MCU, Audio and GPU chips (much like Sega's high-end arcade boards), and was as a consequence both powerful and expensive to produce. In the end, it was too expensive and no one but Sega's arcade developers were skilled enough to extract its full potential. None of the old games look that good through modern eyes, but its telling that at least some examples of stuff produced while the Saturn was still viable looked every bit as good as the best-looking PS1 games that enjoyed the benefit of having a full console life cycle to figure it out -- but I digress.