Do We Really Need Photorealism In Games? - PC Tech - Part 50.
Game development teams are working hard to produce photorealism, but do we actually need it?
Gamers from both PC and consoles have been arguing for a long time as to which platform will reach photorealism first. And a swift answer would be.... no one knows yet. With advancements in hardware, graphic fidelity and quality has improved tenfold since the PlayStation One era. Current generation consoles are some of the most powerful to date, but consoles are very limited when it comes to hardware upgrades, and a new generation only come out every 4 – 6 years. PC hardware on the other hand is evolving constantly, with new and more powerful CPU's and Graphics cards being released yearly. But despite the fact there is some of the best hardware we have ever seen for gaming, photorealism is still just out of our reach.
Some people may think that we have already achieved photorealism because they see CGI in movies. Yes rendered photorealism is possible, but it is not done in real time like in games. CGI can take days if not weeks to render a simple scene. Gaming is all done in real time, and the photorealism that is seen in films just would not be possible.
We have indeed come along way from the simple 2D platform games of the 80's to where we are now. It is a very big contrast between them, and even today, there are still developers creating simple 2D games. So its more of a question of what we, the gamers prefer.... photorealism or stylized visuals in a game.
If you look through history, artists have gone from cave drawings to beautiful masterpieces that look as good as the real thing. Then as time moved on, other artist started to... mix things up and instead of creating something that looks real, they created there own style and turned away from the norm, like Van Gogh, Picasso, and Pollock. Yes there are artists that could create something that looks real, and those artists had there own fans, but other people prefer the stylized pictures of those artists that broke away from what was accepted.
Even though historic art and how it changed happened over a very long time, in today's world, information travels almost instantly and that same artistic change can be seen in the gaming industry. And in my personal opinion, games are a form of art.
Games like the Last of Us, FarCry 5, Death Stranding, and a shit tone like them have some of the most impressive graphics that we have ever seen. The animations on the characters bodies and face are very fluidic and can be mistaken for the real thing. Yet if you take the Norman Reedus out of Death Stranding and place him in the real world, you will instantly know there is something not right. That is simply because we are still a long way away from having the technology at our disposal that can produce an image that can be indistinguishable from the real thing, in real time.
We are getting closer to that goal though. With the new Ray Tracing technology that was demonstrated not to long ago by Nvidia, that will be introduced in there next generation graphics cards later this year, it brings us a step closer to photorealism, but you will still be able to tell the difference between real and not real. Hardware has to be much more powerful in order to render photorealism in real time.
On the other side of the coin, we have games that are stylized, and instead of aiming for something to look real, developers instead become more imaginative in there game designs. Take the game Ori and the Will of the Wisps as a fantastic example. Not only is it one of the best artistically looking games of all time, it doesn't attempt to reproduce what we perceive to be ''real''. Instead it takes an idea and builds from it. Basically the they make the stylized world look real from the characters point of view, and this shows in the colour pallet they use, the animations of the characters and the overall look of the game.
And then you get games like Shovel Knight that are a throw back to the games of the late 80's early 90's with a modern twist. Even though the 'idea' of the game may seem stupid, its that stylized imagination that people love.
A game is exactly that, a Game. Nothing needs to make sense as long as its enjoyable and engaging. This is the ultimate goal for any game developer when making a game. The end user must want to play it.
A lot of careful consideration has to be taken when game developers decide on what type of game it is they are creating. Will it be a first person shooter that is based on a real time in history? If this be the case, then being as accurate to what is real will be the main selling point of the game. Or will it be an open world game based on a fantasy tale? This will leave the developers open to choose how imaginative they want to go. Each type of game style and genre has its own fan base, and the developers ultimately need to satisfy them.
We have not yet reached photorealism in games, and it will be a few console and PC generations before we do see it. Regardless, it doesn't stop developers from creating masterpieces that are close to the real thing. But if we learn anything from artistic history, there are always going to be 2 distinct types of art that fans will follow... Photorealism and Stylized. It is the Ying and Yang, almost like one can not exist without the other.
There is no doubt in my mind that photorealism will be achieved within the next 10 years and I for one can not wait to see the quality of games that will be made by then. On the other hand, the power of the hardware that will be available to us gamers will be mind bending, and the stylized games that will be produced will be equally mind bending. Games that recreate historic battles that are 100% accurate in the visuals department, entire imaginative worlds created that have nothing to do with reality. The future of gaming will only get better. All you need to do is to take a look at the new games that are constantly being released. More and more detail is added to each new game, creating either something that is closer to photorealism and a more stylized imaginative game for us, the gamers to enjoy.
As a gamer myself, living in a house of gamers, we are always on the look out for games that are engaging and can hold our attention for long periods of time. This is what the majority of gamers look for in a game. The photorealism and stylized side of the argument is very subjective and totally dependant on the gamers preference.
So to answer the question of 'Do we need photorealism in games?'... the answer will simply rest on what gamers want out of there gaming experience. There is no right or wrong answer to this question. Yes we will eventually see photorealism in games at some point in the future, but by that time, the preference of the gamers may change and may choose a more stylized game over that which looks real. To add to that, the 'style' of the games that will be developed may change also. It is just a case of …. ''Wait and see''.
What type of visual style do you prefer in the games you play?
Let us know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading.
Stu @TechMojo
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I certainly think photorealism will and should be done in games. However, it should go without saying that it isn't necessary for every game.
oh yeah. i totally agree with you.
I don't think we necessarily need photorealism. Some of the best games here as far as graphics are pretty damn close. However, we will get it in the coming years.
But whether or not you want photorealism or not doesn't matter, because we still need better and better graphics cards, that use less energy. The ones these days used to render near photo-realistic games at high quality turn your computer into a space heater. Gamers need better and better graphics cards, just in case one of the creators of one of the games that they might want will need that power to display their vision.
I personally am not one to chase photo-realism. I often like arcade and old-school games. But I won't say that graphics don't matter. Every once in a while I like to play some of the old-school doom games. Playing them with the new open source engines is a world's of difference! It's so much more! Makes me annoyed that all these closed source games are so often just abandoned. I hope at least a few of them eventually open source.
i somewhat agree. i am a huge fan of games from the golden age of gaming, but at the same time, i also like modern stylized games like Ori, cuphead, limbo, child of light... and with pc hardware improving all the time, i can not wait to see what type of imaginative worlds that will be created. i do hope they re-imagine Golden Axe into a full fantasy world.... that will be epic to play.
I think with things like VR it should be something the market is striving to reach. Just form a gaming educational standpoint alone that would really do the work quite some good. Image instead of wasting time at a college you could just play a game for two years and be fully trained up. By then the chances are good that job would be remote in to anyways so you could just keep doing the same thing from home as you have been doing for the training game.
At some point I think we will have even better then photorealism and that might be where issues start to be crated. When the fake world looks so much better than the real one ever could and people having issues with addiction. I could see some rather bad habits forming over the long run. Society is going have some hardships coming up and I think quite a number of us are already hiding in games it will just become more normal and easier to do.
With that said I think some genres might need to be not 100% photorealism. I can think of very gory style of games being that case. Do I really need to see blood and guts dangling out of a corpse where I could not tell if it was real or in a game. It could still have amazing top notice graphics it would just be editing in a way to be a tad different. Otherwise, you are building conditioning for that short of thing. That great if you are training someone for war. Not so great if it’s just a normal every day person no longer has any feeling when dealing in a situation like that in real life.
Overall I’m for it. We just have to be a tad careful and I hope more resources out there and understanding for those who are having trouble dealing with things.
i hadn't thought that far ahead, in terms of VR/ training and so on. but i can see exactly where you are coming from.
if there was a very real horror game that had excessive amounts of gore... you know i will be first in line to play it... lmao.
I don't think really realistic graphic are necessary for most of the games, but those realistic graphics are necessary to some games, especially ones based on real life events.
I didn't care a lot about the realism until I saw my relative play PS4 in his house. Games on the big screen really made me feel I'm living there.
Though I still like stylized art more, and with the recent games that use stylized graphics. I can see how the future will be great.
the future is bright, the future is full of deformed mascots ready to save a fictional world.
Who said the real world is better than the fictional ones.
Well, I think it is. If only because it contains all of them.
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