Gaming’s focus on graphics is crazy, but gameplay and story matter more! Let’s keep games fun, not just flashy
Gaming’s focus on graphics is crazy, but gameplay and story matter more! Let’s keep games fun, not just flashy
33 Comments
I wish at least graphics was actually good and not a mess of temporal AA and unnecessary post processing with an uninspired style as a cherry on top. Former Sony exclusives are years old yet they still hold up and don’t even demand that much power
nice looks can safe a mediocre game.
nice gameplay can safe a ugly game.
good story often cannot make up for lack in beauty or gameplay.
also who cares about replay value and accessibility?
also controls need only one thing. be interchangeable.
Gameplay, story and art style are definitely top 3 requirements for a good game imo.
The reason why aaa companies keep publishing games with incredible graphics is bc that’s the only thing they can realistically increase and expect decent returns on.
Things like story, art style and voice acting all require nuance that the typical company ceo who only cares about money would have no idea about.
Also op, why did you include controls when you alr have gameplay? Whether or not the controls are fluent and smooth affects the gameplay overall.
God I hate these posts. Graphics can do a shit ton for the game and overall presentation, in what world is accessibility more important lmao.
Kinda how I feel playing Oblivion Remastered – the game itself is great, but because of Unreal Engine 5 anyone on midrange or lower hardware is having a tough time running it well.
It really depends on the type of game.
Racing sim car collector? Graphics and sound are going to be very high priority.
Single player story based game? Personally less important than other factors.
Multiplayer? Competitive ones don’t push graphics too hard usually. City builders, rts, etc etc all want to achieve different goals and often prioritize different things to get there.
Good art direction alone can be better than the fanciest graphics in plenty of cases, moreso in some genres than others.
haha you are funny, lets DLSS/FSR, framegen, 30fps, the shit out of our AAA game so the graphics are slighty better at the cost of everything.
Game companies do this because it sells games. If people wouldn’t salivate over graphics and overpriced GPUs etc we might be in a different spot.
Art Style is part of graphics is it not?
We’ve reached a point where I question peoples definition of the word “graphics”. Art style, visual clarity, performance, UI are all super important, and they are all part of the game graphics.
I assume some people think of “good graphics” as “hyper realism, high fidelity 4K raytraced movie-esque pictures bordering on real life visuals”.
Take Minecraft for example. It is highly stylized. It is low resolution. It still has amazing graphics. And the graphics serve the gameplay in a big way.
I’d argue the performance is more important.
Story, music, art style and characters over controls? I’m not playing a game that controls like shit lol.
My friends and family still fire up Left 4 Dead (2) to this day for multiplayer. It’s be nice if they could update it’s glitchiness, or make another one.
graphics matter for me but you know what matters more? being able to play a game without constant stutters on medium setting with dlss
Why does it need to be tiered? Every element has value; it’s a question of leveraging each to achieve the developers’ intent.
Story is very optional though. Hundreds of ridiculously fun games out there that you can play for hours but have a dog shit story.
I feel like that’s all we get now, decent to good graphics and a year or two wait to finish the game, usually ends up being subpar bc of greed and stupidity, burn corporate America to the ground, it’s become a worldwide infection.
Most small businesses are taking up the same “who gives a shit, take it or leave it” concept too.
What is the most infuriating is seeing them get away with it, we all need to stop accepting mediocrity.
Yeah this is definitely not a hard and fast rule. Depending on the game, the order of importance of all of these aspects changes
I mean what’s the point of spending $5,000 on a rig if you can play N64 mario games that ticks all the boxes except for modern graphics?
This is why I play visual novels , it’s all story
I used to think this way too, i mean it makes sense right? gameplay is king. But one day i realized while going through steam that it takes me 0.5 seconds to decide if I’m interested in a game and the art style has a large influence in that decision. Other factors such as UI or any pictures that tell me the game’s genre also have a part on it. So while I do still believe gameplay is king, what has the all important initial pull to a game for the average consumer is how it looks.
I think games should focus on art direction instead of high fidelity graphics. A game doesn’t need to look like real life to look good. I bet doing away with those graphics would also lower the dev budget by a considerable amount, if not the most of any other cut feature.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive
Feel like this isn’t even a thing in 2025
You need to add voice acting. So fucking important.
The story is really not that important. In some games, sure. Development into the lore of some games takes months and months, and it’s ignored by over half the playerbase. We want content
Haha yeah, I remember being 14 and unable to afford a new video card too.
ironic that they even cant make good graphic because every game is multiplatform shit that must work on 15yo systems
True
Actual graphics aren’t even that good sadly
It’s not crazy. And why do we have to declare one thing more important?
1. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the sensory experience in and of itself. The arcade game Dragon’s Lair had garbage gameplay. And everyone loved the shit out of it. The animation and video was stunning.
2. High fidelity and detail graphics can serve things like immersion, mood, tone, and art direction itself. It can help make characters vivid and real.. like GoW’s Kratos. Seeing the emotion in his eyes isn’t the same as looking at a 2-d cartoon character portrait
3. Graphical power is what enables totally new kinds of gameplay. Look at the Switch 2. Mario Kart World with a huge open world experience is just not something the Switch 1 was going to be able to do. Likewise, look at the massive destructability in the Donkey Kong game. This kind gameplay would have made Switch 1’s poor ancient CPU explode. Even games like Minecraft that we think of as super low-tech are only made possible by the innovation and trailblazing of GPUs in the late 90’s/00’s.
New hardware power = new kinds of gameplay experiences. You want to game like its 1978 or 1994 forever and ever… uh fine? Enjoy yo life. Don’t tell me I’m wrong for enjoying mine.
Art style is more important than graphics.
well no, i disagree, it’s a balance type of situation, i don’t want 90’s graphics where a head is just a pixel box lol
to use a recent example, Oblivion, i never played the original because it had trash graphics, 2005 game after all, but now with the remake/remaster i am playing it.
Graphics are important otherwise we would all be using CRT TV and watching movies in VHS tape at 240p.
Graphics is like being a beautiful person. As much as we don’t like to admit it, pretty privilege does exist.
But just like beautiful people need personality and other important things to be a good partner. A game needs much more than graphics to be good.
But it sure makes it easier to get people through the door.
This is why the indy studios are making the best games