• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Gaming has NOT evolved since 2007 (Diminishing Returns)

GymWolf

Member
the results were still worse than what the 360 was capable of. so in the end, it wasn't worth it having this exotic hardware
Wasn't x360 a bit exotic aswell?

And how were ps3 games graphically worse than x360 games exactly?

At best they were on par but IMO stuff like tlou, unchy 3, kz2\3 and gow3\ascension were better than halo 4, gears 3 etc.

I think we are a bit off-topic...
 
Last edited:
screen1.jpg


The difference between RTX on/off are the reflections.

Keep in mind, 50% performance hit for slightly better reflections.

Ray tracing in games is a gimmick at the moment.
 
Last edited:

Synless

Member
I’m not going to blame consoles. PC games are not blowing my mind either. VR is the only new immersive gameplay I’ve seen in years, though that’s so hit and miss in its current form.

diminishing returns is real, it’s literally a fucking fact in technology.
 
Last edited:
Correct. Ray tracing makes screenshots look better but overall it hasn't moved the needle in terms of innovation.

I think that at least graphic wise we are gonna see decent\good things from the usual wizards that gave us rdr2 or tlou2 on a 1.8 tf machine with a shitty cpu.

It's physics wise that i'm not so sure about...

And btw, x360 and ps3 were not as underpowered as ps4 and ps5, or at the very least they were more custom machines with clever solutions, something that got lost in the next 2 gen.

PS360 were stronger than any gaming PC for the 1st year of their existence, something not has never occurred since unfortunately.
 
Multiplayer mostly changed due to the rise of free 2 play.
in terms of technology it also hasn't progressed a bit.

we already had massive shooters with hundreds of players in stuff like Planetside which released in 2003.

we got a new very popular game mode which is battle royale. but a new game mode is hardly an evolution, it's simply a mode someone came up with while creating mods for Arma 2.
This, if anything mp has stopped progressing overall and has regressed.

No mod support or dedicated servers are few examples.
 

iQuasarLV

Member
If you're that pessimistic about new game design paradigm shifts, you have to apply your pessimism to every innovation the industry has ever had.

Dual analogue sticks were just designed to get people more addicted.

3D games were just designed for increased addiction.

VR was just designed because addiction.

If we can't recognize brilliant design from the industries most creative people without turning to this kind of talk, then the conversation can't really progress.
Wow you totally failed at reading comprehension. Not only that, but also became a sarcastic smart-ass in response.

based the quoted post none of those concepts are "New Era", and VR was introduced in 1960 and only just became adapted to modern gaming.

But hey lets just ignore the practice of RE-releasing old products as new but with time-gating, cash shops, loot boxes, ridiculous cost of entry, etc just to play a MAYBE modern take on an old game.

That there is the rub, is it not? Modern video gaming is following the Disney playbook of game design. Re release old shit as new to a new generation of gamers and monetize the ever loving shit out of it because the current new generation is born to cash shops, micro transactions, micro DLC, loot boxes, etc. Those of us whom grew up pre-2007 are just purely disgusted with the acceptance of this crap.

Then we get people like you who want to just shit on the very idea that things once were more inclusive in a single product and not a-la-carted to obscene levels. But hey lets get totally audacious about an assumed idea that was borne from a completely failed ability to properly interpret the quoted poster's point.
 
If you're that pessimistic about new game design paradigm shifts, you have to apply your pessimism to every innovation the industry has ever had.

Dual analogue sticks were just designed to get people more addicted.

3D games were just designed for increased addiction.

VR was just designed because addiction.


If we can't recognize brilliant design from the industries most creative people without turning to this kind of talk, then the conversation can't really progress.
Are you serious?

Those innovations were made to progress developers visions, into what games could become.

From this - Atari

s_pitfall_1.png


To This - God of War

god-of-war-sony-santa-monica.jpg
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Wow you totally failed at reading comprehension. Not only that, but also became a sarcastic smart-ass in response.

based the quoted post none of those concepts are "New Era", and VR was introduced in 1960 and only just became adapted to modern gaming.

But hey lets just ignore the practice of RE-releasing old products as new but with time-gating, cash shops, loot boxes, ridiculous cost of entry, etc just to play a MAYBE modern take on an old game.

That there is the rub, is it not? Modern video gaming is following the Disney playbook of game design. Re release old shit as new to a new generation of gamers and monetize the ever loving shit out of it because the current new generation is born to cash shops, micro transactions, micro DLC, loot boxes, etc. Those of us whom grew up pre-2007 are just purely disgusted with the acceptance of this crap.

Then we get people like you who want to just shit on the very idea that things once were more inclusive in a single product and not a-la-carted to obscene levels. But hey lets get totally audacious about an assumed idea that was borne from a completely failed ability to properly interpret the quoted poster's point.

You're focused on payment model.

I'm focused on game design paradigm shifts.

I'd argue MTX are superior to the old model as well but that's an entirely different conversation.
 
Last edited:
Wasn't x360 a bit exotic aswell?

And how were ps3 games graphically worse than x360 games exactly?

At best they were on par but IMO stuff like tlou, unchy 3, kz2\3 and gow3\ascension were better than halo 4, gears 3 etc.

I think we are a bit off-topic...

X360 is very exotic, it had a custom tri-core IBM CPU while home PCs were running mostly single and dual cores.

Also, its GPU had features that no GPU available on the market had.

No game on PC looked as good as Gears of War did when it released on the 360, in 2006.
 
I’m not going to blame consoles. PC games are not blowing my mind either. VR is the only new immersive gameplay I’ve seen in years, though that’s so hit and miss in its current form.

diminishing returns is real, it’s literally a fucking fact in technology.

Nvidia CEO even stated Moore's Law is dead.

"The long-held notion that the processing power of computers increases exponentially every couple of years has hit its limit, according to Jensen Huang."

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/moores-law-is-dead-nvidias-ceo-jensen-huang-says-at-ces-2019/
 

iQuasarLV

Member
You're focused on payment model.

I'm focused on game design paradigm shifts.

I'd argue MTX are superior to the old model as well but that's an entirely different conversation.
Yea man that is the point Guilty_AI was making. The only paradigm shift he SEES is monetization models and nothing truly evolving the concept. You wanted to take that and mutate it into something else just to prove a point. That is called a straw man argument. Never go full straw man. Everyone knows that.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Yea man that is the point Guilty_AI was making. The only paradigm shift he SEES is monetization models and nothing truly evolving the concept. You wanted to take that and mutate it into something else just to prove a point. That is called a straw man argument. Never go full straw man. Everyone knows that.

I thought we were talking about game design advancements not payment model changes. I'll go reread the OP. My apologies.
 
If we can't recognize brilliant design from the industries most creative people without turning to this kind of talk, then the conversation can't really progress.
Really dude? You haven’t figured out this forum yet? People are not interested in progressing the conversation. They are interested in having their existing world view confirmed. Certain topics are just not worth discussing on gaf.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Dual analogue sticks were just designed to get people more addicted.
They were designed because a second analogue allows for better camera controls
3D games were just designed for increased addiction.
They were made because they open up new game possibilities
VR was just designed because addiction.
Similar to 3D


Now tell me, whats the design purpose of limited-time skin sales?
Whats the design purpose of paid in-game currencies sold at packages?
Why do those packages give you an amount of coin just slightly below that of certain items?
Whats the design purpose of paid battle passes that give you a time limit to get their unlockables?
Whats the design purpose of daily challenges/objectives?
Whats the design purpose of limited time in-game events?
Whats the design purpose of gacha mechanics?
 
I don't think it is diminishing returns, I think the actual focus of game development has switched.

They don't care about those environments, they want more resolution, easy marketable terms like "4K" and not so easy ones like "fps" that even your grandma can understand and buy. You can't have it all and they don't care about the things you do, like enemy A.I. or whatever.

Also, they are right BTW because the industry is huge and very succesful games are coming out.
 
They were designed because a second analogue allows for better camera controls

They were made because they open up new game possibilities

Similar to 3D


Now tell me, whats the design purpose of limited-time skin sales?
Whats the design purpose of paid in-game currencies sold at packages?
Why do those packages give you an amount of coin just slightly below that of certain items?
Whats the design purpose of paid battle passes that give you a time limit to get their unlockables?
Whats the design purpose of daily challenges/objectives?
Whats the design purpose of limited time in-game events?
Whats the design purpose of gacha mechanics?
Holy shit, we actually agree on something.

lego-antonio-banderas.gif
 
Funny how OP selectively picked one game without destructible environments, so that he can pretend no modern games have destructible environments.
 
Funny how OP selectively picked one game without destructible environments, so that he can pretend no modern games have destructible environments.

List AAA games released within the last 5 years that have it.

Post videos or screenshots of said games, showing the destructibility.

Good luck
 
Last edited:

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
They were designed because a second analogue allows for better camera controls

They were made because they open up new game possibilities

Similar to 3D


Now tell me, whats the design purpose of limited-time skin sales?
Whats the design purpose of paid in-game currencies sold at packages?
Why do those packages give you an amount of coin just slightly below that of certain items?
Whats the design purpose of paid battle passes that give you a time limit to get their unlockables?
Whats the design purpose of daily challenges/objectives?
Whats the design purpose of limited time in-game events?
Whats the design purpose of gacha mechanics?

That's all payment model stuff.

I'm more interested in game design. What people actually play.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
That's all payment model stuff.

I'm more interested in game design. What people actually play.
So am i, now tell me the brilliant advancements of game design new multiplayer focused games have brought us.

Optional extra objective 1: Pick only games that are actually multiplayer oriented. Not single player games that happened to give birth to a cool multiplayer modes like Minecraft.
Optional extra objective 2: Make sure they've released at least within the last 5 years.
 
Last edited:

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
You have to be trolling.

Dual joysticks and 3D, ADVANCED game design by opening up new possibilities for games.

I agree with you.

I merely brought those up to illustrate how important modern era multiplayer means in terms of game design. I think pivotal advancements should be lauded rather than merely say "It's only because of greed".
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
Many of the mentioned games are super exploitative, Roblox is a specially bad case. Stuff like user made content and modes that existed solely to be fun used to be just the natural state of affairs, now its the exception.
literally out of all of those it's only roblox which is exploitative, everything else is fine
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Holy shit, we actually agree on something.

lego-antonio-banderas.gif
Not exactly, i fully believed the gaming industry has evolved. What devolved was specifically the big multi-billion dollar gaming industry.

In fact, its even possible to argue said industry only appeared rather recently (while taking with it some beloved IPs) and was never good in the first place.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
literally out of all of those it's only roblox which is exploitative, everything else is fine
GTA online is super exploitative, so is Fortnite. Fall guys started out fine but now they're going the same route as Fortnite after getting bought by Epic.

But its true Roblox is a whole new paradigm of exploitation so it stands out.
 
Last edited:
Not exactly, i fully believed the gaming industry has evolved. What devolved was specifically the big multi-billion dollar gaming industry.

In fact, its even possible to argue said industry only appeared rather recently (while taking with it some beloved IPs) and was never good in the first place.
Not exactly...?

fuck-this-everything.gif
 
Last edited:

Irobot82

Member
How do we still have object collision?

Hair clipping into bodies, clothes clipping.

Dead eyes. So much physics that's just still missing from games. Everything should be interactable, kind of like how they created PBR for all light interactions with objects.
 
Still waiting...

Still waiting for what there's nothing to respond to because you were dishonest and moved the goal posts in the first reply. OP didn't say anything about 5 years, he said there hadn't been games with destructible environments since 2007. i don't care how crazy you are everyone knows that's false and he just picked one random game that didn't have it to put in the OP to pretend no games after 2007 had it.



Look at that.
 
Still waiting for what there's nothing to respond to because you were dishonest and moved the goal posts in the first reply. OP didn't say anything about 5 years, he said there hadn't been games with destructible environments since 2007. i don't care how crazy you are everyone knows that's false and he just picked one random game that didn't have it to put in the OP to pretend no games after 2007 had it.



Look at that.
Wow, 4 games.

These honestly aren't any better than BC2, Red Faction Guerilla, Mercenaries, or even Crysis did, a decade+ ago.

...Is that supposed to be impressive?

Try again
 
Last edited:
Wow, 4 games.

These honestly aren't any better than BC2, Red Faction Guerilla, Mercenaries, or even Crysis did, a decade+ ago.

...Is that supposed to be impressive?

Try again

yeah, this is a troll. No one believes there weren't a bunch of games with destructible environments after 2007.
 
yeah, this is a troll. No one believes there weren't a bunch of games with destructible environments after 2007.

Nobody said there wasn't?

It's just that by now more games should utilize it than just a cherry picked few.

All the games with destructible environments can be counted on one hand, in the span of 15 years.

Regardless game design has barely progressed in that same time span as well, these facts.

This thread is not about just one aspect of gaming that hasn't progressed, it's the OVERALL package.

Is that good thing?
 
Last edited:
Nobody said there wasn't?

It's just that by now more games should utilize it than just a cherry picked few.

All the games with destructible environments can be counted on one hand, in the span of 15 years.

Regardless game design has barely progressed in that same time span as well, these facts.

Is that good thing?

The OP cherry picked so this is ironic, and now you're claiming there have only been at most 5 games with destructible environments since 2015?

Even a recent indie title like Deep Rock Galatic has destructible environments. While they aren't the focus of many games (and weren't then either) there's a lot more than the low amount you are implying.

2007 was a very long time ago, there has been more than a handful of games with destructible environments.
 
The OP cherry picked so this is ironic, and now you're claiming there have only been at most 5 games with destructible environments since 2015?

Even a recent indie title like Deep Rock Galatic has destructible environments. While they aren't the focus of many games (and weren't then either) there's a lot more than the low amount you are implying.

2007 was a very long time ago, there has been more than a handful of games with destructible environments.

Agreed, 2007 was a long time ago and tech has progressed since then.

What are these "more than a handful games", so I can go check them out?
 
Last edited:
diminishing returns is simply that point when technological refinement in graphics & sound begin to exceed the capabilities of average human eyes & ears to appreciate them. &, yes, to a large extent, we're there...
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Here is an example of diminishing returns in terms of graphics, and how 2007 set the standard for modern gaming as we know it.

Doom - 1993

ss_0316d2cb78eed32d21a90f197da0e0ea4b06e776.1920x1080.jpg


Crysis - 2007 (14 YEARS LATER, destructible environments)

original.jpg


World In Conflict - 2007 (14 YEARS LATER, destructible environments/terrain deformation)

813424-932462_20070802_001.jpg


Saints Row - 2022 (15 YEARS LATER, NO destructible environments or terrain deformation)

maxresdefault.jpg


Can anyone really say the rate of progress of the prior years, has kept up post PS360 era?

Compare the 14 year jump from Doom in 1993 to Crysis and World In Conflict which released in 2007, 14 years later.

Now compare the jump from Crysis and World In Conflict, to Saints Row 2022 (15 years later).

*Nvidia CEO, stated that Moore's Law is dead.*

"The long-held notion that the processing power of computers increases exponentially every couple of years has hit its limit, according to Jensen Huang."

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/moores-law-is-dead-nvidias-ceo-jensen-huang-says-at-ces-2019/

The comparison below represents a generation apart, PS4 on left/PS5 on right.

zd-vs-fw-horizon.jpg


That is the definition of diminishing returns and why the gen to gen jump, has been minimizing.
Diminishing returns are inevitable.

But what exactly bugs you about today's graphics?

I mean for me, nothing really bugs me. The lack of progress in NPC world realism bugs me more.

But if visuals of today cause you to not like gaming, you could always read a book.
This one is good.

RM6bDvj.jpg
 
Last edited:

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
So am i, now tell me the brilliant advancements of game design new multiplayer focused games have brought us.

Optional extra objective 1: Pick only games that are actually multiplayer oriented. Not single player games that happened to give birth to a cool multiplayer modes like Minecraft.
Optional extra objective 2: Make sure they've released at least within the last 5 years.

Multiplayer has very clearly shifted from a sports paradigm to a narrative paradigm over the last 5 or so years.

10 years ago, it felt like every big multiplayer game (obviously there are exceptions) just pitted two teams against eachother and said "Have at it. We'll stop the round in 10 minutes and tally up your points."

Call of Duty, Gears of War, Halo, Titanfall, Fifa, Battlefield, Overwatch etc...the list would be nearly endless.

After your 10 minute round, everything resets and players would queue up for the next match which largely plays the same.

The monumental design advancement we've witnessed is multiplayer mirroring the traditional hero's journey we see in narrative games. Players start weak, and build up power over a significantly longer gameplay arc than the old sports model. The odds of victory are significantly more difficult and thereby much more tense and rewarding. You can no longer sit idly by and collect wins because your team carries you.

Rust servers last for weeks.
PUBG matches are 45 minutes long.
Lost Ark takes months to fully level up your character.

It's no longer a sport. It's a story.

I don't want to entertain your first objective because I feel it's unnecessary when examining multiplayer and its growth. Why limit ourselves when studying a topic? The designers creating the next multiplayer phenomenon don't limit themselves in that way. Why should we?

I don't want to entertain your second objective because it seems arbitrary to me. The dinosaurs didn't all go extinct overnight. Mammals didn't all sprout up the next day. However, make no mistake..the era of the dinosaur is over. The era of the mammal is here. This narrative concept in multiplayer is just getting started. The next 5 years is going to be insane with monster hits that improve on the first generation narrative multiplayer.

We are witness to the most important design advancement gaming has seen since 2D to 3D. It really can not be overstated.
 
Last edited:
The OP cherry picked so this is ironic, and now you're claiming there have only been at most 5 games with destructible environments since 2015?

Even a recent indie title like Deep Rock Galatic has destructible environments. While they aren't the focus of many games (and weren't then either) there's a lot more than the low amount you are implying.

2007 was a very long time ago, there has been more than a handful of games with destructible environments.
While you are right in that there exists destructible environments in games since 2007/2015, it is a small minority relative to games that don't have it. It's not anywhere near standardized or widely adopted, and the destruction is often severely limited. I enjoy the chaos in Just Cause but even there it's not really ideal. Even in the video you posted you can see only fuel tanks and certain structures can be destroyed, while the majority of buildings remain indestructible. You can, for example, launch the biggest bomb into the middle of the city and the majority of stuff will be sadly unaffected at all. It is frankly a disappointment 4 games into a series about destruction. Crackdown 3 promised so much and delivered so little. Most other games these days... just don't care. You have the occasional indie envelope pusher like Teardown, BeamNG or Mud/Snow runner, but stuff like that rarely ever makes it into the big games, which is what everyone wants but no game does because it requires games to be designed differently.

As to OP's topic, there's a bit of bad faith in there, but they also have a point. Progress has frankly been pretty slow overall. Physics are primitive in most games, lighting is still mostly static, and everything is canned. It's weird to look back at GTA IV's heavy physics simulation and realize most of it still hasn't made it into most open world games. And AI, let's just say I hope that Google conversational AI stuff makes it into games soon.
 

Kagey K

Banned
While I agree the PS360 gen was the one that brought giant advancements, I'm not ready to write this one off yet in the cross gen stage.

I think the Unreal Engine 5 delays are what are really slowing down all devs.

If UE5 was ready to go before this gen started I think we would be seeing more releases today, but it feels like lots of devs are waiting for it before the hit full send on release

On top of all the Covid stuff and general development fuckery.
 

GymWolf

Member
X360 is very exotic, it had a custom tri-core IBM CPU while home PCs were running mostly single and dual cores.

Also, its GPU had features that no GPU available on the market had.

No game on PC looked as good as Gears of War did when it released on the 360, in 2006.
well-thanks-bro-thanks-bro.gif
 

anothertech

Member
As I really like this topic, and agree in general with diminishing returns, I'd like to make a case for current artistic merit and innovation. There is a world of difference in each decade of game evolution.

Imo, using crysis as an example is dinengenuous for a myriad if reasons. Least of which is that no one could run crysis at max performance until the 2029s so that comparison is ridiculous.

Let's begin in 1980
W1siZiIsIjI1NTc5MSJdLFsicCIsImNvbnZlcnQiLCItcXVhbGl0eSA5MCAtcmVzaXplIDIwMDB4MTQ0MFx1MDAzZSJdXQ.jpg


1990
pit5.gif


2000
1476073535-3604885444.jpg


2010
130317.jpg


2020
unreal-engine-5-cyberpunk-2077-would-look-like-in-a-video.jpg


2022
aloy-horizon-forbidden-west.gif


Excited to see what 2030 brings.

Quite hopeful it will blow crysis away ;)
 

GymWolf

Member

These are nice examples but many old games do similar things.







And these are 2 ps2 games and a 2009 game.


wreckfest is nice but it is not exactly a new game, i bought the game in early access like almost 10 years ago when it had a different name.

I want to see something more detailed like the video i posted, i know it's heavy stuff but i want devs to at least try an approximation of that, even if the cpu is nothing to write at home about it's still a MAJOR upgrade over a jaguar (or a ps2 cpu)
 

GymWolf

Member
As I really like this topic, and agree in general with diminishing returns, I'd like to make a case for current artistic merit and innovation. There is a world of difference in each decade of game evolution.

Imo, using crysis as an example is dinengenuous for a myriad if reasons. Least of which is that no one could run crysis at max performance until the 2029s so that comparison is ridiculous.

Let's begin in 1980
W1siZiIsIjI1NTc5MSJdLFsicCIsImNvbnZlcnQiLCItcXVhbGl0eSA5MCAtcmVzaXplIDIwMDB4MTQ0MFx1MDAzZSJdXQ.jpg


1990
pit5.gif


2000
1476073535-3604885444.jpg


2010
130317.jpg


2020
unreal-engine-5-cyberpunk-2077-would-look-like-in-a-video.jpg


2022
aloy-horizon-forbidden-west.gif


Excited to see what 2030 brings.

Quite hopeful it will blow crysis away ;)
People have no fantasy at all, they just need to look at AAA cinema quality CG to know what the future is gonna bring.

they think this is near close to photorealism or close to the endgame when stuff like avatar 2 or the lion king live action exist.


thelastofusparti_2022xdchs.png


35d60359-screenshot-2021-10-20-at-20-22-58-god-of-war-ragnarok-ps5-games-playstation.jpg
 

anothertech

Member
Now if we look at games by generation, rather than decade, we can still see stark differences. I don't think we really see what each gen brings till the end of the generation but let's look.

Pong
Pong460x276.jpg


Atari 2600
5bb3da47711ae6dd.png


Nintendo Entertainment System
images


Super Nintendo
7-2.jpg


Playstation
re_2_mr_x_1547904797196.jpg


PS2
Wander-Eyeing-Up-One-Of-The-Colossi-In-The-Remake-Of-Shadow-Of-The-Colossus.jpg


PS3
beyond-two-souls.jpg


PS4
Eqpy.gif


PS5 thus far
b55b76540f6f46a3958ce9298896913d3c406079.gif


Definitely some diminishing returns in the last decade and a half, but the generation is young :)
 
Top Bottom