Zombie James
Banned
From the recent issue of said magazine, the editorial by a Mr. Brandon Sheffield:
He ends the article by making a car comparison.
So, in short:
- Last-gen graphics are all we'll ever need.
- Developers should port-down their games because no one will care or notice.
- GTA IV on a PS2 would have been just as great.
- Blu-ray sucks because YouTube is popular.
- Casuals don't care about graphics, so neither should anyone else.
Of course, the funniest thing about this is that it's coming from Game Developer magazine, where every other page is an ad for new technologies and engines. In fact, the page on the immediate right of this editorial is an ad for NaturalMotion, which apparently didn't add anything to GTA IV.
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Metal gear Solid 4 was a big console mover for Sony, and the game sold over a million copies worldwide. But how integral were the graphics and tech to that experience, really? If MGS4 had been released on the PS2, how many copies would it have sold? Certainly not less, and quite possible more.
Would anyone have complained if GTA IV had been released on the PS2 or a machine with similar graphic fidelity? I doubt it - everyone would have been able to like or dislike it as much as they did the next-gen versions. Graphgics don't make a game fun, and it is not nearly the best looking game on either the 360 or PS3 - yet nobody minds. The fact that Rockstar is releasing a GTA on the DS only pushes the idea further.
Sony has effectively won a war that is no longer being fought. It's been demonstrated time and again that the mainstream user is willing to watch streamed videos and movies on YouTube, or torrent them on The Pirate Bay, or even download them at only slightly lower quality from legitimate portals like the Xbox 360 or Netflix.
The PC is the place where this postulate holds the most water. The majority of gamers on PC these days do not need the highest-level graphics. World of Warcraft is a great example, and the multitudinous casual games only put mortar on the bricks.
Who is pushing this graphics and tech thing anyway? Isn't it just the people who want to sell tech? I don't think it's the average consumer. The average consumer doesn't complain about the graphics on the Wii, because they know what to expect, and understand the approach.
While the tech of the PS3 and 360 can make streaming and seamless worlds much easier, a lot of this can be done to users' satisfaction on the lower-end.
He ends the article by making a car comparison.
So, in short:
- Last-gen graphics are all we'll ever need.
- Developers should port-down their games because no one will care or notice.
- GTA IV on a PS2 would have been just as great.
- Blu-ray sucks because YouTube is popular.
- Casuals don't care about graphics, so neither should anyone else.
Of course, the funniest thing about this is that it's coming from Game Developer magazine, where every other page is an ad for new technologies and engines. In fact, the page on the immediate right of this editorial is an ad for NaturalMotion, which apparently didn't add anything to GTA IV.
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