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[TheBROgamer]

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

Crysis - 2007 (14 YEARS LATER, destructible environments)

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

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

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.

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

 

[Guilty_AI]

k

 

[GymWolf]

You don't get a jump simply because these console are underpowered as shit and just native 4k and some rtx reflections eat a lot of resources.

If you had developers working on a 3090 and a major 500 dollars cpu you could see much better stuff.


About destructible things, the more visual fidelity you have, the more physics become heavy, you can't have photorealistic trees that break in 3 equal parts like in botw, you need realistic destruction, and realistic destruction is the heaviest shit ever.

Good luck implementing this stuff on a cheap 500 dollars box

 

[Skifi28]

Great examples, amazing thread.

 

[JimmyRustler]

That what happens when an industry turns from "games made by gamers for gamers" to "games made by businessman for the masses". Stagnation with minimal improvement.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Low effort thread, but OP is still right. It's not just about physics or graphics. The gameplay has essentially stayed the same. Saints Row 2022 isn't much different from Saints Row 2006.

 

[killatopak]

You say that as if destructability is the only measure of progress.

Graphics by itself encompasses a massive amount of stuff.

 

[Skifi28]

You don't get a jump simply because these console are underpowered as shit and just native 4k and some rtx reflections eat a lot of resources.

If you had developers working on a 3090 and a major 500 dollars cpu you could see much better stuff.


About destructible things, the more visual fidelity you have, the more physics become heavy, you can't have photorealistic trees that break in 3 equal parts like in botw, you need realistic destruction, and realistic destruction is the heaviest shit ever.

I'm not sure how that relates to the consoles. If the consoles didn't exist at all or were 3090 level, you really think this would be the baseline for all games? There are even more low-spec PCs that consoles out there. If anything. the new consoles raise the baseline rather than lowering it when you have so many people still gaming on 1060s and 580s.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

So, I guess Ray Tracing is nothing?

 

[TheBROgamer]

You say that as if destructability is the only measure of progress.

Graphics by itself encompasses a massive amount of stuff.

Modern games have regressed in terms of destructibility.

Why does Red Faction - Guerilla a game from 2009 have better physics than games in 2022?

The visual jump of even the current gen isn't that large compared to the prior one.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Good luck implementing this stuff on a cheap 500 dollars box

good luck implementing that on a RTX 3090 too, this isn't real time. And even if it was, its still a major waste of resources and not worth implementing.

 

[Skifi28]

Modern games have regressed in terms of destructibility.

Why does Red Faction - Guerilla a game from 2006 have better physics than games in 2022?

Because it turns out it's not such a fun mechanic in most cases. In Bad Company 2 after a few minutes you can level the entire map flat and the game becomes a chore to play. Subsequent battlefield games limited how much destruction you could have even though they could easily do the same, it just wasn't fun.

 

[The_Mike]

That chubby Aloy face always get me.

But you can blame consoles. Around that time was when consoles became really popular, and that made devs develop more games focused on consoles, limiting their potential.

 

[TheBROgamer]

Because it turns out it's not such a fun mechanic in most cases. In Bad Company 2 after a few minutes you can level the entire map flat and the game becomes a chore to play. Subsequent battlefield games limited how much destruction you could have even though they could easily do the same, it just wasn't fun.

Destructibility aside, most game environments are static while having realistic graphics and all yet, nothing moves or can be interacted with.

Advanced physics are hard to implement in games, and is harder to sell.

Shiny graphics are an easier sell, so devs focus on that.

Let's be honest here, LOL.

 

[Kev Kev]

 

[Buggy Loop]

AI was set back too, big time.

Remember Red factions’ destructible terrain and objects running even on PS2? Was mind blowing.

FEAR, Crysis, Red Faction, Stalker, all around the same time, amazing epic series that don’t quite have any competition to this day. Kind of feels like all that CPU processing power was wasted.. little to show for it

 

[.Pennywise]

People like to use the term "diminishing returns" and they know jack shit of what they're talking about and that it is a complete lie

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Our brains either.

 

[Skifi28]

Let's be honest here, LOL.

You made a thread to judge game progress over destruction alone and in your recent example you have fucking Saint's Row, a game known for it's horrible technical aspect. You were never planning on being honest.

 

[TheBROgamer]

People like to use the term "diminishing returns" and they know jack shit of what they're talking about and that it is a complete lie

Uhh...bro

Definition of dimishing returns: Proportionally smaller profits or benefits derived from something as more money or energy is invested in it.

Scroll up, and look at the images again.

 

[Thaedolus]

VR is notably absent here. Unfortunately, not quite as mainstream yet, but it feels like the kind of leap we used to get generation to generation, and Half-Life Alyx might be the best game I’ve played in years…

 

[supernova8]

Kinda feels like game developers either stopped trying or were stopped from trying by their publishers who control the money.

Look at what Naughty Dog and Rockstar achieved in just the last generation (namely Uncharted 4, Last of Us 2, RDR2, and compare it to the generation before it) and look at pretty much everything else in that generation and you'll see it's just a case of a tiny handful of people willing and able (in terms of ability and funding) to "go the extra mile". Plus, that's a generation where people said the consoles were woefully underpowered and yet they still somehow pulled it off.

That gives me hope that we will still see something mind-blowing this generation but there won't be much of it.

 

[TheBROgamer]

You made a thread to judge game progress over destruction alone and in your recent example you have fucking Saint's Row, a game known for it's horrible technical aspect. You were never planning on being honest.

This thread was made to outline how little gaming has evolved since 2007 in an overall sense, not just physics alone.

In many cases, we've taken steps back.

 

[Fart Knight]

Its all Jim's fault

 

[Mowcno]

Yeah sure. Gaming hasn't changed since 2007.

Twilight Princess -> BOTW
GTA 4 -> RDR2
God of War 2 -> God of War (2018)
Persona 3 FES -> Persona 5 Royal

We've not advanced at all.

 

[Amiga]

Maybe screenshots didn't but games in motion advanced a lot.

Also VR.

 

[RoboFu]

It’s kinda of true.
The 32-bit era was the last big creative era of taking big risks and new unfiltered possibilities that came along with the switch 3D and the still relatively low budgets.

From the ps2 era on nothing has changed much. Spider-Man ps4 is still the basic Spider-Man on ps2. COD is still the basic COD on ps2. They got prettier.. physics got better. But the core gameplay is the same.


Nintendo is the only real publisher that has the business model and creative talent to try new thing in this modern era.

 

[shubik]

Games have evolved a lot since 2007. And not only in terms of visuals but also in gameplay and especially in the controls department. Artstyle variety, new gameplay mechanics, and innovative storytelling are all major areas where breakthroughs occurred and are still occurring.

Hell even the jump from PS4 to PS5 titles is huge. Sure the jump is not as big as before but now we are able to play high fideliy games like Horizon, The last of Us at smooth 60fps.

I´m still amazed at the games we get today. This is what I was dreaming of when I was a little kid.

 

[HL3.exe]

From a fundamental design standpoint: no not really. Do the jumps feel incremental? Absolutely, but that's easily explainable.

From the 90 -> 00's we've seen major strides in technological jumps. With these jumps came new design opportunities to build on.

These incredible tech jumps have been more incremental after the 00's as time goes on, due to:

* Design tropes being more established
* The high cost and risks of production
* The jump to lower clocked multicore CPU and the complexity of simulations running multitreaded.

That's why we see less jumps, but it's not standing still. Simple example: Battle Royal type games could never be possible on 7th gen hardware, without massive compromises.

But yeah, in some cases with more traditional games, it can feel like we're still playing title where the design principles stem from the PS360 days.

 

[TheBROgamer]

From a fundamental design standpoint: no not really. Do the jumps feel incremental? Absolutely, but that's easily explainable.

From the 90 -> 00's we've seen major strides in technological jumps. With these jumps came new design opportunities to build on.

These incredible tech jumps have been more incremental after the 00's as time goes on, due to:

* Design tropes being more established
* The high cost and risks of production
* The jump to lower clocked multicore CPU and the complexity of simulations running multitreaded.

That's why we see less jumps, but it's not standing still. Simple example: Battle Royal type games could never be possible on 7th gen hardware, without massive compromises.

But yeah, in some cases with more traditional games, it can feel like we're still playing title where the design principles stem from the PS360 days.

 

[Walter Matthau]

When did Saints Row become the gold standard for the new generation?

 

[Drew1440]

Innovation costs money, and the margins on game development are pretty slim. It's easier and cheaper to play it safe.

 

[.Pennywise]

Uhh...bro

Definition of dimishing returns: Proportionally smaller profits or benefits derived from something as more money or energy is invested in it.

Scroll up, and look at the images again.

There's no such thing as dimishing returns in the gaming industry, it's a lie they want you to swallow to believe they cannot give you something better. If there was something as true as "diminishing returns" there wouldn't be CGI trailers as they would look like the game and viceversa.

 

[GigaBowser]

Saints Row is not a fair choice but realistically it's still impossible not to agree even if you put the best looking games in there like Demon Souls Remake.

Demon's is a big improvement over Crysis, but nowhere near the jump from Doom to Crysis.

Anyone saying differently is deluded or dishonest.

 

[clampzyn]

people blaming consoles, you know PC has thousands of hardware builts from each user, if developers focused on like a highest cpu/gpu build(current generation) which is less than 5% of the gamers build do you think it'll run great on lower end builds?

 

[Winter John]

The reason the AAA has diminished is because of all them people/fanboys who only care about graphics. Pretty much every review I've seen these days bangs on about how pretty a game is and ignores the actual gameplay, the design, the A.I. There's still great games being made like Disco Elysium, Elden Ring, Valheim. You just have to look outside the AAA industry

 

[Perrott]

Low effort thread, but OP is still right. It's not just about physics or graphics. The gameplay has essentially stayed the same. Saints Row 2022 isn't much different from Saints Row 2006.

Okay... but why are we taking a shit cheap ass franchise such as Saints Row and using it to measure the overall progress of the industry?

How about if we compare Half-Life: Alyx to Half-Life 2 instead? That's a pretty big jump right there within the same IP, which has successfully reinvented itself with Alyx to accomodate to the design needs of an entirely new way to experience videogames that has just emerged in recent times (VR).

 

[levyjl1988]

The more prettier games get the less attention and focus are on the physics and overall impact.

It seems like a common trend. Here are some example videos. Better hardware means nothing if the game itself will turn out much worse than its predecessor. I'm honestly not excited for next-gen consoles. Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild vs Horizon Zero Dawn Gears 5 compared to...

www.neogaf.com

 

[Bonfires Down]

I completely disagree with your premise, but I do think it's sad that destructible environments are so underutilized. Red Faction Guerilla was a hoot. Hopefully we get more of them with the huge upgrade in console CPU power, but it is of course also the case that unless you carefully design your game around destructibility, it will cause a lot of game design issues that need to be solved.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Okay... but why are we taking a shit cheap ass franchise such as Saints Row and using it to measure the overall progress of the industry?

How about if we compare Half-Life: Alyx to Half-Life 2 instead? That's a pretty big jump right there within the same IP, which has successfully reinvented itself with Alyx to accomodate to the design needs of an entirely new way to experience videogames that has just emerged in recent times (VR).

I agree, HL2 to HL: Alyx is a proper revolutionary jump. But it's also pretty much the single example of such a jump happening. When you only consider "flat" gaming, no big jumps have been happening in the past 15 years. At least I can't really think of any.

 

[Krappadizzle]

If you think that...Play more games. Last generation and so far this generation have literally been NOTHING but evolution from the previous generations.

 

[TheGecko]

k

That reply explains how companys get away with it, there's more lown iq dum dums to buy trash than there are intelligent gamers.

 

[nkarafo]

- AI is worse than in the past.

- Destruction is worse than in the past.

- Level design is worse than in the past.

- Game design in general worse than in the past.

- Different game genres pushed by big studios are fewer than in the past.


Graphics are evolving slower than ever as well. That's why the industry pushes higher resolutions and a ton of post-effects dialed to the max.


You also get all the good stuff like micro-transactions, Pay-2-Win mechanics and real world politics.

That's what you get when an industry becomes so big, it caters to the average consumer instead of the hobbyist.


The only really good thing i can think of this gen is the push for higher frame rates after 2 whole generations of regressions (we are now at 6th gen standards again, thank god) and VRR technology on TVs/consoles.

 

[Assaulty]

I agree OP and I was thinking about that after playing Battlefield 2042 yesterday.

I am big into online shooters, but it seems like we've regressed in more ways than just diminishing returns in graphics.

When comparing modern fps games to their older counterparts, examples for me are BF 2042, Halo Infinite, Modern Warfare, recent CODs in general.

It feels like we've regressed a lot in map design. It sometimes feels like everybody that made maps before 2012 left the gaming industry, making way for designers that only care for how pretty a map looks like. Maps are generally bigger, not symmetrical, with a lot of foliage and "busy" if that makes sense. But none of that is functional.

In terms of gameplay the games are busier as well. Gone are the days where it was you, your gun and some equipment. Every game needs to have different operators with different abilities, and moreso, 10000 different ways to get one shot or die where it feels like you've died a "cheap death". It really is something that is kind of making me fall out of love with multiplayer shooters.

Kind of on topic I guess

 

[Negotiator101]

You don't get a jump simply because these console are underpowered as shit and just native 4k and some rtx reflections eat a lot of resources.

If you had developers working on a 3090 and a major 500 dollars cpu you could see much better stuff.


About destructible things, the more visual fidelity you have, the more physics become heavy, you can't have photorealistic trees that break in 3 equal parts like in botw, you need realistic destruction, and realistic destruction is the heaviest shit ever.

Good luck implementing this stuff on a cheap 500 dollars box

They are not underpowered as you put it, they are far from being tapped out, wait till next year.

 

[Banjo64]

Consoles 5x more powerful but needing most of that to pump out 4x the resolution.

 

[kyussman]

I just want game design to evolve more......take Starfield for example,brand new IP from Bethesda and I have a strange feeling like I've already played it.

 

[hemo memo]

I was taking your post seriously OP until you used Saints Row - 2022 as an example.
Saints Row - 2022 shouldn’t be used as an example for anything other than bad video game design.

 

[Doctor Hades]

I kind of agree with this. Graphics have definitely evolved since 2007, massively so if you include ray-tracing which adds realistic lighting, reflections and shadows, but in terms of actual gameplay, physics and A.I. not so much.

As an older gamer who has been playing games since the early 1980s, I have seen a lot of things change over the years with the last big one being the switch from 2D to 3D rendered games. However, I am starting to thing the games industry has stagnated a bit much like Hollywood. They are now so expensive to make and take so long that no-one really wants to take risks. So everyone copies stuff that was successful leading to a general sense of fatigue in certain genres such as the first-person shooter for example. There are few new ideas, people prefer instead to remake old games (Hollywood like to remake old movies) and play if safe rather than do something unique and risk financial failure. Even the Indie scene has become like this; dozens of cut and paste 2D rogue-like games and attempts to mimic the classic games of old (Doom, Quake etc) and little innovation. We still do have persistent game worlds where everything you do is permanent (destruction, bodies and so on), physics are still very scripted in most games and A.I. is just as dumb as ever, only offering a challenge because the developers make the enemies into bullet-sponges not because they act more intelligently.

It seems developers are more interesting in pushing better graphics these days rather than better games.

 

[TheBROgamer]

If you think that...Play more games. Last generation and so far this generation have literally been NOTHING but evolution from the previous generations.

Enlighten us, what are the "evolutions" we have all been unaware of, microtransactions and GaaS?