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Gaming has NOT evolved since 2007 (Diminishing Returns)

lol, i am on pc. Writing this on a pc with a 1080p display and 3060ti card. I am fine with my 27in 1080p graphics. Also fine with my switch and steam deck. Good games that are fun over graphics all the time. Not saying good graphics aren't nice, but they aren't everything.
This is dying to be quoted a year from now when you finally upgrade to a 1440p monitor and realize you were holding your 3060ti back
 
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.
Exactly.
 
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.
PS5 isn't underpowered tbh…just not utilized yet…it's actually very powerful… 1.8TF gave us TLOU II…PS5 is ~10 with a better architecture…so it's actually about 8x to 9x as powerful as PS4..
 
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Watch at 11:23 This is 2 years old…btw DLSS is sometimes better compared to native 4k with AA like TAA.. Todays DLSS is wayyyyyyy better…


this-pointing-finger.gif
 
100% agree op, but the real reason we see shit compared to 10, 15 years ago isn't diminishing returns, it's a bit more sinister:

More gamers than ever means you can release complete shit and have a large enough audience to sustain it. Think of how 'few' gamers there were in 1990 or 2001 compared to today, and how many of those titles were considered massive hits with a much smaller audience.

The most sinister reason though, is that the power in your console is no longer used to power your games 1:1. There's ad trackers, cookies, always online, constantly connected cameras, OS's up the wazoo, BT, WIFI etc etc. It's the reason that consoles have struggled to run Crysis from 2005, and why the PC space hasn't evolved at all since 2007. Sorry PC master race, you can throw specs at me all day long, your exclusives nowadays are just shinier verisons of console games. Sad but true.
 
it's not and the OP is 100% correct.

the jump from Crysis to modern games is almost imperceptible.

it's small improvements here and there, and nothing more, and there are games releasing today that look worse than Crysis from 2007.
can you remember a game from 2007 that looked worse than a game from 10 years prior?

The OP has some of the stupidest comparison pics of all time. Plus most PCs couldn't even play the best-looking version of Crysis in 2007. That's why the "But can it play Crysis" joke came from.
 
The switch being able to swap languages is a real game changer for me. Before you had to apply your own patches to get the same treatment. While some translations are lacking still, it's a big improvement from the region locking that used to happen.

In terms of visuals, I've never been too picky. Pixel art is still popular, so why complain? I only care if a game is too buggy, the mechanics don't sit right, or if a story is crap. I suppose if you're looking for next gen stuff to really wow you, I'd look more into VR content and the advancements in that field, because console/pc stuff will probably be more or less the same going forward for graphics and what to expect
 
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In 2007 there was no battle royale games with 100 players on an open-world map
The world record for most players in one fps battle is Planetside 2. 1,158 in 2015. But that is one specific battle, not small skirmishes spread over a large map. The original Planetside (2003) had the record of 6,400 players on one server at the same time. "Battle Royale" my hairy arse.
 
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my problem with gaming these days is, that there is nothing about escapism anymore. games should be something about you cant do in real life. instead we have dozens of "x-simulator"-games.
or hyper realistic war games. if you want war, go to russia, ukraine or the middle east. i dont get it.
where is jazz jackrabbit?
where are games like LSD?
where are games like burnout?(yeah, this is something about physics, but i would not trash shit in real life to such extent)
i love games like super mario, where you are able to explore and do funny cute little things.
jet set radio or samba de amigo...
those are concept which i adore.
or...
F-ZERO!
 
I still believe that Crysis would pass as todays gen title with minor improvements (like some fancy post processing shit) and ray tracying (remake has it already). And this game is 15 yeard old.... 15 years from 2007 back is 1992 btw. If thats not the proof of dimishing returns, i dont know what is. I mean, does it really look much worse thant lets say far cry 6?
MV5BYzc5NmQ0MDMtNTZlOS00NDQ4LTgyYmMtM2FkZGUxY2Y1NTg3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzQ5NDYwOTg@._V1_.jpg
 
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I think the more obvious answer is that the gulf between games and reality has closed considerably since the 1990s. Crysis was the first game to reach a level of fidelity that could make it passable for real life. Once you hit that point, you're really just nipping and tucking. Visual fidelity has still improved massively since then, but so has everything else.

In 2007, a game like Crysis ran well on only the most high-end machines - it was a glimpse of where gaming would be five or ten years down the line, not a representation of where it was. Horizon Forbidden West, mediocre game though it might be, is a mind-boggling technical achievement by 2007 standards. A huge, seamless world with dozens of different biomes, massive draw distances, insanely detailed character models and facial animations. A huge variety of complex and fully destructible enemies, particle effects for days, hundreds of unique animations for the main character, dozens of high-fidelity outfits and weapons... the list goes on and on. And this isn't limping along at sub-HD resolutions on an expensive PC rig, it's running at 1440p/60 on a home console with loading times in the 4-6 second range.
 
I still believe that Crysis would pass as todays gen title with minor improvements (like some fancy post processing shit) and ray tracying (remake has it already). And this game is 15 yeard old.... 15 years from 2007 back is 1992 btw. If thats not the proof of dimishing returns, i dont know what is. I mean, does it really look much worse thant lets say far cry 6?
MV5BYzc5NmQ0MDMtNTZlOS00NDQ4LTgyYmMtM2FkZGUxY2Y1NTg3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzQ5NDYwOTg@._V1_.jpg

This honestly looks better than a majority of games, that release today.
thumbs-up.gif

And it released 15 YEARS AGO.
 
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This is a shot from Crysis 2007, with DX10 enabled.

CoD for example and most games in general, have barely caught up.

Studios such as the ones Sony owns, are the exceptions NOT the norm.
 
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I think the more obvious answer is that the gulf between games and reality has closed considerably since the 1990s. Crysis was the first game to reach a level of fidelity that could make it passable for real life. Once you hit that point, you're really just nipping and tucking. Visual fidelity has still improved massively since then, but so has everything else.

In 2007, a game like Crysis ran well on only the most high-end machines - it was a glimpse of where gaming would be five or ten years down the line, not a representation of where it was. Horizon Forbidden West, mediocre game though it might be, is a mind-boggling technical achievement by 2007 standards. A huge, seamless world with dozens of different biomes, massive draw distances, insanely detailed character models and facial animations. A huge variety of complex and fully destructible enemies, particle effects for days, hundreds of unique animations for the main character, dozens of high-fidelity outfits and weapons... the list goes on and on. And this isn't limping along at sub-HD resolutions on an expensive PC rig, it's running at 1440p/60 on a home console with loading times in the 4-6 second range.
Remember, Horizon Forbidden West is cross-gen and runs on a PS4 (console that was outdated by a year or two in PC standard, at release).

The tech to achieve everything that you claimed Horizon of doing has been there for years, a decade even.

It's just that consoles became the target hardware, and big budget graphic pushing games on PC got pushed to the side.
 
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I still believe that Crysis would pass as todays gen title with minor improvements (like some fancy post processing shit) and ray tracying (remake has it already). And this game is 15 yeard old.... 15 years from 2007 back is 1992 btw. If thats not the proof of dimishing returns, i dont know what is. I mean, does it really look much worse thant lets say far cry 6?
MV5BYzc5NmQ0MDMtNTZlOS00NDQ4LTgyYmMtM2FkZGUxY2Y1NTg3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzQ5NDYwOTg@._V1_.jpg
Going strictly on that screenshot, the roads and rocky cliffs look dated, but the gun, trees and foliage dont look any different than the average modern day game.
 
100% agree op, but the real reason we see shit compared to 10, 15 years ago isn't diminishing returns, it's a bit more sinister:

More gamers than ever means you can release complete shit and have a large enough audience to sustain it. Think of how 'few' gamers there were in 1990 or 2001 compared to today, and how many of those titles were considered massive hits with a much smaller audience.

The most sinister reason though, is that the power in your console is no longer used to power your games 1:1. There's ad trackers, cookies, always online, constantly connected cameras, OS's up the wazoo, BT, WIFI etc etc. It's the reason that consoles have struggled to run Crysis from 2005, and why the PC space hasn't evolved at all since 2007. Sorry PC master race, you can throw specs at me all day long, your exclusives nowadays are just shinier verisons of console games. Sad but true.
The first part of your post is why we're not seeing proper next gen games now. Publishers, including Sony and MS have realized gaming is so big now that they don't have to push the envelope anymore. Games will still sell in record numbers at the increased price of $70. That's why $70 bothers me so much because we went out and bought youre brand new next gen systems and instead of getting treated to next gen, we get a price hike and cross gen bullshit.

I think most of the people here who defend these things so vehemently must be too young to have grown up during the times when there was a huge leap across generations to really know better. They didn't grow up when ps1>dreamcast>ps2/xbox/gamecube>x360/ps3 were popular. There's nothing like lived experience.

Signed,
Old Fuck

Your second point is probably sadly true as well. That's something that doesn't get talked about much but look how much of the CPU is allocated to the OS..
 
100% agree op, but the real reason we see shit compared to 10, 15 years ago isn't diminishing returns, it's a bit more sinister:

More gamers than ever means you can release complete shit and have a large enough audience to sustain it. Think of how 'few' gamers there were in 1990 or 2001 compared to today, and how many of those titles were considered massive hits with a much smaller audience.
The first part of your post is why we're not seeing proper next gen games now. Publishers, including Sony and MS have realized gaming is so big now that they don't have to push the envelope anymore. Games will still sell in record numbers at the increased price of $70. That's why $70 bothers me so much because we went out and bought youre brand new next gen systems and instead of getting treated to next gen, we get a price hike and cross gen bullshit.

I think most of the people here who defend these things so vehemently must be too young to have grown up during the times when there was a huge leap across generations to really know better. They didn't grow up when ps1>dreamcast>ps2/xbox/gamecube>x360/ps3 were popular. There's nothing like lived experience.

Signed,
Old Fuck

Your second point is probably sadly true as well. That's something that doesn't get talked about much but look how much of the CPU is allocated to the OS..
Agreed.

There was a chart someone posted on GAF that showed the best selling games per platform during (I think) the 16-bit era to the Xbox/GC/PS2 generation. I dont think there was one game that hit 10 million. And a ton of the awesome classic games that were high sellers sold in the 2-3 million range. Even 5 million sellers were rare. Now, I think just about every half decent game sells a million copies.

Companies have record profits the past few years due to being lucky with digital sales, cutting out disc sales at Best Buy and Gamestop, and gamers doing tons of mtx. And in the digital world, console gamers are now prone to backlogging like PC gamers do when they see a deal. That's a lot of extra sales for games people wont even play. And all done while the console base hasn't budged in 15-20 years.
 
Gaming has become quite predictable. I mean look at the current year. Year 2 of shiny new consoles and all we are seeing is Gotham Knights or God of War, which can be played on something released in 2017.
 
I would agree that there are diminishing returns. It's not just graphics - by Gen 7 with the 360 we had standardised on dual analog control and the controllers basically haven't evolved since that gen. Graphically resolution has increased, and frame-rate has, but the nuts of bolts of the games we played back then are much the same as what we have now. From Gen 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> 7 all saw massive leaps in every area. From Gen 7 not so much.
 
The first part of your post is why we're not seeing proper next gen games now. Publishers, including Sony and MS have realized gaming is so big now that they don't have to push the envelope anymore. Games will still sell in record numbers at the increased price of $70. That's why $70 bothers me so much because we went out and bought youre brand new next gen systems and instead of getting treated to next gen, we get a price hike and cross gen bullshit.

I think most of the people here who defend these things so vehemently must be too young to have grown up during the times when there was a huge leap across generations to really know better. They didn't grow up when ps1>dreamcast>ps2/xbox/gamecube>x360/ps3 were popular. There's nothing like lived experience.

Signed,
Old Fuck

Your second point is probably sadly true as well. That's something that doesn't get talked about much but look how much of the CPU is allocated to the OS..
I call it the WoW phenomenon. Where back at the start of the millennium, wow became so popular that the £15 a month subscription fee earned more money for blizzard than making and selling games did, so they sat on their arse for 10 years raking in the dosh.

I remember the leaps between generations. I remember the 2D to 3D transition. They were glorious times.

Only a crash or Vr can bring back those passion projects but I fear that if VR is popular, it'll be flooded with shit again in no time.

The corporations and greed have ruined gaming. All we have on the horizon is streaming becoming the defacto way to play and the 'mobilisation' of games (mobile phone audience is the new audience to chase, just like casuals were chased in 2008~ and the old school were ignored)
 
You know what is a bit funny? Remember how all devs used to complain about how the hardware is holding them back with their vision but with each improvement everyone just ended up doing something similar.

Carmack mentioned something similar in a podcast lately. Meaning, that weak hardware was kind of a good thing because everyone had to experiment and make the best out of now. Now they have all the raw power they need but end of doing the almost exact same thing. Ironic.
 
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I think the same is true with most tech.

1993 cellphones were massive bricks, CRT TVs weighed 50kg and computers were as big as suitcases

2007 we got the iphone, had decent laptops and flatscreen HD TVs

2022 we have basically just better versions of the 2007 devices

IMO the PS360 era was golden mainly because it fully established HD graphics and online play on console.
Last two gens haven't added anything substantial to console gaming.
Shit just looks better, loads faster and is more refined when you get a new console.

Nothing will compare (for me) to finally play CoD WaW on 360 on a 40inch Toshiba HD TV after being stuck with a PS2 and a Sony CRT the years before.
 
lol, i am on pc. Writing this on a pc with a 1080p display and 3060ti card. I am fine with my 27in 1080p graphics. Also fine with my switch and steam deck. Good games that are fun over graphics all the time. Not saying good graphics aren't nice, but they aren't everything.

This was me until I got a 1440p 165hz Gsync monitor last year..... You will see the light one day son, one day.
 
Today I play racing games from inside the car, turning my head to see the opponents, I play shooters with the guns in my hands, aiming down sights and reloading manually, I interact with objects by grabbing them by the pussy and moving them around, could not do that in 2007.
 
The first part of your post is why we're not seeing proper next gen games now. Publishers, including Sony and MS have realized gaming is so big now that they don't have to push the envelope anymore. Games will still sell in record numbers at the increased price of $70. That's why $70 bothers me so much because we went out and bought youre brand new next gen systems and instead of getting treated to next gen, we get a price hike and cross gen bullshit.

I think most of the people here who defend these things so vehemently must be too young to have grown up during the times when there was a huge leap across generations to really know better. They didn't grow up when ps1>dreamcast>ps2/xbox/gamecube>x360/ps3 were popular. There's nothing like lived experience.

Signed,
Old Fuck

Your second point is probably sadly true as well. That's something that doesn't get talked about much but look how much of the CPU is allocated to the OS..
Gaf skews towards the younger audience, they most likely started gaming in the 360 or PS4 gen.

Basically after all the big leaps had already happened.
 
I would agree that there are diminishing returns. It's not just graphics - by Gen 7 with the 360 we had standardised on dual analog control and the controllers basically haven't evolved since that gen. Graphically resolution has increased, and frame-rate has, but the nuts of bolts of the games we played back then are much the same as what we have now. From Gen 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> 7 all saw massive leaps in every area. From Gen 7 not so much.
star-trek-nod.gif
 
You know what is a bit funny? Remember how all devs used to complain about how the hardware is holding them back with their vision but with each improvement everyone just ended up doing something similar.

Carmack mentioned something similar in a podcast lately. Meaning, that weak hardware was kind of a good thing because everyone had to experiment and make the best out of now. Now they have all the raw power they need but end of doing the almost exact same thing. Ironic.
Exploiting the weaker hardware to it's max potential forced devs to find unique ways, to convey their vision.

Now that hardware pretty much is ahead the software, they have been afforded the ability to be lazy in regards to utilizing it (excluding a few devs).
 
What it boils down to is modern devs simply dont have the talent the old school had.

Now they use more unified tools and engines. Everything looks and feels the same, but they don't care, its a job and there are plenty of shit for brains to keep buying the tripe that's being pushed out the doors.
 
I would actually say that games have devolved in many ways. Just overall lack of passion and attention to detail. Now it's all about lowering costs and maximizing profits. That's capitalism for you.

Just look at some of the Crowbcat videos where he compares new entries of some series with older. It's not about hardware.
 
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Just look at some of the Crowbcat videos where he compares new entries of some series with older. It's not about hardware.
GTA4 vs GTA5, FC2 vs FC5, Gears 2 vs Gears 5, L4D2 vs B4B.... there's a clear difference in attention to detail. And they implemented all of this in half the development time it takes to make your average modern game

Modern games have realistic graphics but hardly any realistic physics, older games had decent graphics and realistic physics.
one can't really work without the other. If your game looks good but isnt very dynamic, it feels more like you're walking through a sculpture than an actual world
 
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What it boils down to is modern devs simply dont have the talent the old school had.

Now they use more unified tools and engines. Everything looks and feels the same, but they don't care, its a job and there are plenty of shit for brains to keep buying the tripe that's being pushed out the doors.

This is true, and it's likely because the best minds in programming today get scooped up by Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc.
 
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GTA4 vs GTA5, FC2 vs FC5, Gears 2 vs Gears 5, L4D2 vs B4B.... there's a clear difference in attention to detail. And they implemented all of this in half the development time it takes to make your average modern game

Modern games have realistic graphics but hardly any realistic physics, older games had decent graphics and realistic physics.
one can't really work without the other. If your game looks good but isnt very dynamic, it feels more like you're walking through a sculpture than an actual world
Holy shit, this is really accurate.

That's how I feel about modern games, realistic visuals and yet 99% of games are as static or more static than they were 2-3 gens ago.
 
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