Campster said:
First of all, I think you're underestimating the price of art content these days. It's the number one factor driving game development costs up. And we're talking exponential, out of control, skyrocketing growth for what has been very little return so far.
Additionally, photorealism really, really isn't possible. Even if we get photorealistic screenshots (which we're still decades away from, if ever), sports games require jerky animations and impossible momentum changes and turns in order to play well. In motion, Madden 06 on the 360 doesn't look that much better than Madden 03 on the XBox.
My belief is that it has to do with the way games are made.
Take Mortal Kombat for example, which was more photorealistic than most 2D titles. They didn't have artists slave away pixel by pixel trying to recreate content from photographs, the content started out as photographs themselves.
Now, this is a bit more pricey, but over time, costs go down. Secondly, more effecient methods pop up.
Keep in mind that my game development experience is somewhat minimal compared to others. I've worked on maps for FPS games, and coded some stuff in Unrealscript, and just little things. My background is CompSci w/ Software Engineering and got a Management minor and because of that background I really am convinced that project pipelines are backwards in many ways. But I do have a lot to learn. I'd love to follow the development process for a few games. Like doing a documentary sort of thing.
As far as animations go, that's up to the programming and AI, I think that co-cap and hand animated stuff is a thing of the past. A mix is most realistically achievable at this stage (limited by processing power).
See, that's just totally out of touch. Skyrocketing development costs from content creation woes are really really hurting this industry, not saving it. If we saw an exponential growth in sales from each pixel shader or bump map we added, that would make sense. But we don't. Our market is expanding, but nowhere near as quickly as costs are increasing. We're still running a hit-driven, one-great-game-makes-up-for-four-other-failures business model.
Well, I really think that dev costs don't have to skyrocket at all. They can go up, but smart investements in engines and technologies (like 3D scanning) for multiple projects makes sense to me.
And 'immersion' is as much of a red herring for games as 'fun' - a subjective and entirely useless design goal.
I disagree. A game like The Getaway had the goal of looking realistic, and it was extremely immersive because it was.
Actually, HDR, bump/normal mapping, and shaders all can contribute immensely to a photorealistic image. Without these technologies you'd be looking at stuff pretty close to Unreal Tournament with nicer textures and higher polycounts these days.
Sorry, my wording was horrible. I meant to say that the focus was on the technologies themselves and not the correct application of them. Ie. Kush's NHL 2K7 features bump mapping on the jerseys, and it looks neat, but not realistic. EA's NHL 2007 has a high res photographic texture for the jersey, and it looks real.
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