Shallow End of the Pool

For a long time I was hung up on the visual fidelity and quality of my games. It’s a thought process that has been ingrained in me since a young age — this idea of equating the value of a thing with the quality of its appearance.

You could psychoanalyze that for two years, and only chip the edges of that stone, but let’s not go down that path.

I have to admit, though, that increasingly my favorite games — the ones that touch and inspire me the most — are quite often the ones that seem to either spend the least time on their graphical technologies, or the ones that commit to an art style above realism. There’s a very simple idea in there about only applying visuals that work in service and concert with the game or the story, but to this day I still hear people say they won’t play a game because its graphics aren’t good enough.

I would bristle at the thought, if I hadn’t been similar until only just recently. But what I’m beginning to find is that the games that have amazing visuals often have little else going on inside.

Seriously, I’m 41 and it took me this long to parcel that out.

Partly, I just like to be really impressed with the technology. There’s this bizarre kind of pride or superiority to living in an age where the machines that have not yet achieved sentience and risen against us are capable of such visual feasts. Like many, I have that fantasy of using some future species-changing technology like time travel, to go back in time with my laptop and rub my advanced tech right in the face of that kind in eighth grade who said video games were dumb and ugly.

It could be that maybe developers just have a fixed amount to spend on the game, and they make the hard choice that they feel will result in the most sales. But what that feels like to me on the receiving end comes off a bit like vanity — arrogance perhaps — within games that are focused on how they look and not what they say.

Minecraft is the quintessential example, I suppose. I avoided Minecraft for (no kidding) years, because for a long time I couldn’t get past the idea that it just looked like something some guy had thrown together in his basement. These random-looking and almost painfully angular blocks representing the world were ironically ostentatious in their rejection of visual greatness.

This was, of course, a huge mistake and horribly shortsighted. Minecraft is one of the best games made in the past decade, one of those rare games so good it creates its own genre in a world where it always seems like all the genres have been taken.

And, if I’m honest, I have to admit that I haven’t really learned my lesson. Case in point: the recently released Super Time Force, which I was assured by many people whose opinion I trust was an excellent game, still has yet to land in my possession. And why? At least part of it is probably just that it’s not an exceedingly attractive game, and I’m just shallow like that.

Of course when I saw it actually in action this weekend, and was looking at the game as a game instead of a delivery system for pleasing visuals, I immediately wanted to play it. As I was promised, it is a brilliant little title with a cool mechanic. It’s one of countless games I’m sure I’ve missed out on because I take a quick look at a couple of screenshots and make a decision.

There was a time when screenshots were the best we could do. The closest we could come to seeing what a game was like before paying money was to catch glimpse of a smudgy screenshot in a magazine, or maybe see some images on the back of the box in the store. But we can do so much better now. Games writers have gotten better about telling readers how a game works, sure, but with the advent of demos, then the Let's Play — both in text and video formats, and even into Free To Play models, we consumers have been given incredible access to know what we're getting before putting money down. And yet here I am, writing something off based on an image.

It’s this sort of mentality, this sort of single-minded action that has games like Crysis 3 in my library.

It’s hardly a unique problem. We judge books by covers all the time. Game reviews are judged on their score and summaries alone. Whether I will ever see a movie is often dictated by how cool the trailer was. And I’m led to believe that some people even make snap judgments on other people with nothing more than a quick glance.

I get it, we’re programmed that way, but among the things I’d really like to change within myself, this particular deprogramming is high on the list. Not just because I still want to get as many good, new gaming experiences packed in as I possibly can, but also because I’d really like to stop spending money on $60 games that are all flash and little substance.

Comments

I've not ever been a complete graphics snob. I think that some genres of game work very well in lower fidelity, and some genres require the best graphics available as long as the framerate is smooth. This is a reason why when I go back and play old PS1 and PS2 games, FPS games aren't usually on the list of games to play.

My ratio these days is around 9:1. 9 games with lower graphics or older titles to 1 high end AAA game. Over the next couple of months, I'll be finishing Wolfenstein and Watch Dogs, but I'll probably finish a dozen or more smaller/older titles. Sometimes a vapid, single minded but pretty action game is exactly what I need on a specific day though.

Though, some of these indie games are getting quite good at making good graphics. Transistor was probably the best looking game I've played this month aside from FFXIV.

As for Minecraft, it's interesting but I like to have a bit more... Automation in my mining. I held off on Minecraft, and now I'm really enjoying Factorio. Lots of fun to build a factory that builds factory parts and other machines.

Time to revisit The World Ends Without You, eh?

But what I’m beginning to find is that the games that have amazing visuals often have little else going on inside.

I think this applies to movies as well. Frequently, movies with all-star casts are usually bland tripe, and I think the reason for this, in both movies and games, is the same. If a movie has an $8 million budget (small change for Hollywood, I know, but work with me), and they spend $6 million on the actors, there's not a lot left for the script, so the script suffers.
And I would much rather have a great story told by good, but unknown, actors, than a bland story told by good, and well known, actors.

However visuals is still a turn off on video games for me. Not with all games, but I will avoid some games until I've heard over and over again that the game is fantastic, if it looks like it came out of the 90s.

There's something I've been saying since at least the advent of games on CD: you don't play the graphics, you play the game. (The lesson that graphics don't make the game was easier to learn in the era of CD shovelware, with Full Motion Video as a marketing thing.)

Another lesson I learned somewhere vaguely in that time frame: no matter how great the graphics look right now, they will look like crap in five years. That's actually becoming less true, as we seem to have left the era of giant leaps forward every couple of years, but it's still a bit of a shocker, sometimes, to look back on games that I remember as having good graphics, only to see how primitive they were. No One Lives Forever comes to mind; at the time they shipped that, modeling a female character with actual curves was a major step forward. For the era, it looked absolutely amazing. Nowadays, all I can see is the hideous hands that look like catcher's mitts, and the five-poly faces.

It can help somewhat to just remind yourself that all games look like sh*t, compared to how they're going to look later, so find the ones that play well.

This is a big part of the reason why I haven't really worried about the relative lack of processing power behind Nintendo's last few platforms (really, from the DS onward). The Wii U doesn't look as good as the new Sony and Microsoft consoles, and the 3DS doesn't have the oomph of the Vita, but I haven't had a hard time finding wonderful gameplay experiences on either that transcend their level of presentation. (It doesn't hurt, of course, that Nintendo's first-party efforts have some of the absolute best art direction in the industry. It makes those weaker graphics a little easier to tolerate.)

Oddly, I think I'm the opposite to what Sean describes: I'm *more* likely to take a closer look at a game if it has a retro (8-bit / 16-bit) or simple art style.

Maybe this is *because* such games had better have compelling gameplay, because the audience certainly aren't going to stick around just for the graphics.

I think it comes with the territory that once you see things at their latest and greatest, you notice all the flaws that you never realized were there before. Compare the differences between the first Toy Story film and Toy Story 3, for example. They're subtle, but if you look at them side-by-side it is pretty clear how much improvement Pixar has made in their 3D rendering technology.

Or, let's go further back. If you start watching an old film, be it Citizen Kane or more recently for me Repo Man, you can tell that everything is lower budget with lower quality cameras and cheaper microphones. But once the story pulls you in, none of it matters. You stop noticing.

Same goes for games, which is perhaps one of the reasons I never cared that people complained about how bad some PS1 games looked. I stopped noticing those differences and flaws because the games always sucked me back in while replaying. The same goes for modern games of lesser visual fidelity. If the gameplay sucks me in, then it sucks me in.

This is a big part of the reason why I haven't really worried about the relative lack of processing power behind Nintendo's last few platforms (really, from the DS onward).

Yeah, I've thought that same way, actually. I'd internalized the 'game, not graphics' idea long enough ago that I was genuinely confused by people insisting that the Wii was crap because it had weaker hardware.

I think of the Wii U as a marketing disaster, not a hardware foulup.

The enhancement in graphical fidelity reminds me a little of the introduction of synthesizers in the 80's

All of a sudden every song needed to have a synth in it! It was all the rage.

Eventually, people settled down and understood that it was just another tool in the toolbox.

I read an interesting article a little ways back that stated companies like Nvidia and ATi were rapidly approaching the point where the markets would all but dry up.

Look at your fridge, or microwave oven. They haven't changed much in the last 20 years.. because you reach a point where it's simply "good enough".

Take a look at your average game today. Would Skyrim be a mechanically better game if it were photo realistic? Would GTA5? They'll eventually reach a point where the average consumer says "Nah, I'm not going to drop another $800 on a card to get slightly better graphics".

That's why we're seeing a refocus on the art design component of modern games. Develop a great artistic style and you don't need photo realism to get your message across.

Elysium wrote:

Minecraft is the quintessential example, I suppose. I avoided Minecraft for (no kidding) years, because for a long time I couldn’t get past the idea that it just looked like something some guy had thrown together in his basement.

While I've enjoyed plenty of games without hi-res graphics, such as FTL, Papers Please, SotS: The Pit, and Frozen Synapse to name a few, and while I totally acknowledge Minecraft for what it is and what it has done, I have no shame in saying that I have no desire to play it because the visual style is just that off-putting to me. And I say that after playing it for about 30-45 minutes back when it was still about a year away from its "official" release, when an online friend of mine wanted me to play it so badly that he bought me a beta code. We played during his lunch break, and as soon as he had to leave, I quit the game, uninstalled it, and haven't touched it since.

To end this post on a positive note, I'll echo the sentiment that gameplay > graphics.

Consider this: Is it possible for graphics being so good they pull you out of the game?

Here's my thought, sometimes I just want the spectacle. Sometime I just want to watch the wiz bang and not worry about an economic mechanic or a tricky combo. I enjoy things like FTL because the simple graphics allow me to concentrate on the game play and the narrative in my head. I *try* to enjoy Sins of a Solar Empire but I just want to watch the pew-pew and not have to worry that my inattention has lost me Beta Centauri VII AGAIN.

The mechanics, story and the spectacle/graphics are different aspects of a single experience. Sometimes I want one more than the other and that desire drives my playing and buying choice. My current favorite games are the Dark Souls titles and they balance mechanics and spectacle nicely (although the story remains an opaque block of gibberish as far as I can tell). The truly great titles pull off excellence in all aspects of the experience be that story, presentation or mechanics. Titles like Bioshock Infinite and Mass Effect did a great job of marrying the three aspects nicely allowing me to enjoy the game regardless of my mood. Other games I can only really play if I don't care about the aspect they're lacking.

TL;DR: A game can succeed without graphical excellence as long as it has something else going for it.

Carl

carljetter wrote:

Consider this: Is it possible for graphics being so good they pull you out of the game?

I think the graphics have to match the game, and so when they don't line up with the gameplay the graphics can end up distracting you from the underlying system.

A game is like a machine, a black box with controls and knobs and blinking lights. The graphics are part of the visible surface of the game, the thing you interact with. They attract your interest and set your expectations. This isn't just about immersion. You can be engaged in a non-immersive way, like with Tetris or Katamari Damacy. The inner workings of the game are invisible and can only be controlled indirectly. The surface has to give you enough clues about the game's inner workings to let you figure them out gradually.

Maybe it is because I spent the '00s catching up with all the games I missed in the '90s, but, while I can appreciate shiny graphics tech, it doesn't stop me from playing and enjoying games that aren't.

The retro-pixel art style will have its day, and then will probably be replaced by something else. Probably PS1-era 3D, but we'll see. The advantage of strong art design is that it transcends technical limitations, and in some ways transforms them.

I'm not one to seek only good looking games, but I will avoid those that look terrible. STF and at least one other, Risk of Rain, have an art style that just looks horrible. I do not base this on screenshots either, I looked at the video and I detested. It fits what they do and all, it is just displeasing to my eye. I'm talking about where they have the bare minimal pixels to form a recognizable shape.
Chapter 10 of Harmony of Dissonance isn't great (it's the entire NES castlevania), and I might not have bought it but for the completionist in me.
edit: SNES level sprites FTW!

this idea of equating the value of a thing with the quality of its appearance

True, but the appearance of a thing does add to its value.

I'm the converse, but maybe it's just because I'm still only a very immature 39. Perhaps I will gain wisdom over the next two years.

That is, I am very, very affected by the visuals of a game, which is why I pretty much checked out of the gaming scene at the advent of 3D technology. That's when games really, really started amping up the graphical manure. Super Mario Brothers 3 uses ancient technology, but it still looks fantastic today. This is because it prioritized art over technical accomplishment. Windwaker is the same. There's an HD version out that's got a bit more pizzaz, but the old one holds up visually quite well.

The reason I'm like this is because I am an extremely visual person. Used to have eidetic memory. I dream in fully realistic 3D, with color, and surround sound. Better than Oculus. When I imagine how a game ought to look, it looks a specific way, with no compromises. Borderlands is an example of a game with very little visual compromise. With some caveats, it looks pretty much exactly how it's supposed to look, even if our technological expertise were limitless. No One Lives Forever? Nope. Doom? Yes. Still good today.

This is also the same reason why I left JRPGs since the transition to 3D and still haven't gone back fully. To me, a JRPG in 3D ought to look EXACTLY like a playable anime. To date, no game accomplishes that sufficiently to make me not want to hurl.

Graphical fidelity is REALLY expensive. Once your game costs that much to make you really cant take any risks with theme or mechanics. Small budget games by contrast can take their theme and mechanics into all sorts of interesting places because they do not need to sell 5M+ copies to break even.

At this point, I mostly ignore big budget games that offers high fidelity, "photo-real" 3D graphics. I know that the cost of those graphics ensure that the narrative, theme and mechanics of that game will be tuned to ensure that no 18-25 yr old male could be turned off by them. Those games are fine but, with so many great small budget games out there, I could never justify spending my precious time on a game that is just fine.

Graphics don't matter except when they do... for example the differences between the PS4 and the Xbox One come down to graphics.. so its a huge deal that one is @ 1080P and the other is at 900P.

I think Graphics play a huge part in making games what they are.. and games can be structured around them as well.. so its more around does the game "Require" great graphics to achieve the result it is trying to go for.

A game in itself won't be memorable beyond a superficial level on the strength of its graphics alone.. and even then its technical graphical prowess won't amount to a hill of beans if the art style is awful or the animation is "wrong". But combine great gameplay with art style and graphic fidelity and you have the ability to create highly engrossing worlds.

I'm not sure the Dark Souls games work reduced to 2D retro pixels.. there is only just so much nuance that you can develop in a pseudo isometric world when it comes to scale of environments and opponents... not to mention the intricate timing on combat unless you create some sort of zoom in new "fangled" scale-able sprite technology..and even then you'll fail once it goes beyond just a single opponent in a confined set space. (think 2D fighting games which CAN mirror the Dark Souls combat intricacies)

Just like Minecraft wouldnt work if suddenly you could create worlds at the fidelity of Skyrim.. The demands on that sort of dynamic and procedural creation would be beyond the scope of current home computing and current video game development. Even then creating in "True" 3D vs "Lego" blocks means now you have to expect the player to understand 3D geometry to a certain extent.

It could be that maybe developers just have a fixed amount to spend on the game, and they make the hard choice that they feel will result in the most sales. But what that feels like to me on the receiving end comes off a bit like vanity — arrogance perhaps — within games that are focused on how they look and not what they say.

In the end I'm not seeing this as a dramatic problem.. I find that we have less true "Failures" in the game world than perhaps we used to in the past.. Sometimes games are just crippled beyond belief by design decisions that are focused on "monetization" rather than pure design flaws (top of my head thinking around the latest Sim City debacle)

Even a design flawed game like the recently released Bound by Flame seem more held back by budget and design team rather than the need for fidelity vs gameplay. (which honestly both seem 100% generic almost out the box plug ins rather than carefully designed and coded.. almost like a game thrown together from module parts purchased on the Unity Store)

Is this like how people brag more about the food trucks in their neighborhood instead of the restaurants now? The Anthony Bourdain-ization of gaming?

LarryC wrote:

I'm the converse, but maybe it's just because I'm still only a very immature 39. Perhaps I will gain wisdom over the next two years.

That is, I am very, very affected by the visuals of a game

I'm the same way, but I don't think Elysium is saying "I'm right and you're wrong"... just that he's found what matters to him, even if it doesn't work for everyone.

The article and comments are conflating two related, but interesting in a distinct way, points: graphics versus gameplay, and realism versus stylized graphics. Although to nitpick further, as graphics get better, you can talk about art direction within a style, from design to cinematography.

I could be more specific about my tastes and say it's not that I need photorealistic graphics; but I want a combination of unique, beautiful imagery (even if cartoonish?) and sound, and I'm willing to play a less interesting AAA game to get them.

This is all personal taste and opinion, and I hope that video game journalism becomes more sophisticated and better able to critique games across different axes.

GameGuru already basically made the point I wanted to make, which is that graphics do matter, depending on what the game is trying to do.

The Mass Effect trilogy was about experiencing a grand spectacle space fantasy opera as a participant, so the visual and aural fidelity was an important part of the experience. If it had been all done in retro-8-bit graphics and text-only storytelling, it would not have provided the same experience.

However, other games are more reliant upon the art style than the graphical fidelity. For example, Nintendo's first-party offerings. As LarryC noted, while the new Wind Waker release is certainly prettier and snazzier than the Gamecube release, the Gamecube version holds up perfectly well because the graphical fidelity was sufficient for the art stylings.

And yet other games really don't need much in the way of graphics at all. FTL is pretty much all gameplay, with very rudimentary graphics that amply accomplish their purpose.

Hell, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a hugely addicting game, and it can be played in a pure ASCII-character presentation.

Farscry wrote:

Hell, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a hugely addicting game, and it can be played in a pure ASCII-character presentation.

I actually prefer it that way. I can see what's going on much faster with text.

"Graphics", as a catch-all term, is really insufficient for describing what we mean when talking about the visual presentation of games. And, as individuals, we can be pretty idiosyncratic about our issues.

In my case, I'm perfectly fine with outre, or even primitive art styles. Dwarf Fortress presents information in a fairly reasonable way. I don't really get frame rate obsession. I'm happy with anything over 30 fps and I can tolerate lower depending on the game. I get that 60 fps is better than 30, but it just isn't that big a deal for me.

On the other hand, I have to have a one-to-one linkage between game output and screen pixels. I run a 1920x1200 monitor and I just can't stand looking at a game unless it is running at native resolution or a window. Upscaling makes everything look lumpy and blurry. Now, this whole issue isn't really a problem in the PC space, but I really notice it playing games on the 360. The fact that neither Sony or Microsoft have mandated real 1080p output for their consoles has been a meaningful disincentive for me.

(Yes, I get that modern games use multiple rendering passes, some of which take place at superpixel resolutions. The final output is still crisply linked to the overall target resolution. Except of course for that whole FXAA atrocity, which turns everything into a blurry mess.)

In a rare launch-day purchase, Mario Kart 8 showed up at the Wolverine house today, and I have to say, I had at least as much fun admiring the graphics while my 9-year-old played than I did actually playing the game myself.

The Wii U is brand new to the house as well, though, and it's actually our first HD-capable console -- we skipped the 360 and the PS3 -- so maybe those kind of beautiful graphics on the TV are appealing just based on the novelty factor?

I'm with the likes of Malor, and Clocky. Graphics have always taken a back seat to gameplay, art style, and where applicable story and character dialogue. Graphics, up until recently, have not aged well. What that translates to is a lot of older games that look sub-par when revisited. The thing is, though, that if the game itself has quality gameplay, or a beautiful art style, or an intriguing storyline, or smart character dialogue, then it still holds up and the graphics become less of an issue as you readjust to them during a playthrough. Thief and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines spring to mind.

Graphics are becoming less and less relevant to gamers, if not the games industry itself, as there was a fairly high level, a graphically plateau if you will, that was achieved in the previous generation. It's no longer enough to make technological advancements in the visual department to paper over marginal alterations in gameplay innovation. It used to be enough for me, because the leaps forward were impressive, but they're becoming more and more like small hops as opposed to impressive leaps. As a result it leads to questions concerning the other areas in hope of finding the wow factor that was once achieved through the visuals.

It bothers me more than it should when I see games journalists focusing almost entirely on the technological oomph that a game promises. They provide commentary for the latest third person open world adventure, or the new up and coming racing game, and they talk about the shadows, the pixels, the textures, the weather cycle, the draw distance and so on and so forth. Anything to report about the gameplay? Anything to add on potential game modes or features? The word immersion is thrown around as if to validate such a focus, but it just makes them sound silly.

Crysis 2 looked about as good as it got when it released. The gameplay wasn't really my cup of tea and after a few hours it had lost its appeal. I can say immersion ten times fast and it doesn't help. I can put it side by side with Thief and be astounded by the difference, but I'd still rather play Thief. It'd be great if Thief looked like Crysis 2, but it doesn't and that's okay because it's still a brilliant game irrespective of its dated visuals. Transport the likes of Killzone: Shadowfall into a FPS from the PSOne and upon losing its visual appeal it'd have little else going for it.

When I look at the likes of Infamous: Second Son and Watch Dogs on PS4 I see little that sets them apart from what was being released for the PS3 towards the end of its pomp. There's the argument that they're effectively launch titles, or the hardware potential has not been unlocked yet, but never before has there been a generation that has had no real discernible visual improvement over its predecessor, even on the cross generation releases the PS3 made the PS2 look inferior at best. Now we have PS4 titles that come with the excuse that they're being held back by the previous generation. £400 (at launch with a game and PS Plus) for that! That's getting off track, though. Is this the proof of the pudding that we're at a stage where graphical advancement is no longer impressive enough to stand as the main draw for games, nevermind an entire console generation? Two years from now are PS4 games going to look that different to what they do now? I assume they will, they have to, but it's been an uninspiring start for games that were promising new visual heights.

Well, by PC standards, the XBone and PS4 are weak sauce, so of course their titles don't look all that great.

The prior generation was made from very specialized hardware, designed to do just one thing: put out great graphics, quickly. The CPUs were tightly focused devices, oriented around doing matrix math in bulk, and that let them punch way above their weight class for graphics, but it also meant they were lousy at running most general-purpose code. They kicked the PC's butt visually, but that's kind of all they did, and of course the PC caught up.

Current gen consoles are more flexible, but because they lack that specialization, they're only a little faster than last gen. The biggest differences are the huge RAM totals they have available, and the more general-purpose microprocessors. This should make it possible to do genuinely new things, stuff the 360 and PS3 couldn't do, but I don't think they'll ever look that much better than prior gen. The games, however, should actually be much more engaging... the potential is there, at any rate. 5ish gigs of RAM on a 64-bit, wide multicore processor, with a closely unified 3D coprocessor, should allow for some fairly amazing things.

But, of course, someone has to come up with the idea of what to do with all that power, and not just 'moar shinies!'

What's exciting is that in the coming years it won't be an either/or in terms of graphical fidelity and art direction. With Unreal Engine, CryEngine and Unity all becoming affordable options for indie developers, we will start to see indie games with both cohesive art direction and graphical fidelity. Instead of budget and lack of tools directing developers towards certain styles, the canvas will be wide open and will become purely artistic decisions.

BNice wrote:

What's exciting is that in the coming years it won't be an either/or in terms of graphical fidelity and art direction. With Unreal Engine, CryEngine and Unity all becoming affordable options for indie developers, we will start to see indie games with both cohesive art direction and graphical fidelity. Instead of budget and lack of tools directing developers towards certain styles, the canvas will be wide open and will become purely artistic decisions.

It's not the toolsets really though..it's the sheer labor and time required to create the 3D assets..not to mention then the levels to house all that.

It's one thing to have toolsets and engines to support high poly photo realistic worlds but it's a giant leap to build them...most indie teams don't have the labor nor time afforded them to build that out.

Still those engines and tools afford new luxuries for indies to take advantage of so it's not all about graphics.

I was an Amiga 500 user as a teen, and I bought every Psygnosis game no matter how badly they played - Shadow of the Beast
Luckily a few titles were also very good games as well as the best looking - Leander
These days, with media exploding with content prior to releases and let's play vids on youtube, I still get excited by those "wow, that looks really amazing" games.
Examples; Crysis (PC), The Last of Us, Titanfall
I am a graphics whore, and happy for it.

The game is the thing!

Someone mentioned "graphics need to be as good as they need to be" or something similar. That is true. I'd probably not play as much MWOnline, were it not for the eyecandy of assaulted parts glowing with heat, missile trails, and smooth animation.

Counterpoint - I'd still play Elite quality graphics over Wing Commander 2 quality graphics. It always bugged me that WC sprites only really were pointing the right direction 8/360ths (or was it 16/360ths?) of the time. For space sims, crude 3D was better than splashy sprites.

Elysium wrote:

And I’m led to believe that some people even make snap judgments on other people with nothing more than a quick glance.

Ha ha! Maybe I shouldn't have explained to you what Tinder is.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Is this like how people brag more about the food trucks in their neighborhood instead of the restaurants now? The Anthony Bourdain-ization of gaming?

TheGameguru wrote:

Just like Minecraft wouldnt work if suddenly you could create worlds at the fidelity of Skyrim.. The demands on that sort of dynamic and procedural creation would be beyond the scope of current home computing and current video game development. Even then creating in "True" 3D vs "Lego" blocks means now you have to expect the player to understand 3D geometry to a certain extent.

If I could pull in what some people said about how "graphics" is a sort of broad term for the visual interface/feedback of a game, then I would content that Minecraft's blocks actually help the player to conceptualize and quantify their environment in a useful way. It's literally "chunking," in a direct and psychological meaning of the term.