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Home News 2K President Believes Photorealistic Visuals Are Required For New Genres

GAMING NEWS

2K President Believes Photorealistic Visuals Are Required For New Genres

Posted on Wednesday, August 1 @ 09:11:05 Eastern by Alex_Osborn

There's no denying the fact that the gaming industry has become bogged down by the same general stuff year after year. And understandably so, as creating new genres and/or game experiences is incredibly tough when action-heavy titles like Call of Duty rule the market. According to 2K global president Christoph Hartmann, the reason we aren't seeing as much innovation has a lot to do with the technical limitations of today's hardware.

Speaking to GI International, Hartmann explained his stance by saying that “recreating a Mission Impossible experience in gaming is easy; recreating emotions in Brokeback Mountain is going to be tough, or at least very sensitive in this country… it will be very hard to create very deep emotions like sadness or love, things that drive the movies."

The 2K boss went on to add that “until games are photorealistic, it’ll be very hard to open up to new genres. We can really only focus on action and shooter titles; those are suitable for consoles now. To dramatically change the industry to where we can insert a whole range of emotions, I feel it will only happen when we reach the point that games are photorealistic; then we will have reached an endpoint and that might be the final console.”

While yes, games like Heavy Rain still have a long way to go, that hasn't stopped developers from trying - and sometimes even succeeding - in generating deeper emotional responses from gamers. Heck, just look at how much of an impact Shadow of the Colossus made back when it launched on the PS2! So, while yes, Hartmann does have a point, I don't think photorealistic graphics are necessary to motivate game developers to think outside the box.

Agree? Sound off in the comments below.
Tags:   2K Games


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Comments
  • Sourdeez
    Sourdeez
    Joined: Feb 2012
    Posted: Aug 1st, 2012 at 9:37 am
    Not only do graphics need to be at least good but ive always told developers its the little details that count. In gw2 when you walk through grass or shoot something through it, the grass moves and reacts to the motion. When your character stops and starts it does a perfect animation for how you really would start or slow yourself down.

    Little details
    0 0
  • wildmario
    wildmario
    Joined: Jan 2007
    Posted: Aug 1st, 2012 at 9:38 am
    I think better graphics have the shiny toy affect; it will be awesome at first until you see just how boring they are or that there are flaws past the graphics (stupid AI, glitchy animations, etc).
    0 0
  • thedarkstar
    thedarkstar
    Joined: Feb 2011
    Posted: Aug 1st, 2012 at 10:00 am
    Eh, I don't know about this. I have been moved by 16bit games for crying out loud. Final Fantasy 6 (AKA 3 on the SNES) left a big emotional impact on me, and still does to this day. I really still think gameplay and story need to come before graphics.
    0 0
  • OdiousLupous
    OdiousLupous
    Joined: Jul 2011
    Posted: Aug 1st, 2012 at 10:13 am
    Pretty doesnt make up for a crappy game, but a low graphics game can be more fun to play over and over if the game itself is good. Same goes for films and attractive women with ugly personalities.
    0 4
  • thedarkstar
    thedarkstar
    Joined: Feb 2011
    Posted: Aug 1st, 2012 at 10:44 am
    There are not enough likes on the Intarwebz for this comment.
    0 0
  • ShadeTail
    ShadeTail
    Joined: Nov 2006
    Posted: Aug 1st, 2012 at 11:25 am
    Graphics are holding back development by being *too* good. If you push the graphics too far too fast, they become too expensive in both time and money. That's why this gen, the all big titles on the PS3 and 360 were stuff like FF13 and CoD, linear hallway adventures or cookie-cutter first-person action games. Developers simply didn't have the time or money for innovation, or for nonlinear actual-gameplay. The exceptions to this were games from small indie developers (Journey comes immediately to mind) and Wii titles, all of which focused on the game instead of the power.

    And now this joker Hartmann wants the next generation to have the exact same problem by once again pushing the graphics too far too fast. It's a good way for big developers to push small and/or indie competitors out of the market, but it's bad for games and gamers.
    1 1
  • Chunibrow
    Chunibrow
    Joined: Mar 2010
    Posted: Aug 1st, 2012 at 2:24 pm
    You'll have to tell the hundreds of millions of people who read books that emotional stories need good graphics to be effective, I don't think they knoe
    0 1
  • Bras
    Bras
    Joined: Jul 2008
    Posted: Aug 1st, 2012 at 10:36 pm
    Objection! Creative minds with a story to tell and the balls to tell it, that's what we need more of.
    0 0

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