I care so much more about whether the game runs smooth and has decently high fps than hair physics, ray tracing and photorealism. Those attributes do not add to the fun of a game imo.

Their obsession with laying everyone off after every release is costing them talent

I can always watch a movie that doesn’t cost $70 but tends to look more photorealistic mostly because it’s usually just a series of photos taken of reality.

The most important part of interactive media is the fact that it is interactive.

The problem that AAA studios face is that high-fidelity is their unique selling point, it's their niche of the market.

Every indie studio can produce a game that's fun, so you don't want to compete with those.
They have to produce titles with high-fidelity textures, with an extensive game world, story etc..

But as the indies get ever better, the AAA studios have to take more risks to be unique, which is why you see these ridiculous budgets and the invests not paying off so often...

Its one of the biggest selling points of AAA games. AAA companies sell products that get you to give them your money. They do not care at all about the quality of the game experience. They care that the games get bought and graphic fidelity keeps helping that happen. U til consumers fucking stop, they won't pivot.

The graphics don't need to be hyper realistic, as long as they are good, have a consistent style and whatnot.

Of course in general "realistic graphics" are considered good, and so it will be pursued but they are just sacrificing everything to maybe achieve a higher level of realistic graphics, which obviously self sabotages the game

I want to see more games with depth and scale. As it stands, most games these days are really good looking, but play no different than games from 1998. Sometimes they have even regressed on the depth of games from 1998.

The best looking game that actually has a lot of depth that has come out in recent years has been Baldur's Gate 3.

I get the point they're going with here, as well as the comments so far, but I think there should be some balance. As a begrudging Bethesda fan, most important to me is that the game fucking works lol. Starfield looks great as long as it's just a single frame, but as they start moving their face it still bothers me that their cut scenes still can't match cut scenes from 20 years ago on consoles 2 generations older.

Hell, high on life used a cartoony art style but it felt more alive than starfield. That being said, I can't with the anime looking indie games. There's just so many of them that in my head it's all slop or shovelware (I know that isn't the case, just how my brain works). But things like mewgenics and meccha chameleon are great. To me, it can be cartoony, it doesn't have to have the best graphics, but it needs to have refreshing gameplay, and I don't want it to look or feel like a PS2 anime game.

There are so many games that look pretty, but are boring to play. I wish the big studios would focus on gameplay more than trying to make my GPU meltdown.