Opportunity

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 23:47:56 +0200
Paulo Pinto <pjmlp at progtools.org> wrote:

> Am 08.04.2013 23:05, schrieb GoSucksButt:
> >
> >   Go better than C++ for Games ?  Keeep dreaming buddy!
> 
> Not all games need to be the next Crysis.
> 

And not all games would *want* to ;)  I've always liked FPSes, but when
I tried Crysis 2 (and the MP beta of Crysis 3), I didn't see what the
big deal was. Not that it was bad or anything, but just "meh". And
that's referring to both gameplay and graphics. Sure, it was
pushing a metric assload of pixels and polys, but it still looked like
any other non-indie title out there (except a bit more "pixeley" - as if
the mip-mapping was biased too much towards the "detailed" end).
Ultimately, good graphics have always been about art direction, not
rendering throughput, and good games are about gameplay, not how closely
your studio can imitate ILM or Pixar or [insert name of your favorite
novelist].

Of course, I do still completely agree with the importance of
soft-realtime-processing issues in games. No gameplay or art direction
is going to sufficiently compensate for choppy or stuttery animation.

OTOH, sometimes you can get away with more than you'd think:
PSN's "Sound Shapes" seems to be doing pretty well (at least my brother
and I enjoy it quite a bit and the online community is active), and
yet that has very clear GC-stalls now and then. Or at least something
that feels a lot like a GC stall. It only lasts for maybe 100-500ms,
and only every few minutes of gameplay, so while it's ugly, it doesn't
end up being a game-breaker. 

Just my random thoughts on the matter ;)