My discord got me thinking about how Naughty Dog tried to do a Jak 4 and they were so obsessed with cinematic realism that they went "nope, this is too creepy" and backed off because they literally refused to do it any other way
Thinking of when Double Fine was still doing the Devs Play video series, and they had someone from Naughty Dog on there, and even though I don't think he worked at the company anymore, he still was so very clearly "cinematic realism" poisoned. Even when talking about Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot games, he was going on about how they were always trying to apply Hollywood techniques and make the games more cinematic.
And thinking about how much of the game industry is bleeding itself dry trying to replicate things we already have in real life. Across two generations of hardware, Naughty Dog has released two new games and eight ports or remakes. Some of which are double dips. When you think about Insomniac's woes over struggling to break even with Spider-man, one gets the impression from all these ports and remakes that Naughty Dog isn't doing much better.
Do you know how much money Lethal Company made? It has 260,000 reviews on Steam, and you can probably charitably double, triple, or even quadruple that number to get within the ballpark of what it actually sold. We'll reign it in a little and estimate it sold 600,000 units. That's $6,000,000 of what is very likely pure profit. People have retired on less. This kid isn't even 25 years old.
Meanwhile, for Spider-man 2, Insomniac had to sell 7,000,000 units just to start turning a profit. Spider-man 2 put them nearly FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS ($500,000,000) in the hole. For a game, by their own admission, people may not even be able to tell is any better visually than Spider-man 1. They talk about smaller side games like Miles Morales as a cheap way to reuse assets and buffer the astronomical financial drain these games are. They've got to make up ground somewhere.
There's rumors Naughty Dog's next game might be a remake of Uncharted 1. The well's going to run dry eventually. Then what happens to Naughty Dog when they're writing a one billion dollar check for the next evolution in cinematic realism that is impossible for anyone to be able to cash? When does this all break down? Soon, right?
It sure feels like it's going to be soon. This is such a boring waste of money.
Seriously. I want to see more games stop trying to reach for this endless hunt for how much more detailed you can get the sweat to be on Kazuya Mishima's forehead when he gets duffed by a punch from Jin Kazama. I'm happy that Miles Morales looks like he actually goes to a Black barber that isn't trying to embarrass him but I don't need to be able to see every single pore on his face either.
Do weird and wild stuff with your stuff that looks like a PS2 game but has shaders so vibrant and energetic that they treat my eyes to a painting. Give me pixel art in 3D backgrounds with sick afterimages and the occasional cool filter. Make choices with your art direction that feel like they have weight because they're distinct, not because they happen to look super realistic.
You can only build something up so high before it starts collapsing under its own weight. That's where looking horizontally instead of vertically pays off. What are new ways to enhance the tricks we already use? Why chase the realism high when you can choose to amplify style instead?
