Are retro graphics more popular than AAA?

[Anonymous No.8686807]

Which is more popular with the average person that buys and play games.

Retro indie graphics (pixel art and low poly) or photorealism autism AAA Shit.

Because i see normies wearing nostalgia pixel art merchandize from minecraft, stardew valley and nes mario more than what Ive seen normies wearing uncharted merchandizing.

[Anonymous No.8686815]

>Are retro graphics more popular than AAA?
No.

[Anonymous No.8686825]

Retro graphics are better because they are more 1:1 with the collision and physical reality simulated by the game.

In old games, everything you can interact with has geometry.
In new games, tons of shit has geometry but you can't interact with most of it meaningfully.

Yeah this isn't 100% true but you get it

[Anonymous No.8686830]

I feel like photo realism has stagnated and no longer impresses. A good style is often more celebrated now. Not VR, but I really like Elden Rings style. The rolling hills and painting like horizons are fantastic, even better is the fact that anywhere you see way off in the distance you can travel to. It’s a good game, it captures that NES Zelda sense of discovery really well.

[Anonymous No.8686837]

>>8686815
I've literally seen more normies and friends buying retro games merchandize than AAA merchandize.

I only see people shilling AAA graphics on the media.

I've literally seen in my thirld world town plenty of bootleg merchandizing like mario and other nes games in mom and pop plushies stores, even a graffity painting with koopa troopas.

Never seen a single thing irl about AAA games.

[Anonymous No.8686860]

Even AAA retro games sucked.

[Anonymous No.8686862]

>>8686837
>I only see people shilling AAA graphics on the media.

This has always been the case. "Anti 2d" sentiment never existed outside of industry pushed media shilling.

[Anonymous No.8686863]

I think at this point, high end graphics aren't fun, they aren't impressive, there's nothing special about them. If you need your new AAA game to look slightly more flawlessly real than the last one, fine, you go ahead and do that, but I'm barely going to notice, and I'm not going to like it as much as I like Gameboy sprites.

[Anonymous No.8686869]

>>8686863
This has been the case since like 2010. It is honestly boring at this point. In addition to being completely artless.

[Anonymous No.8686871]

>>8686862
>>8686863
Thats my point.
All videogames stores on my town are stocked with retro stuff.
Hardly any bootleg modern title.

Sure, it may be some crappy measure, bit is something i've noticed.

[Anonymous No.8686901]

>>8686862
I've definitely met people who will very much turn their noses up at games that aren't 3D, and aren't very predictable "mainstream" kinds of things like open world games, and games where man has gun and shoot Germans. These people don't tend to be big enthusiasts though. This is the casual market, who are more or less relying on other people to tell them what they should care about.

[Anonymous No.8686926]

>LOW POLY

[Anonymous No.8686927]

>Which is more popular with the average person that buys and play games.

AAA photorealism, this isn't even a question. You're looking at the industry from the perspective of a disillusioned retro gamer, not a braindead normalfag with a FIFA collection

[Anonymous No.8686989]

>>8686927
again, prove it.

Doing a basic research on amazon, there's 20 merchandising items of zero dawn, 40 items on god of war, and around another 20 items on Unrcharted merch.

Just looking up pixel art, comes with 2 pages of toys.

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/ACDIVDITPNK-Divoom-Ditoo-Parent-Rosado/dp/B084TSLMC6/ref=sr_1_9?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=1HKPGS2V8793X&keywords=street%2Bfighter%2Bpixel%2Bart&qid=1646515327&sprefix=street%2Bfighter%2Bpixel%2Bart%2Caps%2C130&sr=8-9&th=1

I had no literal clue wtf this is, which is like a speaker with an old PC case where you can draw some 32x32 sprite on big colored LCD plastic bulbs.

5.6k reviews.

Not a single merch product from any AAA title goes above 400 reviews.

[Anonymous No.8686993]

Perfectly recreating reality is pointless unless you do it for serious simulations. Go outside, loser.
Hyper-Reality is ugly and damages the soul of both the artist and the onlooker.

[Anonymous No.8687051]

>>8686993
To better sum it
Hyper-reality is for those who can't imagine

[Anonymous No.8687084]

>>8687051
It really is. The kinds of people who get noticeably annoyed when something is a little too "weird". I know these people. I think there's some kind of underlying anxiety that they're stupid, and they don't get something that other people like, so they lash out at things. Awful people, really.

[Anonymous No.8687102]

>>8687051
That's like most of the normie NPCs

[Anonymous No.8687103]

>>8686807
stylized is more popular, retro look is pretty much a style now

[Anonymous No.8687105]

Retro pixel art is more representative of "gamer" subculture, or the aesthetics of being identified as a "gamer". Same with listening to music with chiptunes. It's not about actually playing/enjoying the games, it's about adopting an identity.

[Anonymous No.8687107]

>>8686837
cool confirmation bias
retro style is obviously less popular just comparing sales numbers alone, but the retro style is still popular and has a place in the modern landscape

[Anonymous No.8687109]

>>8686926

[Anonymous No.8687126]

>>8687105
The reason that's even a thing you recognise as an identity is that enough people like it though.

[Anonymous No.8687265]

>>8686807
No, what the fuck would make you think that? Better more realistic graphics have always been more popular with the general population, which is why most of what makes a AAA game is the massive amounts of money they spend on graphics and why there's always a push for better performing hardware to play games on. Indie developers use stylized graphics (of which retro imitation is a style) because it's possible to make something that looks nice with significantly less effort and cost vs realistic graphics. If people didn't want more photorealistic graphics, consoles and computers would have stagnated over a decade ago and AAA games wouldn't exist in the way they do today.

[Anonymous No.8687276]

>>8687265
Don't think so, man. Fortnite doesn't have realistic graphics. League didn't.

[Anonymous No.8687292]

>>8687276
I really feel like people are subconsciously turning away from it. People think the want photo-realistic graphics, but then they spend all of their time playing Fortnite, Overwatch, and Smash Bros.

[Anonymous No.8687310]

>>8687276
>but non AAA games exist and occasionally achieve widespread popularity
Yes, and?

[Anonymous No.8687329]

>>8687107
Mario maker easily sold more than aaa sony movies combined.

Also westwern aaa games dont sell in japan.

[Anonymous No.8687342]

>>8687265
Nigger, is marketing.
Their entire market caps at 10 million.
They dont sell more tha 5-7 million copies.

By units sold stardew valley sold more copies.
And look at the switch, still sell 20 million on any switch pokemon game.

All my zoomer nephew friends play at pc is fucking roblox

[Anonymous No.8687389]

>>8687342
>Nigger, is marketing.
Yes, it's a grand jewish plot by developers where they found out that making games with massive budgets devoted to features that the average consumer doesn't care about can some how make more money despite selling less copies.

>All my zoomer nephew friends play at pc is fucking roblox
Because everyone else buying games is exactly like one person you know.

[Anonymous No.8687489]

>>8687051
This. NPCs who have aphantasia (the majority of the population) prefer reality because they have no imagination, and flock to realistic games like Fifa 14 or Call of the Doodle 11 etc.

[Anonymous No.8687490]

>The quality of posts is extremely important to this community. Contributors are encouraged to provide high-quality images and informative comments. Please refrain from posting the following: - Ironic shitposting.

Jesus Christ, "low poly" late 1990s fags are so sensitive...

[Anonymous No.8687564]

>>8687389
>>8687489
"AAA" movie games are popular. But they are not even close to the biggest market. Go all the way back even to WoW and most of the biggest hits with the normie market have cartoon graphics.

[Anonymous No.8687592]

IDK, I just like the minimalist pixel artstyle though.

[Anonymous No.8687634]

>>8686993
Pretty much. Realism only makes sense for things like aircraft simulators or other types of simulators that are meant to emulate reality. If you aren't trying to emulate reality, graphics are important but only insofar as everything you can see is visible and able to be made out. Past that, art direction is far more important for all video games.

[Anonymous No.8687734]

>>8686825
I have the same problem with 2.5d platformers. Beyond usually just being ugly, this hitboxes and geometry just aren't as clear as tiled sprites

[Anonymous No.8687750]

>>8686993

So true.

[Anonymous No.8689020]

>>8686989
merch and the graphics being more popular are two different things.

[Anonymous No.8689063]

>>8686993
Sounds like a big cope desu

[Anonymous No.8689070]

>>8689063
Sounds like (You) are a connoisseur of man ass

[Anonymous No.8689101]

Keep in mind for this, I fucking love Mario 64. I 100% the game once every year or so.

The RTX mod looks dumb. The Render96 mod looks dumb. The two of them together look fucking GORGEOUS. I have a GTX1060 and literally don't need a better card for anything else, but goddamnit, I want an RTX card just to play it.

[Anonymous No.8689139]

>>8689070
Nah bro you're totally right. This painting would look 100% better if instead of being realistically drawn it was some shitty indie pixel art imitation.

[Anonymous No.8689142]

>>8689101
Despite all the efforts; this still doesn't look like the SGI / Alias promo renders.

[Anonymous No.8689147]

>>8689139
Thank god games never got to this level. My color filtered texture taken from a generic library of stock images has so much soul.

[Anonymous No.8689150]

>>8689139
>>8689147
You're a dense motherfucker and probably an artlet too. I wipe my ass with your Reddit tier opinion.

[Anonymous No.8689197]

The entire history of vidya in the West - from Dragon's Lair to Defender of the Crown to Myst to DKC to Crash to Half Life to Crysis to The Order - has been about chasing after the shiniest possible graphics. Even now, the most hype that the new Horizion game got was the reveal that Aloy had modeled peach fuzz.

A pretty game with purely functional gameplay is always a better bet, sales-wise, than a game with excellent gameplay but janky or simply outdated graphics.

[Anonymous No.8689201]

>>8686837
>my thirld world town
Yeah I heard that retro consoles are popular with the Somalian lads. I wonder why.

[Anonymous No.8689216]

>>8687276
I remember distinctly a time when people said fortnite is just a pubg knockoff with kiddy graphics

[Anonymous No.8689228]

>>8689197
I never asked for visible vellus hair on female characters. I also hate the trend of facial/body scanning "celebs" for game characters. Has already lead to some ugly goblins in games.

[Anonymous No.8689234]

>>8689147

Lower-res graphics can help make character models and backdrops look more cohesive together, while also being easier to get away with not animating (or animating in only a limited way).

If you used the images you've posted as a real background in an adventure game, it would scan as "just a picture", and if you tried animating just the water it would look as fake as a cinemagraph.

[Anonymous No.8689247]

>>8689197
working in that field(as 3D generalist) stuff like that stopped impressing me long ago. it's just a never ending race to a non-existent finish line. this brings in the cash but I can see why many people prefer highly stylized work.

[Anonymous No.8689262]

>>8689063
>>8689139
>>8689147
This isn't what I would call photorealism. It still has a pleasing shine and otherworldly quality to it.

[Anonymous No.8689318]

>>8689139
If anything your picture makes the polar opposite point, that abandonment of realism makes better art.

[Anonymous No.8689335]

My guess isn't that it's more popular, but it looks more videogamey hence the prevalence of retro renascence in merch. Get a picture of a pixel Mario and a photorrealistic Call of Duty soldier and ask street people which one comes from a videogame.

[Anonymous No.8689348]

>>8689197
I dunno, I feel like Breath of the Wild beat Horizon last time, and I have a feeling Elden Ring will beat the sequel this time

[Anonymous No.8689361]

>>8689063
>>8689139
>>8689147
I wish AAA turds actually bothered to look like paintings and fantasy art instead of failing at realism and making the ugliest creaturas they can put.

[Anonymous No.8689372]

>>8689361
Imagine if we got an AAA 2D Castlevania that looked like the concept art instead of Lords of Shadows

[Anonymous No.8689426]

>>8689372
No talent for that in the industry. Every art school trains students to make realistic 3D goblins now because normies will eat that up.

[Anonymous No.8689435]

>>8689426
Isn't the rubberhose style a lost art by now too?

[Anonymous No.8689448]

>old master paintings are the same as 3D AAA photorealism

[Anonymous No.8689452]

>>8686830
All the best looking modern games are rather stylistic. RDR2 most people would peg as trying to be photorealistic but if you look at it it's actually going for a painterly look. The new Resi games have a very distinct hyper-real look to them, not photorealistic but more so
I feel games that take the potorealistic angle tend to be too busy and I just can't focus on anything, for an example. I've recently been getting back big into Dreamcast games. Everything looks good but it's also relatively simple. It's pleasing and memorable to look at. I'm also playing Horizon Zero Dawn and while it's a beautiful game to look at it's just too busy. My mind can't really focus in on any one spot so it ends up giving me a migraine trying to keep up with it.

[Anonymous No.8689453]

>>8686989
You seem focused on merchandise for some reason. That's got nothing to do with which games are more popular. Nothing at all.

[Anonymous No.8689457]

>>8689453
you seem to mistaken paid shills on the web + marketing as actual popularity.

Name a single older than 2-3 years movie game people still talk about.

Better if older than 5 years.

[Anonymous No.8689459]

>>8689457
No, I'm basing it off of reality and sales numbers. You're basing it off of hipster t-shirts and funko pops.

[Anonymous No.8689462]

>>8689457
>Better if older than 5 years.
GTA V came out in 2013 and is the single biggest selling piece of media in history. Not just games, all media. It's still getting sales.

[Anonymous No.8689468]

>>8689459
Again, minecraft sold easily from what I know, around the same number as 40 sony movie games combined.

>>8689462
Minecraft is the biggest videogame in terms of sales.

also GTA V isnt a movie game.

[Anonymous No.8689474]

>>8689468
https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/gta-5-now-profitable-entertainment-product-ever-3448487
And the argument was modern AAA, not a specific TYPE of modern AAA.

[Anonymous No.8689497]

>>8689474
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games

GTAV is second behind minecraft.

[Anonymous No.8689504]

>>8689497
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games
Ah yeah makes sense. Minecraft's top in raw number, GTA's top in revenue.

[Anonymous No.8689510]

Terraria literally is the 15th most sold game all time and only GTAV and red dead redemption and witcher 3 among top 20 all time most sold games.

There's basically 3 indie games with shitty graphics in the top 20.

>>8689504
Now count how much money has minecraft merch has made.

https://www.influencive.com/7-years-later-minecraft-2-5b-deal-microsofts-most-successful-acquisition

Minecraft is now a big videogame franchise.

[Anonymous No.8689523]

>>8689510
Again merchandies is ancilliary shit that doesn't really show anything. Some titles will have a minimum of or no merchandise. Some popular merchandise will be popular independent of the IP it's merchandising off of.. It's not really a reliable metric all in all.

[Anonymous No.8689539]

>>8689523
is a valid metric to showcase market interest.

Also merch is not a trivial shit, anime industry literally survives because of merchandising.

[Anonymous No.8689540]

>>8689197
Then why do Switch games sell so well with the low resolutions and blurry textures and shitty frame rates?

[Anonymous No.8689598]

>>8689540

Because it's your only choice if you want

>a portable system
>a Nintendo system

And has it been a success for anyone other than Nintendo themselves?