E3 reminder: Graphics don't matter

Well this is great, an article where I can truly dig into a rant and still get out fairly quickly. Its related to E3, and why graphics just don't matter there regardless of whatever you've fooled yourself into thinking. Its not even a matter of the general concept of graphics, as sure they do matter, but just the area in which we hype on it. Its actually something I've covered before here and in a piece of this monsterous post. Here I'll help you out and quote the key segment of that last article:

Actually I have to say that I also naturally kind of have some doubt or distrust in the back of my head for visual hype. You can't just tell me it looks good and have me invested. I can't get invested in youtube quality, I can't tell you how breathetaking everything is in some still screenshot, and just about anything else (even uncompressed videos) you can do wont prepare me for what I will see on the TV screen when it gets here. So.... yeah its the sort of thing where I wont believe it until I see it, because you are talking about a sight thing afterall and your trying to get the info through a bunch of middleman sources. You can't earn my trust that way that the game will look fantastic based on whatever twitch, youtube, or the CEO says, it just doesn't work that way. I can't see it until I'm playing it, and then I'll not only appreciate it but I'll be immersed into it as the thing I'm actually a part of.

This isn't even about being cynical either. I could talk like that and pretend I know for sure companies are doing this out of corrupt intentions, but the fact is even if they were the most honest, kind, and humble dudes out there giving you previews, the fact is that this isn't representing the final product or how you'll get it. In addition to the fact that the game simply isn't done yet, and has months at the very least before such a thing happens, we're also talking about an industry mostly talking through what we see off the internet. We're linked here, brought by countless different services. Every semi-big journalist website, a decent chunk of big name youtubers, twitch, the game companies themselves, youtube itself, and even freakin' movie theaters might all be potential routes to go and see this event. I emphasize the word "event" for a good reason. That event itself, even in live spectical, is mostly about watching trailers. So... you're essentially watching a youtube video of somebody watching an enhanced video. Maybe that video at the event is uncompressed, raw, or even being played, but even if that was all true 90% of us are watching it compressed, and the rest are still watching it on a specialized screen in an overglamorized party meant to really just please investors. In whatever situation you find yourself in, you're not your typical self, and/or you're not observing the game in the same kind of setting you'll find yourself playing games in.

Of course there's then the components outside of straight-forward graphics. You want the PC version? Hope its optimized. Hope your PC can run it the way you see it on screen. Want the console version? Are you sure they really promised the resolution, or will it be one of those dynamic scaling things that create occasional pop-ins and mess? Will it perform at a locked framerate? Will any of the versions run smoothly? Day 1 patches are a standard at this point, and even companies that have a near spotless record have had their moments of let downs in the performance department. You simply can't expect everything to run the way its given to you on a vertical slice. These things are edited, cut, and displayed by trained people who want you to run out and buy the game. Why the hell did you expect the graphics at E3 to mirror your living room or bed room gaming experience again!?

Reality. NOT E3

However this isn't necessarily bad news (well if the game performs badly, that sucks, but I'm talking strictly about graphics again). I'm just stating the facts of why I myself have never been truly excited over a game's graphics based on some E3 showing. I'll still try and take into account details like what all is happening at once on the screen and I can loosely predict maybe it'll look great, but I even try and keep those expectations tame (this is a highlight reel, remember). The fact is though that often games impress me visually once they're in my hands. Even WatchDogs on a rented PS3 copy impressed me during moments, because I never held expectations over it based on earlier footage. So even after watching videos of both E3 and the real thing on higher systems, neither captured the way the city shone in a sunset after rainfall. That was just beautiful, and the textures and lighting effects on display are simply what gets lost in transition between all that other formats like youtube. Its when its right in front of you on set-ups like this, this, or even this that will determine your true experience in the game. Then there's the most obvious thing of all: gameplay and immersion. No matter what the game looks like, its immersion that counts for whether or not the game has the capability to work whatever magic it seeks to accomplish. However immersion, like the reality of graphics, depends entirely on what is going on when the game is in your hands. Immersion is something that can only be experienced, not seen. So is it a bad thing that your not seeing what you're getting? No, because what you get is the real thing, and it often comes with some things that transferred over better. Maybe the rendering is dumbed down, or the weather system has taken a hit from the E3 footage, but ultimately you'll see all the textures, shadows, lighting, and the true motion and form of the game for the first time once its on your TV or computer monitor and you're in control. That to me has surpassed nearly anything I've seen at E3... unless the game itself sucks.

So... look, guys... can we please not get all worked up over the graphics? Can we please have an E3 where we enjoy the games for being games, and not for what the buffering youtube video displays? ...and don't sit there and pretend to me that you're all doing this for the sake of holding developers accountable, because Last of Us begs to differ (the one game that was dumbed down almost entirely via gameplay, and yet very few batted an eye because it wasn't Ubisoft). Even with WatchDogs, few people actually talk about the difference in physics and interaction versus just "Ew, look at the graphics!" For some odd reason you guys just have a knack for ragging on games that have undergone a different render process, or find that upon optimizing across various systems it was easier to lose certain visual effects than to properly optimize each individual entry. You get worked up over that, rather than how the darn thing plays, or even if the gameplay stays true to the original form shown. Can I ask that this time, at least this one time, we try and accept the fact that these aren't complete games, may change, and even if they release tomorrow would look different on our own systems? I'd rather not have another Witcher 3 case where a great game, by a caring and supportive company, gets bogged down in the last minute by "OMG, It might look somewhat different! Get the pitchforks!" ...and then the game released and looked just fine the way it was, and remains one of the best open world games to ever release. I think we're going to do fine in this E3 if we keep our heads on right. In the end, my point is exactly that of the title: E3 graphics don't matter. Stop caring about them, stop raising a fuss over them, and learn to look past all the snarky "this is downgraded" and try to find something you enjoy from the event instead.