Originally posted by: Zenoth
People dont buy games for AI anymore.
Oh, because they did, before ?
Or gameplay for that matter. The masses of gamers are out to buy the niftiest graphics which will flex the muscles of their GeForce97 37000 TU Gold Edition w/ 4 Gb Video RAM graphcis cards.
While I'll probably be living my next life once such a GPU is created, but I think this is pure generalization. There is indeed cases where a consumer wants to push the limits of his system's graphics capaibilites, but game-play is still much more important. A
combination of good graphics and constant, present entertaining/addictive game-play is even better. But you always need game-play somewhere, or else the game will take up dust and won't be touched for months or even years.
And it's only gonna get worse now with Physics engines and new hardware Physics cards.
I don't see why it would get "worse" with physics engines or new hardware parts allowing developers to create new scenarios of game-play and achieve innovation in their games. It's not because your hardware now allows each and every single fired bullets to destroy a wooden house in real-time with un-scripted physics reactions and dynamic particle creations that it suddenly means that game-play is gone. Systems will cost more, overall, yes, perhaps, but as I said, as far as game-play is concerned, it won't be "annihilated" by new hardware that you don't even
have to buy. It's just an extra to help your system get potentially stressed to a lesser amount when such physic situations occur. Not to mention that with the arrival of Quad-Core CPUs it might just mean that PPU's will eventually loose their share of the PC gaming market.
The golden age of gaming has gone. It is now Hollywood.
Again, generalization. I myself still play old games on my more-than-midrange system in which I must have spent more than $2000 on over the past two years to reach its current state and hardware parts. It doesn't automatically mean that I want to push it to its limits. It means that if a "stressful" game comes out, that my system will at least be able to play and run it with decent speed, even if it means turning off, or decreasing some in-game settings. Games such as Shadow Man, Turok 2, System Shock 2, the original Half-Life, Morrowind, Jedi Outcast, and even older games like Hexen 2, Doom 2, Quake 2, and all such old classics, I still own all of these and more, and I am always happy to play them from time to time.
I do agree that there is some people out there only seeking to push the limits of their system(s), but that's pure generalization to say that the "golden age of gaming has gone". When I see hundred of thousands of players playing Diablo II on-line each day, and even more than that playing the original Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament 99', all I can think and say to myself is "wow, the golden age of gaming is
still there", despite the whole technology race we're all seing at the moment.
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