On Realism in Videogames

This is ruining everything... apparently.

Christoph Hartmann of 2k Games recently said this of videogames, “Recreating a Mission Impossible experience in gaming is easy; recreating emotions in Brokeback Mountain is going to be tough, or at least very sensitive in this country. It's limiting … Every time the technology advances, new things will open up and be created. To dramatically change the industry to where we can insert a whole range of emotions, I feel it will only happen when we reach the point that games are photorealistic”. (full interview available here)

This pissed a whole bunch of people off, but is he wrong? Hit the jump for more on that.

Hartmann is far from the only person who has held this opinion. But in modern days, a lot of people have been rejecting realism in favor of retro-looking indie games (a broken moniker if ever there was one) that harken back to the 16-bit era. I have certainly played more than my fair share of Minecraft and Braid.

Notch (cool guy and creator of Minecraft) tweeted this in response to Hartmann:
“No, Christoph, you LIMIT the number of new genres if you focus on photorealism”source
and this: “I had way more emotions playing Proteus than I ever did playing any 2k game.” source

I’m not really sure why Notch is lashing out at the whole of 2k Games like this, but he's certainly not alone. This seems strange to me since 2k has been responsible for many great games including Bioshock and Civilizations IV and V. Many people have had incredible and meaningful experiences with those games. My friends and I particularly enjoyed playing Borderlands (even though the ending sucked). Surely they can’t be doing that much wrong.

I feel like a lot of serious gamers like Notch, who are very interested in exploring what videogames can do, share a knee-jerk reaction against the idea that realism is important in videogaming. They prefer artistry over normal mapping and dynamic tessellation (as do I), but why do you have to assume that they are opposite forces? Why does focusing on photorealism necessarily limit the number of new genres? And what does “photorealism” actually mean as Hartmann used it? I think we can determine this by looking at what 2k games is currently working and how those games are pursuing “realism”.

Bioshock: Infinite

 

As many of you are aware, 2k Game’s biggest upcoming project is Bioshock: Infinite. At first glance, you might think that Bioshock: Infinite isn’t pursuing realism. Just look at its bright colors and stylized characters! It looks like a Pixar movie! ...But it totally is. Bioshock: Infinite is doggedly pursuing a particular aspect of realism: believable acting. They are spending a lot of time making conversational audio and animation for Elizabeth, who will spend a lot of time interacting with Booker, the player character. This focus on animation is still in pursuit of realism! In the same way that an articulated puppet like the original Yoda is a more believable character than a doll being shaken around; Elizabeth is a more believable character than a less articulated one would be. I take this to mean that when Hartmann says “photorealism” he isn’t just referring to texel density or polycount. He’s referring to believability and relatability in a much broader sense.

Alyx Vance: highly relatable character

This pursuit of realism requires technological pushes in many different areas. Some technicians needed to invent morph targets and bone deformation to create the expressions on her face and body. Some technicians needed to come up with how to calculate lighting and shadows in realtime to make the awe-inspiring vistas that make adventure games worthwhile. Those technicians were pursuing realism, and the work that they did has helped many people to create emotionally resonant games.


Games like Flower, Assassin’s Creed II, Okami, Silent Hill 2, Skyrim, Metal Gear Solid 3, Red Dead Redemption, Uncharted 2, Mass Effect, Grand Theft Auto IV, Windwaker, and Shadow of the Colossus all use techniques originally invented to create more realistic games. Even if you don’t like any particular game here (which is insane, they are all amazing), you cannot ignore the positive effect they have had on the industry.

The Source Engine showing off HDR lighting (2005)

I’m not convinced that the pursuit of realism and believability have ever been detrimental to the expansion of videogames. Take the development of the Source Engine for example. When it was originally created in 2004 (holy crap that was eight years ago), it was the most realistic game engine ever made (by some accounts). It had the most realistic realtime physics, lighting, and animation yet seen in videogames, and the first game that used it was an incredible game! Half-Life 2 is one of the most celebrated games of all time, and much of what helped it be resonant and communicative, is how naturalistic and believable the world was. To this day, the source engine is still being used to make great games. The techniques pioneered in pursuit of realism have been used to make amazing stylized games too. Games like Team Fortress 2 take advantage of lighting and physics-solving techniques that would not have existed if we were not as an industry trying to make photorealistic games (TF2 art doc).

Now, please don't misunderstand. I do not think that all games should be photorealistic. I don’t even think most games should attempt to be photorealistic. In the same way that all artists should study realism in order to do decent stylized work, I believe game engines should be capable of depicting realism. I feel that it is in the best interest of the game makers for us to have powerful tools like Unreal, Unity, or the Cryengine and then pick and choose techniques that support a particular art direction (as with Journey or Borderlands). Doing this will make games more unique and keep development costs down, which benefits makers and players alike.

But also, just because you don’t want full realism in every game, don’t make the mistake of assuming that the pursuit of realism is not important. As with the car replacing the horse and carriage, you don’t know what you’re missing until you see it! Just think back to the number of new kinds of games we got when realtime 3d rendering was invented. Don’t we want that to happen again? The target of true photorealism is so far in the distance and so broad and all encompassing, that we can pursue it for decades only to keep discovering how much farther it is than we assumed. And every step we take on the way is a boon to the game makers and to the art form we all love.

Don't forget Quantic Dreams's "Kara" demo from E3 2012.

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Oh, and why people are linking this to the movie argument of practical effects vs cgi is unfathomable to me. There is no such thing as practical effects in a videogame; that’s what makes it a videogame.