2K’s Christoph Hartmann, Photorealistic Graphics Needed if Games Are to Move Away from Action & Shooting
Christoph Hartmann, 2K games boss says current graphics are holding games back. Stating photorealism will help the industry broaden its appeal creating the opportunity for new genres to emerge.
While talking to Games Industry International, Hartmann said developers choose to focus on things like action and shooting, simply because portraying emotions such as sadness is beyond currently visuals.
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 will be very hard to create very deep emotions like sadness or love, things that drive the movies. Until games are photorealistic, it’ll be very hard to open up to new genres.
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. Then we will have reached an endpoint and that might be the final console.
Although the idea of a ‘final’ console is a bit odd, with gaming being more than just visuals there will surely always be room for improvement. When facial animations are at their best, like in LA Noire, the experience is definitely more engrossing.
What do you think of Hartmann’s views; will gaming ever be able to compete with film when it comes to portraying emotion?
