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"When graphics get too good"

Seeing as the next generation of consoles is only a little way away I started to think about the graphical improvements that they would bring for the console market at least and something slightly disturbing struck me.When graphics eventually reach the point of being almost identical to what we see in reality(I'm talking way,way down the line)will we feel comfortable playing video games.

What I'm saying is that if video games eventually reach the point where it is as if you are playing 'real life' would we be comfortable playing.It would be unnerving playing games in this era as when you acted in the game it would look like the thing was real.Lets say in GTA.You walking down the street andhave to shoot in the game.The problem is that it would look real and that would sort of blur the line between video games and reality.I don't for one second think its going to turn people into killers but I know I wouldn't feel happy doing this even if it was in a game.If you saw someone dying after in being shot in the real world it would disturb you and mess your mind up a bit.

This would be different to movies because you would be responsible.I would not feel happy killing someone in a game if it Looked real.That is the key.Would you be comfortable doing that if it looked real.This applies to any game.Shooting,driving etc.The only exceptions I can think of are dance and singing and puzzle games.

Well, no, because even if the graphics look like real-life, it doesn't mean the situations portrayed therefrom will be life-like as well. A realistic-looking racer could have arcady-handling cars, over-the-top speed and crashes.

But for the sake of having the best graphics there would be games with ultra-realistic graphics.Think about companies like EA who keep on churning out games with better and better graphics with not much else different.There would be games of all genres inevitably made ultra-realistic graphics.

I wonder if these graphics would make arcadey racers more popular as the realistic driving games would now be indistinguishable from real life.

Not all games will become photo-realistic anyway. Games like Zelda will lose their character if the people look like real people.

Don't assume that just because the technology will be there that game developers will use it for that one single purpose.

I think the issue will arrise as soon as the end of the next generation,
I think the most disturbing thing for me would be if the effects did look real, but most probably they would be exagerated or even diluted, for example they would be overblown like mortal kombat, in which the characters looked real 10 yeas ago, but the blood did'nt which made it fantasy.
Or the diluted case, in which we would have games that look real, but have no blood like Timesplitters.

I seriously doubt that many developers will want to go for the ultra-realistic look in anything other than football games or whatever.

Games are supposed to be escapism, by their very nature - having them look like real life would much that up slightly. And just because they can look realistic, doesn't mean they all will - look at how many different graphical styles there are around today, and very few of them are aiming for high-realism.

One thing I've been wondering on this subject:
When graphics become far too real to notice a difference between any games on any console, will how good the graphics look influence what games we buy?

I mean, currently there are people who will buy realy crap games just because they have good graphics. Will that be the same when every game is graphically as real as possible?

What I was saying was that if in real life you saw someone gushing out blood it might make you feel sick so if in the realm of video games when it looked real it would surely be cringe worthy.

But it is gradual, there are many different steps graphically look at the gaming years from doom to doom 3 there were hundreds of changes over the years that allowed the graphical improvements.

we didn't jump from sprites to normal mapping there was progression.

Chippxero wrote:
> As graphical improvements are gradual, the generation(because it's
> never going to happen in our life time)

I don't think they're that gradual, I think we could have photo-realism the generation after next, or the one after that at the latest.

As graphical improvements are gradual, the generation(because it's never going to happen in our life time) that does end up with realistic graphics will have time to adjust to the realism of it.