On emotion and graphics in games

2K Games’ Christoff Hartmann stated in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz that photorealism is necessary for video games to be able to compete with movies at reaching audiences on an emotional level.

I completely disagree with this opinion.

Tears were shed over these blocky heroes.

How many players cried over Aeris’s death? How many players were moved by Eli Vance’s death? Why do people pee their pants while playing “Amnesia: The Dark Descent?” Do you remember that pit in your stomach that developed while watching Mario drown in “Super Mario 64?” Hell, I almost cried at the end of “Journey,” and that game is nowhere near photorealistic.

I can't list all the moments in gaming history that have had a great emotional impact on players, but here's a post on Reddit discussing several heart-wrenching moments from from readers' favorite games.

More importantly than the simple fact that humans can insert emotions into and develop emotions for literally anything they can see, video games do not need to compete with movies. They are different. 

Music, movies, books, paintings and video games are all different types of art that do not need to compete with one another. I realize that I’m taking an artistic rather than business stance here, but I do not want to see a future where video games are just films that you have to hold a controller to watch. I recently posted an article relating to this topic on the GCV blog.

Photorealism is certainly the next logical step in the evolution of computer graphics, but it is ridiculous to claim that it's impossible to elicit emotion from players due to current graphical limitations.

You can read the full interview over at Gamesindustry.biz.