Advancement of Gaming Technology

So it bores me to tears to listen to people rattle off the specs for newer consoles and technical discussions about which console is better puts me to sleep.

But, for whatever reason, I am endlessly fascinated by older systems and the work that went into them. Stupid laymen me doesn't understand a lot of it but it's still neat to learn all about consoles from the 80s and 90s and how cutting edge they were for their time.

But this got me wondering about a couple things. These systems were amazing for their time...but their time was, now we look back on it, very very brief. All this work and all that money to be the best and we now see them as primitive and ugly. People on the internet make better looking video games than twhole companies could make twenty years ago.

So my question to the technologically savvy among you....

Did the makers of these games know they were making something "ugly?" I mean, especially for early 3D on the Playstation, people always complain about the horrid models or textures. Did the developers know they were making something not that great looking but they just couldn't do anything about it?

And for video game designers as a whole back in the 16 or 32 bit era, did they forsee how obsolete all their efforts would be in no time? I mean, I dunno how long HD has been a thing people know about or even a concept but it really serves to hurt a lot of classic games.

I might be mistaken, but I feel that you are looking at this wrong.

If those game makers of old were worth a damm, then they'd never settle for "ugly". Their job was to create something good within the limit of the technology of the time. This often required some creative thinking regarding art style and concepts. A classic example is the reason why Mario has a moustache: on the old arcade machines on which Donkey Kong ran, it was very hard to animate a mouth on the main character. So they gave him a moustache, which not only eliminated the problem, but also gave Mario his distinctive look that would endure the ages.

It was also common for games on the Nintendo 64 to incorporate the low count of polygons into the artstyle. Ocarina Of Time, for example shows its age but still looks pretty good. It is through such inventiveness that aesthetically pleasing games were created, despite the lack of all the technological advances of later eras or larger systems.

Being tech savvy, they probably knew that if they waited a few years, more powerful hardware would be available, but progress in aesthetics doesn't come from hardware. The Mona Lisa isn't a beautiful painting because Da Vinci happened to be the first adopter of the Paintbrush 9001™. It's a beautiful painting because Da Vinci was a talented artist. He had studied the work and methods of artists that came before him, adopted them as his own and refined them. Now, in the digital age, many no longer use paintbrushes. They use Photoshop and pen tablets. But they still use many techniques invented by painters, and use them together with their new materials, and likely invent new methods of their own.

By working with the materials they were given, the game creators of old created great things, and by using the knowledge gained this way, they were able to create even better things once better materials were available. As it was their work that made the creation of these new generations of games possible, one can never say that their efforts were "obsolete".

Consider this for a minute: if you took a timemachine to travel to Kyoto in 1980, and pushed Shigeru Miyamoto a Gamecube in his hands, would he then go on to create Pikmin?

edited 15th Aug '13 8:46:38 AM by Kayeka

Well they obviously realize the limitations of the hardware. Kojima for example wanted to use a mechanic like Laughing Octopus in MGS 4 for Decoy Octopus back in MGS 1 but couldn't because the PS 1's hardware wasn't up to the task. I bet many a game designer has faced similar frustrations where they think "man, this thing sucks. I can't do a ton of the stuff I want to actually do with my game."

Well, yeah, obviously. I'm sorry, but I'm just not quite sure what you are asking here.

Modernized remake of MGS 1? *looks hopeful*

@Nikkolas:

Are you asking why developers should bother making new gaming devices and games for them if they will not be cutting edge forever? If so, what would seem more logical to you?

Man, don't forget about PC. RAM used to come in kilobytes, we had less storage space then, and copy protection was sometimes frowned upon in the floppy age.

And, of course, back then, "3D" was such a nebulous term, though it usually didn't apply to anaglyphic 3D (that is, 3D glasses). 3D could've referred to stuff like id Software's Catacomb 3D or Wolfenstein 3D games, which simulated movement in a sort-of 3D environment, or it could have referred to the 3D achieved in games like the first System Shock, which had true 3D movement. Doom and Descent popularized 3D movement, but weren't entirely polygonal until Quake.

And then, hardware acceleration came around, and Quake II and Unreal competed by bringing better graphics to the table. There's a lot more, but it's interesting to think about how older systems developed into what we probably take for granted now.

Well, I mean, there's nothing else you really can do. You can only work with the tools you are given. It just seems to me like a thankless job is all. Work your ass off for groundbreaking innovation in gameplay and graphics only for people to laugh at it in a few years.C Ontinuing with the MGS talk, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was very innovative with its controls and the things you could do. Now, years later, people think it's all just a joke where the "epic fight" between Solid Snake and Gray Fox is running around in a square and punching a little pixel man.

I guess my question was just that, do the designers ever contemplate the futility of it all?

edited 15th Aug '13 3:28:46 PM by Nikkolas

Little polygon man. Big difference.

The entire concept of creating entertainment is futile if you think that deeply about it but there are good incentives to do so.

Around the time of creating a game there are obviously immediate rewards of money and reputation (the latter because there's possibly nothing superior in that day) and in the long term there is the chance to make at least academic history. A bad reputation is still a reputation which can open certain types of opportunities after all and a good reputation can carry a person incredibly far in the industry.

Look at folks like Richard Garriott and Peter Molyneux. Sure they get tons of flak but they have equally large camps that can't stop praising their genius.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is an 8-bit game. So no, it's a sprite.

Also, Nikkolas, you're in the wrong places if people are laughing at old games. There's a huge community of retro gaming fans. Why do you think these old games are continually rereleased? Nintendo has a service entirely devoted to releasing games from its back catalogue. Sony has something similar on the PS 3. You brought up Metal Gear 2. That was rereleased with the Subsistence version of Metal Gear Solid 3 in 2006, again in 2011 when MGS3 was remade for the HD Collection, and again just a month ago or so for the Legacy Collection. People love old games.

edited 15th Aug '13 6:24:59 PM by BadWolf21

Dude, there's frigging HD remakes of old FPS games (Serious Sam HD, Duke Nukem 3 D: Megaton Edition, etc.), more extensive remakes (the Rise Of The Triad remake and the upcoming Shadow Warrior remake), and other shit from the past.

Money and Nostalgia.

...I don't understand that post. Are you saying they make the HD versions because of money and nostalgia?

Because...duh. No kidding. Doesn't mean they're not still great games. People wouldn't be nostalgic about them if they weren't well-loved.

I don't know to what extent the developers themselves were conscious of how much their effort would be obsoleted (it's rather hard to get an honest appraisal of one's technical wizardry without marketing bullshit), but even if they did, it certainly wasn't the case with most of the enthusiast press. This wondeful little picture◊ says it all.

... which, actually reading the rest of the discussion, is kind of the answer. Most won't care that their handiwork will look quaint in a few decades when it gets them fame, money and bitches now.

edited 16th Aug '13 5:18:00 AM by Glowsquid

Hell, John Carmack worked at id Software for years. What did he do when his last iteration of Id Tech X got a bit old? He just worked on the next engine and left the old one to GPL.