It's not that i want 4k graphics, it's that i want any graphics at all. The thing is they don't even try to bring any graphics to their game, they rely on people blindly thinking its retro and cool to show as little detail as possible. There is a difference in trying to be as detailed as possible in the little space given, and what they do, trying to fit as little detail as possible. It's like they don't want you to be able to distinguish that the blob on the middle of the screen is supposed to represent a human being. Just look as old NES games and many of the pixelgames today, an extremely big difference in detail.

It's absolutely laziness behind it, so what if your games becomes 20mb larger with larger sprites and more detail, its not like be are on 56kbit modems anymore. If it would have been anything else they would at least try to be more detailed, but no...

Well, I would compare it to the movies...

In the beginning, movies were just intended as entertainment. But as the medium matured, more and more movie makers set out to create art.

True to that, most of these movies created as "art" are actually highly controversial. Some love it, I most often wouldn't know if I should laugh or cry, if I could stay awake long enough because most often these things are just so boring.

But the fact that these movies exist is actually a good thing. It shows that the medium has found its way into the mainstream, and has a diverse fanbase now that spans all kind of people...

Some of these want to see art, not entertainment.

Same is happening with games now. As the medium matures, the playerbase gets more diverse. New niches open up, and there seems to be quite a good portion of the playerbase that are into artsy / retro / minimalistic looking games. Some of these players want to play something "retro", some want to play something that is "art", some just don't care about the graphic and just look for good gameplay.

Whatever the reason is, some players seem to dig the style.

On the other hand, if we are talking about "thomas was alone" extrem minimalistic styles, we are now getting into real "art" territory. Is a red dot on a large black canvas art? Is an old naturalistic masterpiece from the Renaissance masters art (even though back in the day, this art was extremly non-artsy work-for-pay)?

Ther are just as many rasons why the creator of the game might have chosen the art style as there are reasons why players like it (I admit sometimes I suspect it was "I need a radically different art style to make my game unique")...

But isn't that a good thing? Is there a shortage on realistic looking games? No? Is there a shortage on realistic looking non-mainstream games? Yes? Why don't YOU set out and change that?

Another aspect is that people (and I'm not talking about pixelart fanatics, even on people I ask on the streets) are tired of AAA. No one (of course exceptions) desire AAA art anymore, sure they might like it or whatever but it's not a selling point anymore. I think people got used to it sooo much they see super graphics as standard, and kind of see "ugly minecraft blocks" as originality. Honestly, I secretly suspect they do not realize how hard is to make AAA art and they thing that since hardware can render it it's not an issue and that people who do stylized art (asciiart/voxels) don't do it because they can't do AAA but because they want to convey some artistic vision or something

I think it is much simpler: todays AAA games are mainly so unimaginative, that a good portion of players would put up with ANY kind of graphics just to get different gameplay.

If somebody puts another version of Call of Halo / Medal of modern Battlefield Trash in one of my gaming machines, he will be kicked out of my appartment :)

If I read the AAA game anouncements, I always get a deja vu ("aren't these the same games as last years... oh, its AC 5, not AC4, and Modern Warfare 4, not 3... ").

Most good AAA games these days are brand new IPs from new studios and leftfield reboots. And I usually am prepared to scratch of the series with the first sequel, because by that time most game series fall into the routine of rehash and rebrand last years game.

I have played some of the Indie titles available on Steam even though I am a mild graphics junkie. Some I actually enjoyed quite a lot, nevermind the lower graphics quality. I do not fire up a game to play a (not-so) interactive movie. Cut out your cutscenes and QTE, give me some solid mechanics to waste some time on.

I agree Gian! I've been replaying a lot of ps1 games and I understand if people think it looks "ugly". But as of late I've been finding an artistic beauty in its abstract nature of rendering things. Some may mark it up to nostalgia but in all honesty I don't think it is.

Acharis; That's kinda part of the point. Even hand drawn scribbles on paper offer more detail then the useless pixels, and it's a lot cheaper. So it all comes down to the pixel "artists" wanting to do as little as possible. It's very much possible to make very pretty graphics without using much effort or money at all. This fanatic belief in pixels is sickening.

Gian: No, it doesn't compare to the movies. If you would compare it to the movies you'd have to compare the pixel"artists" to people not using any camera at all and trying their best to mess up the medium while saying they are doing it retro by going hieroglyph style. Heck, not long ago i was in high belief the indieera has killed itself when all that was released were pixel TD's, people don't even try...

Acharis; That's kinda part of the point. Even hand drawn scribbles on paper offer more detail then the useless pixels, and it's a lot cheaper. So it all comes down to the pixel "artists" wanting to do as little as possible. It's very much possible to make very pretty graphics without using much effort or money at all. This fanatic belief in pixels is sickening.

Gian: No, it doesn't compare to the movies. If you would compare it to the movies you'd have to compare the pixel"artists" to people not using any camera at all and trying their best to mess up the medium while saying they are doing it retro by going hieroglyph style. Heck, not long ago i was in high belief the indieera has killed itself when all that was released were pixel TD's, people don't even try...

Look, that's just... like your opinion, man (to quote the Dude).

I could go on the same hate rant on all the artsy movies I had to watch over the years because I didn't knew any better. 1 hour of my life wasted (well, I rarely watch a movie that is this bad to the end).

But I won't. Because in the end, everything that can be seen as "art" will attract artists. Which means wildly divergent quality levels, some lazy bums that sadly are supported by people with a... different taste in arts, some incredibly talented people that just have a style I personally do not dig, some people that try forcefully to be different, even if it means creating edge case stuff... but it will also give you good, sometimes weird and wacky, stuff that you do admire.

So while I personally think a boring Movie consisting of one single, 1hr long shot showing a blank concrete wall is just trash... someone else might rave for years how enlightening the expierience was, and about the genious of its creator. No point in arguing with that person really.

Taste differs. Artists / Game Devs and anyone else will in the end cater to all tastes out there, and some of them do in the safest / quickest / most provocative way possible. That is a good thing, not a bad one.

Question from my side: do you think the proliferation of pixel art games has somehow slowed down the release of other games? Do you think the pixel art devs would have been able to create / woul have created non-pixel art games if the hype wouldn't be there?

Or would there rather be just less games produced? What is the gain for anyone, save less pixel art noise on steam and similar outlets?

In all honesty people would mark up making a ps1 looking game up to laziness but isn't it harder to achieve that affect? As someone said you would have to make an engine that limits all the special conveniences and tools we have today. I know it would also require fixed point math as opposed to floating point. I think it would be an artistic choice as it's clearly harder to limit yourself. I read a bunch of forums with people who were positive towards the idea and thought it would be cool. I didn't expect this community to act in a completely opposite way.

Maybe not many in the way of graphics but gameplay-wise yeah. The games being inspired by SNES games are taking the 2D graphic style primarily because they enjoy the simplicity of 2D gameplay. The pixel graphics are just an easy way to get nostalgia points and because pixel art still looks pleasing to the eye even today. However as someone who was born in the 90s I do miss the gameplay from N64 and PS1 games. Specifically the 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Crash Bandicoot. We don't see all that many games like those from AAA developers anymore and I think it would be an interesting thing for indies to explore. They might take on similar art styles (over stylized anthropomorphic characters) but I doubt many would purposefully make their game non-HD these days.