Crytek Cevat Yerli: Graphics Are “60% Of The Game”

[elmuerte]

“People say that graphics don’t matter,” says Yerli, “but play Crysis and tell me they don’t matter. It’s always been about graphics driving gameplay.”

http://www.x360magazine.com/general/crytek-graphics-are-60-of-the-game/

 

Discuss!

[brkl]

Of Crytek's games? More than 60% I would say, which is why they're not very interesting to play.

[Roderick]

The link won't load, so there's no way I can't take this out of context, but here goes: it depends on the game, of course. Some games are all about the visuals. Other games aren't.

It seems the expectation here is for us to go all 'boo!' on this guy and his comment, but I wouldn't know where that seeming loathing for graphics comes from. I know this place favors the ludological side of things, but games are an amalgamation of a great breadth of elements (interactivity, visuals, audio, narrative), and valid and valuable games can come from any combination and emphasis of those.

[Frenetic Pony]

Of Crytek's games? More than 60% I would say, which is why they're not very interesting to play.

 

I can confirm this of Crysis 3. Very pretty to look at, but the gameplay so far has be "stealth, walk past every enemy in the level, get the next level, stealth..." and so on. And now they've given you a bow that doesn't de-cloak you just to make it easier!

 

At least the enemy barks are funny, if you shoot at a guy who's behind cover he'll yell "Help I'm being repressed!"

 

 

At least Crytek has a bunch of other studios now, I'm interested to see a game of theirs without Cevat directly involved

[osmosisch]

That's the same guy who is of the opinion that Crysis 3 is more fun than the first one right?

 

Yeah.

[I Saw Dasein]

That's the same guy who is of the opinion that Crysis 3 is more fun than the first one right?

Of course it is, the graphics are better. 

[darthbator]

Sounds like something a company making money in the engine business would say!

[elmuerte]

Hmm.. the link worked a few hours ago.

Anyway, Crytek has been making pretty much the same game since they started. Yerli's remark is pretty much inline with Carmack's remark on stories in video games.
 

Sounds like something a company making money in the engine business would say!

Maybe in the late 90s. These days engine making companies prefer to highlight how great/easy/fast their workflow to create great looking and working games is.

[TheLastBaron]

I would if his point was about visuals in general, as opposed to audio or whatever else, he might have a point, but I'm assuming it was about specifically graphic fidelity (page won't load so not sure).  If talking about visuals in general, I would probably agree.  In a lot of the games what you see is more important than what you hear (most games are playable with the sound muted, most games are not playable with the screen off).  However if talking about how good something looks relating to how good something is, I'm currently playing Deus Ex GOTY because I started playing Human Revolution and it just made me want to play a game that's 13 years old.   I also think that as graphics get better and better they will become less important.  After watching the PS4 announcement stream and there was the one presentation about the racing game with the super good looking cars all I could think was that the cars in racing games already look good and that the appeal for me is in how good the sound is.  In a game like GTA it's hard to say if I care more about the graphics or audio more.  For me just as much of the immersion probably comes from things like the radio stations as from realistic the city is.

[I_smell]

Well if there's any one game you can inarguably say that about, it's Crysis. I've not played any of those games, but I heard they have HD graphics???

"Guitar Hero designer says games are 60% the controller!" like-- of course he'd say that, they made half a dozen games expressing that belief.

 

In broader terms: some of my favourite games, out of thin-air, are Devil May Cry, Street Fighter, or Gears of War. A big fat half of what makes those games is what's happening onscreen. The animations, effects, and all the stuff outside of just hitboxes and variables are a huge deal, and those games could all feel much weaker, slower, and more boring if they didn't put that work in.

You could easily make even something like QWOP or Hokra feel like cheap app-store garbage with the wrong layer of aesthetics.

 

If we're talking about strictly pushing the most powerful computers as far as they can go, then hey- Doom was a technical achievement at some point, right? Could you have done Red Faction Guerilla 10 years ago, with all those buildings falling over? Would Just Cause 2 be anywhere near as good if you couldn't stream through that giant map?

I think this is a dusty old, ancient topic to bring up.

[tegan]

I did not know that there was still a major debate over graphics. Graphics need to be in support of the mechanics at work and the story being told. Sometimes that means realism, sometimes it means abstraction.

[elmuerte]

Full text of the article, copied via google cache

Crytek: Graphics Are “60% Of The Game”

News

by

David Lynch

Crytek has always pushed the visuals of its games but in the great graphics Vs gameplay debate, Cytek boss, Cevat Yerli, believes graphics win and actually account for ’60% of the game’ and its immersion.

Crytek: Graphics Are We caught up with Cevat Yerli to ask him one of the most debated questions in the history of gaming…

Crytek boss Cevat Yerli is – like many whose stripes rank them well outside of PR influence – a man who speaks his mind.

When asked whether he feels better graphics mean better gameplay or not, his answer surprised us.

Why? Because finally, here’s someone using common sense to reach what is in our opinion the right answer to this question.

“People say that graphics don’t matter,” says Yerli, “but play Crysis and tell me they don’t matter. It’s always been about graphics driving gameplay.”

“In Crysis 3 it’s the grass and the vegetation, the way the physics runs the grass interact and sways them in the wind. You can read when an AI enemy is running towards you just by observing the way the grass blades.

“Graphics, whether it’s lighting or shadows, puts you in a different emotional context and drives the immersion.”

“And immersion is effectively the number one thing we can use to help you buy into the world.”

“The better the graphics, the better the physics, the better the sound design, the better the technical assets and production values are – paired with the art direction, making things look spectacular and stylistic is 60 per cent of the game.”

You may, of course, disagree with him.

[Dirk Anger]

Of Crytek's games? More than 60% I would say, which is why they're not very interesting to play.

I disagree. At least Far Cry (untill the Mutant Thingies showed up) and the first Crysis (untill the Aliens showed up) were fairly interesting to play - you had huge, sprawling levels full of (at the time) realistic vegetation, and the ability to freely choose how to engage each combat situation, wether by stealth, brute force or use of the environment. In 2004, that was a fairly new and yes, very interesting experience.

Of course, the only reason Far Cry had those huge, tropical levels in the first place was that Crytek wanted to show of their new and shiny engine. So you're right, in a way - Crytek's games are made by their graphics.

[Tanukitsune]

Their games might be "beautiful", but I haven't been able to complete a single one of them due to how boring I find them. I'm pretty sure I've played game that looked "bad" but were still immersive.

 

“The better the graphics, the better the physics, the better the sound design, the better the technical assets and production values are – paired with the art direction, making things look spectacular and stylistic is 60 per cent of the game.”

 

What? What does the physics, sound have to due with the graphics? And "stylistic" doesn't imply "good graphics".

 

I'mma gonna play some ZZT, now that had some good "graphics". ¬_¬

[TychoCelchuuu]

I think Crysis is an amazing game for the way it lets people free-roam around its levels and approach things however they want with the various suit powers and weapons and stuff, and yes, it is gorgeous, but the two aren't linked at all. That Crytek things I play their games just to look at pretty stuff and not to also have fun seems sort of evident from the direction they went in the two sequels, neither of which I've played (except the Crysis 2 demo) but both of which seem to have cut down on the freedom in favor of graphical fidelity. I mean, I do actually like pretty games, and the Crysis games are very pretty, but I would love a game like Crysis with awful graphics or just less impressive graphics and I wouldn't as much enjoy a game that is as pretty as Crysis but not as fun (aka Cryses 2 and 3)

[Chris]

It's frustrating to me that Crytek perpetuates the "it's all/just about graphics" meme with respect to Crysis, because I feel the first Crysis game was one of the most interesting FPS gameplay experiences in recent years.

I don't think that game is "just" (or even principally) about graphics, regardless of whether the person making the claim intends it as praise or dismissal.

[Nachimir]

Oh god, I thought graphics vs. gameplay went away for good in 2005

 

It's a false dichotomy. Both matter, but not always, and each can be a thing the game is about.

[toblix]

I remember Far Cry as being the first game that presented me with a big beautiful environment that felt truly open, and made me think about playing in a truly systemic way. That may or not be true, but I definitely remember getting into a car and being amazed that I could just ride this amazing, physically real car anywhere. Crysis was like that, but added the weird powers that let me try to execute even weirder schemes, usually based on silently killing everyone from a bush whilst invisible. Shooting palm trees in half whilst admiring dynamic god rays was incredible.

[Joewintergreen]

I actually replayed Crysis 1 a couple of weeks ago, having more recently played most of 2. I guess playing 2 made me forget how good 1 is, because man, that is an extremely good game. I enjoyed all of it, even the alien bits and the VTOL part at the end. Crysis 2 is Maximum Boring by comparison.

[darthbator]

I actually really enjoy the idea of those suit modes. I never played the series outside of the first one. Sounds like I'm better for it.

[Berzee]

I played the entirety of Crysis on a laptop at 800x600 resolution with most of the graphics set to low and (I think) the shadows turned off. I thought it was alright, though not amazing -- and I'm not convinced that replaying it on my new top-of-desk computer would double the amount of game in that game. =P

[Dewar]

Interesting graphics can make a game. They don't have to be "good graphics" in the high-poly Crysis style, just something eye catching. Games like Fez and Kentucky Route Zero can be really eyecatching wtihout requiring an SLI setup to play. At the same time, I was looking at a couple of games recommended by this very forum and was immediately turned off by the graphics style. I'll probably never play those games. So yeah, graphics are important.

[elmuerte]

But are they more important than audio, gameplay and story put together?

[Dewar]

If I never get past the graphics to try the game itself, that renders the rest moot.

 

Real answer: Probably not, but I think his point has merit, even if I don't like the look of Crysis personally.

[Twig]

They must be if they're 60% of the game.