Graphical Elitism Makes One Look Immature And Foolish
There is a pejorative term out there in the gaming-space called "graphics-whore." It is someone who will like, play, or buy a game simply because it looks technically impressive. This post is not about such a person. This is about the graphical elitist. He or she will say things like "anything less than 1080p is unacceptable."
Months ago, I was watching a Kinda Funny video, and Tim Gettys said such a thing, and I found it ironic and offensive at the same time. In the Kinda Funny crew, he is known as the Nintendo-fanboy so I found it ironic to hear such words coming from him of all people, although he wasn't specifically talking about Nintendo Switch. As we know, NS is certainly capable of outputting 1080p--Wii U was capable of it, too. In real-time game-applications, however, the NS-version often falls short of that standard. So does this mean that Tim Gettys watches every Digital Foundry video and avoids games that specifically fall short of 1080p? Of course not. It just reminded me of women who state they have specific empirical standards of men they will go out with, whether it's height, salary, race, or whatever; it's asinine.
Graphical elitists are also found among PC-gamers. Without fun gameplay or exclusive titles to make them feel good, they harp on stuff like framerate, resolution, and refresh-rate. It is not a bad thing to appreciate a technically impressive game, but to completely brush off a game because it doesn't reach those lofty, inconsequential standards makes one look immature and foolish. There are more important things in games than graphics. A game can be gorgeous, but if it's boring, then what's the point? You can benchmark your new rig on it. Great, but what will you play?
Constantly chasing the next standard for graphics is an unending race. Having gone through multiple generations of consoles and decades of PCs, it is simple wisdom to not chase graphics, but to chase fun most of all. You can certainly have fun with a graphically impressive game, but you can with a graphically simple game as well.
Months ago, I was watching a Kinda Funny video, and Tim Gettys said such a thing, and I found it ironic and offensive at the same time. In the Kinda Funny crew, he is known as the Nintendo-fanboy so I found it ironic to hear such words coming from him of all people, although he wasn't specifically talking about Nintendo Switch. As we know, NS is certainly capable of outputting 1080p--Wii U was capable of it, too. In real-time game-applications, however, the NS-version often falls short of that standard. So does this mean that Tim Gettys watches every Digital Foundry video and avoids games that specifically fall short of 1080p? Of course not. It just reminded me of women who state they have specific empirical standards of men they will go out with, whether it's height, salary, race, or whatever; it's asinine.
Graphical elitists are also found among PC-gamers. Without fun gameplay or exclusive titles to make them feel good, they harp on stuff like framerate, resolution, and refresh-rate. It is not a bad thing to appreciate a technically impressive game, but to completely brush off a game because it doesn't reach those lofty, inconsequential standards makes one look immature and foolish. There are more important things in games than graphics. A game can be gorgeous, but if it's boring, then what's the point? You can benchmark your new rig on it. Great, but what will you play?
Constantly chasing the next standard for graphics is an unending race. Having gone through multiple generations of consoles and decades of PCs, it is simple wisdom to not chase graphics, but to chase fun most of all. You can certainly have fun with a graphically impressive game, but you can with a graphically simple game as well.
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