Well, just when I thought Crytek's dunderheaded pursuit of graphics-porn couldn't get any more ridiculous, X360magazine.com came along with this beauty. In an interview with Crytek CEO Cervat Yeli, the company president went on record as saying the following:
"People say that graphics don't matter... 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."
I just... look, I get that games are a visual medium, and therefore graphics will always be important to an extent. But that's exactly it- to an extent. Graphics do not define gameplay. Gameplay has to come first, and it has to be able to stand up on its own without pretty visuals to make up for its shortcoming. Mario Galaxy, Minecraft, Hotline Miami, FTL... none of those games needed swanky cutting edge graphics to define their gameplay. In fact, for all of them, gameplay was prioritised squarely and firmly above graphics.
What really gets my goat here is that Crytek must know that their ludicrously expensive graphics arms race hasn't been profitable for them. Yerli has said before that Crytek's going to jump entirely into the F2P market simply because the traditional AAA market hasn't been profitable for them before. Surely, if you're not making money, the best thing to do would be to look at your company philosophy, and see if it can't be better changed? In this case, maybe focusing on making games that aren't at the cutting edge of graphical porn, but which are somewhat unique and fun to play?
Just a suggestion. Your thoughts?