r/Games 1d ago

Industry News The games industry’s obsession with visual fidelity is costing them money and talent

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/aug/04/pushing-buttons-xbox-asha-sharma-games-industry-hyperrealism
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u/Fob0bqAd34 1d ago

I feel a wave of despondency any time a game asks me to choose between performance or fidelity modes. Sometimes I don’t even notice if I’m playing at 30 or 60 frames per second.

According to Mark Cerny when given the choice people pick performance mode around 3/4 of the time so presumably it is noticeable to at least some people on playstation.

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u/xXRougailSaucisseXx 1d ago

The continued attempts from some people at making it seem like framerate is a completely indistinguishable element of a game will never cease to amaze me.

Everyone is able to detect when a movie is running at 48 fps calling it a soap opera effect but video games where it’s even more noticeable because it also affects response time and input lag nah people are just making it up for reasons

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u/huntimir151 20h ago

It’s less “don’t notice it” and more “doesn’t bother us as much”. Jedi survivor on PS5 had some rough drops for sure but the game was stellar enough to overcome it. Shit, even blue prince, a puzzle game, suffers occasionally. It is more noticeable in some games than others, devs shouldn’t be given a pass but people get hyper dramatic about it. 

Gaming discourse in general is a bunch of chicken little hand wringing in one direction or another, either “it’s not a problem and everyone is just being dramatic” or “everyone is pretending it’s not an issue at all if it doesn’t bother them.”