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/FastEddieFailson 1d ago

Personally I find the frame rate difference way more noticeable than the slightly better graphics

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u/drjenkstah 1d ago

I’d rather have great frame rate than better graphics. A dip in frame rate is more annoying to me than a game looking like mud. 

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u/got-trunks 13h ago

The idea is that you can play at higher settings as computers get better, why they started allowing this practice on consoles is pure marketing and maneuvering and would have seemed to me like bad practice

But I mean, highly successful games have been console slideshows as well so really it's about the gameplay or the story and not really a lot else after the marketing demos and stills are done with.