Agree. The thing with realistic graphics is that it brings in soooo much complexity on a systems level that it becomes the center point everything else revolves around.

Imaging a 2d game vs a 3d game. Alone trough that you have a complete third dimension wich you have to account for.

A whole book full of new bugs are possible now.

And with realistic graphics the brain now expects the rules of the world to be realistic too.

My character looks photorealistic so, of course, the environment needs to look photorealistic too otherwise we go into uncanny valley territory.

So next thing the interaction needs to look realistic too. Think walking trough a forrest and the player character pushing leaves out of his way.

That is just to fucking much you need to test and invest time in to be flexible anymore.

The simple answer here is better art direction. Photorealism is neat but not needed.

With simpler graphics it becomes cheaper to change stuff in development so it becomes more viable to experiment with creative ideas.

You can have more diverse assets because they are, potentially, cheaper/less time consuming to make and they don't take as much space.

Like 1 photorealistic tree needs as much discspace as 2 trees with half the polygons.

In the and gaming has become a business and people got involved that don't play games.

For them it is just an investment and no different to a car or a garden hose. And for those people the only viable way to solve a problem is to trow money at it.

Which worked but only for making things grander not making it more interesting. For that you need people that solve problems with creativity.

And you get people who solve problems with creativity when there is less money because you have no other choice but to solve it like that.

That is clearly not the whole picture but a part of it IMHO.

I think at this point, if you are a gaming enthusiasts and are informed about the "scene" there is just no reason to buy AAA(AAAAAAA) games anymore.

And also no need to be angry about it. Just ignore them and talk about the indies that made a change. It is more productive to have that dominate the conversation than what sucks.

Because talking about shit is still advertisement for shit.