In my opinion, graphical advancement has become saturated to the point that there is little improvement for every dollar spent. Instead of visuals, I think developers should invest into physics and artificial intelligence. Magic Carpet and Red Faction are a lot more impressive than most modern shooters, simply on account of terrain that can be manipulated. Why are there so few virtual dollhouses like The Sims?

It's because this is what the market wants, even back in the 90's. Read any mainsteam review (or half decent user review) and you'll find graphics is usually the first thing they mention. I used to read PC Gamer magazine in the late 90's and I really got sick of them masturbating over graphics, number of decals, lighting, shading, whatever.

At that time, I also remember playing "Blackthorne" (a 2d Prince of Persia style game). Blackthorne is a solid game but one time a friend came over and just looked at the game for a fraction of a second for the first time and guess what he said? If you guess something along the lines of "This game sucks cos the graphics suck and it's 2D, give yourself a +1"

I also remember playing HOMM3 for the first time and a friend asked me about it. He hadn't played it yet and the first thing he asked me in his exact words were "How wicked are the graphics?"

Another friend who was taking part in the console wars of that time was trying to sell me on getting a PS1 just wouldn't shut up about how much better the graphics on his racing games were better than those on the N64

I totally agree with this statement, but the majority of mainstream gamers don't so guess who we have to thank for pretty but short games with abysmal gameplay.

Yep, artificial intelligence is certainly going the way of the dinosaurs. I'm not speaking of scripted AI, but moreso 'adaptive AI'. Graphics are not on my priority at all, which is probably why I have more fun playing indie or lower budget games as opposed to big AAA ones.

Actually, GOG hasn't been called that since long before you joined (according to the registration date under your avatar). But the gaming press still frequently calls them "GOG (Good Old Games)" despite this, so it's understandable.

I actually created an account in 2010, bought a couple of games, didn't play much or visit the site much. Then I got caught up in World Of Tanks (unfortunately) for 3 years. Had the site admins delete my account there once I got tired of it and then "rediscovered" GOG.

Couldn't recall my old login info and wanted a new screen name anyway, so I created a new account.

To make a long story short, I remember when this site was "Good Old Games" and it will always be that in my mind. A place to get games that are good and games that are old.

I have no interest in buying "The Witcher 3", for example. Maybe in 5 or 6 years, but not now.

If you ask me, I will always say "Good Old Games". :)

True, but given that GOG really doesn't get many popular AAA and mainstream indie games, it's understandable that its popularity and principal raison d'être right now is due to classic games. If GOG wants to be associated with more than just old games, they really need to start pulling out the big guns and getting AAA releases, because stuff like Kingdom, The Escapists, Mushroom 11 and Human Resource Machine just won't fly.
Grumpy Old Gamers.

Yeah, why not hold back potential gameplay, potential music, potential plot, and potential more important things for graphics?

PC Gamers shouldn't be complaining that "consoles are holding back graphics". This is a non-issue folks. What they should be complaining about is that graphics are holding back gameplay. Anyone with me?

True that. GOG definitely needs to raise the bar and stop concentrating on 'comfortable' new indie/small releases. We need more bigger games like we had with Fear, Metro, Saint's Row etc. coming here. Or better yet, concentrate on the community wishlist some more with the highly sought after ones.

I'd call us Grumpy ol' gamers, if it's supposed to be all inclusive.

I would really like old JRPGs...

I don't see how consoles can hold back graphics. More like laziness or greed or incompetence holding back graphics because, it is possible to make it so a video game has graphics settings that range from the console standard to the super $3000 gaming PC standard. And to be fair to devs, lack of resources can also hold back graphics.

Graphics holding back games and console games holding back graphics are one in the same. Console games are actually the ones who sacrifice way too much of their budget and features to get pretty graphics and in the end have horrible texture mapping, lots of light sources that don't cast shadows, pathetic 'explosions'. Just compare F.E.A.R 1 to the latest Bioshock. The attention to detail to the former is striking. Most of them are shipping with terrible framerates. Even GOG's own Witcher 3 (which performs like shit even on PC) is sub 30fps a lot of the time on consoles and keeps getting worse with upates.

Meanwhile Crysis 1 from 2007 still looks amazing, plays pretty well and its hardware requirements a small fraction of what modern games ask for even though they don't look any better and often times look worse than much older games.

On PC you have lots of games with very humble graphics that really expand on gameplay. Some of them are available on console or eventually get ported to consoles. Terraria for example. How often do games like that get popular on consoles first?

This simply isn't a relevant question right now. PS4 and Xbone have more graphical power than the average desktop PC and definitely aren't holding anything back at all.

Yes, the 360 - with its epoch-spanning shelf life, massive popularity and hardware that was unimpressive even on release - did hold things back quite considerably. But there's no way of knowing right now if this will happen with the current gen.

It's a safe bet that this generation is going to last a while. The leap in visual quality hasn't been anywhere near as pronounced as previous generations and I have a feeling that if a new Sony or Microsoft console comes any sooner than 10 years from now, upgrade fatigue is going to set in.