It may have been discussed before... but how you compare those two things in a shareware game?

I know that gameplay is essential. But let's take 2 similar games: one with better graphics, and another with better gameplay.
Which would sell more?

I personally think that cool graphics may attract more than a customer. The same game, with better graphics, can be sold a lot more...

I too have taken a look at various shareware games, some with really nice and original concepts: but with really poor graphics, which made me not interested in buying them.

I don’t think there's a discrete choice that can be made. Especially when it comes to using the shareware model of marketing and even to a lesser extent the retail distribution channels. It's true great screenshots are going to get visitors to download and try your game, but unless it has reasonably good gameplay it's just not going to sell. This happens in retail as well, though it seems that graphics can sometimes make up for boring gameplay and allow the game to sell (dungeon siege, many people bought this game, I know few who finished it).

I hate to use a personal example, but Alien Flux has beautiful graphics/sound/music etc. But what many players perceive to be control issues have caused it not to sell as well as expected.

With shareware, people only purchase if everything is right. Steve posted a while ago on what he perceived to be critical success factors in the conversion rate of an Indie game Marketing, Graphics, Gameplay, system requirements, etc. Basically what he concluded was that the influence of these factors on a games success was multiplicative. In essence, if someone was to have a 10 out of 10 for graphics, gameplay and system requirements, but a 2 out of 10 for marketing. You could say the game had a net score of 2000, each increase in the marketing score would have a huge impact on the total performance of the game. If it were to move from 2 to 5 suddenly the game would have a rating of 5000.

I have made an extreme example to serve as illustration. The resulting numbers aren’t tied to any rating scale, they just serve to show the relative impact on the sales performance of a game by changing one aspect of it.

This is another reason why successful game take time, post release support etc. Because it's very difficult to even know the implicit requirements / benchmarks for each area, let alone score high marks in all of them. Fortunately your customers and demo down loaders will let you know what they like and don't like and you can work towards optimizing your game in it's weakest areas to improve it's "Sellability" ;)

My answer isn't an option in the poll: they're both important to me, whether the game is shareware or not. Sometimes the gameplay is good enough to make up for mediocre graphics, sometimes spectacular graphics are enough to make up for mediocre gameplay. If either of those things are *really* horrible then one can't balance the other and I don't enjoy the overall game experience. Also, sound and music is just as important as both of those things to me.

A boring game with beautiful graphics is still a boring game. A fun game with ugly graphics is still a fun game.

Graphics are important, but if the game isn't fun, it doesn't matter.

Well of course the choice "a perfect balance of both" or "both gameplay and graphics" are easy answers :P

But in the real development I think that we all agree that is really difficul to have both. In my soccer game for example I had to cut off a lot of gameplay enhancement in favor of a better graphic.
And I did the graphic myself, so wasn't a matter of hiring someone and spending money.

Imagine you got a nice gameplay concept: it is worth to hire a good artist (for example like the one that gizlu used for Goose Chase) or you could use standard graphics?

If I can make another example taking a game made by another forum member: Charm School. No offense at all to papillon, but the graphics aren't intriguing enough for me (expecially menu and fonts). The gameplay is nice and the idea is really cool, but I simply couldn't play anymore because of graphics.

I may be mad :P but I think there are a lot of potential buyer that simply by looking at screenshots say "what the game has that graphic? I'm not wasting time to download it!"
(this last sentence is not referred to Charm School of course! it is in general)

To Siebharinn:
LOL I know that. My favourite games of all time are the Civilization series, which don't have for sure great graphics!

But I wasn't talking of extreme cases...
Let's say that Game A has 7/10 gameplay and 9/10 graphics, while game B has 9/10 gameplay and 7/10 graphics.

What users would choose? Still game B? I'm not really sure... why ppl buy those console games then which are all similar by gameplay? :P

I would agree with your assessment of graphics. I believe there is a certain standard of graphics that must be achieved before people will even consider downloading the game. However this bar resides in different places for different types of games. It's also dependant on the relative quality of other games available in the same market space.

This is one of the reasons very few Indies go head to head with retail games, the bar in those markets is simply set too high to be achievable on an Indie budget.

Current Indie markets are getting more and more crowded every day, production values are rising all the time, graphics are becoming increasingly more important in all areas of game development. Go play the number one action game on shockwave, it's a small download and it launches from the browser. Technically speaking it's "so-so", it runs, but with a few glitches (on my machine anyway). The gameplay stinks, in fact it's broken, you don’t have to fight a single ninja drone if you don’t want to, you can just run by them. But the game does have a simple interface and nice looking graphics.

So again, it depends on your distribution channel and your market as to where you set the graphics bar. But it's rising continuously :)

But it's rising continuously

that was exactly what I wanted to discuss here.
I'm sure mostly of the ones who answered gameplay don't get this fact: the shareware competition is gonna be flooded with lot of games in next months (or years maybe).

And mostly of them will have "average" graphics.

So the customer Average Joe what games will buy? the one with better-looking screenshots...

There's also the possibility of a certain amount of bias in the group you're polling... Indie games tend to have less impressive graphics. This can result from many factors - anything from one-man-band syndrome (MUST do everything myself, even if I'm crap at it!) to lack of resources (Just can't afford to pay the talent or buy the software) to unusual tastes (I like old spectrum games so everyone should love my low color graphics!)...

But the result is, of course, that we're more likely to defend gameplay over graphics (because we want to think that our games are good enough) and also more likely to LIKE gameplay over graphics (if we're hanging out in these circles and playing these games all the time, we become more likely to embrace this standard).


[While I *like* doing things myself, I'm mostly a victim of "living in a storage room on an inflatable mattress". :) Hoping to eventually scrape up some fundage for further projects. Doing over the graphics in general isn't an option, but if you have any specific ideas for menus and fonts I'd love to hear them, I know my design skills are lacking in that area.]

There's so much more to why people choose to buy a game than gameplay vs graphics. There are games that have great graphics, great gameplay, but control schemes that are difficult to impossible to get used to for many players, and those games are struggling to get sales. Other games have good graphics and gameplay, but fail to get sales because they do things like requiring an email address before you can play, or only allowing you to play for 5 minutes at a time, or the game is full of bugs or won't run on a large number of computers.

As far as gameplay vs graphics, if you have great graphics, but the game is boring, you'll get the download, but not the sale. If you have poor graphics, but great gameplay, you'll probably have trouble getting downloads for awhile, but your conversion rate will likely be higher, and as more people play your game and tell others about it ("The graphics suck, but it's really fun!") your sales will grow. If you manage to do great graphics AND great gameplay (and not screw it up in other areas), then you'll probably do really well.

Really, I think a developer should strive to do the best they can in all areas of the game. After all, unless you're out of money, you don't really have a deadline if you're indie.

Answering 'both' may well be a cop out, but not delivering both is as well.

Doing over the graphics in general isn't an option, but if you have any specific ideas for menus and fonts I'd love to hear them, I know my design skills are lacking in that area
Well you should take "inspiration" from those cool looking menu you see in websites or do it in a more classical way... hmm really hard to explain with words!

Look at the attachment for what I mean. It took only 15 min to do those with Photoshop 6, don't know what graphic program do you use.
Photoshop may be expensive but it is really cool to make graphics! :P

do you mean "Graphics" as still models/sprites?

"Graphics" could be addressed as smooth animation, cool special effects, variety of moves/terrains, which in some geners are well enough to make the game more successful than improving the concept

"Graphics" could be addressed as smooth animation, cool special effects, variety of moves/terrains, which in some geners are well enough to make the game more successful than improving the concept

yes that aspect too, even if it could also fall into gameplay category.

For example, why you did choose to hire an artist to do the graphics instead of making your own?

(uhm well in your case, since they're 3d graphics, it may simply be because you aren't good in 3d modelling :P)

This is one of those polls where I don't care for the questions or the results, but the conversation it generates is interesting. :) Here's my take:

I think it's incomplete to say people look at screenshots and "judge it by the graphics." When I look at a screenshot, I'm trying to do one thing: Picture the gameplay. When I see an archer, I picture defense. When I see a ball, I picture pushing and rolling. When I see a button named 'sell,' I picture trading and managing resources. And when I see explosions and a broken wall, I picture using explosives to create a path for advance. On the other hand, when I see an image of particle effects in a first person shooter, I picture pointless eye candy. Now that's I think what some people are talking about when they say "graphics." That doesn't mean I deprecate eye candy, but I view it on another scale. Sometimes I'm in the mood for eye candy and sometimes I want to think. Almost always I want to interact, so I look down on in-game movies unless it contains good storytelling.

You should pick screenshots that suggest gameplay. And by gameplay I mean interesting interaction, choices, and/or immersion. If a cool part of your game is breakable walls, show the walls breaking. If the goal is to swap two stones, snap a pic of the stones mid-swapping. Graphics are a tool for interacting with the player, even with eye candy. Some games have trouble selling screenshots because you can't visualize the action behind the picture. Too much eye candy makes it look like a mess. Now some people like chaos and that can be a draw, but most of them I'd think would still try to picture the chaos. The screenshot communicates gameplay through the graphics.

I don't see much point in comparing graphics versus gameplay because they're too connected. If you press the button named "Buy" and it sells your farm instead, the graphics have failed to communicate. If your explosion looks like splashing split pea soup, the player might be confused when he discovers a pile of rubble where his outpost used to be. As a player, if you stick with the game, you'll eventually realize you click Buy to sell the farm, and the splashing green mess is dangerous to your buildings. If the core gameplay is still fun, the player that wasn't scared away becomes a fan. If the Jimmy da Duck looks blocky but still fairly fowl-like, it distracts from the immersive experience, but it doesn't change the core game.

The biggest problem here for Indies and low-budget developers is scaring away players who have negative expectations connected with the distracting and confusing graphics. Most players have played bad games, and the fact that many of these games had subpar visuals isn't lost on them. As players have been trained to be increasingly shallow, the bar for graphics expectations has risen as well. But I think you don't have to have super-polished graphics and AAA immersion and realism as long as your demo and screenshots suggest good gameplay. Once the player sheds their expectations and predispositions, they begin realizing how fun your game will be.

I didn't choose to hire an artist for my game, for a number of reasons. At some point I probably will. To hook those players who otherwise wouldn't give it a second look I will have to; but I suspect there is a law of diminishing returns here. At some point making your game look "10% prettier" brings in an increasingly smaller fraction of prospective customers.

Only when graphics are part of the game does it affect things. Graphics are part of the game when some of the fun is derived from seeing new graphics, or being immersed in an atmosphere which conveys an emotion to you - all part of the fun.

Look at NetHack for the classic anomaly.

Cas :)

... actually, I prefer to play Falcon's Eye. ( http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=2470 for those who haven't seen it) Now, those graphics are not s00per-k3wl 3d animated particle rotation inversion whathaveyou (just making up some terms) but more on the level of static miniatures that get pushed around the map... and yet, it made a HUGE difference for me in the amount of fun the game is. (Of course, there are some gameplay additions as well, iirc... various shortcuts to make things easier.)

@elund: Absolutely amazing and eye-opening post. Thank you!

I was joking to my friends that my game's got a circuit diagram look (its an all vector game)! Clean but not spectacular. Obviously a gamer is not going to download due to its eye-candy but if I, like elund suggested, show key aspects of the gameplay in the screen shots and string them together like a comic strip, the gamer can probably "read" the screenshots and download the game.

My suggestion for one-man-have-to-do-it-all bands is to keep all assets of the game clean even if its not spectacular.

I too don't think those polls are much interesting :D
but the discussion sure it is.

I think it is all about the kind of game.

If I'd be going to make an action/puzzle game I'd focus more on graphics, since that would be one of the main attraction of the game.

If I'd be going to make a strategy/simulation/CRPG game I'd focus more on gameplay, since the story, the interface, and so on will be the main attraction of the game.

Style and substance are equally important. Good graphics doesn't have to mean photorealism, just a nice clean consistent presentation. Also, don't forget sound effects. They're incredibly importanct too.

I voted graphics to even things out a little :) I think that depending on the game, graphics and sound can be incredibly important for the game to work. Imagine Rez without the mindblowing sound and graphics? What's left? Sure, there's the actual gameplay, but... it suddenly wouldn't be as interesting anymore...

Possibly nobody has considered the "Diablo" factor.

Diablo was a game with virtually no game play: Click on spots of the screen until creature at that spot is dead. Then take whatever the creature dropped, and sell it in the store. Repeat. Occasionally find something to add more power to your clicks.

So, Diablo: No game, whatsoever, really. But very nice graphics. And a huge seller.

In the short run, "Graphics Rule" : that's what gets the potential buyer to pick the game off the shelf and have a closer look, or D/L the demo after scanning some screenshots.

In the long run 'Gameplay Rules": In the case of a D/L'd demo, it's what will actually cause the player to buy the full version, and, in the case of a game bought at retail, it's what will prevent the player from mentally black-listing the gamemaker/producer/publisher and trashing them on every message board from here to kingdom come, because they just got "ripped-off by spending $50 bucks on a boring/lame/whack/stupid Piece-O-Crap!"

David

Possibly nobody has considered the "Diablo" factor.

Diablo was a game with virtually no game play: Click on spots of the screen until creature at that spot is dead. Then take whatever the creature dropped, and sell it in the store. Repeat. Occasionally find something to add more power to your clicks.

So, Diablo: No game, whatsoever, really. But very nice graphics. And a huge seller.

I would have to disagree. While the graphics were OK at the time, they were not what sold the game!

Originally posted by Raptisoft
Possibly nobody has considered the "Diablo" factor.

Diablo was a game with virtually no game play: Click on spots of the screen until creature at that spot is dead. Then take whatever the creature dropped, and sell it in the store. Repeat. Occasionally find something to add more power to your clicks.

So, Diablo: No game, whatsoever, really. But very nice graphics. And a huge seller.

I agree with HunterSD -- while the quality of gameplay is subjective, and you might not think Diablo was very fun, the gameplay was what made it so popular. As a better example, take Diablo 2. That game is still being played by many people, in fact I play it from time to time, and the graphics are very dated by today's standards. The graphics in the game are 8-bit, though all images probably carry their own palette. Still, they look very dated but people still play. The game is actually very addictive, not because it's so fun to walk around and click on monsters and wait for them to die, but because of the treasure finding aspect in my opinion. It's like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. :)

Thus I think a game with decent graphics (decent enough that the player can immerse themselves, and how much "decent" is depends on the type of game) but has gameplay with a lot of appeal to a large enough group of people, will always sell better than a game which only has great graphics to offer. Great graphics alone only provide a 10 minute "wow" factor, and unless you can sell the game in 10 minutes of play, don't expect a lot of sales. :)

It's really not possible to say that these two factors are the only one which says whether game sells or not, but if we think that every other selling factor is 100% fulfilled and only these two left.

I'd say the thing I had said in loud many times when I have found a great game with superb gameplay (for example when playing Clue or Civilization)

I said: "Damn it would be great to have this game with cool gfx" (I say this when I see great gameplay, but not so wonderful gfx) - but notice: I have seen wonderful gfx demos (with lousy gameplay), but I only tested them 30 secs to see what's the water reflections look like - I would never had played them more - or even consider buying them - I don't buy graphics, I buy gameplay.

So the best you can do: get a great gameplay and after that: get great gfx, that will give you extra boost in sales - I'm sure. But if you forget gameplay you won't get any sales at all. (okay - I forced this into black & white theme, but that shows the main idea: the ratio could be same as the poll here says: gameplay is at least triple times more important than gfx - so better make that well before getting into nice gfx ;)

Diablo wasn't a game with NO gameplay at all! ;)
But without that graphics, wouldn't have been so successful!!! That is really true.

If I remember well, that game RAN on a P90 in 640x480 at over 25FPS, and for that time was of astonishing beauty :P

I am sure that if it wasn't so cool graphically wouldn't had much success.

All Blizzard games, to continue the Diablo example, beside good gameplay (which of course is essential) had extraordinary cool graphics (another favourite of mine is Warcraft 2).

hi, this is my first post so to introduce myselfe- as you can see my name is Veljko:),I am lead artist in a small indy game dev. team, situated in Split, Croatia.

just wanted to say that in this thread there has been little talk of what great gfx really is. I think an essencial part in great grafix is funcionality- The key is to make an eye candy gfx that is easy to "read" and to understand. And in that aspect great gfx has a much biger selling value then in the aspect of "wow it looks so nice". Becouse if after that line the player says "but i cant understand what the heck should i do now" the good gameplay will never get a chance to surface and the player will just click exit- that is if he can find where it is :)

even if the game designer has made a cool and funcional design of the gui, but the artist made a mess out of realising the actual gfx of the gui, the game will have a much poorer conversion rate imho..

so, even as a cool gameplay is really the backbone of the project (and in my oppinion, if the game is not cool and fun made out of green and red boxes on a black background, no ammount of gfx will save it) a cool game-user interface and game pieces largly depend on gfx, and that is as important as gameplay...

I guess its just another Chicken/egg and who came first question.

what makes a game fun and successful, graphics/concept?
all and none.

I think that interesting and fun gameplay is the most important part. But neither great gameplay, nor low system requirements, nor specific target audience - nothing can't be an excuse if game graphics are crap.

Originally posted by Siebharinn
A boring game with beautiful graphics is still a boring game. A fun game with ugly graphics is still a fun game.

Graphics are important, but if the game isn't fun, it doesn't matter.

I agree. Good gameplay is a NECCESSITY, but the better the graphics that are placed on top of that gameplay, the better the product will sell. (IMHO) Good Graphics alone WILL attract players and will get RETAIL consumers to buy, but in the in the shareware model, good graphics are not enough to compensate for mediocre gameplay.

Bruno

I see graphics as an adornment for games. If were to make a game I would firstly work hard on game play with use of simple geometric shapes as the characters, and after all finished, I would replace the bad graphics with the good ones. I think most gamers prefer game play. This is true even for giant games. Think of NFS. You do not even have to put on the brakes while driving at 200. When you crash, you simply restart. Another example is a comparison for the ones who know Micropose Grand Prix 2. After Grand Prix 2, GP3 and GP4 turned out to be more arcade. Less brakes needed, exaggerated handling was there in the game. Also this is true for NFS. In the older versions, the roads were much narrower. I think game play is essential, graphics is a tool for competition.

ergas

Selling stuff to consumers is very much like hunting using bait. You need bait to lure them in the first place, and then you need a trap to keep them there. Put a cream cake on an office desk one morning and place apples on the other desks and see which desk garners the most interest when everyone arrives for work!

With games, the bait is the eye candy. The trap is the gameplay. Without the bait you can wait a long time before someone downloads your game, so you'll get few sales. Without gameplay you'll not get people to buy and they'll go off and find the next prettiest thing to download.

So often engineers have a binary world view! It's always one or the other, never both...

Cas :)

Diablo was about instant and gratuitous feedback. The superb graphics and sound delivered this feedback.

So that's how Diablo's graphics suggest gameplay.

IIRC there is a Diablo 2 post mortem (or article) on gamasutra discussing the production values.

It seems like I'm in agreement with the emerging consensus here - good gameplay is pretty much essential. And good graphics are, at least, a huge plus. I can think of a few games I've enjoyed that have had rubbish graphics. I can even think of the odd game that I've thoroughly enjoyed simply because they were such a pleasure to look at and listen too, despite virtually non-existent gameplay (the graphics and sound do really have to be a total work of art for this to happen). Still in each case I couldn't help thinking, "if only..."

And, as a few people have pointed out, graphics (and sound) do actually affect gameplay, too. Blowing things up is great fun. Making things vanish without any explosion, sound effect or animation of any kind is quite a lot less fun. A beat-em-up is a lot more satisfying to play if it looks like the blows have real power behind them, rather than floppy rag-doll arms flailing away. And introducting new graphics sets have been one of the key rewards used in videogames since almost the very beginning.

I've already received a fair bit of attention for my slightly unconventional graphic work (including recently being invited to contribute to a couple of upcoming books on video game art, which is awfully cool) and yup, I do spend a lot of time on my graphics, and I'm always wanting to improve them and try out more ambitious stuff... my graphics work almost certainly the one major point of difference that will hopefully get my games noticed - but yet it is always gameplay considerations that give me the nagging doubts, sleepless nights and bring about the endless tweaking sessions.

Ultimately, if the gameplay is sub-par then I would have to consider the project a failure. And although I probably work equally hard on both graphics and gameplay, it's always the gameplay that I WORRY about.

In my experience, from doing "guerilla research" by hanging out at Frys in the computer games section for a few hours on Saturday (VERY educational), I have to agree that you need a certain level of both - like a previous poster said, the graphics are the bait and the gameplay the trap (excellent way to put it). I can't count the number of kids that'd grab a box with bland screenshots and just put it back, but get one with fancy screenshots and graphics and then go pester Mom or Dad into buying it! As an aside - very few people even bother reading the verbiage on the box, it's a quick glance-and-buy-or-reject (it looked like about 1 out of every 7 or 8 people would bother reading, more or less).

I suspect it would be better to have fewer, but more amazing, graphics. Could be my personal bias speaking, though, I'd rather see 3-4 stunning monsters chasing me than an entire army of boring, pixelated blocks. :cool:

Anthony, I just wanted to say I loved the graphics in platypus, those big round enemy ships taking damage... I thought that was a good example of where the graphics actually improved the gameplay. The game was made more fun by shooting a ship and watching it come apart in pieces as you shot it up. Without those damage animations I think it would have been less fun to shoot them up.

There are many things that go into creating a positive feedback cycle for players. In Doom for instance, firing the shotgun.. the player hears the gun.. Sees the barrel go BOOM or the Imp fly back and then the arms come up and re-cock the gun. There's a lovely audible and graphical reward for firing the shotgun, and it's that positive feedback that makes it really fun for the player.

well almost everything has been touched upon.

I had an experience which was sort of a revelation to me (nothing big). I had worked on my game lx1 till it was thumb-numbing fun... but still had temporary graphics. No one would even look at my game. Even when they played it with the temp graphics it didn't do much for them. Until I made my final graphics and then they started playing it and liking it. So I would say the graphics are an integral componant of great gameplay. Usually rewards are visual (sometime audible) and sometimes by more things to help them play the game... But a great game with poor graphics isn't going to sell much, as well as a graphically impressive game with poor gameplay isn't going to sell much either. Of course like everyone has said, you lure them in with the graphics.

How many times have you heard "looks don't matter" when talking about romantic relationships with people? Well that's not true, although it's true that once you get to know the person their personality will help. If they're good looking you might ask them on a date, but if they have a bad personality you'll stop dating them. If they have a good personality but not so great of looks you may stay with them, you may not... As much as we don't like to admit it (especially to us guys) looks matter alot...

So this is the same with games. Looks matter alot, and then gameplay matters...

And then like Dan quoted, Steve saying in one of his articles of it being multiplicative is true. Control/interface is a componant to good gameplay, if the control sucks it won't be fun, so then the gameplay is lost since it's part of the gameplay. Same is with graphics, audio, etc...