The opening sequence in Up always gets me.

I don't think photorealism is required in video games and in some ways it could be very limiting...once you enter a photorealistic environment anything that isn't done perfectly is going to jump out and break your immersion in the game. Bioware is a good example of a company that does a lot of good things but they can't seem to figure out how to do character model/faces well within the limitations of their technology.  Plenty of other companies out there do a better job of making artistic choices that mesh with their technology to create great looking games.

And best wishes on whatever your new endeavor is. Have enjoyed your written and video contributions to Gamespot.

I agree that photo realistic visuals aren't what it takes for emotion. Take Flower, Journey or even a scene in Digital Devil Saga for me where music atmosphere and great characters can evoke those emotions at a much higher level than a more detailed face can.

For the reference that picture scares the hell out of me. He looks like he is eying up new prison meat....

Well, regardless of it being necessary or not, I'd hope that time will still come. It's not only the visuals that help though, it's also the sound that can contribute heavily to what you can feel in a game.

Valve animated Wheatley in Portal 2 better than the whole of the Mass Effect series combined from Bioware... in fact their whole game catalog. Bioware piss me off, they don't do good gameplay, don't do good story, good graphics or animations...... their "games" are just so poor. Yet people bum them so hard, it's weird because their games are better than the sum of their parts. I've never felt emotionally connected to a character from Bioware, they're all really generic and very cliche, yet the 9 classes from TF2, all have amazing personalities and that's a MP game.

Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and SWTOR sum up how shit Bioware are, especially since EA bought them. So glad they're finally getting exposed for the talentless developers they really are.

So many exist right now though, Japanese games on the whole are a load of shit. Then you have Ubisoft making utter shit for the past decade, EA and Activision churning out crap from their developers.... the whole games industry has been shit since the xbox really.

The only games I play now are mods like Dayz just because they're something new and creative. In 2012 really Dayz has been the only game I've played........ there has been nothing else :\  I thought maybe Epic Games would make a come back with Fortnite but no..... You build using prefab wall sections.... WOW THAT IS SO NEXT GEN! I was hoping to build forts from individual items you collect, I mean Garry's Mod did that 7 years ago and you cannot even do it on Unreal Engine 4......... FAIL.

Fucking Shepard here is a joke, why I hate Mass Effect so much, that and the poor gameplay and a story I give no shits about. Photorealism doesn't matter, like I said Portal 2 gets animation and story right.

I agree. Photorealism is certainly not a prerequisite for evoking emotions within characters.

Creepy smile.

Time to pull out the twelve gage.

IDK, but i think games are at the point where its kind of unnecessary ATM. Bethesda needs to read this though lol Im sick of looking at the near blank or robotic faces from Skyrim, F:NV and F3. Especially for open world games with epic campaigns and characters. I don't think photo-realism is necessary though.

More often than not, a stylistic approach to art direction succeeds where photo-realism does not - unless one possesses (and dedicates) the time, resources and *talent* to accomplishing credible performances, then the photo-realistic approach will always fall short of expectation, and plunge headlong into the depths of the "uncanny valley", thereby undermining any true sense of emotion and distancing the viewer from said performance.

Mr Hartmann's comment is yet another attempt to abdicate responsibility for the creation of an inferior product, whilst simultaneously pushing an agenda that ultimately seeks to seize more money from consumers.

I'm glad that so many people are calling him out on how stupid a notion what he said was. To the Moon probably one of the best recent examples of a game with very simple graphics that has so much heart to it. What will actually matter is designers that want to make games with emotion behind them, something that's unfortunately not hugely common in the big budget space right now.

"wistful Brokeback Mountain complexity"?  Some of my best memories and most evocative emotion happened with crappy graphics (I STILL hate Sephiroth) so I think I'll keep them and leave the cowboy man-love emotions to Hartmann, thanks.

Is it demanded?  Well no.  Plenty of games have successfully evoked emotion from me even back in the days of 8 and 16 bit graphics.  But we all want graphics to be eye popping when possible so of course I want to see the industry continue to push the boundaries of visual fidelity; just not at the expense of the other elements that make games what they are and without sacrificing the fun factor.  Still have my fingers crossed for a working holodeck within my lifetime.