The Future of Video Game Graphics

When Pong came out in 1972, it started the revolution of video games as we know it; since then, the video game graphics have come a far way¹. Game designers hoped to eventually produce photorealistic graphics that will be indistinguishable from real life. With each generation we get closer to creating the perfect visual game.

Christoph Hartmann, the boss of 2K Games, was quoted saying that, “until games are photorealistic, it'll be very hard to open up to new genres. We can really only focus on action and shooter titles; those are suitable for consoles now"². To make this happen game developers need two things. First game developers need better hardware, e.g. game consoles, to be able to support the graphics and visual effects it takes to create the games. Due to technology constantly improving we can see advances in graphics more often. Current video game consoles are six generations behind in technology versus computers. That is an enormous gap in technology. However, game consoles tend to have a better ability at keeping up with graphics during game play than computers do. The reason for this is because game consoles are designed for one thing only, games. Computers may have more advanced technology, but are also equipped to perform different tasks. When the next generation of consoles come out in the next few years, developers hope to use the technology to their advantage. In one of his speeches the founder and programmer of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, said, “over our lifetime, we'd get to amounts of computing power that come very close to simulating reality”³. The second thing is new and improved game developing software that can generate these realistic graphics.

In 2012, during E3, Electronics Entertainment Expo, multiple gaming companies revealed their new game design engines. Square Enix revealed their next generation engine titled “Luminous Studio” that showed actual in game footage of a demo entitled “Agni's Philosophy” and Epic Games showed off their UNREAL 4 engine⁴. Euclideon, a company from Australia, has been working on a technology they call “unlimited detail”⁵. Where most game design companies use polygons to create graphics, Euclideon is using atoms⁶. Higher polygons counts equal more details in games, and therefore game developers are able to create more realistic games. Euclideon is changing all that with their unlimited detail engine. By utilizing atoms rather than polygons, they are able to produce a much higher level of detail in games and create a more realistic look when it comes to graphics. In their demo one can actually see individual grains of sand. The company has even developed this piece of software to allow you to scan actual things from the real world into the game. With the development of this software using atoms, the details of using atoms are so vivid, that it is difficult to determine what has been scanned in or created. This type of technology opens so many doors. If this new technology takes off the gaming industry could be looking at a historical leap in graphics and game realism and the options could become limitless.

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 Anel Sisic

1 D.S. Cohen, “Pong-The First Video Game Megahit,” http://classicgames.about.com/od/history/p/Pong-The-First-Video-

Game-Megahit.htm.

2Eddie Makuch, “2K Calls for Photorealism in Games,” http://www.gamespot.com/news/2k-calls-for-photorealism-in-games-6389629.

3Kyle Orland, “How Close are we to Truly Photorealistic, Real-Time Games,” http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/02/how-close-are-we-to-truly-photorealistic-real-time-games/.

4“Square Enix Reveals a Glimpse at the Future of Video Game Graphics,” http://www.hailmaryjane.com/square-enix-reveals-a-glimpse-at-the-future-of-video-game-graphics/.

5Tim Ingham, “The Future of Video Game Graphics – or a Load of ole Nonsense,” http://www.hailmaryjane.com/square-enix-reveals-a-glimpse-at-the-future-of-video-game-graphics/.

6Tim Ingham