Graphics Matter
April 7th, 2006 by Juuso HietalahtiPosted in Practical Marketing
PRtoday.net kindly informed me about this:
SHMUP-DEV, a community site based on shoot ‘em ups, announced today the end of their very first competition, labeled “Horizontal Shooter with BOSS!” and bagged in a cluster bomb full of action packed games!
Shoot over to www.shmup-dev.com/hcontest and check out reviews, screenshots, and play some great shooters! Even the lower ranked ones are a blast, so dont miss out!!
I checked the site, and tried few of the entries. Most obvious choice could have been the TOP 3, but I wanted to browse some of the other entries… The 9th entry got my attention. I simply couldn’t resist the graphics of this game, had to try it.
Here’s the pic I saw:
(Even though it’s bit blurry, the graphics style got my attention - it felt positively different compared to other entries)
The game visuals matter. Good graphics don’t suggest that the game is good, but (good/interesting/weird/different) graphics might be the reason why people download your game in the first place (especially if they haven’t heard about it before).
April 7th, 2006 at 9:06 am
Your links is broken it is http://gameproducer.net/www.shmup-dev.com/hcontest
and it should be http://www.shmup-dev.com/hcontest
That’s all
April 7th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Definitely! When I come across some game or even application I check the screenshots first. Because I can pick up what’s going on in the game or what is it all about and if the graphics is bad, I do not bother downloading.
April 7th, 2006 at 10:27 am
Thanks. Fixed!
April 7th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Why does PRtoday have a penchant for exclamation marks? Almost every pargraph has one a the end! It’s just too much!
April 7th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Hmm, Rob - are you looking the right site? I see no exclamation marks… Did you click some other site from there? (P.S. Ask Tim - at Indiepath … he’s the guy behind PRToday.net :)
April 7th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
I agree. Graphics are very important when it comes to screenshots. Once the person plays the game they don’t matter. So, it’s kind of sad that you are spending so much time on graphics just so the game looks good in a screens gallery.
April 7th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
And the problem is even more complicated. A game might have excellent graphics, but look lousy in still shots. What do you think about videos? Does anyone watch them?
But I must admit that even I look at the screenshots first for every game, and I’m always furious when the screenshots cannot be immediately found or don’t even exist. Good screenshots are what make the downloads.
April 7th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
yeah sad but true. My last game looked OK on the screenshots but it was much better in action. Thing is with videos is the compression can make them look jerky and slow etc when the game is really smooth in reality.
btw this comment font (when typing) is TINY!
April 9th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
@Ville: I think the problem with videos is the size… if you can compress them so that they are fast to watch I guess they are okay. But if video is bigger than the game download, why bother?
@Jake: comment font now bigger ;)
September 11th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
[...] 4. Good graphics For a prototype done in three days, the graphics turned out to be rather good ones. Or at least good when considering they where made by a programmer. One of the reasons why I never got myself to test any prototypes was the graphics. Even if the gameplay was golden I never ended up downloading them because the graphics looked like something a 5 year old mutant child would draw in MS Paint. As Juuso pointed out graphics matter. This is one of the things guys at Experimental Gameplay Project changed: games done in few days don’t have to look like shit or Grid War. [...]
August 1st, 2007 at 4:15 pm
how this article conciliate with “You Don’t Need Game Art In The Beginning of Your Game Project”, i think graphics matter even at the beginning of your project as inspiration.