It’s a simple one. Rather than spending half a decade or more working endlessly on one title, the idea is to instead make games in one or two years, maybe three at max. And if they’re not quite polished enough for a full release by then, they can be popped into early access instead.

So the industry hasn’t learned a damn thing.

One option is to make games that look worse. Given how super-detailed graphics seem to be far less important to a younger generation raised on Roblox and Minecraft, this would seem like a fair enough strategy.

…

Yet there seemed to be little appetite for this strategy among the people I spoke to at Gamescom. Perhaps it’s an unwillingness to fly in the face of conventional wisdom in an industry where frame rates are often fetishised. Perhaps it’s more about simple pride in the craft.

It ain’t pride. Minecraft and Roblox aren’t detailed, but they have an aesthetic. Factorio has an aesthetic. Quake had an aesthetic. Super Mario 3 had an aesthetic. Art in general sometimes does things realistically, but how realistic is an anime catgirl in leather with a giant hammer?