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Comment by jonathanstrange | Hacker News Reader

Graphics are extremely important for me for buying a game, yet the least important for actually playing a game. Sadly, it's been a long time since I've had time and interest to finish a game, most of them I rather just try out and never touch again after an hour of playing. For example, I bought Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2 when they came out and never played them - it was too much of a hassle, and even getting into a game like that takes too much time for me nowadays. I basically just tinker around with the graphics settings and enjoy the scenery.

From time to time I fire up games like these again just to realize that I don't have the time to even get through the tutorial.

To cut a long story short, there is unfortunately nowadays a huge divide between making a game that people buy and making a game that people play, and the bias is obviously towards the former.

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That sounds a lot like AAA fatigue more than fatigue with games (if I can say that without sounding condescending). There's a wealth of good indie games out there with lovely graphics that respect your time.

One that stands out in recent memory was A Short Hike. You can beat it in about an hour, and the scenery is very pleasing to look at. I also think of Journey, which might be one of the most beautiful games ever made, and is probably less than three hours long.

I've never been interested in indie games because their graphics is not appealing to me. I don't like stylized graphics, comic shaders, pixel art games, etc. The more realistic the graphics, the more likely I will buy it.

I also don't think it's a fatigue, as if it were some kind of disease; it's just lack of time when you get older. ;-)

Most of the games with great graphics are AAA, so you're stuck playing open world collect-a-thons, card drops sports, or looter shooters.

> The more realistic the graphics, the more likely I will buy it.

May I recommend some text adventures to cure you of that? :)

> Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2

Both of these are good examples of control schemes that are so complicated that it basically precludes me from playing anything else until I'm done with them. Otherwise, muscle memory will screw me to the point of frustration. I hate this part of modern games.

I couldn't discern a control scheme in RDR2. It was like Dragon's Lair. "Press J to execute this half-action/half-cut-scene. Now press P to execute this next one and advance this half-action/half-cut-scene. Now press comma. Now learn these arbitrary mechanics that only exist for this one mission....."

> Both of these are good examples of control schemes that are so complicated

Agreed on RDR2, but I didn't have a problem with Cyberpunk. In comparison to RDR2 it may as well have been the original NES Mario Bros.

This is why I was very glad RDR2 always had on-screen prompts for the various controls since it was so often context sensitive and you were always riding a hair-thin line of waving at a townsperson and saying howdy, or drawing down and getting everyone really, really mad.

I bought Deus ex mankind divided a year or two ago (I don't play games much anymore) the number of mechanics to learn is just annoying and they don't add much. Everything feels so much clunkier and slower than the orginal.

I recently installed the orginal , what a breath of fresh air. Just left to figure out levels yourself instead interruptions every step.

I've seen posts like yours enough that I think there might be a market for Graphics Settings Simulator, where the entire game is just having a ludicrous number of settings to tweak and a small area to wander around and take screenshots of for posting on Reddit.

It's weird to me that even games that seem focused on story, atmosphere and graphics with pretty simple gameplay - like "Control" or "Death Stranding" - can manage to over-complicate it with confusing menus, lots of micromanagement of upgrades, pointless subsystems, etc. I like both these games well enough but I don't think I will ever get through them simply because I don't play often enough to learn all the fiddling.

My approach with control was to max out two skills (floating, throwing stuff) and ignore the rest of the systems almost entirely. I upgraded the single gun I used.

Fortunately this was viable and the game doesn't punish you for not engaging with every facet of the varied upgrade/crafting/salvaging systems.

So that may be an option if you'd like to complete it!

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