Giant Bomb: I'm calling you out for your graphical snootiness! Cut it out!

Before I start, I just wanna let you know this rant is available in video form.

Giant Bombers, I think more particularly on the west coast, are getting far more picky about not just what "good" graphics are, but what "acceptable" graphics are. Frankly, the graphics between all of the major platforms are getting so similar these days that there are very few games that are "unplayable" or "unacceptable" graphically outside of the demo scene and maybe some indie games (Soda Drinker Pro, I love you, but I'm looking at you).

But as Louis C.K. once said "Everything is amazing and nobody is happy."

For years, Giant Bomb, especially Jeff, has become particularly presumptive that everyone just has a good PC with a 1080Ti lying around to play games in their graphically optimal format when that couldn't be further from the truth. That's why we have fanboyism for the most part: people can afford one console, they have one, maybe the second, and they fight for what their first choice was. It's economic realism. Also: the vast majority of us aren't paid to play video games and/or have an expense account to get new hardware and games.

Watching Jeff play the Saints Row the Third Quick Look, which looks just as smooth and high-fidelity as it ever has been, even with all of the upgraded graphics, then go on the Bombcast to say that the framerate was "unacceptable" and "doesn't run super well" when it clearly is not either of those things is just ridiculous. This alone might be like "Oh, NPfeifer, what are you ranting about", but then you start digging into Digital Foundry videos where they nitpick every last thing and they essentially make a living clowning on graphical performance. And suckers like us keep giving them attention.

20 years ago, I played Deus Ex on my 533MHz Celeron Pavilion with integrated graphics. This was a game that launched exclusively on PCs and wouldn't run on a lot of them because the game was so technically intense with its vast open spaces, even though it didn't look great. Settling for 16-bit color where you had splotchy colors (that also, ironically, seemed to enhance the atmosphere of the game) but also gunshot decals on surfaces had faintly visible squares around them because the game couldn't render transparency quite right was one thing. But on my machine, once an enemy "activated", my frame rate fell through the floor, usually pulling a "full stop" for up to two or three seconds before I could respond where sometimes I would just die because I couldn't aim and fire back. And then there were the 45-60 second saves/loads/reloads that really killed the flow of the game. And yet I loved it. That was a new game for new hardware exclusively on the PC and it was literally unplayable for a lot of people. It still wound up being my favorite shooter of all time. These days I get angry if I'm running it at 4K and I *can't* replicate the splotchy look it originally shipped with.

Giant Bomb, all graphics are amazing and you're not happy and that makes no sense whatsoever.

Or, people can say whatever they like and you should have the mettle to care about more important things. When someone says something I disagree with, I usually say, "Oh," and carrying on doing what I'm doing. I certainly wouldn't tell them to stop, that's kind of insane. People have different interpretations of beauty and what the new baseline of beauty is. Move on.

Didn't know Jeff had to be soft on games with inconsistent framerates and that Digital Foundry should close up shop so you can feel better about playing on whatever hardware is available to you. Maybe don't give DG views then? Even though they came out and praised the SR3 remaster despite the PS4 Pro's inconsistent fps (One X stayed close to 60). If you enjoy playing on the hardware you have then why would Jeff's opinions on game performance bother you that much when you're already enjoying games?

Also you're generalizing the whole staff when some of the crew will only play on consoles like Abby.

Feel free to disregard my comments though, they're being typed out and rendered at a blazing 4k/144fps thanks to my 2080ti

@brunothethird:But beauty and performance are different things. A game looking good and performing well are different things. When you're as important as someone like Jeff is, saying stuff like "this framerate is unacceptable" when it is perfectly acceptable has the sway to influence people to not buy games. That's beyond the fact that he's just outright wrong about it.

I don't give DG views, so I'm telling others they probably shouldn't either. Jeff was playing on a PS4 Pro and at no point in his Quick Look did it display inconsistent fps and that was just at 30fps. I perhaps generalize people here, but I think it's more of a west coast/Jeff thing.

Uh, yeah I don't want to listen to anyone with a "everything is fine" milquetoast point of view.

@npfeifer: By inconsistent I don't mean sub-30. The game PS4 Pro goes from 45-60 but mainly bounces around the high 40s-50s. It's high fps and above 30 but if you're someone who always plays game with locked framerates an inconsistent framerate is noticeable and looks "hitchy" like what DG was talking about. If you don't notice it then cool keep enjoying the game but I'm personally happy to have someone like Jeff offer his opinion on these kinds of things when most of the staff don't notice or even care about technical performance outside of games with bad fps that dip below 30

Performance does affect how a game looks as well as how it plays. I find some games unplayable as well as unpleasant to look at if they drop frames every time I pan the camera over a particular asset for instance (something I'm super susceptible to). It's really disruptive to me; it makes my brain hurt for real. When a PC game has that issue, there's a chance of fixing it, and I have gotten used to that luxury. If it's an issue in a console game, it's not always so fixable, even with the handy performance mode options a lot of games have.

I struggle to enjoy games visually if there's a lot of performance issues that result in tearing or pop-in or other issues that absolutely affect how good a game looks. Some games just look bad, but bad performance makes them look worse.

I haven't played the PS4 version of SR3 myself so can't comment on that.

Quoting noted sex-pest Louis CK in a meandering screed about graphics

I don't want to listen to "graphical analysts" splitting hairs when it doesn't matter at all. When we were comparing native PS2 and Xbox games, that was one thing. Xbox games definitively looked better than PS2 games when they took advantage of the hardware. PS3 versus Xbox 360? It mattered even less what the graphical differences were unless the game barely ran (Bethesda games on PS3). On Xbox One/PS4? You needed a Digital Foundry to point out the differences between versions, which is basically how they make their money. These days? That difference is literally less than nothing. If you want to play The Outer Worlds on the go, which is absolutely still a perfectly playable game, do you watch a Digital Foundry video about the Switch version and say "nah, this doesn't look nearly as good as an Xbox One X or high-end PC, I guess I'll pass". No, you don't. That's the absurdity of these kinds of graphical comparisons.

This went places.

Performance DOES affect how well a game plays, absolutely. But watching Jeff play Saints Row the Third, the framerate was rock solid and never anything close to "unacceptable" or "doesn't run super well" and nowhere near unplayable and if you watch the Quick Look, you see that it's absolutely 100% completely playable.

Some people are frame rate sensitive and some are not. It’s not a elitist thing is a personal perception thing. Some people are fine with two channel audio soundboards and some people leave motion smoothing on there HDTV’s. Part of the Giant Bomb difference is that the different people and personalities that make up the brand have different opinions about things. Jeff has always been a smooth frame rate guy. Ben played through Control on a base PS4, he complained about it but still played it. He obviously is maybe a little less sensitive to it. Or maybe they all got it to a degree. The beauteous thing about the Internet is some where out there a “base line spec or bust” games coverage site is out there. It may not be in English but that would mean there is a market for it here that is untapped. I guess I’m saying this site isn’t for everybody all the time and small annoyances can happen with this format and that’s okay. Ron Funches called them out for the “pretentious game of the year” format but he obviously still likes the site i hope you can find something to enjoy other than frame rate gripes.

But why does that matter? At all? If it's still perfectly acceptable on the low-end and not always "glistening with high frame-rate gloss" at the top end, even if it's, like, slightly noticeable, how does that matter in the slightest? What do you gain by knowing that? Do you wait longer to buy the game for them to patch it? Do you entertain other open world crime games? It literally doesn't matter to be splitting hairs like that.

This is an absurdly bad take. I own all three console and a PC that can run games pretty fine. I often look at which is the best version before buying, hell they're (often) all the same price, why wouldn't I? Sometimes I'm fine sacrificing some performance for the Switch version, but it's good to have people going in the nitty gritty so I can make an informed choice. And like Outer Worlds is actually a bad example cause that game has issues on the Switch that are more than just a few small differences.

Like I get the hate towards people saying anything under 60 fps is unacceptable. When I was younger I was frustrated when critics would act like a game would be unplayable on the only console I own because, most of the time, it was fine. But critics can have access to all the available versions, so why wouldn't they comment on those differences? It's useful for me and plenty of users too.

@npfeifer said:

I'm not a performance snob by any means but I find fluctuating refresh rates extremely distracting so while it may not seem like a big deal to you it is something I like to be informed about because it may affect the platform I play games on. Honestly, I'm struggling to even understand what you're complaining about. If you want to play The Outer Worlds on Switch no-one's stopping you!

The Switch port has issues, but that's kinda to be expected to be downported from systems that are 50% more powerful than what they designed the game on. If you only played the Switch docked to your TV, but also owned an Xbox One X or high-end PC (which is what the Digital Foundry video compares them against), then of course you'd play it on there. The Switch, philosophically, has never been about graphical fidelity and the people who don't get that "this won't run as well on Switch, but still be perfectly playable, compared to other consoles" aren't watching Digital Foundry videos anyway.

The thing is, critics DO have access to all the available versions and since they're all so similar these days, unless it's a glaring performance/technical issue, it's not worth addressing. People complaining about Xbox One v. PS4 1080p/900p at launch, I GUARANTEE couldn't tell the difference unless someone like Digital Foundry pointed it out to them. It's manufacturing unnecessary outrage for views.

@npfeifer: Of course it's expected but it's good to know the extent of those issues? I bought DQXI on Switch knowing that it running at 720p wouldn't bother me but I wouldn't buy Doom there because I want Doom to be at 60 fps and I'm okay to lose the portability for it. A perfect 60 fps vs. something that fluctuates between 40fps and 50fps IS A GLARING PERFORMANCE difference. It's not necessarily an issue in the sense that it is to be expected on a less powerful console, but it's still worth noting because it's something that someone would want to know before doing their purchase, this person is me (and others on here) and I do tell you that I definitely see the difference between 45 fps and 60 fps, or the one between 900p and 1080p. So your guarantee is wrong sorry.

Like I get hating on the fanboys using that stuff to dismiss the experience of others, but this is a side effect of the discussion, Digital Foundry doesn't pander to those crowd but fanboys will use anything they can to be idiots about it. Digital Foundry are not manufacturing outrage for view, they're just pointing facts about those products people pay hundreds, if not thousand of dollars to have access to. So I still don't understand what is your point in this.

Also, just on technical level, as someone who does work with gaming tools, it's interesting to follow Digital Foundry for that stuff.

This is a monument to insecurity.
10/10

Out of interest, I read Digital Foundry's analysis of The Outer Worlds' Switch port to see what the hubbub's all about:

I could more easily accept the compromised visuals if the frame-rate had been steady but unfortunately, that's not the case, meaning that the port not only looks poor, but feels bad to play too and overall, the compromises cut too deeply into the quality of the experience. So, to address the Virtuos quote at the beginning of this piece: yes, this port exists - the studio responsible for its conversion did its job. The problem is that when you say you can port everything, there needs to be some kind of qualifier on the quality of the final experience. In this case, it's not good enough. It's The Outer Worlds on Switch but it's nowhere near the quality of any other version and in this case, portability isn't enough to save the day. I recognise the huge challenges facing the team on this one and I respect the effort put it into it, but the end result doesn't hold up and I can't recommend it.

Imagine reading this extremely measured take and coming away with "they're manufacturing unnecessary outrage!"

You can tell the difference? Double blind test, let's go. No one was even talking about 900p until Digital Foundry wheeled it out, it's not something that came from gamers. I'm not saying that as a diss, I'm saying that that's their business.

My point is Jeff saying 30fps "kinda sucks" when that's a standard experience for most gamers for years and even a wobbly 45-60 frames per second is "unacceptable" and "doesn't run super well" is the opposite of reality. We don't call Forza Motorsport "great looking" because it runs at a rock solid 60fps and then say the Forza Horizon games "kinda suck" because they run at 30fps just because they aren't running at 60fps. This kind of hair splitting is completely unnecessary and doesn't make any sense and yet people make a living out of making it out to the biggest deal possible.

I think it's funny to bring up the Saints Row DF because its incredibly positive and glowing about what that remaster accomplishes.

A steady 30 is fine, whatever, you will adjust to that without any trouble so long as you don't immediately compare it to something that is at 60. A "wobbly 45-60" is hot garbage and I deny your every attempt to say that complaining about that is unnecessary.

I can see something about a wobbly framerate not being great, I've certainly played plenty of those, but "hot garbage"? Hmmm. Would you not buy a game because of it? Are you sitting in a situation where you'll buy it on one console versus another just because of it? What if it's wobbly on all systems, which it is, do you just not buy it?

And yes, I did watch the DF Saints Row video in preparation of the video I made and their glowing analysis of the remaster, which made Jeff's take even more strange.

Obviously I would buy it on the system that offered a consistent framerate if that situation exists, I don't understand how that would be a question.

Beyond that then it depends. If it's bad on all systems then I'll look to PC where you can almost certainly lock it down somewhere. If it's not on PC then that's where something like Digital Foundry is very useful. I would want to know how inconsistent it is.. how frequently it occurs and how severe the differences are.

If the answer ultimately is Wow they crapped this game up pretty much everywhere then ..no I do not buy the game. There are plenty of other games.

Is there really a debate about consoles not needing to exist? I didn't get Jeff's perspective on that. Sounded really out of touch and narrow minded.

@npfeifer: Are you playing on a TV from a normal living-room distance? I ask because that can make a big difference in terms of how noticeable both resolution and frame rate are. I can comfortably play games at 30 fps (even with fluctuations above or below) on my TV from 10ish feet away, but 30 fps and/or fluctuations are way less tolerable on my PC monitor, which I sit about 3 feet away from. Likewise, it’s way easier to see the effects of resolution differences on the monitor than on the TV, because the individual pixels are much easier to see from closer up.

Note that Jeff plays very close to his TV, which is something that is evident from his streams, but also something he has said many times previous on the podcast. As such, he may be much more likely to notice frame rate and resolution differences, which may impact his enjoyment of the experience.

@npfeifer: On a big enough TV of course you see the difference between 900p and 1080p. Same thing as 4k, it's minor, but it's there. Will it make a game unplayable for me? Of course not. But that doesn't mean I should ignore it.

I had friends at the beginning of the PS3 and 360 era arguing about resolutions, basically as soon as HD tv were a thing, so no it's not something that came with Digital Foundry. And again, as someone who works on games, even though I don't use technology on that level, it's interesting to follow the why and how some game can achieve better performances, even if it's minimal, on different hardware.

Like it's kinda annoying because your argument come from a place of completely dismissing others experiences'. You're acting like a noticeable difference should be meaningless, it can be for you and that's fine, but it's not for everyone.

I still played and enjoyed Bloodborne on PS4 even though it was not a consistent 30 fps, I wasn't freaking out about it being unplayable (though I know some who were) but if a better version would've been available at release, it would've informed my choice of purchase to be in the know about it.

@npfeifer: I don’t understand how you can keep saying it’s splitting hairs when you keep getting replies of people saying the difference affects them noticably. Your example of 30 vs 60fps in regards to Forza is even weirder to me. I certainly DO say Forza looks amazing BECAUSE it’s in 60 rather than 30. I mean, I always loved Call of Duty because it was running a stable 60. As much as I love current Modern Warfare, it’s the first CoD in a while I am on some level less pleased with simply because the frame rate isn’t as rock solid 60 as the past ones have been.

I just don’t really understand how you can so easily dismiss the idea that framerate and resolution matter to people or that it’s so unbelieveable that people actually take notice. It almost sounds like when I fixed my 360 to display at 1080p rather than 720p and my ex at the time rolled her eyes saying it looked the same while I personally saw a huge improvement even in just the system dashboard.

So Jeff and everyone else on the planet shouldn't have standards for video games. Instead, everyone should conform to your standards for what is acceptable, which matters a lot even though those other people's experiences don't matter. Got it, very cool. Good luck with your Youtube channel.

Personally I would prefer to know the details of the performance when there's a game I'm interested in, especially if it isn't on par with what I was hoping for. Digital Foundry's whole deal is to talk about the performance of games so I'm not really sure what the complaint is there. They're a great resource for seeing how good or bad a game's performance may be and they've helped a ton in my decision on whether I mind the performance hits or not. There are games where I would be fine with the framerate being bad and the game looking good graphically and vice versa. Like in the Sims I'm sure I would be fine with lower framerates, but in a fast paced shooter like Doom, I'd definitely want to know if it didn't run smoothly.

It's fine if you don't mind it, but some people do and I really appreciate when they bring this stuff up.

I'm not a big performance or graphics nerd but, as I get older, it's increasingly less likely a game's going to take my breath away by how it looks. We're at the inflection point.

Nah, I disagree. He's right. Went back and looked at the footage and the performance was in fact not rock solid, it looks like it didn't run super well.

@npfeifer As others here have pointed out, I think the underlying issue here is a matter of personal perception. Framerates matter differently to different people based on their own perceptions of those framerates. This reminds me of friends of mine who would get (I felt) unreasonably upset at people who claimed PC superiority because everything could run at 60 fps. "You can't even see the difference," would be a popular argument. The same debate would crop up when displays started pushing refresh rates into the 120Hz+ range. I had a friend who would argue with me to the point of actual anger that you cannot perceive the difference between 30 fps and 60 fps, and those who championed 60 fps gaming were objectively wrong and just trying to lord over players with what they perceived to be lesser equipment.

The reality is, some people absolutely don't see that difference. To some people there is no perceivable difference between 30 fps and 60 fps. My friend was one of those people. However, on the flip side, there are people to whom there is a stark difference between 30 fps and 60 fps. Once I moved from mainly console gaming to mainly PC gaming, and I was exposed to more 60 fps gaming, I absolutely noticed the difference. My console 30 fps games would often feel sluggish by comparison. 60 fps felt smooth as butter, and became the standard for my play experience going forward. Fast forward to a couple years ago, when I needed to upgrade my main monitor on my PC, and opted to go for a 144Hz display. I'd been playing a ton of Overwatch, and had heard that 144Hz could actually make your aim more accurate, so I decided what better time to test out that claim and went the higher refresh rate route. Visually, at first I couldn't say I noticed a difference between 60 fps and 144 fps. However, I absolutely felt it. Games felt smoother, my aim felt more accurate. As time went on, and ~144 fps has become the norm for how I play most games, I have found that when I play a game that drops into the ~60 fps range (not locked at 60 fps), that sluggish feeling I remember from 30 fps games before has emerged. It's not some elitist point of view, or me trying to say that if you're not playing games at 144Hz you're getting a subpar experience. I'm only saying that from my perspective, based on my own perception of refresh rates, higher, more stable refresh rates make for a better gaming experience.

On a side note, locked 60fps doesn't give me that same sluggish effect. Those games look and feel absolutely fine. It's more so games that will jump around from 55-75 that feel bad to play.

Jeff and Brad do seem to be more picky about framerate and visuals, but that's something a lot of people care about. Their job as game journalists is to report their opinions and observations of the games they play. If a game doesn't meet their expectations, they're going to vent about it just like any other player would.

@h0lgr: I would say that Jeff’s reaction was also due to how much they are charging for the remaster as well.

Edit: I will say the west coast crew can get super hung up on technical details for very long periods of podcast time. I don’t mind the complaints as much as I kind how long they haggle over their severity. The Monster Hunter multiplayer systems are bad discussion is the peak of that(PS, I love monster hunter and also think the multiplayer is messed up)

I know that technically they've done a lot in the Saints Row 3 remaster, but some of the scenes look better composed in the original and if you're re-releasing a game on hardware a generation ahead it should be locked 60fps, i'm aware that overall it runs better than it did and you can get around it by getting the PC version, but i'd still be a little disappointed.

I'm surprised how negative the reaction to this post was; I agree! I prefer The Last of Us at 30 frames per second, it just looks unnatural at 60. When I do something crazy in Control and the whole room lights up while the frames chug down to 10 or less, it feels like a reward. I found the Final Fantasy VII Remake inconsistencies both wildly inappropriate and totally perfect. It was so cool to me that that game could look like a PS2, PS3 and PS4 game all in the same scene depending on what you chose to focus on.

Maybe it's just because I'm a plebe like you, gaming on a baseline PS4 with a 720p LG from a decade ago, and I spent most of the PS3 years on a Philips CRT, but I often find I have a very different definition of what "looks good".

Note: I was also the asshole that kept saying sports didn't look that much better for several years during the initial transition from SD to HD...and in hindsight, I was very wrong.

Then don't? Digital Foundry's niche is breaking down the performance of video games and delving into the minutiae of frame rates and resolutions. If that doesn't interest you, you probably shouldn't waste your time with it. And what exactly does this have to do with Giant Bomb? I can't say any of the personalities here seem particularly hung up on the technical performance side of things.

Man this is a bad take. You realize thes game devs are charging money for these games right? A remaster of an old game that can't even hit a steady 30 let alone 60 is not acceptable for any price. If you don't care about how a game looks that's fine, I too grew up with some potato ass games. What's not fair is acting like performance doesn't matter, I actually bounced off of Witcher 3 because of how shit it ran on a base PS4 and have since poured 200 hrs into it on an Xbox one x because of how much better it feels. Games are a visual medium and should be evaluated as such.

Deus Ex was a graphically amazing game for the time, but it was cpu bound. That is why you had trouble playing on a Celeron, which has no cpu cache. AI is controlled exclusively by the cpu.

Honestly, I kind of agree on a lot of your points. I play on consoles and find it kind of infuriating when Jeff goes "PC's are cheaper now, just play there" And then I play on a PC, run into some bug because my graphics card is different, and move back to my console. It's just a hassle I don't want to deal with, and I'm on a PC all day working so I need to get away from a computer screen.

I've recently started migrating towards a 60fps preference, but I'm fine with 30, and nitpicking games when they generally look really awesome now is not where I want to direct my energy. Late gen games on the 360 and PS3 routinely spent time at 20-25fps and I was somehow ok with it at the time, but the Pro and X have pretty much eliminated that problem for most games (outside of maybe Control at launch). So I just can't get mad at stable frame rates if they're 30fps or close to a 60 if that's the target. But I can understand why people do.

About DF, though. I found that Digital Foundry tends to say "well, it's not a locked 60 and there's dynamic resolution but it's minor and doesn't affect much." It's the comment section that goes "no locked 60? Fuck this game."

TLDR: I don't need a game to run perfectly, but it's upsetting when people get shitty about it.

On one hand, it's ridiculous that a remaster of an almost decade old game can't maintain 60FPS.

On the other hand, if that doesn't matter to you then power to you, have a great time; but don't get incredulous when people who it does matter to find it problematic.

@npfeifer: It's funny that you mention Digital Foundry as a force towards this negative nit-picking , while that nitpicking actually made people more aware of how involved this remaster is and how much they managed to improve the original game. When i saw some footage i was not impressed at all, but watching their video and seeing the original game's graphics and performance next to the remaster, the gulf in quality was visible. They were praising the remaster for SR3 as one of the most involved remasters they've seen, where even one-time assets like the bolts of the vault in the first mission are given new textures and what were supposed to be grassy fields now actually contain actual grassblades and the entire way the game is lit has been revamped to take advantage of current techniques. The kind of stuff that explains why this game might not be as easily to run as the original game, but gives you plenty of improvements in return.

When Jeff says that a remaster not being able to run at 60 fps is unacceptable for him, i see where he's coming from... yet it wouldn't deter me from that game because that's not unacceptable for me if the visual fidelity has been greatly improved. As long as you can get a decent idea what the performance / videlity situation is (like in a quicklook) anyone can put their own verdict on whether it's a good or bad job. But sure, Jeff is free to say that personally it's unacceptable for him but it would be more informative to know what the actual situation is. Are we talking about a steady 50 fps or wildly varying framerates and weird glitches? Crashes? Is it unoptimized, but still possible with a beefy PC to power towards a locked 60 fps or is the 'unacceptable' verdict based on how his 2000$ PC is not able to reach that neither? I don't remember the bombcast segment, but i hope that he did say more than just mentioning it's not a steady 60 fps and therefore unacceptable.

I do think it's strange that you argue that because these issues don't matter to you, no one is impacted by it, to the point where you tell people that they shouldn't give DF their view because that stuff doesn't have a noticeable impact. I don't watch their stuff all that often, but in the few cases i did they are often highlighting nitpicky positive things, like ohh they used this type of anti-aliasing and that's a very smart new technique and here you see the godrays reflect on the building... stuff that i wouldn't pay heed to as i run past all that scenery at max speed, but does give you an appreciation of the craft that went into the game. And even if you don't exactly know why a certain scene in the game looks good, all those technical tricks naturally do work towards that gorgeous image. To not have those analysis being made would be a shame and reduce the amount consumers can inform themselves about games, which is never a good thing in my book.

Framerate isn't just graphics, it's also how a game feels to play. A game running at 60 fps polls the controller input twice as often as a game running at 30 fps, and is thus twice as responsive. For a turn-based RPG or tactics game, sure, it doesn't matter as much, but for an action game like Saint's Row, it impacts your ability to play. This is why consistent frame rate is so much more important than high frame rate: when the game is suddenly less responsive than your muscle memory is used to, it severely impacts how it feels on a subconscious level. If it's a constant 30, it's easier to adapt to it, but it's still not acceptable for games that require a certain amount of responsiveness, like fighting games and rhythm games. Try playing Rock Band 4 on a PC that can't hit 60 and you'll quickly realize that yes, you can tell the difference, and no, it's not about how it looks.

(also important is that this is 100% subjective and there's no point in arguing about it. Everyone has their own tolerances, but saying there's no difference at all is just factually incorrect. If Jeff says something's unacceptable to him, then it is, much like how the diagnostic criteria for pain is whether someone says they feel pain. There's no objective way to measure it, so just listen to what people say.)

This is not only a terrible take, but a seemingly complete misunderstanding of what professional criticism is intended to accomplish.

Jeff (and Brad, Ben, etc.) is a professional video game critic. It is his job to inform people about games, performance included. It isn't his job to tell you whether or not certain things about a game should matter to you personally; all he can do is tell you whether those things matter to him.

You, as the consumer, are responsible for deciding whether or not the information presented is relevant to you. An iffy frame rate doesn't bother you? Great. It might bother other people, though; do they not deserve to get that information so as to make their own informed decision?

I think the OP's real issue is the use of the hyperbolic "unacceptable." I agree that it's probably too much in most instances, unless it dramatically affects the way the game runs. I might be off here.

Like, I couldn't give less than a shit about frame rate. I can't tell the difference between 24 fps and 60 fps. Heck, Banjo-Kazooie is still a hell of a good lookin' game to me. But not everyone is me. It's important for people who make a living reviewing games to get into the nitty gritty and speak to potential framerate issues.

@mamba219: I really have to wonder how one couldn't notice a difference between 24 and 60. That actually feels impossible to me.

First of all, this seems like baiting people for self promotion youtube clicks?

Frankly, your premise that people should just be happy with how games look and run if it meets your self-defined minimum standard of acceptable is kind of ridiculous.

Of course the Switch version of Outer Worlds looks totally fine and is completely playable and recognizable as a videogame, but that doesn't mean everyone should just blindly accept that and be happy with whatever they get. If I am paying $60 for a game and I have the capacity to play it on multiple consoles or the PC, then I absolutely want to get the best version of that game for me.

What is the best version of that game? That is the part that is completely subjective, and also what you are trying to argue about. If you can accept that the switch port is the worst looking version of the game graphically and in terms of performance because you value the portability, or you are able to play it on your TV or whatever, then that's awesome and totally valid. For me personally, I want to play the version where I can get the best framerate because I enjoy the smoothness that 60+fps provides, so the PC version is the best version for me. Also valid.

Discussion about these differences by gamers and websites like Giant Bomb are important because it helps everyone make informed purchasing decisions and protect people from spending a lot of money on something that might not meet their expectations.

Also, while it might be true that the average gamer at large doesn't have a nice gaming PC, it's also important to consider that Giant Bomb absolutely caters towards the more "hardcore" audience that has a lot more invested on average than the typical gamer, so I don't think your assumptions there are really very accurate.

OKAY, and now to talk about what I agree with in what you're trying to say.

Yes, obviously people take the relatively small (sometimes) differences in versions of games and blow them up to huge deals. The games industry and gamers in general are huge fucking babies and do this shit all the time and its annoying as all hell. That being said, in my many years of experience, its generally a vocal minorityish of gamers, and generally its very young gamers that feel the need to defend and justify their (or their parent's) purchase decisions to others online.

I grew up playing games on low settings or enduring really awful framerates because it didn't really matter to me that much back then, and I was still getting most of the experience out of the game. As I'm sure a lot of GB veterans will attest to, as I got older and had more money to spend in gaming hardware and in life, my expectations for what was acceptable increased. I still think people that say they can see the difference between 120 fps and 144fps are snobs and full of shit, but definitely playing games on 3fps feels bad to me now on some games, especially first person stuff when I'm trying to aim, So I understand both arguments pretty well.

PS: Good luck with the money situation dude.

@xeiphyer:

I'm amazed that you're able to play some games at 3 fps without it feeling bad ;)

Decries "manufacturing unnecessary outrage for views" while making a "call out" thread whose first order of business is to link to your YT channel...is this what the kids would call a "bad look"?

I could agree some of this stuff is nitpicky and may or may not matter to a given individual. Though you might be taking Jeff a little too literally when he says something is "unplayable".