Re:Applicable to games? (Score 1)

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Exactly! Actually, it _does_ "mean that if modern games actually had better gameplay, people wouldn't care so much about the graphics''.

Think about the most-enduring games, with their strategy "played" largely in the mind's eye, and _not_ on the retina.

Examples: Chess, Go, Monopoly, Scrabble, Contract Bridge, and (as a "solo game") the Rubrix's Cube.

The movie Avatar was mostly a thin plot slathered with eye candy. Here's a "thought experiment" comparison: If you want to "see" impressive special effects, try __reading__ ''The Left Hand of Darkness'' by Ursula K. Le Guin. All it takes is a good imagination and you'll have SFX galore!

Every game -- and film, for that matter -- _must_ have a MacGuffin and to be effective, the Macguffin _must_ be _blatant_.

Having worked in the film industry -- largely post-production -- I've watched innumerable movies in various resolutions. These ranged from IMAX -to- Red One RAW -down_to- HQVGA : 240×160 and QQVGA : 160×120 .

When the plot has substance, the acting is good, and the (seemingly scattered) Macguffins are visible there a clear result. Here are some things which become far less important: overall picture quality, color matching, resolution, contrast / saturation, and production designer's palette. You just watch -- and "get into" -- the movie. Ditto for chess, for sure; in that case, a fancy chess set is the opposite of eye candy and just a distraction.

Mike
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