I like the guys at Cracked.com. While I’m not a fan of some of the gross-out, overtly sexual humour, I do generally appreciate the insight they often display in their articles. Yes, they’re intended to be funny…but often, the underlying truth is quite compelling.

Case in point:

…guys like Epic games president Mike Capps are out there making stupid-ass statements about how they would never lower themselves to develop for the [Nintendo Wii] because that would be “going backward.”

This is epidemic in an industry that defines “innovation” purely by graphical horsepower and nothing else. Guys like him are utterly baffled that anyone could ever want a Wii, just because it, you know, offers a completely new playing experience.

Somehow these guys have gotten it in their heads that nothing counts for innovation except bump mapping and pixel shaders. “However can any human enjoy these outdated graphics without literally vomiting with disgust?”

Well, if these people would bother having a conversation with someone outside their own offices, they’d realize that the entire concept of “outdated” graphics is meaningless to 80 percent of gamers.

Want proof? Nintendo DS games look like this:

(blocky screenshot from Mario Kart)

They’ve sold more than 60 million of them. Tell you what, Mike. The next time you see some casual gamer tapping away at their Nintendo DS, show them a screenshot of Gears of War…Don’t be shocked if they point out your game seems made up of three colors (brown, gray, and muzzle flash). Sure, hard-core gamers know the difference, they know the game is a marvel of technology. The rest of us just want to have fun, or be told a good story.

It gets hard, some days, not to punch people right in the mind who complain that the Ultima games are “outdated” and that they have “terrible graphics.”

Tags: bump map, Cracked.com, Gears of War, Mike Capps, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, pixel shader, Ultima