Framerate Debate - FPS and Objective Quality

            There’s a rather large debate going on recently though has been really going on for years, decades even, about games and their frame rates. 60 Frames Per Second recently has been getting probably the largest spotlight it ever has in the industry. Due to consumer demand, a lot of games have been even claiming “60 FPS!” as a major selling point. The industry seems to be pushing 60 FPS as a new industry standard and consumers are happy to have their voices heard.

            ...Though some might argue maybe too happy. I’m not exactly interested in pointing fingers, but there appears to be a few groups pushing the 60 FPS standard with more effort than ever before. Through a plethora of methods passionate fans are pushing harder than ever to get their precious frames. However, I can understand how some might be a bit concerned with this “framerate policing”.

            Now don’t get me wrong, typically I would say that 60 FPS would preferable to lower framerates, but I have no illusion that a game’s framerate is some sort of objective statement about its quality. There are plenty of games that suffer from low framerates and some that wouldn’t exactly gain anything from more frames. There are plenty of sub-60 FPS games that are fantastic, and some 60 FPS games that are just terrible. I can’t help but feel the people pushing the 60 FPS standard so aggressively are chasing some ghost of objective quality that just does not exist in the art form of video games.

            I can totally understand where the argument may stem from though. A higher framerate would make for smoother controls. A lot of games are action packed so every frame could make the difference between life and death. Higher framerates are probably most noticeably important in fighting games where single frame reactions and links between moves could mean the difference between victory or defeat. Though video games are a much bigger art form than twitch action games and not all of these really need the extra frames.

            The game industry at large has been pretty poor at communicating about this issue though. When fans would ask about sub-60 framerates the industry would come up with some really poor excuses. Though their actual reasoning is likely very simple. The industry pushed hard in the visuals. Picture perfect graphics, high poly counts, detailed textures, lighting and other effects, the list goes on. All of these graphical touches require system resources and they can easily improve these graphical elements at the cost of having to animate more frames. Simply put, the industry had much higher priority in graphics than it did framerate.

            Personally I don’t exactly agree with this reasoning a lot of the time. Most these graphical touches don’t exactly amount to anything substantial to me. When the industry wants to churn out bland, uninteresting, gritty, realistic looking games I can’t get too excited for what they care to do with the system resources they dedicate to graphics. In most cases I’d probably agree totally that the industry could ditch the realism and improve something, so why not the framerate.

            Though there are times where the resources used on graphics are actually put to good use. When all of the industry’s graphical tricks go into making a game look more beautiful and more artful, rather than gritty and real, I can sacrifice the frames. Some games might even need the lesser framerate to better fit its art-style. This is typical in games that try to emulate a specific style of animation like Claymation for example. Also, while I may disagree on the industry’s use of the term “CINEMATIC” is in fact an art-style. If the industry wasn’t trying to push really bland looking games I’d be in total agreement with them on this topic.

            None of this exactly matters to some games though. Some games gain nothing from having a higher framerate. When we are criticizing trivia games for not running at 60 FPS, the argument looks pretty silly. There’s no high paced life or death single frame reaction you’d need in a game that just doesn’t operate like that. Trivia games, puzzle games, adventure games, role-playing games, etc. operate much more slow and single frames just aren’t as important, and if those frames could be canned to better the game in areas that’s actually important than that’s better for the game.

            The framerate debate tends to fall more into a more tech obsessed side of gaming. Games that perform optimally and make the best use of their extremely expensive systems are better. This tech ideology in games is another ghost of objective quality that passionate fans seem to be chasing. Honestly, the framerate debate probably hurts the less tech savvy portions of gaming. The demand that games improve their framerate would make a lot more games tough to run on lower end systems. Designing the game for a lower, but playable framerate would be better for these fans. Of course, the tech fetishists of games likely wouldn’t care for poorer people playing on lesser systems.

            Objective quality in games is a lie. Objective quality in games is an illusion that the games industry and mainstream games press have created so consumers would see their games not as art, but products to be bought and consumed. I feel games criticism is definitely getting further away from this, but the over-passionate tech fetishists fans of games chasing the same ghosts of objective quality through framerate is not doing games criticism any help.  Framerate is an important part of videogames, but it’s not a measurement of quality. Criticisms about a game’s framerates should honestly be seen as a more case by case basis. Is this game’s framerate acceptable? Would this game gain anything from a higher framerate? What would this game lose in exchange for a higher framerate? There’s no universal answer to all these questions for every videogame, so why even pretend that 60 FPS should be a make-or-break feature on every game? There is no objective measurement for games. Objective quality is a lie we keep kidding ourselves is true.