[jay_kyburz]

Video Games were immune for a while because technology was changing so fast, but in the last decade or so its become really clear players don't care nearly as much about graphics as they used to.

People will quite happily pickup and play games from many years ago. Many of my teenage kids favourite games were made before they were born.

[taormina]

Well, graphics plateaued and then we started to remember that fun and highest fidelity graphics don’t necessarily have anything to do with each other.

[int_19h]

People do care enough about graphics for Bethesda to spend time and money making e.g. Oblivion Remastered, though.

[jay_kyburz]

Oblivion is nearly 20 years old now and looked terrible at the time. (compared to other games that shipped at the time) Oblivion is a _big_ game not a polished game.

update: I found this screenshot and I think I was remembering Morrowinds characters.

https://slayweb.blogspot.com/2011/08/elder-scrolls-evolution...

[int_19h]

Morrowind had very janky animations, but it wasn't too bad for 2002 otherwise. Definitely not top notch, but, well, look at faces in Deus Ex for another example from this period...

Oblivion had those weird faces but was otherwise pretty good actually, especially the lush outdoor environments.