Episode 296: Working in the Video Game Industry

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Episode Link: https://adspthepodcast.com/2026/07/24/Episode-296.html

Feel free to write comments or ask questions 🙂

[elbeno]

Let me preempt the comments from gamers: OK, The Witness doesn't use cel shading -- certainly not in a way that a game like Wind Waker does. But I think you can see why it's in that place in my head: the art style of The Witness uses some lighting and texture techniques that result in an "animated" feel.

The broader point stands: games that have a stylized art direction and don't strive for realism tend to age better, graphically, than games that do.

[robbiesri]

I think the term you (and Conor) were looking for was non-photorealistic rendering (NPR), of which, cel shading is a style.

[robbiesri]

Oh yeah, games industry episode!

• I didn't know @elbeno worked at Bullfrog, super cool. I currently work with Robin Green and Glenn Corpes, which I think you probably overlapped with.

• Games are definitely their own ecosystem of technologies, which then end up having applications to various other industries (as Ben and others can attest to). I've lived on the rendering side for my 20+ years, and a LOT of the stuff I see know for GPU/kernel optimization that happens for AI/LLM companies is stuff we had to do for GPU render compute. We'd publish/popularize some of the information thru conferences and books, but not really open source. It's been cool to see such a huge interest in the field take off in the broader software community.

• There's a variety of challenges + benefits to pursuing 'realism' on the rendering side that Ben hinted at:

  • Physically based rendering started growing in the early 2000s, and took off in real-time in the mid-2010s. But the motivation wasn't as obvious as 'looking realistic'. Instead, the benefit was standardizing how objects/materials should look when transported between different tools and engines. Every engine used to have their own special sauce for creating look and feel, which also differed from the various DCC tools. The push for PBR was a huge benefit to artists because they could finally expect consistency.
  • Ben is 100% correct that gameplay is king. An inadvertent side effect of being hyper-realistic is that sometimes gamers can't see what's going on. Once the design dictates more visual differentiation, sticking to realism goes out the window.
  • One annoying thing is there is a (loud) subportion of media and game fandom that are obsessed with hyper-realism and maxing out settings. They'll run benchmarks and quality analysis for things that...only artists and render devs would notice. And the assessment for artifacts from outsiders are typically wrong, so what are we doing here?
  • Related to that, there's definitely the 'graphics' eye that is required. I can see stutters, de-synced presents, temporal artifacts. I'll go right up to my TV and stare to check how other devs implement stuff. I have a latent terror for when my eyes degenerate enough that I can't do that 😢

• I remember when FIFA (and other sports games) made the switch from 8-way to full analog. That was annoying since I was used to the fixed angles, and would get grumpy when I couldn't just lock into that fixed angle again 😆

[elbeno]

Oh yeah, I know Robin and Glenn! Tell them I said hi. Hope all's well.

[elbeno]

An inadvertent side effect of being hyper-realistic is that sometimes gamers can't see what's going on. Once the design dictates more visual differentiation, sticking to realism goes out the window.

This is a great point that I didn't mention. Especially in competitive gaming, silhouettes and other elements of visual design are super important.

[elbeno]

Oh and any other errors/anachronisms are mine to own. I don't think it made it into this episode (since it was later in our discussion) but I did say at one point that my game-making experience is definitely not up to date with contemporary practice...