Graphically speaking, Isn't what really makes a game "rich," the artwork?

Question

I've been thinking about flash and html5 and though each of them can draw circles, rectangles, curves, and do things with images, doesn't it really come down to the artwork? Game play aside (I know ugly games can be fun), all the talk about which looks best canvas or flash or something else, kind of moot? Don't the great games, graphically speaking, have great artwork and modeling so that as long as the engine can handle it, the programming anything other than events associated with those models and artwork doesn't matter? I'm watching my kid play Frontiersville on Facebook and I'm thinking, I could program those events but it's the artwork that's grabbing people and good gameplay keeps them. In the end does the platform really matter for games?

edit: my point is: can't you go way overboard worrying about canvas vs. flash vs. whatever if you have nice graphics to use?

Answer 1

Yes, talented artists are probably the most important factor in how good a game looks but if they have good tools to work with then they will be able to produce a greater quality and/or quantity of artwork in a given amount of time.

The features and functionality of a game engine are also important to the visuals for 3D games (the kind of thing you see on an Xbox 360 or PS3) though currently less relevant to a web based game. An engine that supports higher quality lighting, a more flexible material system or can simply push more polys and pixels (due to being coded efficiently) will give the artists more scope to really push the quality of the visuals.

As a graphics programmer in the games industry my job mostly consists of providing more powerful or more efficient tools and pipelines that make it as quick and easy as possible for the artists to iterate on the content for a game and providing programming support for particular new features or functionality that will enable them to achieve their artistic vision. A brilliantly clever new rendering feature or a super optimized bit of code is of limited value if it is not exposed in a way that allows the artists to use it effectively.

Answer 2

If you make a game now, it'll most likely have a wider audience if its in flash, the graphical differences between flash and canvas won't make much difference as the look that you come up with. Art style is more important than slight fidelity improvement, there are more important reasons to choose one platform over the other me thinks.

For example, Wii games can be pretty jaggy, they mostly are, but many Wii games are very engaging, or in other words, the prettiest looking graphics cannot save bad game play let alone slightly sharper lines for example.