>>15425284
>This is used in tandem with at this point 10+ year old shader effects like POM.
This is one of the other things that really gets my noggin joggin and my spidey senses tingling. We've had tessalation for a very long time, Shadow of Chernobyl used it in, what, 2007? It's really good, and yet still it seems to be reserved for only games where the developers really want to go the extra mile, we've had subsurface scattering for close to a decade now and I don't know any games that use it at all.
Instead developers blow performance on bizarre shit like DOF, motion blur, fake cheap camera effects, any number of pointless wastes of CPU cycle that no one wants or asks for.
I've been around the block for long enough that I'm not fooled into thinking the majority of studios are even trying to make good looking games, but it's hard to swallow the idea that they actively try to make games run as poorly as possible while looking as mediocre as possible. I could imagine them doing it so they can use the "wow we require such hardcore requirements" to trick plebes into thinking that they must be cutting edge, but it's such a nefarious, machiavellian and subversive plot that it almost seems easier to just make a good game, and continue doing so for the following years rather than purposefully gimping the industry so you can continue to sell trash for the forseeable future until we're all replaced by paki uber eats drivers and our passtimes involve shitting on the streets and drawing in the sand with sticks.
Are these people really smart enough to be so nefarious?