Joystiq

Graphics matter because people love to customize their avatars.

First, let's assume that people enjoy customizing their avatars because gamers want to feel that their digital doppelgangers represent them. Even players of D&D on paper can't deny that character creation is one of the most exciting aspects of the genre. This urge to customize the avatar leads some gamers spend hours tweaking levers that control the skin tone, hair style, musculature and other physical traits of their avatar when they first crack open a new role-playing game.

Many of these customization options were not even imaginable in RPGs of just 10 years ago. Many new customization options will be added to games over the next 10, 20 and 30 years as personal computers gain the necessary power to keep track of all of that detail. Gamers want to be able to customize their avatars--that's a given. Technology has finally advanced to the point where it can render a sufficient number of polygons to represent different hairstyles, but it's still rather rudimentary compared to what we'll be able to do in next-next generation massively multiplayer games.

• Dye jobs for your hair. The New York Times recently wrote about women who spend upwards of $500 per month getting their hair color just right. There's no doubt that if these women were playing games, they'd see a 500-platinum trip to the hair salon as both natural and desirable.
• Manicures and pedicures, with special fancy paint jobs.
• Botox injections to give your character's lips that just-been-stung-in-the-face-by-a-bee look.
• Tats, of course. They're already offered in several games, but the breadth, variety and placement of them is rudimentary.
• Once MMOs become sophisticated enough to allow our digital avatars to age (Fable has some basic aging), we'll want to stop by the local village plastic surgeon to reverse the effects of years of rugged adventures in the sun.

The list of potential customizations is as long as the list of things people do to themselves in meatspace. The obvious objection from some gamers will be, "But I'm playing a game to escape the real world! I don't want to have to worry about such mundane things as getting my nails and hair done! That's just too much realism for me."

Though this objection is often voiced, trends point towards more realistic avatars and game situations. Characters in the Sims must use the restroom. Avatars in Everquest, World of Warcraft and other games must eat regularly. Even games that appeal to males have their own version of Barbie built in. In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, players can purchase different haircuts and clothing. Players can also visit a gym to work out and develop muscle tone, or they can gorge themselves on fast food for the opposite effect. And players love it.

If you'd asked most of the young men who enjoyed playing GTA:SA beforehand whether they'd buy a game that allowed them to buy outfits for their character, get different haircuts, and work out at a gym, most would have said no because such features sound uncomfortably far from heterosexual norms that young males tend to espouse. And yet these same gamers propelled the game to best seller status. In short, the crowd that protests "realism" in games typically doesn't know what they want until they've had a chance to play the finished product. 

In sum, virtual worlds will grow in complexity as the processors used to render them grow in ability to render that increasing richness. It's a given. Sony's addition of barbershops to Everquest II is just one more small step in the march of progress.