Honestly, the SimCity series was a series where I didn't care much about elaborate graphics. I mean, okay, I guess it's frosting on top of the game, but I also had fun with the original Lincity, and that's got even less glitz than the original SimCity.

If someone came out with a new, interesting game with the look of the original, I'd happily get it.

And Cities: Skylines 2 got its development into serious trouble over its graphics, of all things. I mean, okay, it's pretty, but I'm not getting the game to generate and stare at cityscapes. I'm getting it because it's got lots of levers to pull that interact in interesting ways. I remember reading reviews from people . They weren't upset about its lack of graphical detail, but about its primitive economic model.

I feel that a number of strategy-oriented series -- even games I like -- have kind of gone overboard on assets.

Like, Civilization 5 is pretty, but it's also sometimes unresponsive and it can't run on a phone, whereas Unciv, which is the same game, does just fine on both counts.

Stellaris is pretty, but I'm just never zoomed in to look at the graphics. I'm zoomed way out and mostly looking at icons on the map.

And this is true of a number of war games that have a lot of scale. Eugen's Wargame and Steel Division series are another good example. They could have omitted all of the 3d graphics and just used unit icons and from my standpoint, it would have pretty much been the same game, because that's pretty much what I'm actually looking at during the course of the game.

There are games that I really do feel benefit from snazzy 3D graphics. I remember being impressed with how cinematic Fallout 4 felt when running around in Call to Arms in ArcJet Systems, walking down steel catwalks and having godrays filtering through the gratings shine down.

But there are a number of games where I just feel like I get very little good out of all the money being spent on asset development. And city simulators are just pretty high on that list for me.