Since this seems to be a direct restatement of what
@PizzaW0lf was asking last night, I feel obligated to respond.
One thing I have noticed in recent times is that modern gamers™ have an obsession with graphics and performance.
Perphaps it is simply because I grew up with mediocre computer hardware, but I just don't get why everyone is so obseeded with 60 FPS and 4k resolution.
As has already been said, this isn't a new obsession. Games have been marketed this way since before I was born (i.e., since before the 1990s). Here's an ad for Wolfenstein 3D (1992) which talks up how immersive and graphically impressive the game is:
If you want to go looking you can find plenty of other examples (the advertising for the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine come to mind).
To address why people are obsessed with this, I question how many consumers actually are. Most people don't seem to choose games purely based on polygon counts or maximum achievable frame rates. The fact that game consoles continue to shamble along despite essentially becoming pre-built PCs would seem to indicate that ease of access is a bigger driver of sales than technology. Historically though, I can see where you're coming from. Game advertising definitely used to fixate on graphics and, to a lesser extent, performance. Primarily, I think this is because it's easier to explain to people than more abstract attributes. Why should you buy Tomb Raider instead of Legacy of Kain? The answer is because it pushes more polygons obviously! Differences in graphical fidelity are obvious and easily demonstrated to consumers while other qualities might not be. This worked better in an era where most games had to be developed outside of large do-everything environments like Unity or Unreal. Since it is more common for games, even fairly complex games, to be developed as plugins to these big software environments; it has become largely meaningless how many polygons you can push. Still, at the very high end, I think graphics-based marketing is easier than the alternative. Humans are visual creatures after all.
For example, the graphics in Pokemon: Legends Arceus are garbage for a 80$ game, but in some games looking fine, people scream if they don't get a constant 60 FPS.
Even on fairly low-end equipment, 60 frames per second is noticeably better looking than 30 (with traditional 3D animation techniques). There might be reasons to operate at a lower frame rate but in general a decently designed PC game should be able to handle 60 frames per second. It's just my opinion but I think an inconsistent frame rate is worse than a low one. Like many other people, I've spent a good amount of money on my hardware and I'm not interested in software that can't use it properly.
What are you thoughts on this? I personally prefer style and stability over 4k textures and 120 FPS.
Personally, I don't see why I should have to sacrifice either of these things. To the extent that it's possible though I want games that deliver both in terms of technical features and in terms of style. As someone interested in computer graphics for their own sake, the technical performance of a game is as much part of the artistic value as anything else. The idea that technical performance has to be sacrificed in favor of other more abstract qualities seems like a recent development to me. Personally, I think that this idea comes from a landscape largely made up of jumped-up amateurs who wouldn't have been able to cut it 20 years ago. Maybe I'm just an asshole though.