How High-Definition Changed Games and TV Forever—and What Went Wrong

This is a theory—just a theory. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I can point to the exact moment when a lot of what we love about games and television started to wobble. Not all at once, and not like a dramatic switch flipped, but like the first hairline crack in a structure that later turns into a collapse. Anyway, enough with the metaphors.

Key takeaways

• The writer traces modern problems in entertainment to the shift into high-definition, arguing it raised production expectations and costs.
• They connect bigger game budgets, longer development timelines, and heavier executive scrutiny to the HD transition.
• They say streaming and digital distribution intensified the pressure by requiring immediate financial payoff for releases.
• The article compares television and gaming production changes, including fewer writers’ room staff, more CGI crowd work, and faster “end after a few seasons” cancellations.
• They argue HD didn’t single-handedly “ruin everything,” but it helped set conditions that later worsened.

The World Was A Very Different Place Before HD

The writer remembers a lot of excitement when HD cameras first entered the scene, but also describes a wave of stress that came with the upgrade. Makeup and costumes needed adjustments, set design had to account for different aspect ratios, lighting changed, and even studio temperatures shifted because of those new lighting setups. Their own job didn’t require dealing with any of that—it was mostly about getting coffee and Italian food for well-known people at around two in the morning—yet the atmosphere still felt like a mix of anticipation and mild worry.

Fast forward about twenty years, and they say HD feels like the first small domino in a chain reaction they see in modern entertainment. They also admit they sound silly trying to explain it using “meme” logic.

To clarify their stance, they say they genuinely love their 4K television. They enjoy watching older titles on Blu-ray and noticing tiny details. They also like not having to hunt down pan-and-scan, 4:3 versions of films they missed in theaters. On the gaming side, they appreciate that games now look better than the CGI seen in many ‘90s movies. More broadly, they argue HD brought more detail, more screen space, and technology that opened up extra ways to entertain them. Their complaints don’t mean they’re buying expensive digital-to-analog converters to prove they’re some kind of purist—“that boat has sailed.”

Still, they point to present-day problems across entertainment, especially TV and video games. They mention concerns that major Netflix series have a steep decline between seasons. On the gaming side, they bring up Xbox’s struggles with a shrinking fanbase, alongside shutting down companies and canceling projects mid-production as cost-cutting measures.

They argue that going fully digital for game releases is ultimately a financial decision, since removing a retailer’s cut—like the one tied to GameStop—means a larger share of revenue stays with publishers. In their view, some of the problems in both industries began in the HD era, though they stress it isn’t the whole story. They also point out that some triple-A games have install sizes that can hover near 200 gigabytes, making it easier for companies to claim the cost of pressing them on three Blu-ray discs isn’t worth it. And, in their opinion, those huge file sizes don’t exist for free—you still have to make games look sharp and polished on big modern OLED screens.

They then revisit the PS3 and Xbox 360 period, when it often seemed like developers in the East were falling behind. They say part of the explanation given at the time was the difficulty of upgrading to high-definition. They argue the transition demanded time and money, and that some franchises suffered because of it. They recall at least a couple Resident Evil releases that made fans wonder if the series might be “done.” They note that Capcom eventually solved these issues over the following two decades and achieved major success, but they insist those HD-related costs didn’t disappear. More importantly, they describe a personal narrative built from scattered evidence: in their telling, the HD era made games more expensive to produce on average and lengthened time-to-release.

They add that game budgets jumped during the PS3 generation. Around that time, they say people heard “breathless whispers” about productions costing staggering amounts—roughly $20 million to $30 million. Even if many games still fit budgets in that range, they claim it’s now common to see titles costing many hundreds of millions of dollars, with development stretching for a decade—or even multiple decades.

From there, they lay out a cause-and-effect chain: the more complex a game is, the more labor it requires; more labor means higher costs; higher costs lead executives to second-guess constantly, request changes, run focus groups, reshuffle teams with layoffs and new hires, and delay releases. They emphasize that this isn’t solely the fault of high definition, but that HD “greased the wheels” by making the whole process more expensive and demanding.

Everything Takes Longer To Make Now

They say television faced a similar situation. With HD, audiences expected programming to look better. On sports broadcasts, HD lets viewers see details like gaps in players’ jerseys during football games. Viewers also expected cop shows and dramas to look just as polished as the best-looking content. They argue triple-A television budgets didn’t climb as dramatically as game budgets, but the “floor” for mainstream shows went up. They also note that sitcom actors were already expensive, yet you could record significant portions of a sitcom quickly and at relatively low cost.

As HD TV made everything feel more cinematic, they say people grew comfortable with movie-style comedies. In that environment, multicam sitcoms can start to feel like something nostalgic, which then leads fans to say they want more of them. Networks, in turn, respond by suggesting viewers should try the new multicams they test every few years. They even claim they’ve been in pitch meetings where executives said they wanted multicams because they’re cheaper and easier to shoot—while also dismissing the idea that audiences would actually want to watch them.

They connect all of this to longer production cycles. Even if a high-end television episode might not cost dramatically more than an episode from the era of The Sopranos, they argue there are caveats. Writers’ rooms are often smaller now, meaning fewer staff to pay. Paid crowd scenes are frequently replaced with CGI. They also suggest that productions are increasingly eager to use AI-driven approaches to ADR voice work. They conclude that even if the total budget can be similar, more workers may be earning less.

They then point to a major reason many streamers cancel shows around season three, even when those shows are doing well. In their view, this timing often lines up with cast contract renegotiations. Whether a show is a hit or not, they argue it can be easier to stop paying higher rates than to continue. They compare it to how shows like Friends or The Sopranos could continue under different economics. Again, they insist HD isn’t the single cause, but that it contributes to a climate where everything moves slower and costs more, is over-analyzed, and makes executives more nervous—creating a loop that keeps pushing costs and timelines upward.

They acknowledge that expenses and network interference have always existed. As an example, they mention Norm Macdonald getting fired after a network executive objected to jokes about OJ Simpson. They say that’s not new. What they claim has changed is the overall slowdown: successful projects getting kept on ice, scripts being altered at the last second, and everything being treated like a blockbuster that has to succeed immediately or it’s considered a financial failure.

They argue that if games and shows are built with movie-sized budgets and released all at once, then they need movie-sized returns. They note cult classics can still emerge after cancellation, but monetizing later successes has become harder in the streaming age—even with advertising. They add that a show like the American version of The Office likely would never have received two years to build momentum. Likewise, they say a film like The Shawshank Redemption wouldn’t have been able to earn its money the same way through a later cable run and VHS sales.

They share a personal timeline to emphasize how long development and release cycles feel now. They say they first beat Skyrim when they were 27; they’re 42 today. They note that the first season of Stranger Things launched when they were 32, and the final fifth season arrived when they were 41. They agree with a commonly repeated Miyamoto quote that says delays are temporary but bad art lasts forever.

But they argue there’s a limit. They say they understand that every detail—down to each blade of grass—needs to look right in 4K, and that every character should look beautiful. They also feel that waiting years for new seasons or sequels gradually drains the excitement. They dismiss the idea that it’s only about complicated gameplay, arguing that Morrowind was deeper than Oblivion, which in turn was deeper than Skyrim. They then cut off with “And, no,” before continuing their next point.

They clarify they aren’t including Grand Theft Auto 6 in their argument, saying it doesn’t match their theory because Rockstar has been fairly consistent with releasing content for GTA V, even if the main single-player GTA entries still show long gaps between installments. They say it either doesn’t fit their “cute little theory,” or that they’re making some exception—asking the reader to pick whichever interpretation fits best.

From there, they return to the big picture. They claim that over twenty years ago, HD promised that people could get movie-quality viewing experiences at home—and that we can, and do. They say releasing art has always carried risk, but they argue that today even medium-sized projects take forever to make while relying on an immediate, almost instant financial response to be judged successful and worth continuing.

They summarize the trade-off as: higher costs, higher expectations for visuals, and a success threshold that feels as massive as Mount Olympus. Eventually, they say it affects what audiences think should be “standard,” training people to expect Christmas romances or office comedies to look as good as Game of Thrones. They add that this expectation often still doesn’t get met, but it does create a longer tail of production effort.

So they reject the idea that HD “ruined everything.” They call that headline an exaggeration. Still, from their perspective, HD is when things began to shift. They concede that streaming sped things up and made shows feel even more like movies through binge-watching. They also mention that services like Game Pass complicate budgets by distributing triple-A games to players who might otherwise have paid $70. But they insist that many of the problems showed up when streaming was still more of an extra add-on—like being tied to physical discs and a Netflix subscription—meaning they think HD’s impact on expectations and expenses is the real driver. They end by saying they’re probably wrong.