Most hardcore gamers - ourselves included - believe that "graphics don't matter" and that they are second to gameplay, but Bethesda believes that they - we - are lying.
"There's a lot of people who say graphics don't matter. To them I usually say 'you're lying'," Bethesda VP of marketing, Peter Hines, said in the latest OXM Podcast. "[People] will look at a screenshot and make a snap decision: 'that looks awesome', or 'I'm not interested'. So if you can make something look amazing just at first glance, it's so much easier to get them."
We have to admit that while we believe that graphics don't matter, we do insist on getting the latest high end GPUs and to run all our games at max setting at the highest resolution our screens support. In our defense though, we spend tens of hours playing challenging yet graphically-simple games such as Super Meat Boy and Bit Trip Runner.
In the same podcast, Hines explained that Graphics play a key role in creating "a sense of immersion" and that Bethesda is "looking for the best sense of immersion you can get" with its upcoming Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.