WHY REALISTIC GRAPHICS MAKE HUMANS LOOK CREEPY. GAMING: THE ART OF PLAY.

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The problem, is in the nature of how we identify with robots.

When an android, such as R2-D2 or C-3PO, barely looks human, we cut it a lot of slack. It seems cute. 
But when a robot becomes 99 percent lifelike—so close that it’s almost real—we focus on the missing 1 percent. The once-cute robot now looks like an animated corpse. 

Maybe they should try climbing out, by going in the opposite direction and embracing low-rez simplicity?

Unfortunately, though, gaming’s Uncanny Valley could be here to stay, simply because players have become used to it. In the real world of plastic surgery, face-lifts used to look horrifically strange but now go unnoticed. Likewise, we’ve played with dead, fish-eyed characters for so long that they seem kinda normal. Creepiness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.