I am a long-time 3D graphicist, and have written numerous software and accelerated renderers. I am really struggling to see the point of this article (it seems trivial and tautological to me), although I'll be glad if it generates some discussion.<p>This is an area where I feel very strongly that perception is reality, or at least so close to it as to make no difference. The game world is virtual, so the fact that say a rock is not made of zillions of atoms computing quantum chromodynamics doesn't come as a surprise to anybody. Well, that's a shortcut right there. Immediately, the game world is not arbitrarily "realistic".<p>But I don't think that's what the word "photorealism" usually means. I know I've never used it that way. I use it to mean "feels subjectively real". By that definition, as the OP alludes to, today's most advanced game engines come very close. In my opinion, they come so close, that the rest is gravy.<p>That's what will be coming in the next decade. More gravy, more cake, more icing. In the next year or so, somebody (Sony? Everquest Landmark?) will start the inevitable development toward Minecraft-style procedural/cellular automata based worlds, combined with increasingly photorealistic rendering.