What makes this question too broad?

Question

I ask this specifically for one of my own question but I'd like to know what the standard is when question get closed for being "too broad." Anyway let's discuss mine first:

https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/68715/pixel-density-in-modern-games

I do not see why this is too broad. I already put down a standard for the year 2008 by mentioning Half-Life. I pretty much ask for nowadays standard, not a specific, not a list of all games from past year, just a standard I can aim for. I believe this could be a couple lines of text with a newish title or perhaps a link as source. So why would this question be broad?

Why would other questions be too broad? I see some questions around SE that have answers the size of two pages, would those be too broad? What about multiple answers does that make a question too broad?

Back to my question, or rather compare it to another one:

LOD in modern games

This one is about level of detail in modern (asked in 2010) titles. It is basically the same except I ask for pixel density. Yet this LOD question turned out to be very helpful.

Also, why can just one guy close my question?

Answer 1

Well for one, you don't specify your platform. Pixel density (or probably more accurately described as "texel density") on a modern iPhone game vs. a PC game can be quite varied. It can also vary depending on what your desired min spec platform is or the kind of game you're making or the kind of tech you're using.

Texel density if you're using something like virtual texturing or dynamic texturing can be quite a bit higher than if you're doing your standard mechanisms for repeating textures. Indoor games vs outdoor games can also matter. It can also vary depending on how many different types of textures you need in your scene based on your visual target.

A better question for the site would be how to make the decisions on texel density rather than what other games do. Because the specifics of your platforms, visuals, and so forth are going to determine what your decisions should be.

Answer 2

The question you asked is "do modern games use a higher pixel density than four pixels per inch?" along with a related follow up, "how far do games stray from that rule?" (all emphasis mine).

I assert that this question is too broad because:

• The domain of all modern games is so large that no one person can realistically have the relevant knowledge of it, and therefore it's very unlikely for there to be single correct answer to the question.

• "Modern" is localized in time, and while you provide a timeframe for your initial example implicitly, by naming a particular game, you don't provide a timeframe for what "modern" is.

• This is not a subject for which there is a standard within the industry, so different games are very likely to do very different things (that all have various pros and cons) based on the specific needs of that game, it's platform, or what have you.

Further, I believe the question is inappropriate for at least one other reason (not in a "too broad" sense, but in more of an "off topic" sense):

• You are asking about what is essentially industry trivia, and not about a specific problem you are having building your own game. Industry trivia isn't something we have generally considered on-topic here (there have been a few related meta discussions that touch on the topic).

I believe there's a good question here, and I presume you do want this knowledge for some project of yours, but we have to work with the questions as they are written, there's only so much jumping-to-conclusions that we can reasonably do without running too much of a risk of misinterpreting the asker and providing misleading answers. (if you really do just want to have a discussion about it, that's also great, but this isn't the site for it; there's a list of good places to have such a discussion in the Help Center, including our own chat). I think a better way to phrase that question would be along the lines of asking for a good texel density measure to achieve a certain level of visual fidelity on a certain platform under certain normal gameplay conditions, for example.

To address some of your other questions:

I see some questions around SE that have answers the size of 2 pages, would those be to broad?

Maybe; probably. The number of answers a question could have is less of an indicator than the size of any single potential answer is. Further, just because "other SE" sites permit a certain level of broadness doesn't mean this one does. Finally, just because you can find a similar example of a question that did remain open doesn't make a case for either side: it's possible the other question was just missed, for example, or (as in the case of that LOD question, it could be that the question was asked before a current policy was enacted; the LOD question is from 2010). It's also possible I'm wrong, in which case the community can overturn my voting decision or discuss the issue here on meta.

Also, why can just one guy close my question?

It's a privilege I have as an elected site moderator. The balance for that privilege is that the community can still overturn my binding close vote with a sufficient number of reopen votes on the question.