When Video Games were Brown.

TL;DR

Games didn't actually get browner in Gen 7 — desaturation started earlier with the PS2's shift toward mature audiences.

Key Points

• 1.A custom program analyzed ~400 top-20 bestselling US games from 2000–2020, sampling frames for saturation, brightness, brownness (hue 5–45°), and warmth metrics.
• 2.The least saturated year was 2005 (33.5%), but the decline began in the 6th generation (PS2/Xbox era), not Gen 7.
• 3.By the end of Gen 7, average saturation peaked at 45.4% in 2012 — games were actually *more colorful* than at any prior point in the analysis.
• 4.Brownness showed no meaningful trend across 20 years; if anything, brown slightly *decreased* from 2006–2011, possibly as developers responded to criticism.
• 5.The yellow/warm filter trend was real but minor — warmth gradually rose from 2005 to a peak in 2010, driven by new post-processing color grading tools on Gen 7 hardware.
• 6.The most surprisingly "brown" game was GTA: Vice City (65.1% brownness) — its warm orange lighting cast over grey roads created brown, despite its neon reputation.
• 7.The real culprit was a demographic shift: PS2-era growth targeting young adults brought realistic genres (shooters, racing, skateboarding) with muted palettes, and Gen 7 unfairly inherited that reputation.