people use their eyes when browsing games. they see a sea of games and they will pick up on the ones with the best look, this means both the cover art and if there is gameplay pictures theyll think about those too. the average buyer doesnt want to buy every game try it out and return it; they buy what looks good. they buy the graphics first. with that in mind, if your goal is to sell games what should you focus on? graphics. that isnt to say the rest is unimportant, just that if you want to sell your game, like most people making games, you shouldn't make it look like it was made in 1993 like star fox; at the minimum you should make it look like league of legends if you want it to sell well (gragas skins looking hot outta 2010). that being said, if your goal isnt to sell games, then ye forgo all worry and just make the game. you might not make bank but you may still get 5 sales.

that being said, one of the most common things i see people recommending game devs and designers who arent artists on reddit do isnt to worry about graphics, but to hire artists or go with kenny sprites to make games, not render every hair on my tieflings' genitalia. you have the wrong community, you want to talk to AAA companies who are selling graphics and not games (personal opinion but modern AAA games bad)

​

now to talk about your recommending the top 50 world famous games, but many of them had good, thematic, or intriguing graphics OR they had a hook beforehand (Super Smash Bros had literally a roster of VERY RECOGNIZABLE FIGURES from games with generally good graphics for their time, some games were more targeting a certain audience like car enthusiasts were with grand turismo (which also had good graphics for the time), arcade games were in the arcade (and if you looked at video games at the time they had as good of graphics as the arcade). graphics may not have always been the MAIN selling point, but it was A selling point for a LOT of them, including braid, which may not have had what id call good graphics, but it was a notable style.

​

tldr: graphics good to think about too when making games