Poll: Are games getting too big in file size?

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

If the disk space is actually used for something useful, I have no problem with it. Something like The Witcher being 14 gigs for the current Enhanced Edition/Director's Cut doesn't bother me, because it's a huge game. That's also unusually large, and most stuff I've gotten recently has been less than the size of a dual-layer DVD, and most of that no bigger than a single-layer DVD. A lot of it's only been a couple hundred MB up to 1-2 GB for indie stuff or non-AAA games that are just as fun.

The one game that really irritated me with unnecessary largeness was The Force Unleashed, which was a completely ridiculous ~30 GB for a rather short game that doesn't seem to have a particularly large number of unusually high-res textures or anything. If it weren't such a half-assed port, I'm sure they could easily have fit it in, say, 8 GB. That's one of the few things I did get rid of right after I finished it, because that's just a stupid amount of disk space to waste on something I'm not going to play regularly, unlike a lot of smaller things I leave installed on the off chance I feel like playing them for some reason.

 

[Platypus3224]

I like long games but their getting to long. like final fantasy is wayyyy to long

 

[samstewiefisher]

I play my games on ps3. Blu-ray is plenty big for watever game devs are bringing out now. Alhought , my housemate has a 360 and a message popping up to change the disk in Mass effect 2 every so often ruins the imersion to be honest so i can see wat u mean. Though sure as many people have said, bigger = better in terms of more stuff to do/ missions/ items/ weapons/ graphics/ characters etc right?

 

[Azhrarn-101]

I got the THQ complete pack recently on steam (thank god for their sales) and started to realise the size of games generally. My Steam folder now is at 170 gb (basically Valve complete pack, THQ complete pack and some CoD games (not MW2) and the odd game here and there) which I thought was a little excessive. The fact that most new games now take up at least 10gb when a few years ago 3gb was considered to be a big game is getting a tad annoying. I know that half the responses will be "delete the games you aren't playing and stop complaining" but I'm interested on people's views. I know also that the size is keeping up with the times but I still think that it is increasing too quickly, console games have managed to stay under the 4gb mark (size of a DVD) for a long time.

There's a reason I included 2 1 Terabyte harddisks when I built my current PC.
Yes games are pretty massive these days but that's caused by all the high-res texture work that goes into them these days, audio needs to be in 5.1 surround at top quality too, at least in most cases (especially for shooters, where positional queues are important).
Lots of gamers game at 1680x1050 or up, that's a lot of pixels, and textures big enough to look good at that resolution are large files too.
By the way, consoles aren't limited to dual-layer DVD as such, the PS3 has 50GB blue-rays and some games even use all that space (MGS4 for instance).

But that's where the advantages of a PC come in, yes games are pretty huge, but diskspace never was cheaper.
1 Terabyte is about ?60, That's about ?0.06 per Gigabyte, with room for plenty of games. And most desktops will have room for a spare disk or two, if you're on a laptop you've got a problem obviously, the largest disks in that format are about 500GB and not exactly cheap at that.

 

[DeathsHands]

Well, yeah, HDDs are getting much bigger and cheaper now, so large games are relatively trivial of an issue.

 

[AllLagNoFrag]

When I think this, I just think "I've got a 64gb USB alog with my external HD". No, games aren't getting too big. The holding space for operating systms are going up in size too. Its all proportional and what do you expect? As games get more advanced, they are bound to get bigger. Just think, floppy disks are pretty much un-used now.

 

[ADeskofRichMahogany]

I mean, for PC hard-drives, not really. While games are getting larger in file size, hard-drive spaces are already quite big and getting bigger.

For consoles, maybe. Not really sure.

 

[joshuaayt]

As long as our storage capacity continues to rise at a greater rate than our filesizes, we should be totally cool.
Anyone pumped for Yottabyte drives? (Winky emoticon)

 

[wiX_88]

Here's a few questions: How much space a fully virtual-reality game with life-like graphics and I super-intelligent world AI would take up? Will we every rename bytes/kilobytes when they become irrelevant? Does anyone not now have at least 100gb hard drive now?

 

[Stefan Larsen]

File sizes have to increase over time, we just make for space. 170gb is very little on a 2 tb harddrive

 

[[BDS]Omega]

With the relative inexpensiveness of Terabyte hard drives the size of the game means very little to me, I would rather it be large and expansive (and most of all complete, KOTOR II still annoys me) than inexpertly butchered with the sole aim of reducing file size.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

game demos on xbox are but real games not so much

 

[Judgement101]

Wait, you bought a pack for like 50 games and they are like 2-5 gigs each so I think its more of a quantity than size

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

2 500gb HDDs for $100 = all the room you need

How about, a 1TB dive for $60-$80? Unless you're talking about USB external, which tends to rip you off a little from the get-go, as buyers of externals tend to be desperate for space.

I wish developers would not limit their games to certain size limits. Most PC gamers tend to get pretty pissed off, because they will limit broad, expansive games due to console limitations, and not bother with a more complex PC version.

I would seriously buy a 50GB game or higher. No problems with that. So long as it's a good game. Think, Morrowind or Oblivion with no "size constraints" illusion.

To those people who claim the current sizes are already too big, and that they can't even play 2 year old games on the lowest settings.... well, no offense, but stop your whining. That says to me that you have a vastly old computer, with virtually no money or effort into upgrading it. Might I suggest you just switch to a console, and deal with what you can get there.

After I get done modding games like Oblivion, and Fallout 3, and I've added all the bells and whistles I want, including increased resolution texture packs and weapon kits or NPC/Monster additions ranging in the hundreds to thousands of additions. After-the-fact, my installation folder is likely to be over 20-30GB. Which is almost how it should have been in the first place.

yeah this.

there is no reason to be mad about this,

hard drives are at an all time low in prices, hell my 750 gb just cost me 40 bucks with free shipping, really NOT THAT HARD to buy more space

plus you know, the people who are making these games..should be worried about ALOT more different things than "taking up space"

there are lots of ways i COULD agree with this arguement, but with how cheap hard drives are and how little of VANILLA games actually take up space, its not a big deal at all, it just shows they are giving me a shit ton of shit, which hopefully is good shit to begin with.

plus if you really have THAT MANY GAMES, you dont need them installed all at once. i have 20 games installed on my laptop alone (thats including shit tons of mods on about 6 of them), and my new desktop..im about to put a serious dent in that hard drive =]