Ungodly game sizes
by Tom Materene · in General Discussion · 04/17/2011 (5:00 pm) · 6 replies
I was looking at recent titles out there and noticed how the total drive space to load these games has sky rocketed. My thought is, do games really need to be this large, most of it is all eye candy and personally I think Game Play is the single most important factor for any good game. Some of the worst games in appearance were still winners and classics. So now when I look at a New Presentation the first thing I look at is size and wonder is it a good game or another slug. I'm not real happy with a lot of these extra large boat anchors.
#2
Tomb Raider was 50MB and looked a bit crap, but it's one of the greatest games I've played in its category. The sequel was just as good, and about five times as large (rounder, too) before counting movies. Clever modelling and use of textures can keep sizes down. But with a flower at 350k these days games tend to bloat.
So don't complain about it - just do better! Make a game with the gameplay you want. People are less accepting of good gameplay/bad graphics until the word is out that it's really, really good, unless it's from a Big Name. Same thing with books - people assume it has good bookread if they recognise the author's name.
04/18/2011 (3:22 am)
Yep, you can make a great game in 5MB or less worth of assets, but it will make your eyes bleed, unless you have some funky procedural texture algorithms (check out kkrieger).Tomb Raider was 50MB and looked a bit crap, but it's one of the greatest games I've played in its category. The sequel was just as good, and about five times as large (rounder, too) before counting movies. Clever modelling and use of textures can keep sizes down. But with a flower at 350k these days games tend to bloat.
So don't complain about it - just do better! Make a game with the gameplay you want. People are less accepting of good gameplay/bad graphics until the word is out that it's really, really good, unless it's from a Big Name. Same thing with books - people assume it has good bookread if they recognise the author's name.
#3
Eye candy works well in screenshots, gameplay dosn't tend to come over so well in screenshots.
Need to catch the eye to catch the wallet.
Why I rember back when games uste to ask if I wanted to install different versions based on size and what to run of the disc.
That was my main gripe with Fallout 3. How dare bethesda change the installation and only allow me to install the entire game!!
04/19/2011 (12:33 am)
File sizes may have increased, but so did HDD sizes and the speed of the internet.Eye candy works well in screenshots, gameplay dosn't tend to come over so well in screenshots.
Need to catch the eye to catch the wallet.
Why I rember back when games uste to ask if I wanted to install different versions based on size and what to run of the disc.
That was my main gripe with Fallout 3. How dare bethesda change the installation and only allow me to install the entire game!!
#4
04/19/2011 (11:26 am)
The speed of the 'net hasn't improved everywhere, and many are limited by quotas.
#5
04/24/2011 (12:46 pm)
i <3 minecraft 
#6
I can understand the need for space for some eye candy-rich games, but casual... Come on, guys, this is just insane! xD
06/20/2011 (2:41 am)
Not that I like to dig up the old stuff, but this had hit me yesterday: a casual game has broken the 1Gb space mark. The hero of the day was "The Timebuilders: Caveman's Prophecy," with DL size of ~300M unrolling to about 1Gb.I can understand the need for space for some eye candy-rich games, but casual... Come on, guys, this is just insane! xD
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