120 GB + games why…
 

I'm going to put this into General RPG because I think it pertains to all games actually so I'm steam this game is this large

120 GB available space
https://store.steampowered.com/app/834910/ATLAS/

What is the point is the question here, it was only a few years ago where for 5gb big is a Blu-ray DVD container game like The Witcher or whatever.
Are we talking videos here, full 2+-hour movie+ soundtracks? I mean what is the point and it seems like it's the most unoptimized design planning imaginable.
Even with 1tb drive you can fit like 6 total games like this if you if you did plus your other needed programs/OS stuff.

Even a game like divinity original sin 2 I think was what 40 GB for a isometric game those again what are the are we talkin movies here it's getting absolutely absurd lol.

It's mostly about graphics quality - textures, models, etc - which soon start to add up. If you get into heavily modding Skyrim with high-quality replacements for everything, you can easily go over 100gb. I'm afraid the disk usage will go up as they push for best quality.

I also just noticed that the next to be released GRID game, a racing game, requires 100 gigs of space. So yeah, they seem to be growing.

One thing which I know contributes to this is that some developers prefer to store some assets, like textures I would venture to guess, in an uncompressed format. That way they don't have to perform the decompression at runtime, and can thus require a less powerful CPU.

I think pretty much all textures in games are compressed. Uncompressed textures would be really enormous. I believe the decompression takes place on the GPU, so the limitation is on the compression formats widely supported by GPUs. Better compression formats are available, but are supported only on newer cards, so using them cuts out a whole chunk of the market. I think better compression will help to somewhat improve the situation in time.

Working on web sites myself compression is a huge part of that I'm sure. on websites you can do lazy load and dynamic decompression. Can’t they do something like like that for games? I haven't looked into it, can they decompress only assets as they're being used ?

This is another reason why I prefer indie games, and classic ones. When something requires over one hundred gigs of hard drive space, well, it makes me pause. Bigger is certainly not always superior.

Some games use multiple layers of compression. So, pretty much all textures are saved in one of the standard GPU-decompressible formats on disk. But, it's also possible to pack those textures (and other assets) into further compressed archives - in many games' installations you will find everything contained in a few large blocks, which are sometimes a proprietary type of highly-compressed archive.

Decompression of those "parent" archives (before the contained files are loaded to the GPU), is done by the CPU. It's at that level that some games might not be compressed, to save on loading times and CPU load. There's a trade off, and I think they would often err on the side of more disk-usage, but fewer in-game annoyances.

From Steam page:
All Reviews: Mostly Negative (23,319)
Multi-player
Online Multi-Player
MMO
Co-op
Online Co-op

Man, what are we even talking about in this subsection (general RPG)?
I mean, why this isn't in MMO section? It has absolutely nothing to do with RPGs.
If you needed a RPG example, FF15 would do the trick, not this mmo early access bug-o-rama shovelware.

Regardless of the game, games are definitely getting larger.

Why? Because it makes the game better.

So why not? I see a 3TB drive for just $80 on Amazon right now which could hold 30 copies of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey + DLC with plenty of space left for the OS. Network speeds are cranking up, too. AT&T is putting 1GB fiber in my neighborhood right now.

Please stay on topic.

As noted by others it is all about the graphics. People demand 4k (and soon 8k) textures. My guess is sooner or later they will make ultra high resolution downloads optional - otherwise we will starting seeing 200 and 400gb games. I would not be surprise if in the next decade we start seeing monitors above 8k.

By then we will probably be streaming everything, so bandwidth will be more relevant than storage.

It's like saying a century ago that buses and trains will be more relevant than own cars.

Just as in means of transportation, you'll stream cheap rubbish. For actual fun you won't be streaming.

What if publishers don't release a downloadable version because they want "games as a service"?

There is no if, there is only when. ;)
In such case, just like today you ignore all the lootboxes scamware on phones, you'll ignore gaas fraud falsely advertised as games and continue buying proper videogames.

Proper means pay once for the full experience no additional garbage lurking on your wallet, own (at least a license) for life, play anytime you want regardless of internet availability.
Note that IMO standalone expansions count as a part of a proper game. It's like books or movies, you read/watch the first part but don't feel any pressure that you'll miss something if you dodge any sequel(s).
An example - after falling in love with Locke & Key, you don't have to buy standalone spinoff stories, but of course you will because these are a product of their own, not some milk'em junk that will ruin the original 6integrals story:
https://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-Sma…/dp/1631408461
https://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-Sma…/dp/B01N4BSTUI

Horse armor on the other hand is scam. GAAS wants to milk you with numerous horse armors. I bet it'll become another iteration of EA's "surprise mechanics".

Remember please, a videogame is a videogame. A videogame is not a method of scamming people through bending outdated laws that aren't following the technology progress as fast as they should.

More like saying a couple of decades ago that you'll be downloading all your games instead of buying them on physical disks.

IN some countrries, games are not owned anyway. We pay - but since the law says that this kind of thing is merely licensed, not owned, game companies can take them from us any time.

Most people say "this will never happen, at least not with the big companies". This belief is just wrong.

I just read an article about Microsoft closing their e-books servers, so everything "bought" is lost. At least, as far as I understood the article, there's a refund.

I'm surprised we don't yet have SD, HD and 4k hdr differentiation in games. Where the hdr version costs 30 euros more.

I don't want to wake sleeping dogs, but at the rate of commercialisation in games this is bound to happen. It already kind of did with Google stadia for resolutions (not textures or sound/music assets). HD is free, 4k is paying. Although that is for bandwidth and server costs (for now).

There's a couple of reasons for this.

First of all, there's the demand for fidelity in terms of visuals. Especially high resolution textures - which take up a LOT of space.

Secondly, it's the relatively recent standard of full voice acting in pretty much all AAA games - and even quite a few indie games. You'd be surprised how much space that requires.

Personally, I'm very happy that these are the new standard - because I'm a big fan of both.

But, even if I wasn't, I would have a hard time denying the value of appealing to the expectation of the mainstream.

Interesting, already 175 GB's: "Activision explains why Call of Duty: Modern Warfare needs 175GB of storage :

https://www.pcgamer.com/modern-warfa…-requirements/

"Update: Activision has updated the Modern Warfare system requirements post to explain why it's asking for 175GB of real estate on your hard drive. "175GB is the storage space we recommend players keep available in order to download the post-launch content we’ll be bringing to Modern Warfare. At launch, the initial download will be smaller," the page now says.

Unfortunately, there's no indication as to exactly how much smaller that initial download will be, as the minimum and recommended specs still call for 175GB of drive space."

Is it a singleplayer no bs game? If yes, buy immediately as it's diversity and as low as possible amount of filler.

No? Avoid like a plague, it's whatnot content locked behind paywalls.