120 GB + games why...

Asians have high speed network they forget USA and Europe is way behind them

Its a pain in the ass lately because it takes alot of time; i got 940 Mbps connection since 2009 and remember it took 2-3 minutes to download a sizeable game. Now with these shit sizes, takes way more, ssd wores fast and it may be you even dont like the game. I wanted to try Shadow of war a couple of days ago, 110 GB and uninstalled it after 1h cause it was a borefest ).

Couchpotato said:

Simple answer really. It's all about compression. Most developers don't compress games as they used to. So audio, videos, and texture sizes have increased dramatically.

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This is the #1 reason and anyone can test it. Compress a huge game yourself with any packer you believe is the most efficient. Well? Of course it's much smaller.

Why is that so? Are compressors so expensive noone wants them? No.
The thing is, highly efficient compression takes time to decompress. Remember when a few members here said they'd rather download a game when unlocked than preload and decrypt preload data, because their download speed is faster than their i9? Yea, the same wait time would happen with decompression of the minimum sized package so there. Google for more about best compression tools.

Now you'll say well I don't care, I'll accept 10 mins of decompression even more if it means less data to transfer! Mhm, you will. Console users with outdated hardware won't as your 10 mins unpacking on silly i3 would be 10 hours on pathetic Jaguar. Am I exaggerating or the difference is that drastic? Well, try it yourself.

There is an additional reason. With an actual game you also receive all the data left from cut content. At one point of development, this content was decided not to happen in the game, but for whatever reason developers never remove now useless data.

Finally there is this 4K&FLAC craze. Luckily plenty of games offer separate textures pack for those who want 4K (the minority), sadly no such luck with audio format so far.

What's the solution? Currently, only buying 2Gb sized SSD and paying for the fastest connection in your area. See, publishers aren't interested in efficiency as it doesn't make money and better data management can't be used in advertising.
Again, currently. Maybe in the future professional game reviewers start panning unoptimized code and sizeable data. But I'm saying this since AC4, a singlecore destroyer. Nothing changed so far.

porcozaur said:

I wanted to try Shadow of war a couple of days ago, 110 GB and uninstalled it after 1h cause it was a borefest ).

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You suck.
It was a scam initially, but then Warner removed microtransactions and the game is now a slightly above average product. While I found it fun and finished it, can't say it's some mustbuy and mustplay game. Especially because it says Mordor, hintops on Tolkien but plays as a sort of Warcraft spinoff in ancient Assassins Creed world design.

Like others said, it's high-res textures + fully voiced dialogues + cutscenes + the trend of every game having to be open world = 100GB+ games. I imagine if you stripped all the assets from the game (models, textures, cutscenes..) the rest wouldn't be as much as 5GB.

I have access to well over two terrabytes on my computer but permitting a game on my system that takes up over one hundred gigs.....well, it better have months' worth of value to it. To date I've only had three games on my computer that took up that kind of space, and none of them lasted very long. Hogging up valuable computer stuff with ridiculous graphics and wasted audio (useless to me because I play with my own music, not what someone thinks is good music) only receives derision from me.

Lots of dialogue and cutscenes in ESO. I am really enjoying it. Steam says I'm 141 hours in and feel like am living in Morrowind. It's awesome. So much better than Skyrim and EQ though a hybrid of both. Focus is on little downtime. It's a blast as a Warden.

Carnifex said:

I have access to well over two terrabytes on my computer but permitting a game on my system that takes up over one hundred gigs…

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Why? Space you never use is wasted space. Plus you can buy a new, 3TB hard drive for about $50 assuming you aren't on a laptop.

Like I said before in this topic: space is cheap and bandwidth is increasing - so why not?

Carnifex said:

...useless to me because I play with my own music, not what someone thinks is good music...

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Odd way to put it. Do you also mute movies and put on your music? I can play my music over some time waster games or multiplayer games like Counter Strike and Overwatch, but playing Witcher or Mass Effect with Fugazi or The Clash in the background kills the mood for me.

On topic: Big budget games also have multiple language options and voice acting to go with it. Now that is wasted space for me since I'll never play a game in Italian or Spanish.

I might have omitted the fact that my two hard drives are speedy SSD's, I believe in always having a spare should the primary go defunct for some reason or another. After enjoying SSD's now for about eight years, I'd never go back to a standard hard drive.

I often utilize a program via my audio selector on my television to substantially lower the volume on most music/backround scores on telly shows and films. I do that because I find it maddening that someone else should determine the volume at which I enjoy a program or concert, I've even noticed the same thing with some commercials, that the volume is often out of my control. This audio setup cost me a pretty penny but my ears are grateful.

But yeah, for instance I've played Everquest one for well over twenty years now, and the second game for over fifteen, but the last time I heard any music from either would have been during installation. I prefer to choose my own music, and any company/person that dictates otherwise to me will find themselves minus a customer in short order.

Luckily I live near a major city, so fast internet isn't an issue. Storing the games on a 500GB SSD though... oof. I had to spend literally a couple hours figuring out how to clear space for Red Dead 2, which was no fun. It's funny with that game too, because those high-res textures end up looking blurry anyway because of the TAA.

I assume sometime relatively soon huge SSD drives will be cheaper and it won't be as big a deal, but it can be frustrating right now for sure.