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Zekkyou on 08 December 2016
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soulripper31 said:
Zekkyou said:

I have no interest in getting involved in this general discussion, but looking specifically at this part; how is the size of a game like Pokemon at all relevant? Pokemon Sun & Moon is 3.2GB. Have they gotten several thousand times lazier?

There are some developers that could do more to optimize the size of their games, but in general game files continue to grow because the quality and number of assets they utilize has grown exponentially. Even Nintendo, when when faced with certain types of projects, aren't unable to overcome this. XCX, which benefits (file size wise) from being on a console that's limited in the quality of the assets it can render, is 23GB. That increases to 33GB when you include the loading patches. If it were a PS4/X1 title, with assets befitting those consoles, it'd be even larger.

There are over 800 Pokémon now. 3.2GB is still not a lot for a game with that amount of content. My point is: you can make big games on small cartridges if the developers care enough. The first two generations of Pokémon were some of the biggest RPGs released at the time, despite being on the gameboy (which uses cartridges). I don't consider Final Fantasy VII to be bigger than those games tbh.

Obviously game files continue to grow as technology improves, that's not the point I'm trying to argue with. Games with 5 hours worth of content that take up over 100GB are pure laziness on the part of the developer in question. I can only think of how much the gaming industry has regressed by focusing on superficial things over gameplay. It's killed many franchises.

3 to 4 times the number of Pokemon over Gold and Silver, and 3200 times the space. That's quite a large discrepancy. The growth in Pokemon count is of course relevant, but its the rapid rate of asset improvement on each new platform that pushes that x3 into an x3000.

FF7 isn't really relevant either. FF7 and the early Pokemon titles border on incomparable in this kind of discussion; their technical goals were almost entirely different. FF7's decision to utilize pre-rendered assets (both in-game in cut-scenes) was far from a space efficient decision, but it likewise played a key role in making the game so many fell in love with. Originally, the game was going to be another 2D title, but they decided to risk the shift to pre-rendered and real-time 3D development. As it happens, those risks paid off immensely. We should celebrate games like FF7 for being willing to take those kinds of risks, even when those risks come with down sides (in that case file size). And while i agree that i wouldn't consider FF7 'bigger' than Pokemon, i would certainly consider it far more ambitious. That's worth a lot to me.

As i said, there are developers that could improve on spacial optimisation, but there are likewise many games that well justify their file sizes. Some, like Uncharted, do so through the sheer quality and quantity of the assets they cram into their campaigns. Others, like TW3, and XCX, through huge amounts of high-quality content (relative to their size and platform). It's perfectly fine if you dislike the technical decisions made by many modern developers, but those decisions are driven by consumer demands. For better or worse, almost everyone, Nintendo fans included (despite being well accustomed to being behind in the technical race), expect technical improvements over time. Some series and developers weren't able to keep up with that demand, but others have flourished in it.