In years prior there were a lot of games and a shifting understanding of what hardware they can require. While gfx needs changed rapidly, hard drive space requirements went up steadily, predictably. As most of us have long abandoned physical media sales and use digital downloads instead, this number has stopped to be defined by the medium’s capacity.

Before and now we had outliers like MMORPGs and movie-like games requiring more estate, while other games like Deep Rock Galactic needing just 4GBs, but there always was some number of gigabytes you as a consumer thought a new game would take.

Where’s that sweet spot now for you?

For me, it’s 60GB, or a 40-80GB range. Something less or more than that causes questions and assumptions. I have a lot of space, but I’d probably decline if some game would exceed 2x of my norm or 120GB of storage.

  • chunes@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    I see a game more than a 1.5 gigs, I start having second thoughts. I only play indie games, though.

  • rowinxavier@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    I tend towards games that are on the small end, less than 20Gb in general. That covers almost all of my favourites that I have put more than 100 hours into. Some that I have out over 1000 hours into are under 1Gb and are still very intense. That said, if I got a new game which was supposed to look good I would be happy with 70Gb, but more than that feels like lazy studios churning our high res textures to cover up bad design. You can absolutely reuse textures in creative ways to drop the scale of your storage requirements. If you really need massive assets for your top graphics tier then make multiple versions of the assets and allow a smaller install. I don’t need games that are in the Tb range.

  • slazer2au@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    40-50GB is enough for a 1080P game.

    If you want 2/4K textures, add a free DLC to the store page like Fallout 4 did.

  • RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 hours ago

    My issue is more because of bandwidth than storage, anything over 20gb means I’m not downloading it at home unless I super super super want to play the game, because at 20gb that’s probably an all day long download and will fuck my net for the day

  • Bruncvik@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I stopped buying new games when physical discs went the way of the Dodo. I have plenty of older games that would keep me entertained till I die (I think I won’t even get to finish most of them), so I don’t have a direct stake in this discussion.

    Just wanted to say it amazes me when I read here how big games have gotten. I still sometimes get surprised at Word documents that wouldn’t fit on a floppy anymore. And I remember running Civ 2 from an external Zip disc because I didn’t have the space on my HDD ( the game came on a single CD). It was a bitch waiting for the advisors to load from what was essentially a 100MB floppy connected through a parallel port. But I digress. The point is, anything that wouldn’t fit on a DVD is absolutely unfathomable for me, and you people are talking about 100GB+ games here…

      • Bruncvik@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Anything that doesn’t require hand-eye coordination. This is not due to age; I just always sucked at that. So, turn-based strategies (Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic, Panzer General) and RPGs with turn-based combat (Might and Magic, Wizardry, SSI Gold and Silver Box games), or the combination of both genres (UFO: Enemy Unknown, Jagged Alliance). Come think of, none of those should require a lot of HDD space anyway.

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    I’m running things on a 500GB SSD drive so anything north of 100GB is a hard sell. I’m also on low-mid specs so it’s generally not much of an issue. The games I play mostly fall in the 0-5GB category but I do play the occasional 20-50GB.

    One of the biggest games I’ve played on my PC is Red Dead Redemption 2 at 120GB.

  • flemtone@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    If developers give a basic download with HD textures and english as the default language then the file size would come down drastically, then offer everything else as a separate download if required. I hate that games have gotten so damn huge and tend not to play anything over 15GB

  • Almacca@aussie.zone
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    7 hours ago

    It’s not something I’ve ever considered, honestly. My only criteria is ‘do I want to play this game?’ That said, the only games I’ve said ‘yes’ to that question lately with large download sizes are the Doom games, and some racing simulators.

  • insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe
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    13 hours ago

    I am somewhat stuck in the past. ~7mbps internet on a good day, (fast) storage is not unlimited, computer is 2019 sale parts except still using 2016 budget GPU (1050Ti).

    100MiB or under: it’s free real-estate

    600MiB: I can tolerate this as an average size

    2GiB: common AA size, function and quality better match

    15GiB+: this is probably not worth it, beyond eye-candy maybe

    60GiB+: This is diminishing returns, and likely multiple technical (and arguably better) choices could have avoided such bloat.

    More understandable with physical media, though my last console did not age gracefully (YLoD, another unit I got via barter runs but probably has dry thermal paste). Also I mostly play free (and/or older) games these days.

    Also personally: polygons are often enough. See Spyro’s vertex color skyboxes:

    • Toes♀@ani.social
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      11 hours ago

      still using 2016 budget GPU (1050Ti).

      Check out the Intel b580, your 2019 hardware should support rebar. (An bios update might be required). It’s a phenomenal upgrade for around $250US

      But I feel you on the bandwidth issue. I’ve had to give up on some games that frequently update.

      • insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe
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        5 hours ago

        your 2019 hardware should support rebar

        Arc seems to take issue with low bandwidth even with rebar on (I suspect an architecture/pipeline issue), both because PCIe3.0 and older CPUs (less IPC/frequency?).

  • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Depends entirely on the quality and expected playtime. FFXIV, with a many hours long story? Load me up. Other games, where it’s 80GB+ for a <10 hour shitfest of CG puke? (No I cannot think of a good example right now, as I avoid bloated trash like the plague) Eat a dick.