The Video Game Critic

Interesting observation Scotland!

If some young reviewer only reviews Xbox One games, he probably wouldn't even think to mention install headaches or online requirements, because that's all he knows. Likewise, his readers might not know the difference.

I however will go from playing an NES game to an Xbox One game and be like "what the hell?" I have a historical perspective that few critics can match. And I think most of my readers have that "long view" as well.

Bingo. My younger brother thinks nothing of load times and installs. They aggravate me, but not enough to not buy a game I wanted (to an extent of course).

All about perspective, grasshopper.

VideoGameCritic wrote:Daheckizdat - I think you've been buying into a lot of propaganda. The game companies aren't coming anywhere close to filling up a Blu Ray.

It just occurred to me that I'm the anti-establishment critic. Since I'm an outsider who's not supported by the industry in any way, I'm free to speak my mind.

Blu Ray disks hold at most 50GB. BDXL is a new format that holds up to 100GB, but the discs cost about 5 times as much as normal Blu Rays. My installation of The Evil Within is 60GB. Master Chief Collection is 65GB. Elder Scrolls Online is 55GB.

It's not the main reason for the digital model but it definitely has an effect. During the SNES era, if a game was too big to fit on a cartridge, the developers started cutting content from the game (see Secret of Mana).

Just because games consume greater than 50GB doesn't mean they have to. Right now publishers have very little reason to be efficient with their game size. After all - it's only your hard disk!

It's like the old days with Neo Geo games that used to boast about their large size. If anything, they purposely designed the games to be bigger than necessary in order to use that as a selling point.

I'm quite sure with a moderate amount of effort today's games could comfortably fit within 50 GB. There are programming techniques that could be employed with no impact on the final game itself.

Along the same lines, with some clever programming games could be streamed off the disc to subvert the entire installation process. But since it's easier to just install the game on the hard disk - and no one complains - they just make you install it. Publishers have become really lazy and instead of calling them out a lot of gamers make up excuses instead.

VideoGameCritic wrote:Just because games consume greater than 50GB doesn't mean they have to. Right now publishers have very little reason to be efficient with their game size. After all - it's only your hard disk!

It's like the old days with Neo Geo games that used to boast about their large size. If anything, they purposely designed the games to be bigger than necessary in order to use that as a selling point.

I'm quite sure with a moderate amount of effort today's games could comfortably fit within 50 GB. There are programming techniques that could be employed with no impact on the final game itself.

Along the same lines, with some clever programming games could be streamed off the disc to subvert the entire installation process. But since it's easier to just install the game on the hard disk - and no one complains - they just make you install it. Publishers have become really lazy and instead of calling them out a lot of gamers make up excuses instead.

Fun fact about file sizes of today games, some titles like Mario Kart 8 on Wii U are only 4.9GB and the Wii U disc can hold up to 25GB like a single layer Blu-Ray disc, but what does not make sense is why companies can not take proper advantage of the disc space by using the reaming disc space for uncompressed audio/FMV, or have content that is DLC be included on the disc to push the proper limits of the disc space. And one example of not using the space, is Street Fighter V on PS4 is around 6 GB of the 25 GB single layer Blu-Ray disc, when the PS3 version of Ultra Street Fighter IV is around 18GB of space of the 25 GB single layer Blu-Ray disc!

Your thoughts on this critic?

Someone brought up similarities between loading times on the Sega CD and the install times of modern games. This is a pretty good point but there is something I would like to point out as I was an early adopter of Sega CD. I scoured reviews looking for games that were most recommended. It's true most the games loading times where never brought up in the review however there was a big exception. That being if the loading times were much longer than normal or worse yet even affected the game play. I remember almost every review I read about Mortal Kombat lambasting it for the load times on Shang Tsung everytime he morphed into a different character and load times between rounds.

New game reviews should be treated the same way. If install times are longer then what has been come to be expected then reviews should warn consumers of that fact.