I hear you, but I will say that there’s a lot of indy games out that are great but mimic the graphics (and requirements) of old. Crow Country is a good one top of mind.
Point being it’s more about what people want to make, IMO.
FTL, Valheim, Muck, Brawlhala, Amongus, Lethal Company, Loop Hero, Papers Please, Balatro, Slay the Spire, Undertale, Stardew Valley, Dead Cells, Ion Fury … are all under 1 gig.
Selaco, Prodeus, Ultrakill, Project Warlock, Cultic, DUSK… all between about 2 and 5 gigs.
This is far from an exhaustive list.
You can ship games like these.
People have done it, and made a good chunk of change, with dev teams of between … what, a single person to a max of maybe 10? Less?
You need to wish to work at a different studio, with different management, maybe a different engine, not wish its possible to make a successful game without stupendously huge asset libraries.
Hell, even Alien Isolation, SOMA and No Man’s Sky are just above 20 gigs, MGS V is just under 30 gigs of on disk size.
It is totally possible to do pretty darn good graphics without breaking over 100 gigs of disk space.
The majority of disc space on a game like CoD is textures, audio and FMV. There’s no compressing 4k textures to get them to a reasonable footprint without losing quality. Same for 4k FMV.
It’s not management that drives the desire for high-res textures and diverse asset libraries, it’s generally the art team. Once they’re allowed to care about what kinds of shrubbery exist in Borneo and which exist in Minneapolis, you end up with 30 kinds of plants. Multiply that out for rocks, cars, rugs, etc and add in the expectation for 4k or 8k screens and individual assets get huge and the library gets huge.
You’re right that it’s possible to do “pretty good” graphics for less, but it’s telling that your examples are from a decade ago and/or heavily stylized.
The majority of disc space on a game like CoD is textures, audio and FMV. There’s no compressing 4k textures to get them to a reasonable footprint without losing quality
None of these have anything even remotely close to 4k textures. We can argue all day about whether or not those are required for “good graphics” (I don’t think so either). But there’s no amount of optimization that compresses those textures without losing the fidelity you’re using them for.
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with the engine or optimization.
Game Dev here.I WISH we could still ship with N64 quality textures and audio. We’d use so much less disc space and probably finish sooner and cleaner.
I hear you, but I will say that there’s a lot of indy games out that are great but mimic the graphics (and requirements) of old. Crow Country is a good one top of mind.
Point being it’s more about what people want to make, IMO.
It’s also about what people want to buy. If games with that aesthetic reliably sold like gangbusters, AAA would follow.
Rubbish. In this case it is marketing spending which creates the demand, not the other way around.
*indie
You’ll have to correct him 500 times for it to stick.
FTL, Valheim, Muck, Brawlhala, Amongus, Lethal Company, Loop Hero, Papers Please, Balatro, Slay the Spire, Undertale, Stardew Valley, Dead Cells, Ion Fury … are all under 1 gig.
Selaco, Prodeus, Ultrakill, Project Warlock, Cultic, DUSK… all between about 2 and 5 gigs.
This is far from an exhaustive list.
You can ship games like these.
People have done it, and made a good chunk of change, with dev teams of between … what, a single person to a max of maybe 10? Less?
You need to wish to work at a different studio, with different management, maybe a different engine, not wish its possible to make a successful game without stupendously huge asset libraries.
Hell, even Alien Isolation, SOMA and No Man’s Sky are just above 20 gigs, MGS V is just under 30 gigs of on disk size.
It is totally possible to do pretty darn good graphics without breaking over 100 gigs of disk space.
The majority of disc space on a game like CoD is textures, audio and FMV. There’s no compressing 4k textures to get them to a reasonable footprint without losing quality. Same for 4k FMV. It’s not management that drives the desire for high-res textures and diverse asset libraries, it’s generally the art team. Once they’re allowed to care about what kinds of shrubbery exist in Borneo and which exist in Minneapolis, you end up with 30 kinds of plants. Multiply that out for rocks, cars, rugs, etc and add in the expectation for 4k or 8k screens and individual assets get huge and the library gets huge.
You’re right that it’s possible to do “pretty good” graphics for less, but it’s telling that your examples are from a decade ago and/or heavily stylized.
And you can’t make 4k quality optional because…?
None of these have anything even remotely close to 4k textures. We can argue all day about whether or not those are required for “good graphics” (I don’t think so either). But there’s no amount of optimization that compresses those textures without losing the fidelity you’re using them for.
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with the engine or optimization.