Giga Chunk! The Size Of Game Installs.

Back in my day – an all too frequent expression for me these days – games came packaged with cartridges that contained all the necessary data to be played. No need for separate memory cards or external harddrive to enable the functionality of your games. Of course the industry has progressed beyond the limited capacity of these humble dust magnets, with the exigency of additional file storage required to expedite the obscene data consumption of modern games. Now even the most rigorous testing to isolate glitches, mitigate bugs and bolster optimisation often necessitates extensive post launch patches, that coerces players into becoming unwitting beta test participants. As a result these game installs swell to such an astronomical size, that it may demand a fastidious reorganization of your harddrive, with the possible deletion of data, to allow a game to run. Not to mention the time needed to download said content, which becomes a separate issue when your Wi-fi is slower than an asthmatic sloth. All of these factors combine to make modern gaming more protracted than it ever has been. Though “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” is testing both your patience and your storage capacity like never before.

Having been delayed from its initial release back in March, to enhance performance and eradicate other stability issues (Time well spent it would seem). It was casually announced that the PC version would require a minimum of 155gb of space to run. With the Xbox X and PlayStation 5 iterations needing 134gb and 147gb respectively. Now considering a standard PS5 comes courtesy of 825 GB of internal storage, 158 GB of which is reserved for system files, so it’s more like 667 GB of space, that isn’t a lot. Now imagine if every game required a similar volume of data to play? You’d be able to store 4 games, with enough surplus capacity to install the gargantuan patch’s these barely functioning games will subsequently need just to function appropriately! That is an absurd expense to provide gamers with AAA quality content. It’s also not sustainable in a market that is so reliant on potential consumers having money, let alone navigate an already clustered storage system.

If you are anything like me then you probably insulate a few games that you know you will play again. So determining what games are expendable amongst a retinue of reliable titles is yet another agonising decision you have to make. And it isn’t that I have a personal vendetta against upgrading the capacity of my console at some point, to accommodate the thriving list of games in my catalogue, but for it to become such a necessity almost from the start is ludicrous. Which is where I believe Indie games capacity to afford us with less demanding restrictions but supplying quality and variety is a distinguishing benefit. A device like the Steam Deck facilitates this. A console of considerable versatility that can be upgraded to a capacity that supports a robust portfolio of independent titles. I’d argue that this is what this device was conceived for. With a market place stimulated by modestly sized games.

I believe we have reached an impasse with the bloated size of installs, that the industry is trying to resolve by expediting the need for cloud gaming. A solution that depends heavily on the speed, stability and reliability of a service that is anything but. And personally I want to be able to game regardless of my internet connectivity.