me_irl

It's not just optimization

Literally the first line of that comment

86mb

Just an off the cuff example

full res vs scaled

That was a thing 20 years ago too, not an excuse

remasters

I picked what I know best

resolution

To an extent, but there is a clear 'fuck it, why bother' mentality

20 year difference

Correct, but the graph for time vs quality is not linear, and yet the data size seems to be going off the charts

resolution matters

But not to the extent of the size of the content. A game that was 50 gigs a decade ago now has a release three times as large, but it's not three times the quality (be it gfx, audio fidelity, multi-player experience, or enjoyment). What it is doing is filling up your storage so that you have less of a choice in how you spend your time.

lossy compression

Oddly specific question but I will again point out games like FUEL that had an enormous map for the time and pretty nice visuals, and were able to cram it onto just a dvd. Blur is another, gfx that still hold up today at modern resolutions, one disk. But, to again reiterate the statement, devs don't give a shit. It's not that these are difficult tasks, but why bother when space is abundant and, again, if the size of your game means they play it instead of being able to install another competing game, it's a bonus.