Why do software/applications become more resource consuming?

Question

i came to ask myself that question when thinking about games but it can be applied to all types of software and i would appeciate especially the answers from those who work in computing/programming.
computers become more powerful in time, faster and multi core cpu, faster and more capacity ram, more powerful graphics cards. but so does software: they continually want more cpu power, more ram etc.
is it because of demand for better graphics? or complexity of codes? anything else?

Answer 1

the algorithms implemented are requiring more robust computing for the different tasks. nowadays these tasks use larger amounts of information to find out achieve maximum output so it's normal. I don't think smaller programs will consume anymore resources than they did before

Answer 2

@marcel
i think i understand what you mean. more poweful hardware makes it possible to add functoonality/extras to software, and that in turn raises the need for more powerful hardware. they are kind of feeding each other.
maybe the industry is adding thay "extra" functonality so that it's more appealing (for the average user). fancy graphics, animatons, cool look etc. it doesn't have to be that way though. probably that's the reason why i prefer notepad++ over dreamweaver. it hasn't the huge advantages of dreamweaver but you can run it probably on a first generation pentium processor as well. for someone who knows what he is doing, no fancy software suite is needed i guess.

Answer 3

@marcel:
true that, but also (depends on the field) often resources doesn't matter and no one cares. I bet you could make a lot of programmes slimmer, but maybe they would be more complicated to maintain...