Has a game's size ever influenced your purchase?

[Aeshi]

So one of the games I was considering picking up this sale is an MMO by the name of Black Desert Online, which is about 50GB in size. Nothing particularly unusual there in this day and age.

Found out there was a free trial, so I went to download the non-Steam version's Installer, started it up... and found that that 50GB was not compressed. At all (and from what I've heard, the patch data is similarly unoptimized.)

For comparison, NieR Automata is also 50GB, but is compressed down to (if memory serves) just a little over 20GB while you're actually downloading it.

Anyone else ever found themselves in a situation like this?

 

[Zhukov]

Death to open large open world...! Oh. You mean file size.

Uhh, no?

If something is stupidly big I wait until my download quota is about to turnover (Australian ISPs lol) then leave it to download overnight or while I'm at work.

 

[tippy2k2]

No but I do not PC game at all so that probably helps as most of what I buy is disc.

I bought the 1TB consoles so I have plenty of room and I have a higher internet package so my speeds are really high (especially for only one person and high as in America-high, not a country with a good internet infrastructure).

 

[balladbird]

My internet is so laughably horrible that I could count the number of non-handheld games I've purchased digitally on one hand that was missing some fingers.

Since file size is featured on boxes, but isn't nearly as prominent, I don't usually pay it much mind

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It's something I keep tabs on but hasn't deterred me from buying a game just yet.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Nah, I still remember using dial-up and how long it took to download stuff. I'm used to leaving things downloading over night (or over the course of a week, back then).

 

[DoPo]

In a weird way, once - yes with Second Sight. I found that the game was on one CD back when games had just almost universally began coming out on 2+ CDs. I guess a single CD wasn't too strange, but the game looked damn good, and I thought that more space = better visuals. That's why I was intrigued by Second Sight. I started playing it and it turns out it was an amazing game.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Only in so much as wondering if my system could run it and even then not in a looooooong time. I have a pretty big hard drive.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I'm limited by a bandwidth cap of 20gb per month so...yeah.

 

[shrekfan246]

It doesn't influence my purchasing, but it certainly influences my play order and what I actually install.

I don't have enough hard drive space for endless 50 GB+ games.

 

[Fijiman]

Yes. Not as much now as it's more that there aren't as many games that I'm interested in these days, but a few years ago I had to be incredibly mindful of a game's file size. I only had a 60GB hard drive for my 360 so I frequently had to delete stuff off of my hard drive to make room for any new games I got.

 

[JCAll]

I had to stop buying PS3 games because everything needed a 4 gig install and I eventually ran out of room.
I'm reaching that same point with the Vita, and I can't just upgrade the harddrive on that one, 64 is the hard limit.

 

[Vausch]

Kinda. I used to live in a place where I had to get satellite internet and we had a 7.5gb monthly limit on downloads. Short of it is I couldn't download a game without hauling my tower to a friends or my dad's place in order to get anything.

Boyo, when the left 4 dead 2 big update came I was scared because of the auto-update features.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Not nescecarely purchase (you cant do that with a F2P, but that can be argued if it has MT's), but I have to say Let it Die anyway. Wanted to download it, .....until I saw the filesize nearly hitting 50GB. Warframe already took 15 hours to download, so having to wait over a day turned me off from the game indefinetly.

 

[sXeth]

Its sort of what shifted me off to consoles (primarily, I do still play stuff on PC). Moved out on my own, internet costs money for speed, and while I have unlimited now, it wasn't an option then and wouldn't be for some years. (Its not pretty widespread, after some monopoly got broken up a bit). Speed is still at a charged premium though.

So yeah, fresh out of college, and basically straight into the timeframe when PC suddenly became (esssentially) digital only. Renting a room in a house with 3 other people, and if the internet bill comes back insane the landlord would probably take off access. So downloading games was essentially an impossibility (also didn't have a credit card at the time, and gift cards for any online store weren't a thing yet (and Steam was way behind literally everyone else on that front).

8ish years laters now and its not a big concern. Though high filesize on something that you keep installed (as opposed to being able to finish then uninstall) could potentially become a problem I guess. If Rocket League was 60 or 70 gigabytes, I might start questioning the use of space for how much I play it, since I could fit a good half dozen other game options for variety in that space.

 

[sanquin]

I have an unlimited 150/15 MB download connection, so no I don't care about it. Though I can see how it can be a huge problem. I also got a 2 TB harddisk so I didn't have to worry about size on my disk.

 

[PurplePonyArcade]

File size is what prevents me from getting Blazblue Centralfiction on PC. The port is 52 damn gigs! I do not think it is even half of that on console.

 

[JemothSkarii]

Yeah, a bit. Mostly because I'm too spooked to install a new bigger hard-rive in my PC and I have no friends around at the moment capable of doing it. Curse my cripple hands and the pain of plugging and unplugging my computer.

Also Australian data caps. I've had Max Payne 3 in my library for years, and while I had downloaded and played it initially, I eventually deleted it to make more room. Now when I think of playing it again, that 30GB download keeps glaring at me.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

No, but it has irritated me.

I remember the original Titanfall was about 50 GB and that was a multiplayer only title with few maps. The culprit? All the language packs. I believe it was all the audio they had, but why they didn't just let you choose what language you use and then download just that is beyond me.

Also Elder Scrolls Online features a hefty 80GB download, and then at least 20GB of patches on top of that through their proprietary launcher.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Yes, especially during the 90's when PCs had miniscule hard drive space. Our family was always behind the times when it came to computers (a trend that continues to this day), so while the other kids were playing the latest and greatest Windows 95 titles on their Pentiums I was relegated to the DOS and Windows 3.1 titles in the bargain bin for our 486. The problem for PC games isn't storage space anymore, but speed. My current toaster of a laptop has ample hard drive space, but at 2GB RAM it's woefully unprepared to run any modern game aside from certain low-spec indie titles.

Nowadays the storage issue is more for consoles. There have been times where I've considered digitally purchasing a game for my PS4, but the file size would mean having to uninstall other games I'm currently playing and/or waiting an absurd amount of time to download it. If I still really want it I'll go and buy a physical copy, but otherwise I'll pass it up.