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Game On or Game Over: [Download] size does matter

Microsoft versus Sony, Battlefield versus Call of Duty and Forza versus Gran Turismo. These are some of the rivalries that can get people talking about console wars. “Game On or Game Over” is your place to get inside the minds of Nicholas and Andy as they seek to find the true meaning of gaming and tackle some of gaming’s most controversial subjects. Both are award winning authors – although the awards haven’t been mailed or created yet — but trust them. Would they lie to you?

Andy: The age of a new console generation brings with it a lot of anticipation, new hardware, new games and new experiences. It’s quite easy to get wrapped up in all the positives about owning a nice new fancy piece of hardware. Yet, once that euphoria wears off we have a better understanding of just what the new generation brings. We are almost to the one year anniversary of the newest cycle of consoles and (as we discussed a couple weeks ago) we are finally seeing the promised games being released. We are quickly going from a spattering of titles to play, to almost too many to play. But, that’s a good gamer problem to have so I’m OK with that.

With that said, there is a dark side to this new wave of consoles. One that doesn’t get the attention I think it should have. Part of it is because it doesn’t affect every gamer. Yet for those gamers who are affected by this it can be absolutely crippling. What am I alluding to? Those dreaded day one updates. A couple weeks ago it was revealed that the Halo Master Chief Collection would require a whopping 20GB update on launch. Now, I am one of those people who are not greatly affected by the size of an update – I have fairly fast/reliable internet and I don’t have a data cap per month so when a game needs an update I just download it and move on. However, my brother-in-law has terribly slow internet and an update of 20GB will cripple his internet and take weeks, yes weeks, to download. I know of friends who have caps on their internet of around 10GB a month. So, this one update will use 2 months’ worth of data unless they can find alternate means to download it.

Now Halo isn’t the only game to have these huge updates on launch, but it’s a good example as it’s just about to come out. 343 Studios tried to offer up a pseudo-apology over the size of the update but they really didn’t say a whole lot other than (and I’m paraphrasing here) “That’s just how it is.” With the Xbox 360 several games had install disc and the ability to play from another disc. I’m not sure if that was ever considered or not, but it seems like a good solution to this issue. I say this issue, meaning Halo, because I can only see this getting worse and not better. For those who purchase Halo digitally I can only imagine how long the update plus actual game will take to download. Before I keep ranting on this topic, what are your general thoughts on the size of some of these day one updates and the issues that a certain segment of gamers is going to have with them?

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Nicholas: It was only a matter of time before one of us brought this up. I was a little vocal when I found out that Wolfenstein The New Order had a 7GB update on launch, and I wasn’t too impressed when I found out that the one for the upcoming Halo bundle was almost three times that. My initial questions were how so much content could be excluded from the game disc and why the developers/publishers allowed the game to go gold when so much needed to be added via an update on launch. It wasn’t long though that I was told the reason for the update was simply due to the fact that the disc was already filled to capacity, and the 20GB was content they couldn’t fit in.

Knowing this, it certainly raises some questions about the future of this generation. With the Xbox 360, I owned an Elite with a 120GB HDD, but the average game only required 7GB of space once installed. Adding an extra 1GB for updates and a save file, each title took up approximately 8GB. In total, excluding the system storage, you could fit 15 games on your hard drive before you needed to clear room to make way for another. With the Xbox One though, things are a little different. Taking Wolfenstein as an example, the game comes in at a whopping 44.55GB in size from the Xbox Store. Rounding up to 45GB and once again excluding the fact we don’t get all 500GB from our HDD, if all games were the same size we’d only be able to install 11 games onto our consoles before we had to start deleting them to make room. This now becomes a problem.

The new consoles means new hardware which means new capabilities and as a result, larger games. Larger games contain more data which requires more space, fair enough. The issue here is that while our new consoles offer that larger space, it seems like a downgrade relative to the increased size demanded by these new titles. Considering that the Xbox One requires you to install these games to your hard drive, and considering this now takes a lot longer than it did on the Xbox 360, simply deleting a old game to make way for a new one is an arduous task if you ever wish to return to it at a later stage. We’ll take a look at this a little further later on though.

To get back to your question however, if these launch updates are required because the discs are being filled to capacity, there’s really not much we can do. Gamers want better and more detailed games and it seems developers are giving them to us. It’s certainly an inconvenience to download updates that large, but better to have it than to lose it I suppose? As far as the issues some gamers will have obtaining them, this raises an interesting point. I defended the decision Microsoft made when they initially announced the Xbox One would need to be always online because the future of gaming shouldn’t be held back just because some people didn’t have the internet requirements to make it work for them. That said, I’m one of those people whose internet plan will allow a 20GB update, but it might take a few hours to download. I don’t like it, but I’d be a hypocrite to say it shouldn’t happen just because I’m inconvenienced. What do you think though? If games are getting bigger and better and 7GB to 20GB updates become the norm, do people need to put up or miss out if it means gaming as a whole can move forward?

Andy: I’m very hesitant to ever exclude a group of people and tell them they have to miss out on something like this. While the gaming industry is no doubt bigger than it was 10 years ago, I don’t think they are in a place right now where they can realistically afford to tell a segment of gamers “tough sh*t I guess you miss out.” If the industry really wants to grow, they need the support of every gamer they can get. Forcing these huge updates and patches on people just doesn’t seem like the best road to take when you are trying to get as many people on board with your system as possible. I understand that games are naturally bigger and more complex than they were 5 years ago, that’s awesome. I’m not knocking the advancement in graphics, A.I., world size or whatever other buzz word you want to use to show how much gaming has advanced.

Here’s one of my biggest contention points for an “update” that is that large on day one though. We were 3-4 weeks before the launch of Halo when we first heard about the 20GB size. So, that update is done, they know what’s in it and they know how big it is. Why not put it on an install disc, put it in the case and ship it with the game? I don’t understand how that is not an option. That would be a huge bonus to people who have extremely slow internet or data caps on their internet plans. It worked with the 360 and I don’t see why it wouldn’t work now. You mention the 500GB hard drive that comes standard with the Xbox One (not counting the 1 TB Call of Duty Xbox One), I see that as a less serious issue mostly due to the fact that Microsoft put out an update allowing the use of an external HD, and not a proprietary drive like the 360. Any standard external drive will work as long as it’s USB 3.0. That’s awesome actually, I purchased a 4 TB external drive from Amazon for $120USD and haven’t looked back. At the time of writing this article it’s only 7% full with about 10 retail games and a plethora of arcade games. So that fix is easy, but in some parts of the world increasing internet speed isn’t that easy and is considerably more expensive.

I feel odd being on this side of the fence in this discussion because it’s something that, quite honestly, doesn’t affect me. Like you said it’s more of an annoyance and inconvenience, but there’s something about it that seems so wrong. I’ve always looked at gaming as inclusive, it seems like we are slowly creeping away from that and becoming exclusive to those who can afford it and screw those who live in areas where internet is slow or they have data caps. I’ll use my brother-in-law again as an example, he lives out in a rural area where he can’t get cable internet. He’s lucky to get 1.5 meg speed. If he was to get Halo the 20GB “update” would take him right about 30 hours to download. That’s insane! I don’t see how anyone can see that as a positive for gaming. The second he heard that the update was that big he went to GameStop and canceled his preorder, and I don’t blame him at all.

I can’t imagine my brother-in-law is the only one who won’t be getting the Halo due to that massive update. So we have to ask, are we already at a point, not even a full year into this console cycle, where gamers already have to start making a choice on what games to get and what games to pass on due to day one updates and large downloads? We all know Halo will sell, and it will sell well, what happens when a new IP or a less popular game has a requirement like this? Is it only after sales suffer that developers will take notice and look at doing things different?

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Nicholas: I wondered myself too as to why they couldn’t just include another disc that could be used to install the content, but without asking 343 I guess it’s only going to be random speculation. Perhaps they didn’t want to add extra costs to the manufacturing stage or maybe it’s a trend publishers do not want to go down anymore? If we constantly talk about Steam as the best way to distribute games and if we want console gaming to move in that direction, perhaps we need to start becoming used to the fact that digital distribution is the future and with games getting larger, it’s just going to take more to download them.

I completely agree that gaming should aim to be as inclusive as possible and reach out to as many gamers as it can, but is there perhaps a point where we need to say “as unfortunate as it is, it’s kind of tough luck”? Think about the fact Assassin’s Creed Rouge is being developed exclusively for the last-generation. Consider Codemasters releasing both F1 2014 and GRID Autosport for the last gen too. Whenever we talk about publishers only caring about profits, is it not examples like this and does it not bother us when they do? If 343 wanted to maximize sales they would have included the second disc and get as many people as possible, so deciding not to do this, what can we conclude was the logical reasoning behind it? Surely not laziness if they’ve committed to touching up four complete games and creating so much content it can’t fit on a blu-ray disc?

Something that is important to note is that we’re talking about just one game here that has a 20GB update. This one game also contains, as I said above, four games within, so that only equates to 5GB for each game, which isn’t unheard of given the Wolfenstein example before. Some gamers might have to miss out on this one, but there are still all the other games out there that they can buy and enjoy.

Keeping on this theme of inclusivity, it makes me think about the new Nintendo 3DS that features a dual thumb-pad and a handful of games that will only work on the new 3DS and not all the older 3DS units. Do you consider this too as another form of excluding gamers, or is it acceptable? We need to include as many gamers as possible, but once again, surely hardware/software creators can’t hold back just because a minority within the entire market segment can’t keep up?

Andy: I understand the point you are making here, however I think they are just different enough to not apply to each other. Let me explain. With the new 3DS that is a specific piece of hardware, and Nintendo has been honest upfront that a few games being developed for it will not work on older systems. While it certainly sucks it is a known going into the game/system. Whereas with the Xbox One, you are supposed to have access to every game and feature as long as you have an internet connection. Less than a year into the current console cycle we are already starting to see limitations of the digital age of gaming. When the Xbox One was first announced I was one of those who was excited for the notion of how they were going to handle digital distribution, not needing a disc etc. Yet after hearing horror stories about slow internet and caps on downloads I can see why so many were opposed to that model.

In my opinion there is a difference in buying something knowing there are other versions out there, and only having one version of something but it not working for everyone. For as big of a step forward as the latest console generation has been, it’s obvious that there are some limitations that will hold it back. I understand what you’re saying about it possibly being a 5GB update for each of the 4 games on one disc, yet – and this may be wrong – I don’t believe a gamer will have the option of downloading the update in chunks for each game. I assume it will be an all or nothing download. That basically defeats the purpose of a midnight release for that game because even at good internet speeds that will still take a while to download plus the server strain everyone trying to get that big of an update at once is going to cause.

Although, now that I think about it there could be a pseudo-solution to this issue. Not a full fix like a second disc, but one that can at least speed up the process a little bit. We have already seen Microsoft enable pre-downloads for digital games, I’ll go on record and say that’s a really nice feature. What if they took it one or two steps further? I can only imagine this type of update is just the tip of the iceberg for things to come, you’re Wolfenstein example is proof of that. Why not let gamers pre-download the update before the game comes out? There can’t be any harm in that can it? Put it right on the Halo Master Chief Collection product page as “Day One Update – Free”. Allow gamers to have the update locked and loaded before they get the game. This would help those with slower internet, but would also allow those with data caps to spread the download over time. Heck, why not be able to pre-download the full game regardless if you get digital or not. For those who didn’t get the digital version require a portion of the content to come from the disc to enable the game to be played. To me that seems like a good type of compromise to at least lessen the blow and keep gaming as inclusive as possible. What do you think, is that such a farfetched idea?

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Nicholas: I think that’s a pretty smart idea. Like we’ve both agreed on here, installing a game initially takes some time and there’s nothing more annoying that waiting months for a game to be released, picking it up on launch, going home, ripping the plastic off, putting the game in and then realizing you’ve got to wait 20 minutes while it installs enough for you to play off. I know 20 minutes is nothing compared to the waiting pre-release, but those 20 minutes sometimes feel like forever. Giving gamers the option to pre-download games (and/or the launch updates) would be awesome.

The question I have though is, whether someone downloads a 20GB update a week before a game is released or on launch, is there any real difference given the limitations you expressed above? Putting aside not having to wait to play the game, someone with a slow internet connection is still going to need to wait the same amount of time to download the game/update whether it’s before launch or after, right? In your cases above, that 20GB will still require two months’ of download allowance, so is it really a suitable option for them? Furthermore, if it takes two months for some people, the game would need to be available to pre-download/update two months before release – and is that something we can realistically expect a publisher to do?

Now I’d like to ask you a question, and despite the fact I can guess your answer, I’ll go ahead with it anyway. Both yourself and I won’t be affected by this update, it’s inconvenient sure, but nothing our internet plans can’t handle. I just wonder how many people fall into your brother-in-law’s boat of being unable to download the update without it being an issue. Are we looking at the majority of gamers or the minority? For argument’s sake I am going to assume the latter, and on that I wonder – are those who complain about updates and games like the Master Chief bundle just showing another example of gamer entitlement? If gaming is meant to become purely digital at one stage, is it entitled that these individuals who unfortunately don’t have decent enough plans expect Xbox to give them an alternative, or potentially dial back the evolution of gaming for the masses just for a select few? Am I just being too harsh?

Andy: We’ve talked about gamer entitlement before, and for the most part we were both on the same page. As you guessed though, in this case I think you are being a little harsh. I say that for a couple reasons. First, when I think the word entitlement in regards to gamers – I think about it more as demanding things for free, thinking they know better than the developers or having unrealistic expectations. Second, and more importantly, I see this as a case of those gamers who are affected by a very real issue sitting back and raising their hand and saying, “Hey, what about us?” I haven’t seen any of the ‘gamer entitlement’ vitriol that is normally associated with that aspect of gaming. I do think there are more gamers affected by this than we may think, but I think they are a group that knows their limitations (of their network, or data plan) and just say “damn it” and move on. They’ve had to live with this issue – that makes it sound like a serious ailment doesn’t it? Since the new consoles came out they knew it’s only going to get worse for them. I see them as more accepting of it, because it is what it is and baring a change in providers or new lines run to their houses, there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it. I mean look at this article as an example, here I am – someone who is not affected by it – sticking up for them.

The Halo example is an interesting one though. We’ve known for about three to four weeks now how big the day one update was going to be. We found out the size in the middle of October, so why not let people spread that download across two months (October/November) to get a jump on things? Barring that, why not give the option to people (all gamers) of preloading day one updates.? There’s nothing we can do with them until the game is released anyway, but it would sure speed up the process of starting the game up right when I get home from picking it up. One of the promises from all sides leading into this newest generation of consoles was the speed of gaming, little to no load times, and seamless transitions. Yet, I haven’t seen that yet. It seems pretty much the same as it always has. If both console manufacturers really want to advance the industry they have to stop doing things like they did before just for the sake of doing them.

We need to start thinking outside the box and thinking of ways to change the status quo. Preloading updates seems like a perfect opportunity to try something new. Like you said earlier, the updates are only going to get worse. We have talked before about how the developers and publishers are in this game (see what I did there?) to make money, the more the better. Is it not counterproductive to release a game and by nature of its download/update exclude a section of the community you are trying to get money from? To wrap up this week’s topic, do you think developers/publishers should do all they can to minimize these factors and give gamers options for getting the updates and content? Or should it merely be a case of saying “sorry, so sad” to that group of gamers and leave them by the wayside as the rest of the gamers fly by with their high speed unlimited data internet? For that matter, should the rest of us gamers be concerned that the player base for some games could shrink as a result?

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Nicholas: The nice answer would be “yes”, but I don’t know if I’m completely inclined to give it. Providing gamers with another disc to avoid downloading the update or allowing gamers to install the update pre-launch (assuming it would even be finished in time to make that happen) is convenient, but I can’t get over that whole “gaming needs to move on” hurdle. Absolutely, it’s unfortunate that some gamers won’t be able to experience the latest Halo game without some struggle, but we’re moving into the digital age, and if some people want to stick with old internet plans then it’s a reality they need to deal with.

The shrinking player base reminds me of the argument that developers use to make games on both the last generation consoles and the new generation consoles. Sure, it would be nice for players who don’t have an Xbox One or PS4 to experience these new games, but there’s a time when they need to either upgrade and continue moving forward, or remain put and stay behind. Once again, I know it’s harsh, but it’s just a decision they need to make. It would be fantastic for everyone to be gaming together no matter their platform or internet plan, but it’s not realistic anymore.

We don’t always disagree but I’ve really enjoyed the back and forth we’ve had this week. I completely understand your position and I don’t dispute that it wouldn’t be the best solution for everyone, but I still maintain the (harsh) position that unfortunately some will get left behind if they don’t keep up with technology. The 20GB update will take up close to 50% of my internet allowance for the month, so I’ll either need to schedule it at the end of the month or bear the consequences a week or so later if I go over my limit. If launch updates start to increase in size above 20GB where my plan just won’t easily accommodate them, then I’ll need to consider my data plans. I might not want to pay an extra $10 a month, but if it needs to happen for me to continue gaming then I’ll have to do it or go without from time to time.

Tune in next time for the next instalment of Game On or Game Over. If you have any ideas for our next article, feel free to contact Andy or Nicholas on Twitter.

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About the author

Nicholas Simonovski

Events and Racing Editor at Stevivor.com. Proud RX8 owner, Strange Music fan and Joe Rogan follower. Living life one cheat meal at a time.