Poll: How much does demo/full game size matter to you?

[zoutzakje]

voted for don't care, both for demo and full game. I never really cared about game size at all. And since I never download demo's and buy the full game right away, demo size isn't really that important to me either
I don't have the best laptop ever, but it can handle games like l4d, dead space and portal 2 just fine. I got a lot of games installed at the same time and if I want to play a new game on my giant steam list, I just finish one first, remove it, and install the new one. Portal 2 is 11 GB but I downloaded it right at the release date anyways (3 days ago). I don't care about the time it takes to download either, I just play any other game till the download is ready.
Honestly, I play so many big sized games that I consider anything below 3-4 gig small. I only tend to wait with a game when the size is huge and then I'm talking about 20+ gig (*cough* Dragon Age Origins *cough*). It's hard to make that much room all at once. But if I think I will like the game (and in this case also like the game company) then I will eventually play it. It'll just wait in my steam list until then

[Martyn van Buren]

Mixed feelings about this --- I don't check before I start downloading, but I do have a slow and spotty internet connection, so for a big demo I'm not especially into I am liable to give up after I've tried and failed to get it a few times.  Personally, I liked a lot that the Humble Indie Bundle offered Torrent downloads, since those tend to go faster for me and don't have to restart if my connection is interrupted.  But I know I could probably sort that out with a decent download manager.

[Reapy]

Well based on the poll and based on my opitions it seems to be that full game, any size is fine, and demo, size matters somewhat. And I think for the demo really the problem is how fast it can be delivered to you.

I actually have not tried AI war yet, and I think I wanted to give it a whirl so I got the demo, and for whatever reason that day the download speed was pretty slow, so I left it over night. By the time I came back the next night I just didn't feel like installing it and deleted the file before going through it.

But this was really because I wasn't sure I wanted to play ai war, but I impulsively downloaded it after reading some positive things about it. By the time the download finished, the impulse was gone. It is possible that I might have played it, and not being too invested in it, not figured it out and/or gotten into it, and that would have been the end of it, so in a way it never had a fair chance.

I think that is the only reason you'd worry about demo size. Otherwise I have pulled down HUGE demos for games that I wanted to play, and mount and blade, a game I play a ton,  you actually download the whole game, then unlock it with a serial key. I got so hooked on that game that as soon as I hit the edge of the demo I ran to the site and bought it.

Part of the reason I think tidalus didn't sell as well as AI war is that the two games are separate entities. Again I'm coming from being 31 and having played all sorts games my whole life, I comfortably fit into that 'core gamer' audience.

 Part of my brain automatically dismisses puzzle games, though I understand and respect them, they just aren't the sorts of games that suck me in. So when I see the puzzle game on your front page, I don't really look at it, but when I see AI war I go in and investigate much more since that type of game appeals to me.  I think that the type of audience you get for indie games and the traffic load you get off say rock paper shotgun, is largely going to be interested in AI and AVWW style games. They are different and no big dev house is making anything like them, so here is where I will get my fix.

So really I think the problem is your core audience are 'core gamers' and core gamers IMHO don't generally play puzzle games unless their gf/wife whoever have sucked them into it. I just think the people that will find you and tidalus are most likely going to be AI war and AVWW gamers, not the main puzzle gamer audience.

[chemical_art]

 Part of my brain automatically dismisses puzzle games, though I understand and respect them, they just aren't the sorts of games that suck me in. So when I see the puzzle game on your front page, I don't really look at it, but when I see AI war I go in and investigate much more since that type of game appeals to me.  I think that the type of audience you get for indie games and the traffic load you get off say rock paper shotgun, is largely going to be interested in AI and AVWW style games. They are different and no big dev house is making anything like them, so here is where I will get my fix.

So really I think the problem is your core audience are 'core gamers' and core gamers IMHO don't generally play puzzle games unless their gf/wife whoever have sucked them into it. I just think the people that will find you and tidalus are most likely going to be AI war and AVWW gamers, not the main puzzle gamer audience.

I'm going to second this. I love my strategy games. 75% of my game budget goes toward them. That isn't a lot of money to work with, but I am aggressive in snapping up new strategy games with a unique "flavor". I love many, many other games from RPG to shooters, but my bread and butter is strategy.

In contrast, puzzle games have never caught my eye, but part of the problem is that my view of puzzles is biased. The last puzzle game I really liked was Tetris Attack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R5smeylAgE&feature=related I think I liked Tetris attack not for the puzzle aspects, but for the multiplayer aspects. In that regard, I just viewed it as a very unique game of competition!

Tetris attack wasn't fancy, but even that console port of a clone of another game is STILL more fun then the bejeweled of today. Puzzle games are in my biased book give casual rewards and satisfaction. As I see no real advancements toward puzzle games, I have come to just not even bother investigating this genre. This includes Tidalis. I couldn't tell you if Tidalis is different from the other puzzle games, but I'm still waiting for a puzzle game that gives the satisfaction of really giving your opponent a tough game because you on fire. About the only other "wish list' item I could give would be a cooperative puzzle game against a superior foe.

Hopefully, AVWW can help cross better with the audience of both AI war and Tidalis. RPG's tend to be popular with large, diverse audiences.



EDIT: To help stay on topic, none of the options really apply to me. I would have chosen "any game LESS then 500mb is a huge turnoff me" and "any demo LESS then 250mb is a huge turnoff for me". Both these assertions only apply to games I may pay for, because I don't like to play "half-baked" games, and efficient programming doesn't cause good games to be this small in my experience.

[getter77]

Also one that doesn't leave much bearing on size one way or another---things wind up however big they need to in order to meet the given quality threshold that is a target, and even that can easily wind up deceptive one the various procedural sorceries get into the mix.   Like that whole .kkrieger FPS situation.  http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger

So yes, as big as is needed, as accessible a manner as possible.

[Nalgas]

Like that whole .kkrieger FPS situation.  http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger

It's still kind of neat for actually having (very limited) gameplay, but having seen other demoscene stuff, that's nothing.  It still blows my mind that this fits in 64k, and it's five years old at this point.

[Shrugging Khan]

My internet connection is painfully slow, so if a demo is big enough to eat up all my traffic for the day, then sorry - but I won't even try.

For a full game though, if I know it will be worth it, I can muster the patience.

[c4sc4]

EDIT: To help stay on topic, none of the options really apply to me. I would have chosen "any game LESS then 500mb is a huge turnoff me" and "any demo LESS then 250mb is a huge turnoff for me". Both these assertions only apply to games I may pay for, because I don't like to play "half-baked" games, and efficient programming doesn't cause good games to be this small in my experience.

That seems just wrong. Depending on the genre and style of games, their size is going to vary massively. You have a huge 3-D RPG then you may get a game pushing 10 gigs. Then you have a puzzle game like Puzzle Quest which is only 100 Mb. Recently a game I've been playing a lot, Terraria, is only 16 Mb and I've played that game more and have gotten more enjoyment out of it than some games that are 4+ gigs.

[Nalgas]

EDIT: To help stay on topic, none of the options really apply to me. I would have chosen "any game LESS then 500mb is a huge turnoff me" and "any demo LESS then 250mb is a huge turnoff for me". Both these assertions only apply to games I may pay for, because I don't like to play "half-baked" games, and efficient programming doesn't cause good games to be this small in my experience.

That seems just wrong. Depending on the genre and style of games, their size is going to vary massively. You have a huge 3-D RPG then you may get a game pushing 10 gigs. Then you have a puzzle game like Puzzle Quest which is only 100 Mb. Recently a game I've been playing a lot, Terraria, is only 16 Mb and I've played that game more and have gotten more enjoyment out of it than some games that are 4+ gigs.

Yeah, I just got Terraria a few minutes ago and noticed it was that small, which is not at all a problem for me.  SpaceChem and Super Meat Boy are under 500MB combined, and they're both amazing.  World of Goo is only 70.  Braid's 150.  VVVVVV is 40.  I could keep going, but I think I've made my point.  Those are all fairly recent, all great games, and all under even the lower 250 MB "limit".  AI War with all the expansions appears to be under 500MB, too, so...

[x4000]

Here's the deal on filesize, for those curious: "efficient coding" has nothing to do with it either way.  The very largest games in existence are going to be less than 10mb in game logic code, I'm confident.  20mb if you're absolutely stretching it to astronomical proportions.  Code-wise, AI War is a very large game, and its actual game logic code is 2.2mb.

If you have a bunch of uncompiled script files, sure, that can add some size since non-compiled code is larger.  Also, depending on the engine, the engine itself can add some flat overhead -- I think Unity adds about 14mb of actual code on windows, but that's because it's also including the whole of Mono, Raknet, and various other libraries.  So even for an enormous game, running on the craziest 3D engine you can think of, that's probably less than 50mb for all of the code for the entire thing.  Crysis I wouldn't be surprised if it was sub-20mb for the whole thing.

So where's all that talk of hundreds of mb, or even gb of data, coming from?  Three sources: art, videos, and music/sound.  High quality music files are enormous; the soundtrack to FFX, at full quality, is about 336 mb for the music alone.  FFXII is 475mb.  Smash Brothers Brawl is 1.09gb, because it pulls in music from so many other games to go with its characters.

Then we get to videos.  Two minutes of video at 720p (and very good compression) is like 280mb.  Two minutes of video at 1080i is more than 400mb.  For a game like FFXII, the vast majority of the game is the video files.

Then with art, that's something else that takes up a ton of space.  3D meshes are pretty sizable, and the various textures for them add to it even more.  With 2D sprite based games, if those are at a very low resolution then those don't really take up that much space.  If they're pixelart, then they are likely to have very few animation frames per character (walking takes like 2-3 frames per direction instead of 30), so that also winds up saving a lot of space for a game like Terraria. 

When you get to AVWW or Tidalis, by contrast, we're doing it for an HD-sized screen and we're doing it for 60fps with much higher frame counts, so that adds a lot of space.  When you get to something like Half Life or Dragon Age, they're using up a ton of space with 3D models simply by the sheer volume of them -- one level might have 500mb of assets when they are unpacked in some cases.  It depends on the game.


So... all that is to say, filesize is not a predictor of game quality or complexity.  It can be a predictor of graphical quality, or video quantity, or music quantity.  But that's about it.

[chemical_art]

That seems just wrong. Depending on the genre and style of games, their size is going to vary massively. You have a huge 3-D RPG then you may get a game pushing 10 gigs. Then you have a puzzle game like Puzzle Quest which is only 100 Mb. Recently a game I've been playing a lot, Terraria, is only 16 Mb and I've played that game more and have gotten more enjoyment out of it than some games that are 4+ gigs.

It may seem wrong, but it works for my intents and purposes. Keep in mind I normally notice the size after I give a game a whirl, and the ones I like just never fall under 500mb after all its expansions. All those games you described I either hated or otherwise would never pay for. Keep in mind this is only games I would pay a reasonable sum toward. The first master of Orion for example is tiny, and I certainly wouldn't pay retail for it. But for 5$ to have it and its sequel? Sure!

Yeah, I just got Terraria a few minutes ago and noticed it was that small, which is not at all a problem for me.  SpaceChem and Super Meat Boy are under 500MB combined, and they're both amazing.  World of Goo is only 70.  Braid's 150.  VVVVVV is 40.  I could keep going, but I think I've made my point.  Those are all fairly recent, all great games, and all under even the lower 250 MB "limit".  AI War with all the expansions appears to be under 500MB, too, so...

AI war was my standard, and mine with all the expansions comes out toward 800mb...All those other games while great hold no interest to me what so ever. AI war also is an exception, not the rule: It is very lean intentionally so it doesn't follow my typical criteria.

EDIT: If the "word of god" hadn't stepped in, I would have died saying AI war was a lean game. I still think it is, although I suppose it is just how the game presents itself that lets it be small.

[chemical_art]

So... all that is to say, filesize is not a predictor of game quality or complexity.  It can be a predictor of graphical quality, or video quantity, or music quantity.  But that's about it.

...and that explains my preferences. When I buy a (non-indie) game, I expect an element "pizazz". I don't expect all of my games to do this, but if you want me to pay full retail price you better do so. The last game I bought at full retail was...FF XIII? I didn't buy it expecting a great game overall, I just wanted a game that looked pretty with some cool cut scenes as I grind monsters. I know I sound like a sheep, but that is why I bought it.


But that game is the exception, not the rule for me. Usually I just like my strategy, and that normally runs pretty lean. If it is lean enough that it takes less then half a gig though...I probably didn't buy it.

[x4000]

Yep, in all fairness I feel like the AAA games need to have some pizazz, too.  I mean, there's clearly different reasons for liking a AAA game and an indie game.  If AAA games didn't have such high production values... well, I won't go there.  And that's not even always true, or even usually true.  But certainly the price point of AAA games is such that I expect pizazz when I buy one, too.

[chemical_art]

Yep, in all fairness I feel like the AAA games need to have some pizazz, too.  I mean, there's clearly different reasons for liking a AAA game and an indie game.  If AAA games didn't have such high production values... well, I won't go there.  And that's not even always true, or even usually true.  But certainly the price point of AAA games is such that I expect pizazz when I buy one, too.

Exactly. Too many of my friends buy games with the wrong expectation toward them. They buy all sorts of AAA games because they feel it is safer then buying random indie games, rather then buying AAA games to get the feeling of a blockbuster. I now feel AAA games are cool, but only the creame of the crop are worth their cost. And even then, I'm not buying it for the core gameplay (ok, maybe for the Battlefield series I do buy it for that...)

[x4000]

Depends on the game, some of my favorites are AAA.  Others of my favorites are indie.  But yeah, there has to be some good decision making behind why you get any particular game.