Recommended/acceptable size for a downloadable game

#1 I cant answer as a publisher ,but as a buyer i dont really care if the game is 600 mb or moore if the game is really good !!!
I buy it and download it anyway .

#2 Under 10MB. Demo recommended under 4MB.

#3 Depends on the Genre, too. 3 or 4 MB sounds nice for a puzzle game, but I might breeze right past a FPS that small, since I'd assume it doesn't have very much content.

#4 I agree with Mark. If you have a GOOD demo, and screenshots show a compelling game, I believe a very large download is not out of the question. Look at the people who download warez. While most is stripped, they are still several hundred MB on average.

#5 Our ISP just upgraded us from 256kb to 1024kb, for free. I live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Bandwidth is becoming less of an issue... though, it's still an issue...

A neat thing that Halflife2 does is stream enough to start and then continues streaming as you play. It just gets you into the game that much faster... I think we'll see more and more of this in the near future... It's quite easy to do... peer to peer stuff like Bittorrent can also be leveraged.

I believe it's somewhat genre related. Minions of Mirth is a massively single player RPG* with quite a large, persistent world. I believe our audience is far more interested in the game than hindered by a moderate download. For anyone (extremely) strapped for bandwidth, there'll be a Jewel Case version...

On my DSL:

30mb Demo, 100mb Game = 5 minutes, 15 minutes

60mb Demo, 200mb Game = 10 minutes, 30 minutes

-Josh Ritter
Technical Director
Prairie Games

* - Multiplayer is coming

#6 At IGC, someone mentioned the 10 MB/100 MB cutoffs.

If a user is willing to wait through a 6 MB download, they will probably wait through a 9 MB download (< 10 MB).

If they are willing to wait through a download of over 10 MB, then they will probably be willing to wait through a download of up to 100 MB. (> 10 MB and < 100 MB)

Then, of course, if they are willing to download something over 100 MB, then they will be probably be willing to download just about anything. (>100 MB

However, they did mention a "magic" download size of "under 8 MB".

#7 Taking a look at the Games on the GG site we have:

Game              - Demo    - Full Version Size (based on what the page says)
RocketBowl        - 13.4MB  - 13.4MB 
Marble Blast Gold - 9.4MB   - 23.7MB
Think Tanks       - 6.6MB   - 10.9MB 
Lore              - 43.5MB  - 62.6MB 
Void War          - 10.6MB  - 18.5MB

So if your game is in fitting with this bunch it seems for the the most part < 25 Megs.

#8 Not sure if this will be helpful at all, but I'll chime in.

Of the games listed above I have downloaded all the demos except Lore, and thats mainly because of the size, but also partially because I'm not really into a robot game. (actually I haven't dl'd Void War, but plan to check it out).

I'm on an ADSL connection, but its only at 128k which is poor, and we have 4 people in my flat sharing the connection, so if I'm downloading large files, the others have to suffer while I hog the bandwith.

That said ... if someone grabs my attention, I will download it almost regardless of size ... I've downloaded plenty of 40 MB videos of games from Gamespot.

I think Joe is probably more clued up with regards to the online portal market and the casual gamers inclinations, so if I was making a game not for a hardcore fan base (fps, rpg's etc) then I'd try to follow his advice :)

#9 600 mb for demo
3 gig for game

#10 Thanks for the answers guys, especially Dan for compiling that data!

#11 I wouldnt do mine :)

#12 Seeing as though the original post was almost 5 years ago, I was wondering what the current standard is?

I would guess between 20mb and and 30mb for an average game. Am I off base with that comment?

#13 Mmm... five year old thread.

But it is a good question, and I have stats!

Here are the current download sizes for our games on InstantAction:

• MarbleBlast Online: 22.7 MB
• ThinkTanks: 20.2 MB
• Rokkitball: 50.8 MB (however, you can play the first map after 32.3MB has downloaded)
• Legions: 68.6 MB (however, you can play the first map after ~42MB has downloaded)

I would definitely put Legions at the high end of what size you want for a typical indie downloadable game (targeting desktops, the rules change a lot if you're targeting a console or mobile platform).

#14 Thanks for you reply Alex. I think i'm in that range. Throwing it in an installer now 35.0 mb before the installer compress. 22.6 mb after.

#15 The largest Penumbra game is about 350MB, I think. Nice physics-based indie adventure. So it really depends on your gametype.

I'd be OK with puzzlers up to 100MB, if 2D. TGE, TGEA and T3D games, with all the potential features added to each generation, would increase the gamesize needed to actually use those features.

I have a weakling 2.2Mbit line (and no hope of improvements, due to location), but I don't mind downloading 1.3GB XBLA demos, or any size demo found on GameUpdates (a torrent tracker for mods, patches and demos).

If we expect the minimum North-European bandwidth to be 1-2Mbit (shut up, Swedes :), that's 128-256 kilobytes per second. 15 megabytes per minute.

If a webgame downloads in chunks, that's pretty reasonable for anything under 100MB. I'm assuming you can play with less than the full size, then.