Could Star Citizen’s 100gb filesize hurt its fans?
Despite its enormously successful Kickstarter campaign that earned over $2.1 million, upcoming space sim/MMO hybrid Star Citizen is not for everyone, and with a possible filesize of 100gb, it might not even be for some of the people who want to play it.
“The game compression and asset removal is unlikely to yield such high gains that we will be able to reduce our client size to 30-40gb,” Jeremy Masker, the director of game operations at Cloud Imperium Games, wrote in a forum post. “The size and number of assets that are left to deliver means that our client size is much more likely to be 100gb.”
The issue with this huge file size is not storage space. Anyone who has a computer beefy enough to handle Star Citizen’s high-end system requirements will likely have plenty of hard drive space, and data storage in general is very affordable right now. The real problem lies with the ISPs.
A gigabyte too far
Many ISPs around the world apply data caps to their subscribers, limiting the monthly amount of data they can download. Any data that goes over that cap could result in huge fees, and a 100gb download from Star Citizen could push many people over that line.
Even after the game has already been downloaded, Masker points out that game patches could reach up to 6gb each, and in some cases they could even be as high as 20gb. Simply keeping Star Citizen up to date could prove tricky for players living in regions with data caps.
Aside from the potential cost involved from users going over their limits, the file size could also be a problem for players with slow internet connections. Users with download speeds of less than 10mbs could expect the game to download in roughly 24 hours, and for many users around the world with connections slows than 2mbs, the download of Star Citizen could take up to five days or longer.
As a result, even players with the most powerful gaming PCs could find playing Star Citizen all but impossible if they live in a region with a subpar ISP. Many fans of the upcoming game have asked if the developer would consider offering the game in a physical medium such as Blu-ray, but so far there has been no response from Cloud Imperium Games.
Screenshot via Roberts Space Industries/Vimeo
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