What's the point of disc games when they require 20GB+ patches?

[WiiCube_2013]

Games from past gens would work fine without updates but on this current gen there are titles which require huge amount of gigabytes to be downloaded in order to play the games, though, in the future where there isn't support for them then they are pretty much unplayable?

This really defeats the whole purpose of buying physical copies when it's necessary to download the rest of the content.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

A) AFAIK, there was a single game that actually required a day one patch that was 20GB or whatever, and that was the Halo Master Chief Collection. I can hardly think of any other games that actually "required" a patch that was more than a couple GBs at most. I think the only exception was Sniper Elite 3 that had a 10GB patch, but it wasn't even really "required" to play the game.

B) Actually, pretty much all games don't actually need those day one patches to be playable, the whole point of day one patches are to fix whatever issues a game might have had that devs couldn't fix before release. For a recent example, look at the Witcher 3. When it released on the Xbox One to reviewers and such, they reported having issues with the game's framerate and AI and such, CD Projekt Red saw that and threw in a patch to help fix the issues on the official release date. Do players absolutely need to install this patch? No, not at all. But is it there if you want the game to run better? Yeah, sure (though I guess the day one patch fixed one issue and then caused another, but whatever). And it's a "small" 600MB patch, a far cry from "20gb+"

C) Maybe you're confusing disc installations and day one patches, because most current games do require you install 20-50GBs of data to the HDD which can take some time, but this is simply to help decrease load times of games and lengthen the disc drive's life.

 

[RevPokemon]

To make you buy the console with more HDD space

Seriously though, normally even with patches and dlc you save a little bit of room and it adds up

 

[WiiCube_2013]

A) AFAIK, there was a single game that actually required a day one patch that was 20GB or whatever, and that was the Halo Master Chief Collection. I can hardly think of any other games that actually "required" a patch that was more than a couple GBs at most. I think the only exception was Sniper Elite 3 that had a 10GB patch, but it wasn't even really "required" to play the game.

B) ACtually, pretty much all games don't actually need those day one patches to be playable, the whole point of day one patches are to fix whatever issues a game might have had that devs couldn't fix before release. For a recent example, look at the Witcher 3. When it released on the Xbox One to reviewers and such, they reported having issues with the game's framerate and AI and such, CD Projekt Red saw that and threw in a patch to help fix the issues on the official release date. Do players absolutely need to install this patch? No, not at all. But is it there if you want the game to run better? Yeah, sure (though I guess the day one patch fixed one issue and then caused another, but whatever). And it's a "small" 600MB patch, a far cry from "20gb+"

C) Maybe you're confusing disc installations and day one patches, because most current games do require you install 20-50GBs of data to the HDD which can take some time, but this is simply to help decrease load times of games and lengthen the disc drive's life.

I was thinking of the likes of Halo MCC, Elder Scrolls and others but since you say it doesn't affect the games themselves then that's not something to worry about.

 

[sj33]

B) ACtually, pretty much all games don't actually need those day one patches to be playable, the whole point of day one patches are to fix whatever issues a game might have had that devs couldn't fix before release. For a recent example, look at the Witcher 3. When it released on the Xbox One to reviewers and such, they reported having issues with the game's framerate and AI and such, CD Projekt Red saw that and threw in a patch to help fix the issues on the official release date. Do players absolutely need to install this patch? No, not at all. But is it there if you want the game to run better? Yeah, sure (though I guess the day one patch fixed one issue and then caused another, but whatever). And it's a "small" 600MB patch, a far cry from "20gb+"

Though to be fair, an awful lot of 'day one' patches exist not because they couldn't fix the issues before release, but because they have to allow a period of time for discs to be manufactured and so they send a build to be printed onto discs with the intent that the actual version that they intend people to play is the build with the day one patch. It's not always based on feedback - indeed, reviews aren't published so far in advance that a patch could possibly be produced so quickly.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

The MCC and ESO are both outliers, MCC because Microsoft tried to shove 4 games, all of which were upgraded with new visuals and 2 (I think) being ported to a new engine, into a single Blu-ray disc which, of course, wasn't going to be possible. And ESO is an MMO, and like every MMO you're required to have the very latest version of the game to even play. And since MMOs are always patch heavy...



EDIT:

Though to be fair, an awful lot of 'day one' patches exist not because they couldn't fix the issues before release, but because they have to allow a period of time for discs to be manufactured and so they send a build to be printed onto discs with the intent that the actual version that they intend people to play is the build with the day one patch. It's not always based on feedback - indeed, reviews aren't published so far in advance that a patch could possibly be produced so quickly.

Piratically every "major" game release is given to reviewers days, and sometimes weeks, in advance. The only reason you don't see their initial thoughts is because of embargo's on when the reviews can actually be posted.

 

[RevPokemon]

Though to be fair, an awful lot of 'day one' patches exist not because they couldn't fix the issues before release, but because they have to allow a period of time for discs to be manufactured and so they send a build to be printed onto discs with the intent that the actual version that they intend people to play is the build with the day one patch. It's not always based on feedback - indeed, reviews aren't published so far in advance that a patch could possibly be produced so quickly.

At least for a day one patch anyway but it could be testers or qa found something they didn't see before

 

[VinsCool]

Because everyone is betatesters, and we have to enjoy bugs, crashes and game breaking glitches. developpers discovered that not only they save money in beta testing, but also could release the game earlier.

That pisses me off.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Because everyone is betatesters, and we have to enjoy bugs, crashes and game breaking glitches. developpers discovered that not only they save money in beta testing, but also could release the game earlier.

That pisses me off.

99% of the time it's the publishers fault, not the devs. It's the publishers who push game devs to release the game as soon as possible regardless of any issues.

 

[RevPokemon]

99% of the time it's the publishers fault, not the devs. It's the publishers who push game devs to release the game as soon as possible regardless of any issues.

Reminds Me of sonic 06 when they rushed it up and cut the team in half for a Christmas release

 

[VinsCool]

99% of the time it's the publishers fault, not the devs. It's the publishers who push game devs to release the game as soon as possible regardless of any issues.

My bad. But the day one patches issue is still there.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Reminds Me of sonic 06 when they rushed it up and cut the team in half for a Christmas release

Wasn't Sonic 06 finished but a fire started in the offices and burned the PCs or something? They needed to start to make the game from scratch and didn't have enough time iirc.

 

[RevPokemon]

Wasn't Sonic 06 finished but a fire started in the offices and burned the PCs or something? They needed to start to make the game from scratch and didn't have enough time iirc.

Don't sure think is rushed for Xmas for sales and team was split for secret of the rings

 

[JoostinOnline]

Games from past gens would work fine without updates but on this current gen there are titles which require huge amount of gigabytes to be downloaded in order to play the games, though, in the future where there isn't support for them then they are pretty much unplayable?

This really defeats the whole purpose of buying physical copies when it's necessary to download the rest of the content.

You would still need to download the updates if you got the download version.

 

[Foxi4]

You don't need discs - go digital. Installations are required because most resources are compressed and thus are harder to stream, plus you can't install patches or DLC to a non-rewritable disc. As of today their only benefits are collector's value and marginal space savings. Microsoft wanted to fix the issue with complete installs, but everyone cried foul, so there you go - consoles still a generation behind PC's because gamers are scared of change.

 

[JoostinOnline]

You don't need discs - go digital. Installations are required because most resources are compressed and thus are harder to stream, plus you can't install patches or DLC to a non-rewritable disc. As of today their only benefits are collector's value and marginal space savings. Microsoft wanted to fix the issue with complete installs, but everyone cried foul, so there you go - consoles still a generation behind PC's because gamers are scared of change.

If we're talking about consoles, you can usually get much better sales on discs. I'm not counting used sales either.

Plus you can trade in your discs for 2.74% of their original value.

 

[Jaggent360]

Duuuuh. no point.

 

[Depravo]

If we're talking about consoles, you can usually get much better sales on discs. I'm not counting used sales either.

Plus you can trade in your discs for 2.74% of their original value.

That's true. Games can cost more in a PSN 50% off sale than a brand new physical copy at regular Amazon prices.

 

[Foxi4]

That's indeed the drawback of digital, but flash sales are slowly but surely creeping into the ecosystems. If it works for Valve, I'm sure it'll work for Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Not having to deal with discs is a huge advantage to me, it's a shame that we don't have full installs on consoles yet, I think that's the way to go if people insist on buying physical copies, it's just a matter of creating a system that doesn't enable piracy while allowing users to install their games.

 

[JoostinOnline]

As to the thread title, what game has a 20GB update?