Why Titanfall's Install Requires 48 GB: Uncompressed Audio

[RedJaron]

True. 1 TB HDs are quite cheap to adquire too. People complaint just because they CAN.

Sooooo, you're saying the actual cost of the game is $100? $50 for the game, $50 for the drive to hold it?

While it does suck that it's a 50GB file and a smart installer would be great the whole game was developed by 60 people on a relatively limited budget (for a AAA title). All the money seen going into advertising belongs to EA not respawn since as the publisher its EA's responsibility to market and distribute the game, while respawn's responsibility is to provide a product. So before you slam them for not providing a smart installer just think about the amount of work creating a game this big with only 60 people.

It's also very common for the publisher/distributor to pressure the dev team to release to game as soon as possible. It's not uncommon for the dev team to want to wait and polish the game. But since the publisher is paying the dev bills, the dev house is usually powerless to not release something that's less finished than they would like.

Did someone really say 7TB cost 500 dollars? Pathetic.

Yes, I did say that. Go back and check the original claim when I gave that response. 7TB made up of four drives plus one 512GB SSD ( actually the poster listed terabits and gigabits, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he meant bytes. )

1TB @ $50 x 1 = $50
2TB @ $80 x 3 = $240
512GB SSD @ $240 x 1 = $240
Total Cost = $530

Care to take your condescension back?

Lack of capacity on older machines isn't really a valid reason to be upset about this either. Sure there are tons of 40GB and 80GB HDDs still in use out there but they are not likely "gaming machines". Even machines stuck on a PATA interface are capable of 160GB drives and I think I've seen a 200GB or 250GB WD PATA drive, that exists. Point is, the devs have a more valid argument for including everything in the installer if your counter argument is capacity on older machines.

Yes, it's possible that those machines aren't "gaming rigs." However you're making the mistake of thinking those are fresh drives. A six-year-old 250GB drive has six years worth of data and files on it as well. I'm not saying they don't have room on them as is, I'm just saying that if this game were to push my drive capacity to 85% full, I'd be a little ticked. It's like an AIDS vaccine that has cronic rash and malaise as a side-effect.

 

[CraigN]

5Tb can be had for under 250. So 2TB can be done for around 350. A lot sure, but even 3TB which is 150 or less can get you enough space for more than a couple 50GB games.

...What even..?

5TB for <$250, but 2TB can be done for $350, yet you can buy a 3TB costs $150?

What are you smokin' dude?

 

[InvalidError]

5TB for <$250, but 2TB can be done for $350, yet you can buy a 3TB costs $150?

What are you smokin' dude?

I think he meant 7TB for $350.

 

[skit75]

True. 1 TB HDs are quite cheap to adquire too. People complaint just because they CAN.

Sooooo, you're saying the actual cost of the game is $100? $50 for the game, $50 for the drive to hold it?

While it does suck that it's a 50GB file and a smart installer would be great the whole game was developed by 60 people on a relatively limited budget (for a AAA title). All the money seen going into advertising belongs to EA not respawn since as the publisher its EA's responsibility to market and distribute the game, while respawn's responsibility is to provide a product. So before you slam them for not providing a smart installer just think about the amount of work creating a game this big with only 60 people.

It's also very common for the publisher/distributor to pressure the dev team to release to game as soon as possible. It's not uncommon for the dev team to want to wait and polish the game. But since the publisher is paying the dev bills, the dev house is usually powerless to not release something that's less finished than they would like.

Did someone really say 7TB cost 500 dollars? Pathetic.

Yes, I did say that. Go back and check the original claim when I gave that response. 7TB made up of four drives plus one 512GB SSD ( actually the poster listed terabits and gigabits, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he meant bytes. )

1TB @ $50 x 1 = $50
2TB @ $80 x 3 = $240
512GB SSD @ $240 x 1 = $240
Total Cost = $530

Care to take your condescension back?

Lack of capacity on older machines isn't really a valid reason to be upset about this either. Sure there are tons of 40GB and 80GB HDDs still in use out there but they are not likely "gaming machines". Even machines stuck on a PATA interface are capable of 160GB drives and I think I've seen a 200GB or 250GB WD PATA drive, that exists. Point is, the devs have a more valid argument for including everything in the installer if your counter argument is capacity on older machines.

Yes, it's possible that those machines aren't "gaming rigs." However you're making the mistake of thinking those are fresh drives. A six-year-old 250GB drive has six years worth of data and files on it as well. I'm not saying they don't have room on them as is, I'm just saying that if this game were to push my drive capacity to 85% full, I'd be a little ticked. It's like an AIDS vaccine that has cronic rash and malaise as a side-effect.

Why should the developers of a 2014 multi-platform AAA release care if the end user doesn't?

Another poster mentioned earlier, there is no benefit to putting this game on a SSD(you load quick and then have to wait for everyone else to load anyway, like League of Legends) negating the benefits of an SSD before you even get into the game. The developers are not oblivious to this so why should they care about space.

The publisher can attempt to market to a user who should probably be upgrading hardware to play this game. This type of release will be the new rule, not the exception to the rule. The early adopters of low capacity SSDs will pay most of the price, as they should expect to.

 

[RedJaron]

Why should the developers of a 2014 multi-platform AAA release care if the end user doesn't?

Doesn't what? If the user doesn't have a fresh drive? If the user doesn't care that they have an old drive? If the user doesn't have the space to play their game? If user doesn't brush their teeth with steel wool? Try to be clear if you can.

But there's a very real reason why the developers should care what their customers think: customers are the ones who keep them in business. Your argument works against you. As a multi-platform game, it needs to be accessible to as many consumers as reasonable. As a AAA title, it likely has a big budget and needs to sell a lot of copies to be commercially viable. Now they may bank on a projection that XB1 sales alone will pay for the game, but you think that will garner a lot of good will from the PC crowd that the devs willfully screwed them?

Another poster mentioned earlier, there is no benefit to putting this game on a SSD(you load quick and then have to wait for everyone else to load anyway, like League of Legends) negating the benefits of an SSD before you even get into the game. The developers are not oblivious to this so why should they care about space.

The publisher can attempt to market to a user who should probably be upgrading hardware to play this game. This type of release will be the new rule, not the exception to the rule. The early adopters of low capacity SSDs will pay most of the price, as they should expect to.

What the Hell are you getting at? I didn't mention installing this on a SSD anywhere. And again you think a developer can just ignore their audience. You're right, the devs have that right to ignore drive capacity. And we, the potential consumers, have every right to let them know we think that's a bad decision.

The conscious decision to grossly inflate the install file was supposedly to help the people with older, borderline machines, except those are the very people that will be hit hardest by the massive capacity requirements.

 

[skit75]

Why should the developers of a 2014 multi-platform AAA release care if the end user doesn't?

Doesn't what? If the user doesn't have a fresh drive? If the user doesn't care that they have an old drive? If the user doesn't have the space to play their game? If user doesn't brush their teeth with steel wool? Try to be clear if you can.

But there's a very real reason why the developers should care what their customers think: customers are the ones who keep them in business. Your argument works against you. As a multi-platform game, it needs to be accessible to as many consumers as reasonable. As a AAA title, it likely has a big budget and needs to sell a lot of copies to be commercially viable. Now they may bank on a projection that XB1 sales alone will pay for the game, but you think that will garner a lot of good will from the PC crowd that the devs willfully screwed them?

Another poster mentioned earlier, there is no benefit to putting this game on a SSD(you load quick and then have to wait for everyone else to load anyway, like League of Legends) negating the benefits of an SSD before you even get into the game. The developers are not oblivious to this so why should they care about space.

The publisher can attempt to market to a user who should probably be upgrading hardware to play this game. This type of release will be the new rule, not the exception to the rule. The early adopters of low capacity SSDs will pay most of the price, as they should expect to.

What the Hell are you getting at? I didn't mention installing this on a SSD anywhere. And again you think a developer can just ignore their audience. You're right, the devs have that right to ignore drive capacity. And we, the potential consumers, have every right to let them know we think that's a bad decision.

The conscious decision to grossly inflate the install file was supposedly to help the people with older, borderline machines, except those are the very people that will be hit hardest by the massive capacity requirements.

You missed the point entirely and seem to be a bit sensitive. I am not baiting or flaming you. I never said you mentioned SSD. I was making an argument that those people with the 128GB or 256GB SSD gaming rigs without hard drives are the ones who will pay the most for this game, in the end. I believe I used, "Another poster mentioned earlier...".

The developers released the installer like this because it was determined by the QA department, that older machines could not keep up with decompression of audio files during gameplay. Adding a hard drive to a system can be accomplished far easier than replacing a CPU + motherboard.

Do you really think users would be less upset at having to replace their whole computer to play the game when all they really need is a hard drive upgrade? No, of course not. The older machines can add capacity easier than ever and some will buy a 160GB or 250GB drive. The early SSD adopters are likely to buy a multi-Terabyte drive to supplement the lack of capacity in their gaming rigs, if they haven't already.

The number of people that will not buy the game primarily due to the 50GB capacity requirement, is minuscule at best. The decision was made to not increase the minimum CPU requirement(thereby expanding the potential market) in favor of uncompressed files.... everyone can add capacity, easily.

There are much worse things to lose your cool over. This isn't one of them.

 

[leeb2013]

actually it takes 85GB of space on my SSD, so I moved it to HDD as it only takes seconds to load anyway.

Why can't it play compressed sounds like any other game?

 

[InvalidError]

Why can't it play compressed sounds like any other game?

Because the developers apparently did not feel like they could spare ~2% of CPU time on their minimum recommended CPU for the sound tracks.

I would suspect they simply had trouble getting music/ambient sound decompression to run smoothly in background threads on lower-spec CPUs, got lazy and instead of figuring it out, they decided to use raw sound files.