Game files are growing faster than internet speeds

It’s great that video games are getting bigger, more complex, and with better graphics. However, there’s a challenge. Downloading them might make you feel like you’re trying to download a movie through a dial-up internet connection.

Sony UK Managing Director Fergal Gara caused a bit of a to-do in the gaming world today when he revealed, via a Eurogamer interview, that the digital download of PS4 launch title Killzone: Shadow Fall was “cracking on for 50GB.” That’s a pretty hefty file size whether you’re comparing it to the 500GB of hard drive space built in to every PS4 or to the broadband speeds in most US homes these days.

Of course, you can still buy the game on a disc rather than clogging up your broadband with that massive download. The PS4 also offers the ability to start playing a downloading game before it is completely finished. Still, that whopper of a file size got us thinking: have game sizes been increasing faster or slower than broadband download speeds in recent years? That is to say, does a game take more or less time to download, on average, than it did in the recent past?