20.9 MB - Too large?

[Sirrus]

Hi Guys,

Just about to release my latest game...
Unfortunately, the total install file is 20.9 mb.

The question is, is this going to be a big turnoff? The game is aimed at a very casual audience (obviously is more content/graphically intense than a match-3, but similiar audience) so will this force many to shy away?

I could offer the music as a separate download, but I'd prefer not to. This boosts it up about 6 or 7mb. I chose WMA as my preferred format for a few reasons so would prefer not to go modular/ogg/etc. although that could shorten my total filesize.

Love to hear your feedback.

[ggambett]

21 MB is big - what is it, a platformer? (I'm guessing Gus the Grey)

Why don't you want to do ogg? A good ogg encoder can do wonders!

An estimation of what is taking 21 MB would be useful - reducing DLL size, graphic size and sound size are very different tasks.

[Pkeod]

It's big for me! (I'm on dial up.)


Are you using MMF? I know the MMF exes are icky for compression -- so good luck :/

[Coyote]

I think if it's a "very" casual game, then you are off the mark by at least 2x.

It's arguable that a more niche, less casual game might do fine at larger sizes, but you really want to stay down under 8 meg for a casual game.

[george]

the full version or the trial is 21mb? try to dumb down the trial version and remove any unnecessary content (graphics, sound, music, etc.). you should seriously think about doing something with the music (maybe you should try lowering the bitrate if you don't want to change formats). and of course also make sure you are using the best possible compression and not accidently including any junk like hidden system files (i.e. windows xp thumbs.db file, which can get pretty large), or uncessary third party libraries, etc. etc.

look at EVERYTHING, i'm sure you can find a few size bottle necks besides the obvious. for example, i assume you have a help file, are the help file graphics optimized, are they gif or jpeg, are they 8bit or 16bit, are the graphic dimensions unnecessarily large, etc. etc.??

if you shave off a few things here and there i'm sure it will make a big difference.

and i hope your installer is NSIS and you are using LZMA compression, which usually gives the best results.

21 mb is way too big for me for a casual game... i think it should be 10 mb MAX.

[Lerc]

21 MB is big - what is it, a platformer? (I'm guessing Gus the Grey)
Ha! Finished? Shortly after Duke Nukem Forever.

Actually the number of simultaneous projects is decreasing, Gus may end up a front burner project again soon. (in the mean time why not avail yourself of the guy that made Gus the little cutie that he is http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=3105)

(oh and all those people who hassled me about being 8 bit colour, There's 16 and 24 bit builds now)

[NuriumGames]

BreakQuest full version is around 20MB and the demo version is around 8MB, I don't really know if this has a big impact in downloads, but I don't think so as some portals use the separate demo/full versions, but most prefer a single time limited (20MB) version.

[gpetersz]

No, it is not big at all.
If I regard it as a customer, 21M is not big at all.

If you calculate it with an 512 kbit ADSL then it should do around 64 kbyte / sec. It means that it will be down in 335 secs, meaning 5 minutes and 35 secs what is NOTHING if the game is good enough.

People (like me) download 285 Megs if there is a good free MMORPG like Knights Online (it is NOT an ad, I am player, not an owner). That was within an hour! So who cares about 21 megs, anyway?! :rolleyes:

[Sharkbait]

No, it is not big at all.
If I regard it as a customer, 21M is not big at all. ... So who cares about 21 megs, anyway?! :rolleyes:

"I" is not a very representative sample of the casual games market :) Having said that, 10-20 Mb for a casual game is becoming quite common. I think we are beyond the <5Mb days and I'd go as far as say that too small a game download might not reflect well on the perceived content.

[Sirrus]

Getting some really mixed opinions here...

A couple things....

>>platformer?
No. Its actually a bit hard to describe. Its a project I've kept under wraps for about 8 or 9 months. Unlike anything I've seen before - or rather - a mashup of everything I've seen. This will be Injoy Games' launch product.

>>MMF?
Yes, unfortunately. Not the best compression.

>>NSIS?
Install Creator. I prefer the format and ease of it - am registered, have experience with it, and find the installs completely non-threatening for the end user.

>>Trial version?
This is actually the full version. I just ran a test for the total size if I dropped all the full version levels and only included a couple trial version ones.
The new size is 15mb.

But I'm still under the impression that casual users like to unlock games, not be forced to download more. Any one have an opinion on that?
Not to mention that I love using my expensive Armadillo :-S


I am trying to get ahold of the musician and see if he can lower the bit rate of the sound tracks. In addition, I plan to convert a couple larger image files to lower quality size and clean up a bit.

But please keep the comments coming. Its a bit too scattered right now to get a gauge! Would really like to get this resolved for an unveiling in about a week.

Thanks guys :)

[Guillermo]

hmm why WMA for music? don't you know MO3 format (a music module where the samples are ogg/mp3 compressed)? or at least IT, XM, etc? modules are perfect for games, really, I don't see any flaw in them...

As for MMF, many people makes a new frame for every new level where there are repeated objects, these objects are saved twice, they are not shared by a common library... But if that's not your case remember that most files that got no self-compression can achieve fair compression rates when compressed, I can get about 50% when compressing MMF exes, so maybe you could compress your game into self stract archive or use the unzip extension for MMF to make some installer that unzips the compressed game...

[Sirrus]

The problem concerning the library is that very few frames use repeated objects (about 80% of the 50 frames use different image objects).

As for Ogg...can DirectShow play them? Had no luck with ModFX/Fusion. In addition, what specific file needs to be included in with your product for the end user? Always had trouble finding exactly what I needed to include.
Ease was one reason for WMAs...

[PoV]

don't you know MO3 format (a music module where the samples are ogg/mp3 compressed)?
A side question, isn't the only lib that plays them Bass, and it's only for Windows isn't it?? As in, there's no Mac player for MO3's??

[Guillermo]

The ModFusion extension doesn't require the bass.dll file to be distributed with your game and with that you can play .mod .it. xm, etc. Meaning you need nothing else besides the extension properly installed...

Unfortunately MO3 seems to be only supported by the bass.dll library like PoV says (Windows only, sorry). To use MO3 in MMF you need the DMC2 extension and a shareware license to distribute the bass.dll library with your game.

But anyways, you can make .it files, even with uncompressed samples, and save a lot of space, you can also zip all .it files for game distribution and then you unzip'em on the user hard drive. Another good trick is to pack all songs into a single module so samples are shared...

[soniCron]

As for Ogg...can DirectShow play them?
Sure can! Try this http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/

[Jim Buck]

I'm another vote for the camp that says it has to be at a minimum cut in half. The people that say it's not too big assume that everyone is like them. If you are selling to people just like them, that's fine, but if your audience is more casual, it's not fine.

[soniCron]

I agree with Jim. It's best to shrink your games as absolutely small as possible. While there was much less media back then, games used to fit on 360KB floppies. And they often had to struggle to fit them on those floppies! Point is, you should intentionally limit yourself and struggle to reach your goal. There's nothing worse than being lazy about your content. I still program as if I'm coding for a 386 with 4MB of RAM. (Ok, not exactly, but you get the idea). Set a goal, and do everything in your power to reach it. It'll make you a better developer.

[tentons]

I don't think download size is that huge of a factor provided the game is worth someone's money. If you're willing to pay for something, you're probably willing to wait the 5-20 minutes (depending on connection speed) for it to download.

The demo might be a different story, and I agree it should be compressed as much as possible, but not to the point of obsessively counting megs to meet some mirky "conventional wisdom" figure. That's getting to the point of diminishing returns. Make your demo kick ass and people won't care. I've downloaded quite a few demos from portals that were 8 or even 12 megs (meaning the portals--not I--deemed those sizes acceptable).

The point is that size isn't as big a factor as other aspects of your product and marketing. Focus your efforts where it's going to make the most difference.

[soniCron]

Make your demo kick ass and people won't care.
Problem is, if someone doesn't download it because it's too big, they won't know it kicks ass.

[Bmc]

simple answer is:
If you can compress audio and gfx anymore do it.

If you can't then don't worry about it. If it's good, it will sell. If it sells and gets some buzz then people who wouldn't download before because of the size will be more likely to download it and try it.

The average size for games in the casual space right now is around 10MB (the installer) ... so you are over. Try using different installers.

[morphosis]

A 15mb+ download could be a pain for sum unless they feel sure that it’s worth it. Creating a page with screen shots (at least 5) and game information will help the possibilities of the game being downloaded.

One game that I created is 16mb and there is plenty of information for the viewer to take a look at before downloading, the game has been downloaded a lot.

I would never download a game that was 15mb+ unless I see and read about it first.

If you are the one that runs InjoyGames.com, from your sig, I am sure you plan to do this.

John

[george]

>>NSIS?
Install Creator. I prefer the format and ease of it - am registered, have experience with it, and find the installs completely non-threatening for the end user.

SERIOUSLY think about trying NSIS, it may take a few MB off (at least try it)... As for being non-threatening, NSIS uses the standard windows intaller GUI, just like InstallShield, Windows Installer, etc. -- everyone has installed software made with those installers so they will be totally comfortable with NSIS...


>>Trial version?
This is actually the full version. I just ran a test for the total size if I dropped all the full version levels and only included a couple trial version ones.
The new size is 15mb.

But I'm still under the impression that casual users like to unlock games, not be forced to download more. Any one have an opinion on that?
Not to mention that I love using my expensive Armadillo :-S


Well I don't think this is the case. I don't think many (if any) people will be upset that they have to download the full version. Remember your goal is to get as many people to try your game out -- if they want to buy it, they will buy it, even if they have to re-download it. Smaller download size is ideal.

Also, if you are that worried about the full version download size, you can provide a full version patch, which includes just the content missing from the trial version (though i'm not sure you can do this in MMF?) -- so your customers can turn the trial version into the full version with a simple small download.

[Sirrus]

Just ran a test and Ogg seems to work well...

The question now though is what needs to be included with the install for ogg to run?

Thanks for everyone's input!

[gpetersz]

I still think it is not a big deal, but surely I agree that screenshots and description should be there to motivate download.

I, as a customer, ALWAYS judge on screenshots and description (sometimes previous downloaders' opinion). Size only comes as an xth parameter.
If something cannot be judged by opinions, my taste, screenshots and so THEN I look at the size and take what I can get faster.
But in this case, you really took some bad screenshots...

Some might say that you have to follow the religion and place the size between x and y, but nowadays it is really not a big problem and it will be even less in a year (and with every day passed).

(actually, I think that the <10 Megs is a bit strict, but there should be some size limits, maybe 50 or 100 megs, and the bigger the game the better it should be)

[James C. Smith]

simple answer is:
If you can compress audio and gfx anymore do it.

If you can't then don't worry about it. If it's good, it will sell.

I agree with this statement.

20 meg is not great but it can still do well. It could probably do better if you could compress the same content into 10 MB. How is your art compressed now? Is it reasonable to compress it more? If so then do it. If not then don't worry about it. How much smaller could your audio be if it was OGGed? If it's reasonable then do it.

There are probably an infinite number of things you could improve in your game that would increase your sales. The download size is one of them. Smaller is better. But bigger isn’t necessarily a barrier. You are not going to cut your sales in half or double them because of this one issue. It is just like all those other infinite issues that could be improved for marginal gains.

[Sirrus]

Right...

Well after incorporating Ogg, the total file size is just under 15mb so I'm very happy with that.

Hopefully once I figure out where to get the includable encoder, it won't push the file size up to much. All in all, 15mb is much better than 21.

Thanks guys!

[Evak]

I'm playing around with the Torque engine at the moment, and one of the thing that concerns me with that, is the demo exe itself not including any other filed is over 5mb. and the entire thing is 20mb with a simlpe FPS level, and simple driving game.

SInce I'm considering using it for another project, the final download size is something I'm concerned about too.

[ManuelFLara]

I'm playing around with the Torque engine at the moment, and one of the thing that concerns me with that, is the demo exe itself not including any other filed is over 5mb. and the entire thing is 20mb with a simlpe FPS level, and simple driving game..
The ThinkTanks demo is around 10MB and I think other similar Torque-based games are around that size too. I don't know how heavy the full versions are, but the demo versions contains a lot of stuff.

[ggambett]

You can #ifdef out the in-game editors in the release version of the game, for starters...

[SonSon]

The question now though is what needs to be included with the install for ogg to run?

I'd like to add the needed files into my installer too but I cant' really figure out which ones are needed. (total files are 3.42Mb!)
Another thing. Are both your sfx's + musics in OGG format, thus both playing them with DirectShow?

[Sirrus]

Download the direct show filter collection:
http://tobias.everwicked.com/oggds.htm

This includes a few DLLs that you want to package with your installer (vorbis.dll, ogg.dll, enscivorbis.dll, and oggDS.dll I believe)...then set your installer to register oggDS.dll in the registry.
This add only about 400-500kb. Make sure to include the requested EULA in your own EULA.

I use wav format for sound effects and ogg for music - so I don't use directshow for the sound.

Let me know if you need anymore help.

[SonSon]

Thanks for your help Sirrus. :)

[Sirrus]

Just a note to Click developers...
I just found out this filter actually crashes your game. I wouldn't recommend using it anymore - and if you do, to test test test.

I may end up reverting back to WMAs for ease - and back to the over 20mb mark. Really unfortunate.

[SonSon]

Just a note to Click developers...
I just found out this filter actually crashes your game. I wouldn't recommend using it anymore - and if you do, to test test test.
I may end up reverting back to WMAs for ease - and back to the over 20mb mark. Really unfortunate.

For now I didn't convert my files nor changed anything in my application. Many thanks for keeping us informed! :)
I'll do some tests if I can find some time.

[soniCron]

I just found out this filter actually crashes your game.
Those are old, and I'm not sure why anyone posted them. My earlier link are newer, much more stable OGG DS filters:

http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/

Download those. You may need to pick apart the installer, but the files are all in there.

[Sirrus]

Those are old, and I'm not sure why anyone posted them. My earlier link are newer, much more stable OGG DS filters:

http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/

Download those. You may need to pick apart the installer, but the files are all in there.

These are what i used initially...
But even after picking apart the installer, it didn't work.

I included all the DLLs in the created folder and registered all beginnning with dsf (even tried registering them all,etc.)...
Followed the installer exactly, but it still didn'twork.

Have you used this before?The installer must do something I am missing...Tried every combination.