I just went to play emprie earth as usual against my pal, and it INSISTED that iIdownload a 10MB patch (on 56k no less) then directed me to a dead ftp link on the publishers own server.
10 MB is larger than any game I have ever made (or will) and I just dont understand how blind these companies can be to the plight of dialup users.
However, I'm sure its good news for us guys because the more stupid the big companies get about filesizes (the american conquest demo was over 100MB, thats maybe 2 days for me?) the more the ordinary user is going to turn to playing our games.
So remember to keep your filesizes down gang!

Doesn't everyone have broadband these days?

Oh well, I'm sure there will always be people on dial-up :), and thus a larger market for indie games hehe.

That ten megs is probably mostly taken up by vibrant pics...

It's a nice area to focus on, but I wouldn't call it the future, more like an ignored present...

People love putting their new toys to work, and broadband users keep growing... So there is definite potential for those giant sized resource gluttons. ( I wish I heard the first person who said something like that about a one meg application.)

Obviously, gameplay is paramount with any game, but sometimes the visual quality is what gets a potential customer to initially try a product. For that reason, I think a developer needs to carefully balance size and visual quality. Does anyone else think that the increased visual quality or content would give your game a longer 'shelf life'?

Besides, something like this (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-02-10-broadband_x.htm) could potentially change everything!

While it's not clear as to how long it will take broadband to become available to 90% of the internet's population, full size commercial games are increasing faster then consumer bandwidth.

Even if everyone had T1 (or better) access in the next 5 years, games will probably be on 4.7GB DVD's by then. Unless traditional retail publishers and developers change the way they develop games fundamentally, I doubt that we'll see them move to internet distribution in the near future. Maybe in my life time... maybe ;)

Having previously enjoyed the luxury of DSL and now having a 48Kb (at best) connection to the internet, I've been closely following "rural broadband" initiatives in the US. Within the next few years (and especially now with the recession), it seems highly unlikely that there will be significant increases in availablity of broadband internet access to those that don't already have it. Furthermore, $10 per month for 56k dialup is still much more attractive to the average person than $30+ per month for broadband. Therefore, I think cliffski's hit it right on the head: dialup isn't going away in the near future, and anyone who thinks otherwise is missing out on a huge potential market.

Yeah that's true, availability may increase but that won't bring the cost down. In fact my cable provider just INcreased their fee by $10. So those people who don't require the internet for their livelihood are much more likely to go with the $6-10 monthly internet access than the $30-50+ broadband (YES, http://www.access4less.net offers internet for 6 a month, I found it when I was looking for inexpensive internet for my grandparents). Though AOL is getting out of hand with their dialup fees. What is it now, $22? More?

A cable or DSL connection here in asia would cost me over 300$ a month. The dialup connection is over 50$.

Originally posted by svero
A cable or DSL connection here in asia would cost me over 300$ a month. The dialup connection is over 50$.

Ouch.