‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’ PC Piracy Going Strong, But Could It Signal The End Of Illegal Downloads?
The Wolfenstein: The New Order PC game has been downloaded a lot (over 100,000 times), in spite of its apparently massive size. With the new console games commonly weighing in at almost 50 GB each, PC downloads are bound to become just as large, and bigger as developers push the limits of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Yes, hard drive space is getting larger to accommodate larger files, but internet bandwidth isn’t getting any higher, especially if net neutrality is taken away.
This means that illegal downloads of newer games could each take days or even weeks, depending on your average speed. It also means that unless you get a larger hard drive, more than a few games could easily take up all of the room you have on your computer.
Wolfenstein: The New Order‘s PC version clocks in at a whopping 43 GB, similar to the size reported for Call of Duty: Ghosts on the current generation consoles. Older games used to weigh in at an average up to 7 GB, with titles like Grand Theft Auto V pushing the limit even further.
Some gamers on bit torrent sites have become upset with the hard drive space needed for the latest illegal download craze, claiming they would “have to uninstall like 10 games” just to make room for the latest Wolfenstein.
Does this mean that pirates will get discouraged as illegal downloads will start taking several times longer to finish? The games will only get larger, too. Every generation gets more and more complex as developers like Bethesda learn to program more effectively and push the graphics and effects further. We can probably expect Xbox One and PlayStation 4 titles to ring in at sizes around 60 GB or more in a few years, and PC games will follow suit. Wolfenstein pirates probably won’t be the last batch of gamers to discover this setback, and it could result in a need for physical shipping, in which case there will be a price involved anyway.
Wolfenstein: The New Order has been pirated more than 100,000 times. http://t.co/k4j5zOx6ID pic.twitter.com/cz8W7e2ERV
— GameSpot (@gamespot) May 28, 2014
FedEx, UPS, and USPS will charge for any package you send with their service, and that cost will most likely be transferred to the person looking for an illegal copy. The seller of games like a pirated Wolfenstein: The New Order PC version could also charge a burning fee on top of it, and there won’t be any guarantee that it’s not packed full of viruses or that it will even work.
Suddenly piracy won’t be so free for gamers if the trend continues, and you might find yourself just waiting until it’s sold for the same price on Amazon anyway. Certainly the torrent sites will see a decline in illegal downloads when the games get larger than the Wolfenstein: The New Order PC download.
Do you think illegal downloads of video games will die with this new trend popping up?
[image via vg247, berkelyhat]
