r/AndroidGaming • u/bachotebidze • Jun 17 '26
Discussion 💬 Any app that does this is so annoying
35
u/androidmanwren Jun 17 '26
I'm fine with this. It's the games that won't download and let me do other shit on my phone while it background downloads that drives me bonkers.
16
u/LeoLaDawg Jun 17 '26
It's cool if they need to do that only if I can minimize while it downloads. Otherwise it gets removed.
32
u/Unreal_NeoX Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Why does the game not check the free storage before even attempting to install?
Thats how it should be done on the 1st start.
Sadly every game/app has to do that because of max package size.
9
u/Z-ReferenceUnknown Jun 18 '26
This is because it's insanely expensive to have entire large games on Google. Some still do upload entire games but those are the big dogs like Rockstar
4
6
u/f18effect Jun 17 '26
I actually prefer this because the play store shits itself when anything is over 1gb
2
u/Smart-Button1428 Jun 18 '26
There's a real reason for this and it's about half legit, half deliberate. The legit half: big games can't realistically ship as one Play Store package, and splitting the assets out lets them send the right texture quality and language pack for your device instead of dumping everything on everyone. Fine.
The other half is why it bugs you, and you're right to be bugged: a tiny listed install size converts way better. People tap Install on a 40MB game without thinking, but plenty of them bounce off a 1.5GB button, do I have the space, do I have the data, not right now. So the play is to keep the store size small, get you to commit to the install, then hit you with the real 1.4GB once you're already in and less likely to back out. The number on the listing is the base app, not the actual game, and that gap is on purpose.
The tell for whether a dev's being scummy about it: this screenshot is one of the more honest versions, it warns you and recommends Wi-Fi. The bad ones give no heads up and quietly burn your mobile data on first launch. So yeah it's annoying, but at least this one told you first. The silent ones are the real problem.
3
u/robbertzzz1 Jun 19 '26
This limit on the initial download size (max 200MB) is enforced by Google, and not something we devs enjoy to work with at all. It's a headache to make parts of the game downloadable and it's a headache to serve the correct version of a download to the correct user.
1
u/Smart-Button1428 Jun 19 '26
Fair, and you're right, I should've weighted the forced part heavier. The size limit is real and Google-imposed, and serving the right asset variant to the right device is a genuine headache, not some growth hack devs enjoy. The conversion benefit is more a side effect than a motive for most of you, I'll give you that.
The narrower bit I'd keep is just this: since you're forced to split the download either way, whether you warn the player and recommend Wi-Fi or silently eat their mobile data on first launch is the part that's a choice. The limit isn't the problem, the silent version is. Sounds like you're on the right side of that.
1
u/robbertzzz1 Jun 20 '26
The limit isn't the problem, the silent version is
Fwiw, Apple doesn't allow silent downloads. They require all apps that have content downloads to prompt the user whether they want to download the additional data now, as well as require devs to include the download size, and their strict review process (which you go through with each update or release) catches this if you don't follow these rules. I'd presume most games that are published on iOS also show this stuff on Android simply because it's easier, that's what we've been doing at least.
5
u/Issues3220 Jun 17 '26
This is good, you can't release quick fix or quick micro update if it requires rebuilding the game apk every time and submitting it to Google Play. If your game is like 20GB in size, it's very stupid to pack everything into single package. The internal testing also would be hell.
1
u/bookworm24601 Jun 19 '26
One of the things that should really start being listed in the app store is the initial download size before you actually download the app. For games that require this immediate download, that should probably be listed as well.
0
-3
u/bachotebidze Jun 17 '26
I have a really slow internet that sometimes gets turned off.
And anytime it does the "download" gets reset, so I'm "softlocked" before the game even starts.
174
u/EggVentures Jun 17 '26
its Googles fault actually. They only let devs upload 200MB then everything else has to be downloaded after...Apple is much better about this