I think the game is fun and I am glad I bought it, but the decision to make the PC boxed version a 25 GB download came from a very small mind that has no clue. The reason I purchase store copies is so I don't have waste my bandwidth downloading games. Plus I shouldn't be forced to have an internet connection to play a single player game.

Bethesda said it was to stop pirating...Well that lasted less than a day, because there is a pirated version out now. This proves once again the only people that are being screwed are the legitimate owners who have to redownlod the 25 GB's everytime they install the game.

How many decades now have videos games been sold? They are always cracked...ALWAYS! You would think after 35 years of this, you would catch a clue. Stop hurting legimate consumers, and spend your the copyprotection budged on prosecuting the pirates, and stop inconviencing your loyal customers.

I mean this question is an entirely neutral way: do you have a link to them saying this? I'm curious to read more.

https://twitter.com/dcdeacon/status/654772664439967744

Scroll down a bit, after the explanation, the reason is pretty flatly stated as "piracy".

Would have been easy enough to solve the install media issue by putting PC out on blu-ray. Anyone who wanted that could spend the $40 for a blu-ray drive if they didn't already have one, like we were expected to when DVDs took over.

The way I am handling this is, I did the full download and install. I then went into D:\Steam\steamapps\common\ and copied the Fallout 4 folder directly to my external storage drive where I also have all of my other steam games backed up. Instead of having to redownload whenever I feel like playing one of my games again, I copy the folder back to the proper place in D:\Steam\steamapps\common\ then do a verify integrity. Most of the time that is all that is needed and I don't have to redownload massive games.

Thanks for this, this is what I am going to do as well. I will burn it to a BluRay.

Thanks for the info. I hate having to redownload after uninstalling due to hard drive space.

I have been playing Fallout games since the first one. Bethesda has failed me and many others on this one.

I purchased 3 preorder copies--one for my GF, one for a friend that didn't have the money for the game and one for myself. The GF and the friend are each enjoying FO4 as I type. Me, I'm sitting in my hotel room writing on the forum. The bandwidth isn't good enough here. It will take 4 days to download. So! My GF suggested I go buy the disc. Great idea! I drove to Target and bought the disc only to find out the game is downloadable only! This is a [censored] method of delivering a game. Whoever at Bethesda thought this method would stop piracy obviously doesn't know anything about cracking and hacking. At least I have the pleasure of knowing my girlfriend and friend are playing Fallout 4.

I only cussed once in this post. Amazing considering what I'm thinking.

How long is it taking you guys to download the game?

I heard that Beth probably did this not to stop piracy in general but to stop pirates spoiling everything during preload. Well, in either case, Beth got screwed with the early leaks and they screw us, the slow-internet-speed customers. Beth got rid of "karma" in the game but it seems that they are suffering from it in real life.

Spent 3 hours downloading a bit over half the 19G last night. Download was gone in the morning. Wasted most of the day waiting for the game to download. Still angrily waiting.

So frustrated with this PC retail copy...

Estimated time I got after installing the few gigs on disc was about 4 and a half hours, Telstra network.

There was a crack up monday of the game before the NA official release. So much for stopping piracy.

I got the feeling that they did it to avoid printing a ton of discs or requiring the PC version to need a blue-ray drive or similar.

I think this is accurate. The steam auth requirement is to stop piracy. The download is likely the chosen alternative to shipping the game with like 7 discs or requiring a blue ray drive. (not saying either is good or bad)

My husband and I are both downloading which I'm sure makes us slower than average, but it's over 23 hours now, and Steam says i have about 20 hours to go. Not only am I unhappy about a game I bought on disc taking this long, I'm angry that it's tying up my computer for this long. Certainly, Beth has made it clear how little they care about the convenience of those paying for the game.

I can understand needing to download part of the game as a form of piracy protection, but this much is just insulting. To me it just reeks "cheap."

How would a large download deter piracy anyway? That's just moronic.

How would 25gb stop spoilers from pirates during preload when beth sent the press hundreds of thousands of copies without placing trackers on their computers to monitor what they type to find out if their posting spoilers or not? In the future game companies should include monitoring software with press kits which when installed allows the studio full access to monitor all of the users activity on the installed computer, its a good way to protect us from spoilers so our privacy is respected when we get the full game.

Because that way the files would have to be downloaded via the internet. With piracy the files would have to be downloaded... via the internet.

...

It just works?

Again, I think you guys are correlating two unrelated things. Steam registration is to prevent piracy. Game download is most likely to prevent having each box copy contain 6-7 DVDs or require a bluray reader.

valve mods are talking about on forums have said many times that people can preload the game copy paste it over and add a crack and BOOM working game. then the customer just refunds and gets a free game. That seems like a very bad system.

Put spyware on someone's device so a developer can monitor all their activities. You know, to respect privacy.

That doesn't make any sense, and I say hell no to it. Not only would I refuse to take press copies from a studio that tried that, I would make sure that people never forgot that's what they wanted to pull. For example, any article I wrote about Bethesda would read "Bethesda, the game studio that brought us Skyrim, Fallout 4, and wanted to infect my computer with malware so they could monitor all of my actions on it..."

We aren't correlating those two things. Bethesda did when Pete Hines said that not having all the game on the physical media was to combat piracy.

If we're talking about the tweets posted above, again, I think Pete was responding to the steam registraton limitation or at least thought that's what was being asked about. In the other context it makes absolutely no sense.

What makes more sense?

1. "Consoles require disc in drive or digital download, and pc requires steam activation because piracy"

2. "Consoles get bluray and pc gets dvd because piracy"

All I'm saying is if you want to get mad about anti-piracy stuff get mad about required steam activation, not a download. (i.e. They're two separate issues)

There's a more subtle way to find out. Small, subtle changes in each copy. Sort of a software canary trap. That way they can find out who leaked pre-release.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap

Many of us would support spyware on all pre release copies and press kit copies since their not gamers so many of them go around the internet spoilering things which violates our right to privacy in having a clean game experience. Its to risky to truth press kits and pre release people since its been proven even now that those people went online leaking videos, screenshots, and spoilers which destroyed the experience for many honest customers.

I don't think fighting violation of privacy with violation of privacy is a very good direction to go...

I wouldn't support spyware on anyone especially since the next obvious target is the gamer. As soon as you get away with one thing, you push the envelope to expand it. A software Canary Trap is the best way to go about it since it has been proven effective at finding the culprit in movie releases. There was a screener a couple years ago who got hit with a big lawsuit by a movie studio as they found his copy of a movie on torrents due to an embedded code.