Gaming Woes of Crap Internet

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The limitations of internet service in the boonies becomes more apparent as gaming moves along, possibly to the rumored digital only, horrific idea of gaming as a service. If consoles go that direction, I will be a dedicated retro-gamer. I have a DSL data cap of 150 GB, and it's $10 more per 50 GB increment we go over. Since we're a modern family, each of us with our own device, console streaming, two computers, and tablets, we eat through it. Not only that, but our download speed works out to 0.3 MB/second. We get by watching Netflix and YouTube with relatively few interruptions, but not concurrently with downloads. Downloads, if they occur at all, are done overnight.
  • Game Download Commitment - I have to really want to play the game, I don't download it. There is no "Guess I'll try this game." and get bored, delete and forget it. A game download is a commitment relative to the size of the download. Each game is evaluated by whether it's worth the data cost and the time it takes to download.
  • Forget About It - Quantum Break is over 70 GB, so screw it. I don't need to play it that badly, especially considering it apparently wasn't that great. Not for cute references to Alan Wake. Really, anything over 10 GB, I seldom even consider. Some games are "damage over time" bloat-fests that gradually inflate to ridiculous size. These are tolerable, though in a boiled frog way.
  • Deletion Protocol - The likelihood I'll delete a game is proportional to its size. I already committed the time and data to this game... not doing it again! Even if it's been two years since I played it, I really consider whether it's worth deleting to make room for something else, in case I'll want to play it again later. It seldom hurts to just leave it. Conversely, if it takes a small amount of space on the hard drive, I'll delete it just to pare down the length on my games list.
  • Updates - Unless the download is of negligible size (in the MB range), I pause or cancel all updates on every system, or schedule them in the wee hours of the morning. That way, we can be intentional about allowing the updates to happen just by not running steam or leaving the systems on.
The demands of gaming on internet are increasing, so unless AT&T sees fit to run some fiber lines into rural areas sometime soon, I'm pretty much out of the game.

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