Physical MGS 5 PC Disk Only Comes with 8MB of Data

While Digital sales of PC games are here to stay—and thriving (obviously), due to the convenience of the service—there are still reasons someone might want to buy a physical copy of a game. For example, if they don’t trust Steam or putting their Credit Card online. It’s possible Steam doesn’t have the games you want (looking at you, Hidden Object games), or maybe you just like having a physical disk in your hand. But for some people, it’s not a matter of personal preference, it’s a matter of functionality: there still exist people in parts of the world where their internet is bad, or their data is limited, and some of those people might be gamers. And to download a whole game can be a daunting, if not impossible task… therefore, disc-based games are a necessity, rather than a luxury…

At least--I mean--as far as recreational activities go.

The point is, there’s always a good reason why someone would buy a disc rather than merely download something. And whatever reasons those are, they should be respected. Respect, of course, is exactly what Konami is worst at, so it shouldn’t surprise you at all when I tell you they managed to screw up the physical copies of the PC version of their latest blockbuster, Metal Gear Solid V.

See, it’s a big game: 28GB, to be precise. Yet, for some baffling reason, all the data on a MGS V PC game disc amounts to 8MB. How could that possibly be?

Easy. The actual game isn’t installed on the disk: rather, you’re paying 60+ dollars for a Steam Installer to download the digital copy of the game.

Now, for most of us, that’s not actually a problem: sure, it feels a little cheap, and it does mean you have to have Steam on your computer to make it work, but that’s not really the problem here. The problem is that the aforementioned people with data limits and slow internet are basically left dead in the water. And Konami, a company stationed in Japan where good internet is actually not terribly common, couldn’t have done that out of ignorance. They just didn’t care, because by the time most people find out they’ve been ripped off they already spent their money and it’s possible they won’t be able to return the disk because the box was already opened.

So, if it wasn’t clear by now: Konami is a jerk. But more than that, I think it proves one decisive thing: they don't even care about hiding it anymore.  So at least they're owning up now.