You're asking the wrong guy--those updates aren't standalone executables, they're essentially data packets that Steam creates itself by analyzing differences between versions of the game, then downloads to the end user's computer and automatically applies using some sort of obscure coding witchcraft.

So, short answer: no clue. If I had to guess, though, I'd say that they probably reserve more server resources for pushing huge updates to big, highly popular games than they devote to small indie titles.

Very interesting. I had no idea there was a priority thing for the bigger games vs. the little guys. That is a big bummer.

I know this is an old thread, but I just updated your game again, and it took a long time again. I have plenty of other little guy indie games, and they push gig sized updates. They take 30 seconds.

I bet it has something to do with your huge single file "resources.assets.resS" file. It is 8GB alone. If this file is getting updates inside it, like a zip file, then that would explain it. The only other game I own (out of 1,000+) that takes this long to update for tiny update files is the "Age of Fear" series. That dev does a similar thing, updating small files within a very large single file.

Anyway, no biggie. Just got my attention again, and I thought I'd check in. Game on!

Indeed, I wish I could snip my screen now, the update time should be over a year

Originally posted by FroBodine:

I bet it has something to do with your huge single file "resources.assets.resS" file. It is 8GB alone. If this file is getting updates inside it, like a zip file, then that would explain it. The only other game I own (out of 1,000+) that takes this long to update for tiny update files is the "Age of Fear" series. That dev does a similar thing, updating small files within a very large single file.

Interesting! Thanks for the info. I'll bear that in mind going forward,

Not exactly sure how or why but i think that updates work in such a way that files need to be individually and entirelly replaced when their contents change, so yeah big file = slower updates. Used to be a big problem in some games i played, namely Path of exile with a single 15gb+ file and ~1gb updates each 3 or 4 months.

But, the update only shows a very small file size to download, e.g. 15MB. So, I don't know how it could download an 8GB file if the update size only shows 15MB.

Steam is very odd, though, so who knows what it's doing behind the scenes.

The limiting factor here is not the download speed of your internet but the write/read speed of you drive. It has something to do with steam verifying the file i think. Even if it did a 15 or so MB change to a 8GB files, it still needs to check 8GB of files. 2015 reddit thread discussing the same issue on Path of Exile