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PS4 Downloads entire games as Featured Content

Heazy

Heazy

IT Tech
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
3,664
London, UK
As discovered by Easy Allie's Bloodworth, if you have 'Featured Content' enabled in Automatic Downloads, the PS4 now can download an entire title to your drive

Previously it would just put the game icon at the front of your dashboard, now the system is downloading the whole game to your machine. Whilst this feature has been around for a while, I believe this is the first example of downloading an entire game.

So if you haven't already, it may be worth disabling this feature which can be found in (Settings) > [System] > [Automatic Downloads]



When the download had completed, it was a locked title as assumed.

 
Last edited:
Nights

Nights

Member
Oct 27, 2017
866
-goes to turn this off asap-

I have a limit before I get charged 10$ every 5GB
 
CognitiveAtrophy

CognitiveAtrophy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,072
Turned that setting off years ago. Never understood why people make such a big deal out of something optional and so easily rectified.
 
kami_sama

kami_sama

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,006
Fuck that.
I always hate how the main screens on the xbox and the ps4 are more of a storefront than a place to see your games.
 
Lady Lunalesca

Lady Lunalesca

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,111
Please tell me you can turn this off because I did before unless she did and it still happened... hopefully that's not the case
 
Starlatine

Starlatine

533.489 paid youtubers cant be wrong
Member
Oct 28, 2017
30,440
CognitiveAtrophy said:
Turned that setting off years ago. Never understood why people make such a big deal out of something optional and so easily rectified.
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Because it's stupid and intrusive. It has no reason to be line this. Being able to turn it off doesn't make it any less baffling - despite being easy many people still don't know how to do it and will be forced to download a huge ass 'ad' for no particular reason. "sure, you can opt for us not scratching your car every week after you buy a car with us if you sign here, it's pretty easy but we're not going to make this very obvious though. What's so wrong about that?"
 
Raysoul

Raysoul

Fat4All Ruined My Rug
Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,016
60EffPeeEss said:
Doesnt this happen on 3DS as well? Shits not exactly new or unique.
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As far as I know it's only a few KBs or MBs. You still have to go the eShop to buy and download the whole game.

This is different because it does download the whole game worth several GB, wasting your HD space and Bandwidth.
 
Kamion

Kamion

Member
Oct 28, 2017
116
Germany
Thanks for he heads up.

This should not be on (at least not in this way, some people have bandwidth limits!) by default but be an opt-in instead of an opt-out.
 
MazeHaze

MazeHaze

Member
Nov 1, 2017
8,583
Didn't realize that's what the option was. I had something similar happen with Destiny 1. It didn't DL the game, but I booted my PS4 and Destiny was the first title on my dashboard. I'd never even played it. It was just trying to get me to buy the game.
 
FelipeMGM

FelipeMGM

#Skate4
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
3,012
I had no idea it could download full games, that's super shitty and can screw people over their bandwidth
 
Dynedom

Dynedom

Member
Nov 1, 2017
4,699
What in the actual fuck. This is not what people are asking for when they say fix your network ffs.

If anything, this should be off by default.
 
Beje

Beje

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,751
TheFailGamer said:
Yeah, it does that as well. Except that it doesn't preload 14GB games - only the icons.
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And, it usually only does it for playable demos or F2P / Free2Start titles, AFAIK they've never used it to push content you have to actually buy. And if you delete the icon it reminds you that you can disable the option for automatic downloads and offers to do it immediately if you wish. Nothing to do with downloading a 14GB ad into your dashboard.
 
Bonejack

Bonejack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,654
Being paranoid about such situations made me just disable this feature or similar ones on every device i own to begin with.

That's not cool for people with limited bandwith contracts.
 
LossAversion

LossAversion

The Merchant of ERA
Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,715
Turned that "feature" off on day one.

Not really worth complaining about unless they stop giving players the option to disable it though.
 
LewieP

LewieP

Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,099
Seems like a dumb feature to have on by default, but at least you can turn it off.

What ever happened to streaming demos? Not a feature I want or care about, but it was one of the first things they announced for the PS4.
 
Vishmarx

Vishmarx

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,043
How are people still "discovering" this .Its been a thing as far back as i can remember and weve had threads on it a number of times now.
 

Deleted member 8408

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,648
This is the worst "feature" I've seen in a while on consoles.

I think it's turned off by default in the EU though.
 
Kamion

Kamion

Member
Oct 28, 2017
116
Germany
LossAversion said:
Turned that "feature" off on day one.

Not really worth complaining about unless they stop giving players the option to disable it though.
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I think it's worth complaining considering that not everyone knows about the feature. I was fine with the Destiny 2 thing (just an icon) being an opt-out.
But downloading 14GB without asking the customer when he might be on a bandwidth limit should be an opt-in.
 
Lagamorph

Lagamorph

Wrong About Chicken
Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,355
Wouldn't turning off the automatic downloads to stop this also stop patches for your purchased/installed games downloading and installing automatically?
 
Echo

Echo

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
6,482
Mt. Whatever
Turned this off the day I got my Pro since I was previously suffering the same issue with 3DS before turning that off. I always thought this stuff should be opt-in instead of opt-out. Just more consumer friendly that way, like newsletters and stuff.
 
LossAversion

LossAversion

The Merchant of ERA
Member
Oct 28, 2017
10,715
Russell said:
How do you turn it off? Is it for US only?
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I have no idea if it's US only.

It's under System -> Automatic Downloads -> Featured Content.

Kamion said:
I think it's worth complaining considering that not everyone knows about the feature. I was fine with the Destiny 2 thing (just an icon) being an opt-out.
But downloading 14GB without asking the customer when he might be on a bandwidth limit should be an opt-in.
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I agree that it's a terrible feature but people with bandwidth caps should have already disabled any sort of automatic download features on all of their devices. I don't think it should be on by default either but the option to disable it isn't hidden or anything.
 
Kamion

Kamion

Member
Oct 28, 2017
116
Germany
Lagamorph said:
Wouldn't turning off the automatic downloads to stop this also stop patches for your purchased/installed games downloading and installing automatically?
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The setting is granular, you can just turn off automatic downloads for "Featured Content".

LossAversion said:
I agree that it's a terrible feature but people with bandwidth caps should have already disabled any sort of automatic download features on all of their devices. I don't think it should be on by default either but the option to disable it isn't hidden or anything.
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I understand where you are coming from and yeah, ideally people on bandwidth limits should check settings by default and disable everything that might screw them over. I agree that it's good that the setting isn't hidden or anything.
I just think, for people that are uninformed, it would be the best UX to ask the first time it tries to download featured content instead of just doing it from the get-go.
 
Mark H

Mark H

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,679
Isn't the "news" here that instead of just an icon showing up (which has been a thing that has been there on PS4, and other systems as well), it now downloads the whole 14gb of game?
This definitely needs to be opt-in rather than opt-out.
 
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