How much Internet does playing online really consume?

Data consumption when playing online

To play on the Internet it is necessary to have a connection, of course. However, each game may require minimal conditions. It will depend on the graphics you have to load, the number of players that are in a game at the same time, the type of game, etc.

For this reason, many users wonder how much does a game consumes Internet. On the one hand, there is the necessary speed, which will be what it will require so that it does not crash and be able to play normally. But there will also be the data consumption caused by downloads and by the game itself.

If we speak in general terms, an online game can consume between 50 and 150 MB every hour. Some will even exceed 200 MB and many others will not even reach 50. But in general, we can say that they do not consume much more than listening to music on platforms like Spotify.

This consumption will depend on each game and on certain circumstances. If we look at some examples, Fortnite consumes 100 MB, Overwatch about 130, and Counter-Strike, which is one of the games which consumes most, goes to 250 MB every hour on average.

You need to download a lot of data

We have seen how much an online game consumes more or less. Keep in mind that this applies practically equally to playing on a computer or on a game console. However, there is something that we must take into account and that is the download of files necessary to play.

Here we are not just talking about downloading the game initially, but about future updates. Some usually require several weekly updates, especially those that are multiplayer. These updates can consume quite a lot of resources from our connection.

We can talk about even more than 100 GB of file download in some cases. In this case, we are talking about dozens of gigabytes.

What about this? Several circumstances would have to be taken into account. One of them is that we are going to need a good internet connection to download those 20, 40, or even 100 GB updates. With an ADSL speed, it would take hours.

But also, we must be aware that our data rate may suffer, in case we connect through 4 or 5G. Simply with a 20 GB update, we could already consume the data of most of the monthly mobile rates that we have. But to play on the Internet, ping is important, in addition to speed.

Therefore, the consumption of playing online will depend on several factors. One of them is the game itself, but also the possible updates and file downloads that there may be. We can say that playing online does not consume much more than using other services, but it does when we have to download an update.