For a user on a 512 kbps connection in 2008, downloading an 8 GB file was a multi-week, unreliable ordeal. A 400 MB file, however, was a manageable overnight task. The appeal was thus purely practical. "Highly compressed" became synonymous with accessibility—a democratizing force that allowed players in developing nations, students with dormitory internet, or anyone without a robust broadband connection to experience Kratos’s bloody journey. It was a grassroots solution to a global infrastructure problem, turning a flagship AAA title into shareware in all but name.
To discuss this phenomenon is to immediately confront the issue of copyright infringement. Downloading a compressed ISO of God of War is, for the vast majority of users, an act of piracy. It denies Sony Interactive Entertainment and developer Santa Monica Studio a legitimate sale, whether on original hardware, the PS3 HD Collection, or the PS Plus streaming service. For some, this is a clear-cut moral failing.
The original God of War (2005) was a technical marvel for the PS2, spanning a dual-layer DVD (approximately 8.5 GB). A "highly compressed" ISO, often shrunk to 300-500 MB, appears to defy logic. This is achieved through several methods: removing dummy data (filler data used to optimize disc reading speeds), converting cinematic video and audio to lower bitrates, and applying aggressive compression algorithms like LZMA or Deflate.