why are they making less and less games "demos?"

So we can't try out the game before buying it and then we're screwed if it sucks.
 
There is no money in making a demo, and giving the consumer an idea how your game is before they have purchased it. The added benefit is if your game sucks, how are people going to know through legal means if it does suck. Its easier to not make a demo and pay off the reviewers than it is to make a good game that people want on its merits.
 
Demos were the best way to market games years ago when gaming was still a niche hobby but given gaming's increasing mainstream profile and embracing of the Internet, publishers can now use a huge range of advertising tools and methods that could be more effective, easier to produce and distribute and cheaper to make than demos.

A TV commercial will probably give a game more exposure and generate more interest than a demo at this stage.
 
Additionally, due to the increased production costs in all aspects of game development, (to the point where some games budget looks like that of an average hollywood movie) - there is now a huge cost associated with building and releasing a demo - not only money but time and developer resources as well.

There are many devs who would have liked to release a demo but could not due to the financial constraints.
 
becaue they want you to buy the sitty game instead of demoing it out and using the demo to fix any final problems lol I always try to demo a game before buying it that way I know if I want to spend $$ on it or not.
 
Also there is,
The fact that demos help hackers crack games. Not that this really makes any difference, the game will still be cracked in a week if not day one.
The size and subsequent bandwidth costs of modern games have become quite large. It is not unusual for a game that comes out in full version at 6gigs or less to have a demo over a gig in size.
They reveal the game sucks b4 they can fleece you.
 
look at just cause2. pretty sure the demo sold that game.

you have be selling a product you believe in to have a demo. some titles dont need a demo just by their name and others are so poor a demo would doom their game from the start.
 
If you notice, almost every AAA game has a "beta invite" these days, which can be used to get pre-sales and download site subscriptions. I think this has replaced the beta.
 
imyourzero said:
It did for me. Awesome demo. Same for Batman: AA and most likely Mafia 2. We need moar demos!
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It could be argued that Batman AA and Just Cause 2 needed demos more than the usual big-name releases. Batman was another game based on comics/cartoons/movies by an unknown developer - I'm sure a lot of people would have written this game off as another crappy cash-in without even trying it if it hadn't been for that godly demo that showed off how bloody awesome it actually was. As for Just Cause 2, the original was received with a universal "meh" from gamers and reviewers so Eidos needed to give gamers something to gain their trust and their money for JC2.

I think releasing demos for PC games especially might help offset piracy a little - I'm sure there is a section of pirates who torrent games to "see how they run on their computer". Then again, it didn't exactly help Crysis...
 
I guess that's true to an extent. For example, I have a longtime fondness of id software games and will likely purchase Doom 4 with our without a demo. Even if the game garners mixed reviews like Doom 3 did, I have enough emotional interest in the company and the franchise to buy the next iteration regardless. So no, they do not need to release a demo in order to ensure a sale from me.

Chronicles of Riddick: EFBB and F.E.A.R. are examples of a game that probably benefited from demos. They were both new and couldn't stand on the shoulders of previous games in the series. Had there not been demos, I probably would have relied on reviews and word of mouth which may have been enough to sell me. But by releasing a demo that gave me a taste of the full game, they whet gamers' appetites and ensured that many of them would purchase the full game.

I fully agree that if the JC2 demo had not been released, many people would have simply written it off as the sequel to a fun but flawed game. Some would have purchased it and spread the word of how improved it really was, but many would have remained skeptical since the original was met with the "meh" reception that you describe.

Although I'm a proponent of demos, I do agree that a demo of a crappy game probably won't do much good. Releasing a demo of games like Big Rigs or Terminator 3 probably wouldn't have much of an effect as far as increasing sales.
 
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Would never have played bf1942 if it wasn't for the secret weapons demo, and I probably would have gotten BF2 regardless, but the gulf of omar demo sealed it for me. Diablo 2 also grabbed my interest with the demo.

Back when I was younger, it was all about the demo. Now I guess I have a better idea of what I like, and also it also seems like I'm playing a lot of sequels.
 
i played re-volt demo 24hours daily. until the retail came and i bought it. best game ever!!
 
It's because piracy has replaced the need for demos. Why would a company need to put out a demo when everybody can already try out the whole game for free?
 
I think the main reason for *not* doing demos is that it diverts resources from actually working on the game. The Demo has to be built, packaged, QA'd and distributed in it's own right, which leaves less time for the actual game.

Also with the growth and spread of broadband internet and the online gaming media it's easier to pump out videos and interviews and shit without having to rely on small sites or magazines so much. I'm old enough to remember when maybe a couple of print interviews and some crappy adverts was all you knew about a game unless it was on a disk (or cassette!) on the front of a magazine. The amount of info we get about games before they launch now is incredible by comparison.

Also If the company is going to spend a fuckton on marketing they don't need a demo so much.

I strongly suspect it's an inverse relationship, the bigger the marketing push, the less likely there is to be a demo.
 
ar09 said:
i played re-volt demo 24hours daily. until the retail came and i bought it. best game ever!!
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O yes!, I forgot about re-volt. Who would of thought a demo of racing RC cars would be so much fun. I played the demo for days, never bought the game.
 
How about when a demo is so good that no one wants (needs) to buy the real game? I remember playing UT99 demo for almost a year before obtaining the retail version. Those were the days...
 
Honestly I think for multiplayer-heavy games I would prefer to see open betas (not these "preorder this US$60 game and get beta access!" crap) rather than demos of one pointless 10-minute SP level. We've seen games like Modern Warfare 2 and Gears of War 2 have huge and persistent exploits, bugs and glitches because of a lack of quality testing beforehand. It's a smack in the face to those who pre-order games and buy them on the first day after waiting like kids before Christmas for months, only to be forced to wait anywhere from six months to two years for the problems to be fixed.

Take Bad Company 2 for instance - the beta revealed all kinds of issues, a couple of months before launch. The game still launched with severe connection issues, but a lot of the other problems had been addressed, which meant that consistent, quality multiplayer took a lot less time to achieve because there was only a handful of issues to correct. Compare this with the multiplayer-heavy and beta-less Gears of War 2 which took well over a year to get the major issues sorted, and then another year to fix the rest. I'm sure if BC2 didn't have that beta, the game would still be plagued with technical issues since it only launched five months ago. The biggest complaints about it at the moment are concerned with weapon balancing and how a lot of players stubbornly use the cheap ways to kill people.

As far as demos go, I am liking Steam's relatively new model of "free days" where you have unlimited, free access to a game for a set period of time. Demos often weigh in at over 2GB, so downloading an entire game at 6GB-10GB isn't that big of a stretch when you consider you get to play every single part of the game instead of a 5-10 minute demo. There are pros and cons to both approaches of course but for those who only play a demo once or twice and have the download quota to spare, the "free days/weekend" model is pretty good.
 
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imyourzero said:
It did for me. Awesome demo. Same for Batman: AA and most likely Mafia 2. We need moar demos!
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Really? I played the Just Cause 2 demo, and it made me not want to buy the game. They set you up in this little minicamp, and then give you absolutely no clue what your objective is. I proceeded to go explore and just shoot whatever was moving, which gets old after a bit.

I was not impressed with the world - the ground in-between enemy bases seemed barren to me, and felt more like a game from 2006 (Oblivion had more realistic ground cover than Just Cause 2, and it runs on lesser hardware). If I'm expected to travel between my destnations in real time, they could at least give me something pretty to look at. Also, the much-touted Nvidia GPU water effect was inaccessible to me because the ocean was outside the demo zone.

Other things I didn't like: for some reason, I couldn't shoot very well as I was crouched. Also, I found the 3rd-person view confusing, because it was hard to remember if I was in zoom mode or not (this is obvious with a first-person perspective).

In this case, the demo didn't sell me on anything.

So yeah, I'm glad I didn't spend 50 bucks. I might buy the game at 20, but not a dollar more. From this experience, I rarely pay full price for a game without a demo.
 
But isn't that the point of a demo if it allowed you to make a decision to not buy a game that you might not like? Not every game is for everyone, since people have different tastes, which is why demos would be a better indicator then reviews/word of mouth.
 
probaly because demos have saved me from buying some games but have yet to make me buy any.
 
limitedaccess said:
But isn't that the point of a demo if it allowed you to make a decision to not buy a game that you might not like? Not every game is for everyone, since people have different tastes, which is why demos would be a better indicator then reviews/word of mouth.
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Yeah, but what publisher wants you to decide to *not* buy their game? Even if you don't like it, what do they care? You can't un-buy it.
 
Spewn said:
Yeah, but what publisher wants you to decide to *not* buy their game? Even if you don't like it, what do they care? You can't un-buy it.
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Oh ok, yea I was approaching it more from the consumer perspective. But I guess with what you say, it makes sense why console games tend to have demos, since you can return them. That way demos can only positively impact sales, and not negatively.

I remember I bought the original Starcraft due to the demo, and got into the Battlefield series due to the demo. Can't think of anything recent though. Although I did get someone I know to buy TF 2 after sending him a guest pass recently, so maybe they still work?
 
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I think this applies to pc demos, and i agree there should be more
 
its about the money guys. problem with that time spent on a demo takes away from the regular game, and pre-releases may include bugs that get associated with the regular game. good theory but it introduces a lot of risk.
 
defaultluser said:
Really? I played the Just Cause 2 demo, and it made me not want to buy the game. They set you up in this little minicamp, and then give you absolutely no clue what your objective is. I proceeded to go explore and just shoot whatever was moving, which gets old after a bit.

I was not impressed with the world - the ground in-between enemy bases seemed barren to me, and felt more like a game from 2006 (Oblivion had more realistic ground cover than Just Cause 2, and it runs on lesser hardware). If I'm expected to travel between my destnations in real time, they could at least give me something pretty to look at. Also, the much-touted Nvidia GPU water effect was inaccessible to me because the ocean was outside the demo zone.

Other things I didn't like: for some reason, I couldn't shoot very well as I was crouched. Also, I found the 3rd-person view confusing, because it was hard to remember if I was in zoom mode or not (this is obvious with a first-person perspective).

In this case, the demo didn't sell me on anything.

So yeah, I'm glad I didn't spend 50 bucks. I might buy the game at 20, but not a dollar more. From this experience, I rarely pay full price for a game without a demo.
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I, and the many other people who purchased the game based on our experiences playing the demo, would disagree. But I realize no game will suit everyone and I respect your opinion.

I thought the demo was great because they allowed you to explore a huge section of the game world and gave you 30 minutes to do whatever you liked. If you wanted to just drive around, you could. If you wanted to blow stuff up, you could. If you wanted to do a mission, you were allowed to do so. But I'm a fan of sandbox games, and the fact that I wasn't forced along a linear path appealed to me. I even had the choice of whether to do a mission or just feck around and do what I pleased...I thought that was pretty cool.

If you need to be driven by a storyline, this game is not for you. If you didn't know where to go to start the missions, it would get boring to simply parachute around and shoot cars. But the missions are fun and things blow up real good. :) I'll admit that because the world is so huge, it can be a chore to travel over vast sections of forest/sand/water if you don't have an airplane. I've completed the full game and have spent many of those hours just getting from one point to another (but it never seems as painful as in Far Cry 2, lol).

IIRC, someone did locate a section of water in the demo (I'm thinking it was in the top right of the demo area) and though it wasn't the ocean, it was enough to showcase some of the water effects. I also had no problem distinguishing between zoomed and non-zoomed mode.

In any case, thanks for contributing to the discussion and I'm sorry that the demo failed to impress you. Despite how much I liked the demo, I couldn't bring myself to shell out $50 either and ended up picking it up on sale for $25. It was well worth that amount. Same for Mafia II. I really like the demo, but I have too many games to play so I'm going to wait until it goes on sale to pick it up.
 
KenG10 said:
How about when a demo is so good that no one wants (needs) to buy the real game? I remember playing UT99 demo for almost a year before obtaining the retail version. Those were the days...
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Seriously, that demo was awesome! Online play with 4 levels! I played it a ton.
 
Demos, in general, don't get people to buy games. They do, however, make people not buy them.
 
There are three aspects to it that I've heard:

1) Time, and by extension, money. It takes both to create a cut down version of the game. Not a ton, but enough that it's easy to avoid making a demo in order to shave a little bit of cost.
2) Lost sales. A developer may not be confident in the state of their game. Or, they may think their game is great, but that a demo would not do it justice and would paint an unflattering picture of an otherwise good game.
3) Piracy. Sometimes a demo executable can be used to get a good start on removing the copy protection from the release executable.
 
I think demos may be moving more to timed trials passes for the full game. MMOs have been doing this for awhile. Valve and Steam also have been extensively doing this, SC 2 does this.

For the developer they have to spend minimal resources in making it work, as you do not need to develop/QA a separate release like a demo.

For the user, you can easily transfer your progress from trial to full game, and do not have to redownload/install the full version while uninstalling the demo.

By seeing more of the actual version/build of the game you will buy, and being able to experience playing it with people you know would also more likely convince someone to buy. As with traditional demos you are likely playing with a separate user base, and possibly an older/more buggy build of the game.

You also can't play the trial forever as it is timed. From the publishers perspective this is more like a try and buy, rather then giving someone an alternative product.
 
LOCO LAPTOP said:
Not buy them because the game sucks.

Same rule apply when someone torrents a game.
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I tend to believe that when someone torrents a game though, that even if though don't complete the game, they still play more of it than what the demo offered.

If the game stunk so bad, why'd they play so much of it?


My brother worked for Pizza Hut. People would call in and complain about their pizza and want a refund. He'd ask them to bring in the uneaten portion so they could see what may have been wrong with it. They couldn't, as they ate the whole thing.

How bad could it have been if they ate the whole pizza?
 
Tolyngee said:
I tend to believe that when someone torrents a game though, that even if though don't complete the game, they still play more of it than what the demo offered.

If the game stunk so bad, why'd they play so much of it?


My brother worked for Pizza Hut. People would call in and complain about their pizza and want a refund. He'd ask them to bring in the uneaten portion so they could see what may have been wrong with it. They couldn't, as they ate the whole thing.

How bad could it have been if they ate the whole pizza?
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lol I work at a frozen yogurt store and I had few customer who wanted refund after they ate portion of it. reason? price was too high.

anyways, as for demo... I dont even give them a try because most of the ones I played were too short anyways. i just stick to the reviews for how the game is
 
NKDietrichs list basically sums up my thoughts.

I also think demos on open platforms are really just shooting yourself in the foot these days but you should have reasonable expectations of having demos on closed platforms.
 
Like LOCO LAPTOP said they don't get you to buy they make you not buy.

main reason for most games..IF you see it and go that doesn't look anything like the ads...
Where is all the stuff you said was in the game etc

I hate to say but I think people posting beta footage and videos sells more than demos
I like demos because you can tell right away...FING PORT or crappy graphics and bad design

they put out demos on consoles because most of them....AH HELL it wont' change anything if someone says why.
 
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