Game Demos Cut Sales In Half

Great game, bad demo = no purchase, the people who set up the demo are to blame

Bad game, great demo = the people who set up the demo deserve bonuses for creating those sales

Bad game, bad demo = bad cannot be washed or polished out of some game demos

No demo = no sale unless reviews and coverage online makes it shine, and tell me everything I need to know in order to be confident enough in spending my $60


..and I collect arcade games (80's and 90's), when I worry about $60 for a modern game console you know it's bad.
 
I miss the good old days that had good multiplayer demos and gave you a GOOD try at the game. MOHAA comes to mind...
 
I still maintain a lack of a demo hurts the publisher, and developer more than anything else, oh yeah I'm sure the game is good, but if all you are giving me is a CGI intro or an advert, that isn't really letting me get a hands on with the game is it?

If a game series has a good track record, consumers take it in good faith that the sequels will be just as good, like CoD for example. Or it it could suck the balls off a blue whale...like Sim City, the only people that played anything of it were the Beta testers in a controlled environment (they invited me to their office in Redwood city to have a go, didn't work with my real life schedule, so I couldn't make it).
 
I played the demo for Duke Nukem Forever and still bought it lol.

Low self esteem? Or you just hate your money and want to give it away? :D


I'll play demos. If it's a good demo, I'll buy the game. But, there are a lot of demos that are decent, but not great, that I'll wait a while to buy the game. It's fun, but it's not good enough for a $60 purchase. $20, yes. Demos sold me a lot of games. You get to that one point, and you're really into it and BAM! Buy the rest of the game to continue. FUCK! TAKE MY MONEY! I love that feeling. It may cost $60, but the demo sold the game. Other demos are just shit.
 
What a crock. I'm sure the sales figures are massively skewed by huge franchises that don't have demos included, while games with demos have much smaller advertising campaigns.

I agree. They need to adjust their results based on how much was spent on advertising.
 
Steve;1040004831 I think what this guy is trying to say is that game demos may reduce the sales of CRAPPY games. ;)[/QUOTE said:
 
I suspect it has not much to do with crappy or not. People get excited to try something new, and after they've experienced the demo, there will be no "excitement" when they fire the game up for the first time, as it's already been done.
 
I suspect it has not much to do with crappy or not. People get excited to try something new, and after they've experienced the demo, there will be no "excitement" when they fire the game up for the first time, as it's already been done.

That must be why I bought Half-Life all those years ago, and the X-Wing series, Doom, Command & Conquer, Colin McRae 1 & 2, Mass Effect 2, I-War, Republic Commando, Jedi Knight 1 & 2, Homeworld 1 & 2, Dawn of War series, Company of Heroes, World at War, Nexus: The Jupiter Incident...Nah maybe it wasn't the demos:rolleyes:
 
you should edit this:

Haven't we heard this same B.S. before? I think what this guy is trying to say is that game demos will reduce the sales of CRAPPY games.

This is what I was thinking too. Release a demo for a game and if its crappy = no sale on final product.

Release no demo and an awesome ZOMG video of nonexistent game play = sale of crappy game.
 
I still maintain a lack of a demo hurts the publisher, and developer more than anything else, oh yeah I'm sure the game is good, but if all you are giving me is a CGI intro or an advert, that isn't really letting me get a hands on with the game is it?
I think the problem is most games these days are just average. Whether it be a high average or a low average is another discussion, but none the less I think most games are just average.

So when it comes to big name games, they want to sell it to the masses based off flashy trailers and lots of advertising to increase the perceived value of the game while not actually letting out the actual value of it.

The only time I think a lack of demo hurts the publisher/developer is if the game is fucking awesome and after playing a demo people will be more inclined to buy it, OR, if it's a small publisher/developer who can't afford to have big advertising campaigns, so have to rely more on word of mouth and people stumbling upon their game and wanting to check it out.
 
Fully functional 1/4-1/3 game demos should be a legal requirement to be able to sell games without the right to return them.
 
They'll never accept that. Most of these devs think they are infallible and pay not heed to the "vocal minority".

Until they release Sack of Shit 2:The Unemployment Chronicles.
 
I think demo's are from a bygone era and aren't really needed today with the prevalence of let's play videos and sites like metacritic I haven't played a demo in forever but I have watched gameplay videos before buying a game as recently as a week ago.
 
I still maintain a lack of a demo hurts the publisher, and developer more than anything else, oh yeah I'm sure the game is good, but if all you are giving me is a CGI intro or an advert, that isn't really letting me get a hands on with the game is it?

If a game series has a good track record, consumers take it in good faith that the sequels will be just as good, like CoD for example. Or it it could suck the balls off a blue whale...like Sim City, the only people that played anything of it were the Beta testers in a controlled environment (they invited me to their office in Redwood city to have a go, didn't work with my real life schedule, so I couldn't make it).
Helping consumers isn't helping publishers at least in the 'short-term' sense.
 
Strange, I probably would have never tried Bioshock1 if I never played the demo. It instantly hooked me, and now I'm a huge fan of the whole series.
 
1) I don't buy a game without a demo, period.

2) I have purchased piles of games after playing the demo, the demo wetted by desire to play more.

3) No demo? No purchase, simple as that. Too much stinkerware out there.
 
People need to go back at look at how the industry started. Everything was shareware, you bought the game or collection of game for 5 to 10 dollars. The games that sucked you never played again. The ones that were fun, you payed the money to unlock the rest. The only people who did not become paying customers were the ones that found a crack off a BBS, and they would not have payed anyway.

Good demos sell games, bad demos kill companies. If your game sucks, the only way to make money is to make a trailer that looks nothing like your game. Like people said above it may get you sales the first time, but only people who didn't know about the first game will buy your next game.
 
Not this shit again.
Good demo=will not fuck up sales, will increase word of mouth/hype, may in fact add sales
Bad demo=you should have fucking known better, but instead cry out that demos ruin sales... Duh, of course it does. you should have known better.

Make good demos=happy everybody
 
The two demos I tried, I bought the games for (unreal tournament 3, and crysis) around 2007. (don't think ive played a demo since...) they just don't make them anymore.
 
No, they aren't. They're discovering there's a correlation between the two.

I can't even remember the last PC game I played that had a true demo.

Lo Wang Shadow Warrior......pretty sure
:D
 
1) I don't buy a game without a demo, period.

2) I have purchased piles of games after playing the demo, the demo wetted by desire to play more.

3) No demo? No purchase, simple as that. Too much stinkerware out there.

I think you're outnumbered by people who are inclined to buy a game without a demo and publishers are more interested in the majority who are more easily bought with flashy trailers and advertising.

There's a reason advertising budgets for AAA games these days can match or exceed actual development costs.
 
I think you're outnumbered by people who are inclined to buy a game without a demo and publishers are more interested in the majority who are more easily bought with flashy trailers and advertising.

There's a reason advertising budgets for AAA games these days can match or exceed actual development costs.

I can't miss something I have never had then eh?

I'm very old school in this respect, been doing shareware since the days of Doom, Dark Forces and Tie Fighter. Hell, I think I still have Doom and Heritic on floppy disks.

It reaks of losers complaining no one will buy thier crappy games, just like Hollywood bitching about how twitter and Facebook are impacting movie sales. It use to take weeks via word of mouth a movie is a bomb, now all it takes is a day or two if that.
 
1) I don't buy a game without a demo, period.

2) I have purchased piles of games after playing the demo, the demo wetted by desire to play more.

3) No demo? No purchase, simple as that. Too much stinkerware out there.

I follow the same rules. I don't even bother with games that don't have demos. If I do end up buying it is because it is less than $10 on Steam.

I would be happy with every game offering a 60 minute timed play session to try it first.
 
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