Seriously, is anyone else really tired of there not being PSN or PC/XBox equivalent of demos for really amazing games that you may otherwise not have tried? I know I sound like an entitled little shit right now, but honestly it's not that. I don't believe the company owes me the demos, but I can't for the life of me understand why they wouldn't put a demo up. It's just good business practice. It's not like it's any more work or it costs them anything, just let your clients get a taste of the product so that they come back wanting more. I tend to assume that devs who neglect to put up a demo have something to hide or are ashamed of their product so I generally skip those titles. Anyway, the point of this rant is that I finally bought Deus Ex:HR with extreme reservations, being that it is one of the only games I have ever bought without playing a demo for and (surprise) it's goddamn amazing, which leads me to wonder what other awesome games I have missed out on over the years. I don't know how many copies Deus Ex sold, and I'm sure it did very well, but I can also practically guarantee that it would have done even better if they put out a demo. So the question remains, why not? I can understand that a demo may deter people from buying terrible games, so those devs may be reluctant, but what do devs of games that are actually worth playing have to lose by providing demos? I'm actually just more curious than anything else.
Awesome games: Y U NO have free demo?? (rant)
- Thread starter radioactive lemur
- Start date
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I think you're completely right.
I suppose if they're rushing to meet a deadline then a development team might argue that they to use every second to polish the product. Dead Island for example. I gather that could charitably be described as 'a little buggy' - imagine how much worse it would have been if the dev team had taken a week off of debugging to make demo section?
Then again; how much effort does it take with the average level-based game, to cut out one of the levels and stick a demo front-end on it? That's not particularly hard to program - one person could probably bang that out in a day.
Bigger games, open world sandbox ones are probably harder to make a demo for - because there you have to rope off boundaries and stop the player from having 'too much' of the full game. So that might take more than a day and I can forgive companies for not spending the time.
Also; big name games like Gears of War 3 or the next Halo, they might have demos but I'd understand if they didn't. A playable demo wont be necessary before those games sell like discount crack in Glasgow. Some companies just feel a sense of entitlement to sales and to hell with anyone who wants proof of quality before purchase.
(And some games are just terrible, a demo would probably harm sales)
I suppose if they're rushing to meet a deadline then a development team might argue that they to use every second to polish the product. Dead Island for example. I gather that could charitably be described as 'a little buggy' - imagine how much worse it would have been if the dev team had taken a week off of debugging to make demo section?
Then again; how much effort does it take with the average level-based game, to cut out one of the levels and stick a demo front-end on it? That's not particularly hard to program - one person could probably bang that out in a day.
Bigger games, open world sandbox ones are probably harder to make a demo for - because there you have to rope off boundaries and stop the player from having 'too much' of the full game. So that might take more than a day and I can forgive companies for not spending the time.
Also; big name games like Gears of War 3 or the next Halo, they might have demos but I'd understand if they didn't. A playable demo wont be necessary before those games sell like discount crack in Glasgow. Some companies just feel a sense of entitlement to sales and to hell with anyone who wants proof of quality before purchase.
(And some games are just terrible, a demo would probably harm sales)
Yeah I agree that alot of game I've wanted didin't have a demo but what blows my mind even more is games that release a demo a month or so after the game is already out.
Yep, I agree, with all of you!!! Isn't that pleasant?
It's happened more over the years. I remember practically every big game had a demo (and back then you got a lot more in the demo). I seem to remember Duke Nukem 3D's demo was pretty much the entire first chapter!
I totally agree that there should be more demo's for games, and if the company believe it's a good game then that will surely improve sales. I shudder to think if the marketing dept of a games company would think that their games sucks so much that a demo would do them harm.
However, I do understand that incredibly tight deadlines, money and bugs would hinder a developer from releasing a demo. Still, it didn't stop them in the past did it? Although, games are bigger, cost more and are generally a larger task than they were 15 years ago.
To conclude: give me demos, now!
It's happened more over the years. I remember practically every big game had a demo (and back then you got a lot more in the demo). I seem to remember Duke Nukem 3D's demo was pretty much the entire first chapter!
I totally agree that there should be more demo's for games, and if the company believe it's a good game then that will surely improve sales. I shudder to think if the marketing dept of a games company would think that their games sucks so much that a demo would do them harm.
However, I do understand that incredibly tight deadlines, money and bugs would hinder a developer from releasing a demo. Still, it didn't stop them in the past did it? Although, games are bigger, cost more and are generally a larger task than they were 15 years ago.
To conclude: give me demos, now!