Crytek CEO Predicts the End of Free Game Demos

[The Rogue Wolf]

Soooooo. Without a demo, to give me a hands-on feel of a game I'd be plunking down $40 $50 $60 [sub]egads![/sub], how am I supposed to know if the game is any good? Let's check the alternatives:

- Major media reviews (too many outlets bought off by gaming companies)
- Word of mouth (too many paid shills posting unearned rave reviews)
- Opinions of those who pirated the game (probably got gimped versions a la Arkham Asylum)
- Opinions of those who bought the game (probably want to get me to blow my money too so they don't feel so bad)

Which leaves me with... wait a few months until the prices come down and the full truth of the game's potential has been explored. Of course, publishers hate when I do that. And these days, prices just aren't coming down very fast!

[small]Yeah, I'm looking at you, Mirror's Edge. $50 on Steam for more than a year and a half after release? Whaddya think I am, not cheap stupid?[/small]

 

[blarghblarghhhhh]

i dont understand why a demo would be expensive to make. all most of them do anyways is snip out a nondescript 15 minutes from the campaign. if i can play through a 15 minute demo two times in a row and want to do it a third time the game is worth investing in to me.

 

[Antari]

This idiot doesn't have a clue, the demo and the full product should have so much in common code wise that any of those "extra" costs can be considered normal testing. I don't know how any of you can even think about going along with this.

Next we'll all have to pay for a game that doesn't exist and if the company feels like it they'll make it if its profitable. As for our money, you didn't think you were getting that back did you?

 

[Grampy_bone]

Games I bought solely due to demos:

Bioshock
Crysis
Xenogears
Starcraft (spawn copy)
Final Fantasy 8 & 12
Just Cause 2
Bayonetta

Those are just the ones off the top of my head. Time and again I am on the fence about a game and the demo puts me over the edge. Without it, it's easier for me to justify spending my money elsewhere.

The truth of the matter is that the current feeling within the industry is that demos *cost* sales, as in people play the demo, decided they don't like it and then don't buy the game. With a super-hyped title, according to guys like Cliffy B, the demo gives players that hype fix and allows them to avoid buying the game.

This is, of course, utter bullshit, but they will learn that in time.

 

[Aeshi]

I personally NEVER buy a game if I haven't tried a demo first (I only make exceptions for expansions or sequels that are like the original)

That's why my favourite developers are the ones who make demos for everything (Blizzard,Spiderweb,Introversion and especially Relic,who make demos for their EXPANSION PACKS)

 

[IgneusMaeror]

Game demos have been conveying less and less of the look and feel of their full counterparts. In very rare cases did a demo help me make up my mind about whether I want to purchase a game or not. But, charging 15$ for a demo just seems ridiculous. It may be just *me*, but nothing stops me from walking to the next video/rental store and rent the fucker for a buck or two, play it for a day and then make a decision. Then again, I would have to be *really* desperately undecided to go and do that. Even entertaining the idea of a 15$ demo (with no other bonus or reward) is incredibly stupid. I'm even having a hard time imagining what bonus or reward would make a demo (demos being what they are today, with some exceptions, like what they did with Fable II or Darksiders, that shit really gave you a feeling how it's going to be) worth 15 USD.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

So encourage people to PAY for demos which will encourage people to PIRATE more?

This guy is talking out of his ass. He has no fucking idea what he's saying. If you charge people a premium for a demo, regardless of how inexpensive, piracy will be more rampant.

It's not rocket science. It's common fucking sense.

 

[Baby Tea]

How is it so expensive to create a demo? Just cut out a small slice of the full game, and there you have it. Cheap, fast and easy.

Well that would be lovely if games were made with lego blocks.
But that's not really the way it works.

Different scripting to account for a new start and end point, timer set-up, testing (Since it's got to run perfectly), if it has multiplayer, you've got to set up demo servers and keep those running, it costs money to host the game for people to download it, and you've got to pay guys to do all that.
That is costly, and I'm sure there is even more to it then that.

I can understand where the guy is coming from, but it's painfully obvious that demos can really help a sale. Just Cause 2 sitting in my 360 right now is a testament to that. That purchase was totally based off the demo. And people want demos. Either soak up the cost, or charge a very small amount (Not more then $5), but don't drop demos.

 

[Sonicron]

That has got to be the most retarded thing I've heard in a good while. Not making demos or charging people money to play demos will result in substantially greater losses for game companies than those they would suffer from making free demos. Besides, what the hell could possibly be so time-consuming about making a demo? Cut out the first or second mission from the (near-)finished game, and voilá.

 

[aaaaaDisregard]

It's interesting to see Yerli comparing videogames with movies here. In my country movie ticket costs $8-15 for 1.5-2 hours of entertainment. In case movie is bad I just walk away. Plus there can be no bugs or intrusive DRM in the movie, it can't be laggy or too hard to watch (mostly). And trailers usually represent what I'll see. Typical console game costs $70 (that's USD) for me and gives anything from 10 to 50 hours of entertainment. Not to mention games with peripherals which can cost more than $100. It can be buggy, it can be DRM'ed, it can even be unplayable. An trailers usually don't represent final quality.

How can he even compare?

 

[aaaaaDisregard]

-post duplicated-

 

[Andy Chalk]

Unless the money you spent on the demo gets knocked off the final copy

It's possible. This is still apparently in the early stages of planning, it's a concept at this point rather than an actual plan. So who knows? The whole thing may wither and die on the vine before it goes any further.

I will say that I sympathize with EA and other publishers who feel the need to find alternate revenue streams. I don't necessarily think this is a good way to go, but piracy takes a toll - I don't believe it's quite as bad as many in the business (like Yerli) do, but I'm not as prepared to just dismiss it as many gamers are, either.

I miss demos. Hell, I remember when shareware was all the rage, when Apogee was Apogee and Epic was Megagames, and I miss that. And like many of you, the unfortunate downside to the loss of demos (and not just the outright loss but the fact that so many have been neutered to the point of near-irrelevance and just aren't worth the bother) for me is that if I'm not sure of a game, I ignore it. I wait until I see it marked down to ten bucks somewhere, and then I pick it up. And most of the time, it's decent and the price makes it a win for me (the extra wait notwithstanding, of course) but the publishers lose out.

If EA follows through on this plan and doesn't do something to make it worth the investment, like putting the cost of the demo toward the full price of the game, I can't imagine why I'd change that behaviour. Ten bucks for a demo, ten bucks for a full game... If I'm not sure about a game anyway, I don't mind waiting. On the other side of the coin, EA isn't stupid. We piss and moan and point and laugh and hurl insults in every direction but fun times aside, there's no question that EA is being run by very smart, capable people. So yeah, it sounds dicey, but maybe there's some merit to what Yerli is saying.

 

[Vitor Goncalves]

By better communication he means, you guys need to understand we just found another way to suck money out of you. I might as well agree as someone said in other post with the idea of selling a level/mission/area/map at a time. This is getting beyond the joke. Go on like this and casual games might really become the future. :S

 

[Max Huerta]

im gonna beat the dead horse, no way will i pay! i have bought a few diamonds in the rough games because of the demos, the didnt have big advertising campaigns, just a small demo i stumbled upon...

 

[Audioave10]

This way, they can eventually forget about demos. Its been coming for a long time.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Normally, a demo is a way to make people who don't want your game and don't know about it actually buy it. They try it, because it's FREE, and there's some probability that some of them will actually buy it.
Why would you make a paid demo? Who will buy it? The only ones who can buy it are die-hard fans, who will buy game anyway, and most of them just buy the game, not the demo - to prevent any spoilers.
Crytek sounds retarded recently... First they gonna max out a game PS3, but it will be no better than 360 version (nice one - PS3 is 1,7 times more powerful), than they say Halo story is bad (Halo's story is actually one of the really good parts of the game), now this...

I predict: Crysis 2 will be total garbage. Don't know about graphics, but game itself will be shit.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

That's sooo stupid, that kind of toyotism aka maximum profit as fast as they can...

where's our society going to? i don't want to pay for a demo like if it was a game! freakin crazy mofos developers that already gets a bunchload of money from us the gamers/consumers, now they need more money from us? for what? gambling? hoes? a goldplated toilet? another jet?

 

[Danpascooch]

Paid demo's are idiotic, Demos are a way to attract people who would not buy the game into buying it after trying the demo. Charging for them insures only those who would have got the game anyway would get the demo

We already have a name for that type of content, DLC!

 

[James Raynor]

Is it that, or is it that developers keep pushing out crap and they don't want someone to know till they already got ripped?

 

[videocrazy]

What I'm confused about is, if people have to pay for demos, or if they're removed altogether, then like the article says, more people are going to turn to piracy, either because they genuinely want to try before they buy, and/or because it's also free. Alternatively, they might rent or buy it used instead, and the game companies hate that, too. They seem to be trying to have their cake and eat it, too.