Game Dev Claims Demos Hurt Game Sales

[Colt47]

He's not wrong on the demo part, and to be fair forcing a development team to make a functional demo can impact the quality of both the demo and the final product. It also doesn't help that demos often don't even compare to the final product. I think the only demo I ever played that represented the actual release game accurately was Earth Worm Jim and Jazz Jackrabbit...

 

[Tumedus]

I realize what the studies show in terms of all games in general, but I would be interested to see it if they broke it down in terms of development size/budget. My guess is that this largely holds true for big title releases but not so much for smaller indie games.

Most of the smaller games I have purchases came as a direct result of some demo play. In fact, these days, I think a largest chunk of my overall gaming expenditure is based on these types of purchases.

 

[Sylveria]

Ah the moral bastions of the world that are game developers. Why make a good game when you can just exploit people in to trying something blindly.

Hey buddy, if you're game isn't shit and people play the demo, they'll buy it.

 

[Spitfire]

Citing EEDAR data on cumulative Xbox 360 unit sales over a six-month period, Schell demonstrated that games with a demo and a trailer sold roughly half as many copies as those with a trailer but no demo. "You mean we spent all this money making a demo and getting it out there, and it cut our sales in half?" he asked during his presentation. (The relevant bit starts at the 10:00 mark.)

"Yes, that's exactly what happened to you," he continued, answering his own rhetorical question. "Because when you put the demo out, people have seen the trailer and they're like, 'That's cool... I gotta try that game.' And then when they've played the demo [they think], 'Alright, I've tried that game, that was okay, alright, I'm done.' But the things with no demo, you've gotta buy it if you want to try it."

I don't know what the environment is like on consoles, but speaking as a PC gamer, if I don't know for a fact that your game performs sufficiently well on my PC, then the odds of me buying said game drastically go down.

Case in point: just last week I bought Sleeping Dogs, after playing the demo for it. Had I not played the demo, and therefore not know if the game performs well on my PC, I certainly wouldn't have purchased it.

 

[TheProfessor234]

I wouldn't of gotten Fire Emblem Awakening without the demo.


I think the best thing you can do with a demo is make something that isn't relevant at all to the main story. Make a big room where a character can go around and do things you can do in game. That's all you really need.

Though I can see why no one would do this as you give away demos for free and making something that's not part of the game is technically wasted.

 

[Evil Smurf]

You expect me to drop 60USD on a game without anything but METACRITIC to back it up?

What...are you retarded...or high...or highly retard?

this also

All the best games were shareware, Jazz Jackrabbit, I'm looking at you.

 

[Racecarlock]

If only people had 60 dollars to drop on every single game, including the ones they aren't sure about.

While I'm fantasizing, I also want a unicorn pegasus, a roller coaster in the backyard, a machine that creates packs of fully cooked bacon bits out of thin air, an x-wing, and a real life version of a cheat console.

Sadly, I don't live in the land where money grows on trees, so excuse fuckin' me for wanting to know the kind of game I'm in for before I purchase it.

 

[felbot]

odd, the fact that there is no demo for strike suit zero made damn sure I didn't want to buy it.

mean while the demo for mount and blade got me hooked on the games before I had even got them.

 

[Snotnarok]

This is a load of bias horse crap, you can't just put out a 60 dollar game and expect people to buy it on blind freaking faith, especially when putting it out on PC where some devs don't give a rats ass and just drop an un-optimized pile of garbage out that you CAN'T RETURN.

Here's a thought, make a good game and don't worry about that demo scaring away potential customers. Or don't be scumbags and lie in your demo how the game will play. I was pretty set on buying Brutal Legend figuring it as a beat-em-up only to find out it was a RTS sort of game in disguise. Well that sorta made me not want to buy the game just out of anger of basically being LIED to.

Drop demos and you'll probably see rentals skyrocket and then these 4-5 hour games that cost $60 bucks be beat in one shot and returned to redbox or gamefly or whatever, or you know everyone will just pirate the game they don't feel like chancing.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Stopped me from flushing 60 bucks down the drain on Dead Space 3, however I'm inclined to spend that money on the new Metal Gear game Platinum was working on. Its sad when Metal Gear does strategic dismemberment better than Dead Space...

 

[oldtaku]

Well we say a bad demo means a bad game. Although, I thought the demo for Spec Ops: the line was pretty boring...and then everyone gave it a best game of the year nod.

The Line is a good example of a game that I think it would be impossible to create a good demo for, and maybe you shouldn't. The gameplay is nothing spectacular, and the crucial plot element necessarily takes hours and hours to unfold. Plus if you give that away you've somewhat neutered the game.

Then there's the deliberately dishonest demo - like Brutal Legend.

 

[deathzero021]

The reason it worked for iD is because their games are awesome and people really liked the first episode of their games so it got them motivated to buy the full version.

It did for me, and demos still do that for me to this day. If it weren't for Falcom releasing a demo for Ys Origin, i wouldn't have bought it and i would have missed out on the best game i played all year.

Demos i still think have good potential for increasing sales and possibly lowering piracy by a small amount. However a lot of games do suck and probably would suffer from having a demo because it wouldn't get people MORE interested in the game, it would just let people know for FREE that the game sucks.

I believe that a good game, with a good demo will have no negative effects on the income of the game. However creating a good demo is something entirely different than creating a good game. there have been bad demo's out there that made good games look worse than they really are. though it's probably possible to have the opposite effect as well, a mediocre game showcasing a decent demo.

i think the trick is to invoke more curiosity with the demo and get people more excited than if they knew less about it. something that's difficult to do but not impossible. Ultimately i think it comes down to the quality and uniqueness of the game/demo in the end.

 

[Denamic]

If a demo is enough to sate your curiosity enough that you don't want to play it more, it's not the demo that's the problem.

 

[Slash2x]

You expect me to drop 60USD on a game without anything but METACRITIC to back it up?

What...are you retarded...or high...or highly retard?

this also

All the best games were shareware, Jazz Jackrabbit, I'm looking at you.

^ First post....... Just all of that... Soooo many games have awesome trailers and garbage in the box.

Second you are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Wrong it was....... Commander Keen.


Also I called this idea as <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.400746-Anodyne-Developer-Turns-Piracy-Into-PR#16483262
" title="" target="_blank">BS earlier before this post occurred.....


And did anyone go to this dummies website? His games ARE SHIT a demo of this would have killed ANY sales it had on Steam 360 or PS3. If I saw you were charging for that I would have said hell no too after I tried the demo. At best this is Facebook gaming.....

 

[Eternal_Lament]

I remember hearing something about this, that out of 9 possible scenarios (made up with 3 levels of demo quality ad 3 levels of game quality) that only 2 out of those 9 possibilities will actually lead into increased sales (a terrible game with an amazing demo, and an okay game with an amazing demo) Every other combination either results in no noticeable increase or, in other cases, a decrease in sales.

And to be fair, I can't think of the last time that the demo alone made me want to buy a game. I either was going to get it anyways, in which case the demo just sates my appetite, or it actually turns me off wanting to get the game.

Well, these are both interesting arguments, but I'd bet that, at the very least, an amazing game with an amazing demo would also increase sales (by giving more people the opportunity to get hooked on it). I also suspect that an okay demo would increase sales for a terrible game. I don't know if an okay demo for an okay game would help or hurt; on the one hand, more possible exposure, but on the other hand, less hype. I'm not the sort of person that buys into hype, so for me I know which scenario is more probable, but I can't speak for the majority of my fellow citizens.

Still, upon reflection, both arguments seem to boil down to the advice "don't release a demo that's worse than your game".

You would think that any time you had a great demo for a great game that it's a no brainier, but not necessarily. Again, while a great demo won't drive sales away, it doesn't usually translate to more sales. This is because these games often have other things going for them, such as a great marketing campaign or are part of an established franchise. Because of that, while a great demo doesn't hurt, it doesn't do much either. The people who play the demo are just as likely to buy the game as the people who didn't play it. Plus, since there's the chance that the demo could be only okay or bad, it's often better for a game that's already poised to earn money to just spend the time and resources into polishing the game rather than releasing something that could hurt sales. Also, an okay demo for a terrible game doesn't actually help too often, since even if the demo is serviceable the player may opt to wait for reviews to come out, and when they do it usually leaves the player disinterested or feel that they got the most they could get with the demo. The same problem applies to the okay/okay situation, in which a player is either going to get it regardless or they'll just wait for reviews.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

A demo probably does reduce sales, but generally because it just means people who would've otherwise discovered it's not really their thing will purchase to satiate their curiosity.

It's still a huge dick move and definitely an anti-consumer one but I see their point.

I just don't like their point.

 

[hawkeye52]

I've bought a fair few games from demos because I liked the demo that I would have otherwise not known about. Spartan total warrior, Chaos league to name two

 

[Therumancer]

Well, I think this all comes down to games relying on deceptive marketing and trying to sell people overpriced turds. Increasingly marketing games has been about information control and showing as little of the game as possible and providing a minimum of information. something oft criticized when trailers feature nothing but cinematics, or coming close to release you might have seen less than 15 minutes of what the game is actually like between all of the reveals combined.

Games making a lot of money by being a "leap of faith" investment, if a game sucks, they already have your money, and being a product with a no-returns policy it's quite a racket.

Even when a game doesn't suck, there is always the question as to whether it's going to sustain a user's interest.

I can see how Demos affect this, after all, if the game blows chips people are not going to buy it based on a demo. By the same token if a demo leaves them sated, the game is by definition not going to be lasting enough to have been worth the purchuse. A very good tool for a customer to decide what they want to buy and make an informed purchuse of an expensive item, not so good for a company wanting to move as many units as possible.

In my mind if a Demo cost you business, your game probably wasn't that good to begin with.

I suppose this IS a valid perspective when coming from people speaking within an industry that has so far managed to get by almost entirely with the customer base making leaps of faith. It's just not a very pro-customer one. It simply follows what are very much "duh" sentiments, that the less the customer knows, the better for you as the person selling a product. While Shareware was cool at one time, there is no reason why an industry would WANT to give up the unenviable position of being able to sell customers what amounts to a "mystery box" with only a vague description of what it actually contains, without any expectation of having to reimburse a disappointed customer.

That said, releasing a Demo is usually a good thing, as it shows that the creators have faith in their product as it's definatly not expected nowadays. I've noticed a trend that the less you actually see of the game itself, the more likely it's going to bomb. Ditto for when you see gameplay footage and it's done by someone on the dev team, highlighting only what they want you to see, compared to say footage from slightly more public sources (like inviting Totalbiscuit to play or something).