Game Dev Claims Demos Hurt Game Sales

[DataSnake]

If the only people you can convince to buy your game are the ones who haven't experienced how it plays firsthand, your game may not be very good.

 

[GonzoGamer]

If I decided not to buy the game after playing the demo, it's because the demo didn't impress me. A good demo usually entices me to buy the full version.

Yea, Just Cause 2 was barely on my radar before I tried the demo but that demo made me want to pre-order it and it's still one of my favorite games of this gen.

Maybe the secret is to make a game that people will want to play for more than 10 mins.
No?
Just make sure they don't have a demo to try so they wont know if they want to play it for more than 10 mins?
How many times do they think they can get one over on the consumer with that one?

 

[1337mokro]

He is 100% right.

Demo's ruin game sales. For terrible games.

It's kind of like saying the following:

I am a jar salesman, I sell jars full of gold, but when I open them I lose sales because people see the jars are filled with shit.

Now a bad demo can also ruin the sales of good games, the only real win-win situation is an excellent demo for a terrible game that everyone knew would be terrible. That way you can steal in some more sales from poor sods that got convinced by the demo.

So yes demo's are bad for the industry. But they are a glorious chariot sent from the heavens of mount Olympus for consumers.

 

[Vigormortis]

Ah, someone has been watching Extra Creditz, haven't they?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/demo-daze

That video made me laugh so damned hard when I first saw it.

The pretentious undertones throughout notwithstanding (a mainstay of EC vids), the moment he talked of the negative nature of "demos" and the positive nature of things like offering the first "chapter" of a game for free, I literally started laughing aloud.

That's what a demo is! It's giving a taste of what the game has to offer. In fact, many devs in the past have done just that; id, for example, with Doom. It's as if the EC people were saying, "Demos are bad, and the best replacement for them in the future is more demos!"

What the hell does he think a demo is, if not that?

[sub]Plus, many of the conclusions they drew from the Eedar data were dubious at best)[/sub]

 

[Therumancer]

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.

A much more brief and to the point way of saying what took me a lot more words just now.

That said I've been of the opinion for a while that not only would I like to see some kind of organized consumer advocacy for gamers, but that I think that for all the attention put on copyrights and IP protection that the goverment might want to focus on the other side of the coin at the same time, and work towards installing more protections for consumers of digital media and such. I think that there should be some kind of prohibation against "blind sales" especially if a product is not refundable. Either requiring accurate demos of electronic properties to be made availible, or requiring companies to "buy back" any such property within a 72 hour period or whatever. Basically if you buy a game, it's a turd, and isn't anything like what was promised, it shouldn't take an act of congress to get your money back (if it's even possible) you should be able to return it after a fair review period with one click just as as easily as you bought it. This is a touchy subject I understand, especially when it comes to "the consumption of media" but the bottom line is that with something as expensive as a $60 game, for that amount of money if the game isn't providing at least 72 hours worth of entertainment (worst case scenario) returning it is not unfair since that is a pretty decent investment of money..... not entirely practical, but in principle I think we should be going in that kind of direction. It would definatly get game companies to step up their game and produce more content instead of these 4 hour "hallway walker" games hyped before release as something more.

 

[DataSnake]

There's another factor he's not considering: if someone just wants to see what the game is like, wouldn't they be more likely to rent it, pirate it or borrow a friend's copy than shell out $60 on curiosity alone?

 

[crimson sickle2]

He's wrong, the data only looks at sales of four very broad groups of games. He didn't mention scores/reviews, advertisement, amount of money used to make the game. As far as I can tell the data is on average, so great games are also bogged down with the less desirable side of the industry. I for one have been incredibly glad about Indie games having timed demos on XBLA, it allows incredibly easy access and has helped me find a couple good gems, in the pile of filth, without wasting money (even if Microsoft treats that category like a plague).

 

[Monsterfurby]

I'm pretty certain that adding a demo only hurts your game if your game sucks.

More importantly: if your DEMO sucks.

You CAN make a great demo for a crappy game, and vice versa. If you release a demo, do so in a smart manner.

That's the problem with these kinds of generalizations: reality is far more complex than "Demos hurt sales", and anyone who believes in these statements as if they were law is BOUND to fail in what is ostensibly a creative-driven industry.

 

[Zeles]

Games that focus on narrative don't lend themselves very well to demos because while a demo might peak your interest in the story, they'd likely be giving you information that is wholly out of context and therefore is non-sensible, or a spoiler- in which case, that would also hurt the game because it's ruining it's own focus.

Actually, a while ago I played Primordia's demo. It let me play through a few of the puzzles, and then ended on a cliff hanger. Quite an effective one, too. I ended up buying the game. So, as long, as narrative focused titles give you the beginning, I think that it'll be alright.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Given the disappointments of this past year or so, it's just become my policy to not buy a game that doesn't have a demo. If I can't find out anything about the game beforehand, i'll just wait until it's cheap and buy it used, so that if it does (like so many games have recently) suck, I haven't lost nearly as much. Gaming is becoming, to me, a gamble that pays off so rarely that it isn't worth the risk.

I WILL be purchasing Metal Gear Rising, as it has a demo that leads me to believe the game will be tons of fun.
I was going to purchase the new DmC, despite my well-publicized hate for the new direction, based purely on the strength of the demo. Thankfully, before I could afford it, I watched a friend play through it, and found I didn't care for the neo-industrial mood, instead wishing for the old series goth sense. That lost sale isn't defensible, but the demo still made me want to play it, despite every trailer and ad making me want to throw it in the garbage.

 

[FoolKiller]

I actually think the other way. I refuse to trust a demo anyways. Until I can be sure that the game is awesome, I won't buy it.

The best demo I can recall was for an RPG called Blue Dragon. Here, we'll give you a demo to play as far into the game as you want, do what you want... for an hour. After that, you definitely want to buy the thing to experience the rest of it.

 

[PirateRose]

You know, it's true about Mass Effect 3. If they didn't release the demo, a group of fans wouldn't have been turned off by the lack of dialogue options and another group of fans wouldn't have data mined it and found out the story was shit and canceled their preorders.

But that means the shit storm following the fan base's completion of the game would have doubled if there wasn't a demo.

Interesting.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

If your game is shit, and I know it's shit, I won't buy it. No harm done.

If your game is shit, and I waste money on it because I don't know it's shit then it'll kill all of my interest in your franchise and maybe even in your company. For example, Final Fantasy 13.

EDIT: And I'd like to add that the more disappointed I am in your game, the more likely I am to trade it in, therefore fueling the used game market.

Also, it stands to reason that more demos = less piracy.

 

[Tiamattt]

I think the extra creditz ppl covered this pretty well already, so just a bit on my own experiences. When I saw the really old Simpsons Arcade game on the PSN network a while back, a serious wave of nostalgia kicked in and my brain screamed "BUY IT!!!BUY IT NOWWWWWWW!!!!", but then I saw there was a free demo so I downloaded it. Long story short I ended up saving money that day, when if the demo wasn't there I would've been $10 lighter and felt like I wasted my money.

On the other hand there's another PSN game(warriors orochi 3) I've been tempted to get, but it's $50 with no demo. Normally I would've bought that on the spot, but I didn't like the company's previous game(DW7, no offense fans) so I'm afraid this one will turn out the same way or similar. However the reviews of the game has been good, so chances are a decent demo would've pushed the scales to the games' favor and I would've owned the game and possibly it's DLCs months ago.

So like many things in life, it depends.

 

[GAunderrated]

Ah, someone has been watching Extra Creditz, haven't they?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/demo-daze

That video made me laugh so damned hard when I first saw it.

The pretentious undertones throughout notwithstanding (a mainstay of EC vids), the moment he talked of the negative nature of "demos" and the positive nature of things like offering the first "chapter" of a game for free, I literally started laughing aloud.

That's what a demo is! It's giving a taste of what the game has to offer. In fact, many devs in the past have done just that; id, for example, with Doom. It's as if the EC people were saying, "Demos are bad, and the best replacement for them in the future is more demos!"

What the hell does he think a demo is, if not that?

[sub]Plus, many of the conclusions they drew from the Eedar data were dubious at best)[/sub]

Agreed 100%. I loved the EC of seasons 1-3. However after that they became unbearably pretentious and that video is nothing short of propaganda.

Truth is demo's hurt their sales because the majority of games that are released are mediocre at best and if they can hide the mediocrity until release day it is a much more profitable product.

Movies have this as well but it is normally more of a red flag if they don't have a screening preview than gaming is with demos.

Overall the source of the video's statistics had very little value or variables in the equation which leads me to believe it was manipulated to suit the speaker's agenda.

 

[josemlopes]

Crackdown demo was great, it offered half of the first city and 30 minutes of play after you reached a certain point (it could all be replayed from the start, it wasnt a trial) leaving you wanting to upgrade your character to the max and exploring the world while letting you understand what the game is trying to be and letting you have fun with it.


Another good one was the Saints Row demo, yeah, you can play the game with quite some freedom but all you do isnt as big as it can be in the full game (no SWAT, no RPGs, no assault rifles) and you dont get to be able to do the missions and activities.

EDIT: Basicly a good demo should be like this:

"Look at all this cool shit that we are letting you do for free, but if you buy the full game you get to do all that shit and even MORE shit that you cant do in the demo".

 

[Dfskelleton]

Did anyone else read the article title as "Game Dev Claims Demons Hurt Game Sales"?
Maybe that's just what sprung to mind because the picture on the front page was Doomguy's face.

 

[Fishcactus]

Hm....I wonder where Steam's Free Weekends factor into this? More often than not my friends buy a game after playing it on a Free Weekend.
I guess the difference is that the Free Weekend games are usually multiplayer and not new releases.

Personally I wish more games had demos. I'd be inclined to look into buying games I might not have considered if I could try them out first.