Game Dev Claims Demos Hurt Game Sales

[-Dragmire-]

So you spend half a year plus hyping your game up as the next best thing to sex to get people interest and, on average, it works quite well. People are now itching to play your game so now you think, "I should put out a demo so the people on the fence might be swayed" which is where the problem starts.

First you got the people who were excited about the game so they are guaranteed to get the demo to sate them as they wait for release, in this group there will be people whose hype fueled expectations could not possibly be met. These people, as is the custom of this age, when you have an issue with something you voice it on your chosen portion of the web. These people's issues, regardless of what they are, form a counterpoint to the hype you had going and will likely sour more people's expectations of the game. All without anyone spending a dime.

Not only do you have that to worry about but there's also the issue of having the product demo laid bare with all potential problems competing with the current hype machine hot shot, refilling the heads of people with more unrealistic expectations of it's game for it's release. So players are comparing a probably less than flawless demo with all-your-dreams-will-come-true game of future release(demos usually don't fare well when against theoretical greatness).

If asked if demos bite into sales, the answer should be, "No shit Sherlock".

I should add that while there is definitely the potential for demo players to be convinced to buy the game based on it, in general I think it's easier to convince someone to not buy something than it is to convince them to buy something. So in the end, the bad would outweigh the good.

 

[mattttherman3]

No shit? Didn't rentals use to do the same thing? I didn't hear the bitching back in the day. If I don't have a demo, I watch youtube videos of the gameplay, if I don't like what I see, I don't buy it. Simple

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

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

My thoughts exactly. I read that quote as "once people realize how crappy your game is, they won't buy it! Better to keep them in the dark."

Although I do wonder just how well the old Shareware model worked, at least the version that involved massive demos containing a quarter to a third of the entire game (think Doom, Duke Nukem, Commander Keen...). I know as a kid, I never really wanted to buy the full versions of any of those, because the demos were huge and I never could beat them. Then again, I didn't know you could install them and get the save feature to work, instead of running them directly from the CD and starting over from the first level every time you wanted to play. That's one thing I don't miss about the shareware days -- paying for demo discs. I miss demo discs, but not paying $10 for a CD with nothing but demos on it.

Edit: We did have some downloaded for the internet, but my main source of shareware demos was those CDs until right around the end of the shareware era. One of the first ones I remember actually downloading was the Jedi Knight demo, and that was less shareware and more a modern demo.

 

[mokes310]

In the words of Archer, "duh and/or hello?"

 

[Royas]

If the developer isn't able to make a demo that intrigues me and excites my curiosity to see the rest of the game, then they probably aren't able to make a game I'll care about. Problem with demos is that most studios throw them out there as an afterthought if they make one at all. They need to give the demo the same kind of attention the main game gets, or nobody is going to be impressed.

 

[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.

^ 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.....

DOS games generally were good because they had to real us in with fun gameplay and an interesting story rather then this wave of my graphics are better then yours.

 

[Squilookle]

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.

Exactly. the article doesn't prove shit. Sure it may hurt sales, in the same way a lousy trailer may hurt sales of a movie. But it doesn't matter. You do it. Everyone used to do it and you're just lowering the standards of the whole industry if you don't. All these models just focus on individual games, but in my experience gaining customer trust proves to have far better long term effects on sales than trying to 'trick' the customers with every new game.

Long story short- Cut the crap and release demos. If you do them properly for a game that's done properly, then it can only be a good thing.

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.

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.

Pretty much, yeah.

 

[Epona]

Bad Demo to a good game = hurts sales
Any kind of demo for a bad game = hurts sales
Good demo to a good game = helps sales

I guess the idea is that they want to get you to part with your money BEFORE you know if the game sucks. That's what pre-orders are for too.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

It just comes across as "Giving the people a sample of what our games are like? What are you, crazy?! Don't you know that will make it much harder to trick them into buying our substandard products?!!"

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

That depends on the game and the ability of the demo to show what the game is about. More often than not, a demo convinced me to buy the game. I know I couldn't wait to buy Just Cause 2 after I played the demo. Same thing with Mafia 2. Also, didn't that leaked demo of Deus Ex: HR boost sales? I think I read about that. These days I find myself refusing to buy the game if I don't know what I'm buying. And since I don't trust the reviewers, and everyone seem to be making mediocre shit and demanding more and more money for that shit, I'd say you're gonna have to start making a lot more demos to attract me as a potential buyer.

 

[Shjade]

I don't know where I'd fall on the statistical playing field of "average consumer," but I'll still say this: I've been sold by game demos far more often than I've been turned away by them. I could probably count games I decided not to buy because of their demo on one hand. More often I decide not to buy games because they don't have a demo and I'm borderline about the game's description (trailers mean nothing to me unless they're featuring gameplay heavily enough to really get a feel for what PLAYING the game is like as opposed to watching pretty cutscenes).

Heck, I often just want a demo of a PC game to check how well it runs on my rig before I risk buying something I can't actually play with higher than 5 FPS.

But again, I dunno if my relationship with demos is anything like the norm, so meh.

 

[WanderingFool]

I find that very interesting. I'm sure many of the comments here will be 'Well, then those games sucked anyway', but I think Schell has made an important point, especially with the EEDAR numbers on his side.

Games that focus on gameplay could very well be hurt by demos because...gameplay is gameplay. You play it, you've already experienced what it has to offer, and then that's it.

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.

It makes Purfect sense, but it doesnt really seem to matter. If a demo is able to make a person decide to not buy a game, than the game wasnt that much of a game anyways. Hell, thats the point of a demo, IMO. The demo is suppose to show you what the game has to offer, and to intice you to actually try the game. If you release a demo and people decide they dont want to play the game, its not becuase you released a demo, its because you made a baD demo.

Hell, you want to make money on you game? Make it worth the money. I mostly rent games because save for a few, most dont offer enough for me to spend a full $60 on.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Or maybe by playing the demo gamers find out that your game is shit and then don't want to bother with the full version. Ever think of that? Of course not 'cause how could it ever be your fault. ¬_¬

 

[weirdee]

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".

the question is with "awesome game awesome demo" is that is it worth it to do the extra work for a demo compared to how many less sales a game will get if that game is good enough to become popular on its own? the only game i can come up with that worked like that is minecraft, and i'm still not really sure why it continues to sell even though you would think that by now it would have reached some sort of saturation point, even before the game became "officially a complete game".

 

[lacktheknack]

Sure, the numbers are on his side, but what were the numbers used?

(Maybe it's in the video but I don't have the time to check.)

All I know is that one of the best games this generation, Just Cause 2, was bought by me entirely because of its excellent demo.

I don't see why "trying the gameplay" would stop people from buying unless the game is awful. If it's gameplay-driven, the gameplay should justify the purchase. If it's story-driven, the hook you leave should justify the purchase.

 

[Kotaro]

In my personal experience, I actually find that I'm more likely to purchase a game if it has a good demo. Two examples immediately spring to mind:
I saw Sleeping Dogs discounted on Steam, and remembered that a friend of mine had recommended it. So I played the demo, which got me to buy the game. If I hadn't been able to play the demo, I probably wouldn't have bought it.
When I first read about Bayonetta, I wasn't too interested. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the genre, but the whole "over-the-top sex appeal" rather turned me off of the game. Until I played a demo of the game at a convention, which I had so much fun with that I immediately preordered the game as soon as I got home.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I have never been convinced by a demo to buy a game, but I have been convinced by a demo to not buy a game. If it fails to impress me in what is essentially a highlight, then it really can only go downhill from that point on. But there really isn't a way to gauge if a game that has a great demo can hold up across a whole playthrough, so I turn to other more reliable sources. Just my two cents.

Also Extra Credits did an episode on this a while back: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/demo-daze [http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/demo-daze]