Lack of demos boost piracy.

[Stavros Dimou]

I've got many people I know who have pirated games.
Most of them aren't that poor though to be able to buy games. No,the reason they usually torrent games is different.
It usually goes like this: Someone sees a game and becomes interested in it. But he isn't sure if he is going to like it and have fun with it. Reviews can't be trusted, 'cause everyone's tastes are different.
This person wants to try the game before paying and buying it. He doesn't know if it's going to be a game that will keep him occupied until he finishes it,or a game he will abandon after 10-15 minutes because he just doesn't like this game.
Since there is no demo available,this person is going to download the whole game via torrent to try it out and see if it likes it or not. In case he doesn't like it,he will just stop playing it, and no money are lost. But if he likes it,then many of them will just play the pirate game they already got in their hands because of convenience.

This could be avoided by the publishers releasing demos of their games,so costumers can try before they buy. I don't know why and how the industry decided to stop releasing demos,but this reduces sales because it makes people who are not sure if they are going to like a game or not, to pirate it. It provokes and promotes piracy.
I write this thread as a warn and suggestion to game publishers in hope someone who works on a games publisher company reads it and transfers the message to the company.
Does the (whatever) reason you decided to not publish demos justify and worth the rise on piracy ? You tell us.

 

[DasDestroyer]

I think it was Extra Credits who talked about this, but I may be wrong. The reason demos stopped being made was basically that games and demos can be either good or bad. If the games and the demo are both bad then people will realize it thanks to the demo and sales are lost. If the demo is bad but the game is good, then then people will think it's bad before the release, but their opinion might change when it's released. Once again, lost sales. If the demo is good but the game is bad (Aliens, anyone?), then they do actually gain sales, but at the cost of bad rep. Finally, if the game and the demo are good, then the sales won't go up by that much, since the game would have sold anyway, and in some cases, people will play the demo, think it's great, but won't buy the game becuase that short experience was good enough for them.
So money is spent, but in most cases sales are lost.

 

[Auron]

With today's internet the difference between a 2 gb demo and a 6 gb iso is minimal, so I can see the point in actually checking out before you spend 50 or 60$ in a big title. And with no demo(the majority of the time nowadays) it's hard to commit just by watching ads and marketing which we know is always overblown anyway.

Critical let's plays are a good alternative as well but I think most people lack the patience to watch.

 

[Baldr]

There are numerous places that you can rent and demo games in the United States either freely or a couple dollars. This "no demo" is just a horrible excuse to pirate games, it not even justified because they are wrong.

 

[sanquin]

There are numerous places that you can rent and demo games in the United States either freely or a couple dollars. This "no demo" is just a horrible excuse to pirate games, it not even justified because they are wrong.

He isn't advocating for piracy, imo. He's saying that no demo's increase piracy. Which is true. It being a good excuse or not, not having demo's still increases piracy. Though I think a lot of those that pirate, wouldn't have bought the game anyway if they had played a demo first.

 

[Baldr]

There are numerous places that you can rent and demo games in the United States either freely or a couple dollars. This "no demo" is just a horrible excuse to pirate games, it not even justified because they are wrong.

He isn't advocating for piracy, imo. He's saying that no demo's increase piracy. Which is true. It being a good excuse or not, not having demo's still increases piracy. Though I think a lot of those that pirate, wouldn't have bought the game anyway if they had played a demo first.

GameSpot, GameZone, Steam and OnLive all have free demos and free registration. Redbox, GameFly, Blockbuster Online, Blockbuster "Blue" Box all have extremely cheap game rentals. Plus the hundreds of non-chain rental places in the US. Not finding a "Demo" for game is extremely rare.

 

[sanquin]

GameSpot, GameZone, Steam and OnLive all have free demos and free registration. Redbox, GameFly, Blockbuster Online, Blockbuster "Blue" Box all have extremely cheap game rentals. Plus the hundreds of non-chain rental places in the US. Not finding a "Demo" for game is extremely rare.

Okay then, get me a demo of skyrim. Or CoD. Or GTA IV. Or borderlands 2. Or plenty of other games. And no, convention 'demo's' don't count. I'm not saying there aren't any demo's for games out there. But there are plenty of games that don't have them. The majority, even.

 

[Da Orky Man]

There are numerous places that you can rent and demo games in the United States either freely or a couple dollars. This "no demo" is just a horrible excuse to pirate games, it not even justified because they are wrong.

First, he isn't advocating piracy.

Second, we don't all live in the US.

Third, how exactly do you demo a PC game with DRM leaking from every pore? You can't.

 

[Festus Moonbear]

I live in Africa where there's no way to rent games. I was interested in The Walking Dead but I wasn't sure if it would run on my very basic laptop, so I looked for a demo. There was no demo. I wasn't about to pay for it not knowing if it would work or not, especially as the only option was to purchase all the episodes in a bundle, and I was highly suspicious about that after buying Jurassic Park and hating it. So I torrented the game and played it for a few minutes just to check it. It worked fine. Then I bought it.

So I agree with the OP. I bet there are a few people who have the same story as mine except for the "I bought it" part, which they forgot to do or rationalised away, whereas if there'd been a demo with a "buy full game" button in it, they probably would have gone that route. It's not hard to imagine how that would play out. So I'm sure they're losing at least a few sales because of this. On the other hand, the developers seem to feel that demos are not worth the cost, so maybe they've factored this issue into that decision. It does seem a bit short-sighted, though.

 

[felbot]

There are numerous places that you can rent and demo games in the United States either freely or a couple dollars. This "no demo" is just a horrible excuse to pirate games, it not even justified because they are wrong.

not everyone lives in the usa, not even the majority of humans live in the usa.


anyway on topic, I don't pirate games but I do remember almost pirating strike suit zero because of the fact that the game has no demo to speak of but I tempered myself and simply did not buy the game.

actually i recently decided I simply wont buy any game that does not have a demo.

 

[Baldr]

GameSpot, GameZone, Steam and OnLive all have free demos and free registration. Redbox, GameFly, Blockbuster Online, Blockbuster "Blue" Box all have extremely cheap game rentals. Plus the hundreds of non-chain rental places in the US. Not finding a "Demo" for game is extremely rare.

Okay then, get me a demo of skyrim. Or CoD. Or GTA IV. Or borderlands 2. Or plenty of other games. And no, convention 'demo's' don't count. I'm not saying there aren't any demo's for games out there. But there are plenty of games that don't have them. The majority, even.

http://www.gamefly.com/rent-games/Search/?kw=Skyrim&sec=GameFly&doSearch=
http://www.redbox.com/search/?q=Skyrim&d=
http://www.gamefly.com/rent-games/Search/?kw=Call+of+Duty&sec=GameFly&doSearch=
http://www.redbox.com/search/?q=Call%20of%20Duty&d=
http://www.gamefly.com/rent-games/Search/?kw=Grand+Theft+Auto+IV&sec=GameFly&doSearch=
http://www.redbox.com/search/?q=Grand%20Theft%20Auto%20IV&d=
http://www.gamefly.com/rent-games/Search/?kw=Borderland+2&sec=GameFly&doSearch=
http://www.redbox.com/search/?q=Borderland%202&d=

And for the rest of you, I qualified the United States in my post, because I know it is not an option for the rest of the world.

 

[Doom972]

While I would prefer it if more developers will release demo versions, I don't think that it'll make any change in piracy.

Piracy happens because it's very, very easy. It's much easier to just download rather than getting something legitimately.

I buy games because I want to vote with my money and make sure that the kind of games I like keep being made, and because I wouldn't like it if someone distributed something I worked on, for free.
Many people would just rather not think about it and just download, while making all kinds of ridiculous excuses to themselves.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

See, the problem with the whole "Demos boost piracy" thing that EA or whoever it was came out with was because they had absolutely no statistical evidence that they showed proving their statement. They were just like "Hmm, you want demos? Too bad, they make games get pirated more." The cool way to respond would be to offer statistical evidence that proves what they didn't, not just offering the same kind of opinions and guesses presented as facts.

 

[sanquin]

http://www.gamefly.com/rent-games/Search/?kw=Skyrim&sec=GameFly&doSearch=
http://www.redbox.com/search/?q=Skyrim&d=
http://www.gamefly.com/rent-games/Search/?kw=Call+of+Duty&sec=GameFly&doSearch=
http://www.redbox.com/search/?q=Call%20of%20Duty&d=
http://www.gamefly.com/rent-games/Search/?kw=Grand+Theft+Auto+IV&sec=GameFly&doSearch=
http://www.redbox.com/search/?q=Grand%20Theft%20Auto%20IV&d=
http://www.gamefly.com/rent-games/Search/?kw=Borderland+2&sec=GameFly&doSearch=
http://www.redbox.com/search/?q=Borderland%202&d=

And for the rest of you, I qualified the United States in my post, because I know it is not an option for the rest of the world.

Those are rentals, not demo's. People want to be able to try out a game without having to pay money for it first. You know, in case the money spent is a total waste. Which happens all too often these days.

And also once again, I'm not justifying piracy. I don't think this is not a good excuse for piracy. But it does make a lot of people more likely to pirate.

 

[sanquin]

See, the problem with the whole "Demos boost piracy" thing that EA or whoever it was came out with was because they had absolutely no statistical evidence that they showed proving their statement. They were just like "Hmm, you want demos? Too bad, they make games get pirated more." The cool way to respond would be to offer statistical evidence that proves what they didn't, not just offering the same kind of opinions and guesses presented as facts.

Problem with that is that there can't be a proper study done into this specific subject. There's too many variables per game that determine the amount of piracy for it. So there's no way a study could truly pin a rise or decline in piracy on there being a demo or not.

 

[AVeryClassyCat]

I like the OnLive model, thirty minutes gameplay streamed for most titles. Seems like it takes no extra dev effort to build some marketing oriented demo package and doesn't require downloading anything. If we can work on standardizing an internet infrastructure that supports high bandwidth across most of the planet then maybe something like that could be a feasible alternative to demos for most people.

 

[major_chaos]

extremely cheap game rentals.

I am insanely and blatantly jealous that you have the disposable income to make 22$ a month "extremely cheap"

Not finding a "Demo" for game is extremely rare.

I would say a fairly large majority of games on steam have no demo.

 

[Winthrop]

I'm going to say that I don't pirate right away. That out of the way, demo's should be there. I will NEVER buy a game over 15 dollars for my computer without a demo as I'm not sure what it can run. I know others who do the same. I pretty much only ever get a demo if I'm about to buy the game and I only use it to see how it will run.

 

[AdmiralMemo]

Those are rentals, not demos.

Back to his first post...

There are numerous places that you can rent and demo games in the United States either freely or a couple dollars.

(Emphasis mine.) He wasn't just talking about demos. He was talking about renting as well.

People want to be able to try out a game without having to pay money for it first. You know, in case the money spent is a total waste. Which happens all too often these days.

While this is admirable, sometimes, it's the only way to get it. Sometimes you need to spend money on a game. If I'm renting or buying a game, or any other entertainment, for that matter, I make this decision: Does $1 get me at least 1 hour of enjoyment? If so, I consider it a good deal. If a game costs $60, I better be able to get 60 hours of play time out of it. (I usually don't, and that's why I usually buy the games when they go into the discount bin. The same game might not be worth $60 to me, but it might be worth $30.) So, taking that into consideration, I think RedBox is a good deal. $2 per night rental. You're probably going to play it for more than 2 hours that night, as it'll probably take more than that to see if you like the game. Therefore, renting is a good and cheap option.

Now, if I can get a demo for free, that's even better, but still... If you're too cheap to rent a game from RedBox for $2 per night, then you probably wouldn't have bought the game anyway.