Pc games and demos

[saruman31]

I absolutely despise the way game companies act with their finished products. They expect us to buy a game only by showing us some trailers and cinematics. Why are there no more demos, or why are they so few? I want to know how the game feels like when i`m playing it. I don`t want to spend 60$ on a shitty game. Or even worse, as it is the case with many pc games, spending 60$ on a game that is probably completely shitty optimized. I want to know how the game will behave on my machine. The required spec guide is always useless info and can give at best very vague info. I really want to buy GW2 but without knowing how it will work on my machine i pretty much have no reason to touch it.

 

[evilneko]

Definitely. Demos need to make a comeback. And, they also need to be an accurate representation of the actual game. Anything less is deceptive.

 

[Bad Jim]

I should point out that MMOs generally have extremely low minimum requirements. MMOs are dependent on people getting their friends into it, most of whom will have shitty PCs that they have no intention of upgrading.

Unless your PC is astoundingly shitty, I'd say you'll be able to run it.

 

[RADIALTHRONE1]

Speaking of demos, i still have this sitting on my game shelf.

Spoiler: Original PS1 demo disc

 

[laggyteabag]

I know I'm gonna get tons of shit for this, but read the ENTIRE post before you judge me, thank you.

OT: This is why I pirate! (Remember the part about reading on?)
Now, I don't actually pirate in the typical sense.

Generally, I pirate expensive games I haven't had the chance to try out yet. Just for the sake of having it as a demo.
For example, Oblivion. I didn't buy it at first, I pirated it. Then I realized I freaking LOVED that game, and bought it for full price.

Now, I will always buy a game I pirate if I enjoy it. Obvious exception being Big Rigs, because that was just so bad it was funny...
And then I delete the game I pirated, even if I loose my saves. I genreally just give myself 24 hours of play time, then I have to decide whether to buy it or to never look upon it again.

[small]NOW feel free to rage and report me all you want[/small]

*breaths in* that actually makes perfect sense to me

 

[Burig]

While I like demos, and would love to see more released, I understand why they're becoming less popular from a game dev point of view: they have to either make a small level that has some demonstration of the gameplay, or make sure that a section of the game is playable before release, and perhaps before they've even done any of the proper testing, and it better be good if they do release one - I mean, if it's not, it could really deplete sales of the game overall, even if it's great.
While I always enjoy seeing a demo, and playing it, I would much rather have a better game overall than a demo released.

 

[Cyfu]

I know I'm gonna get tons of shit for this, but read the ENTIRE post before you judge me, thank you.

OT: This is why I pirate! (Remember the part about reading on?)
Now, I don't actually pirate in the typical sense.

Generally, I pirate expensive games I haven't had the chance to try out yet. Just for the sake of having it as a demo.
For example, Oblivion. I didn't buy it at first, I pirated it. Then I realized I freaking LOVED that game, and bought it for full price.

Now, I will always buy a game I pirate if I enjoy it. Obvious exception being Big Rigs, because that was just so bad it was funny...
And then I delete the game I pirated, even if I loose my saves. I genreally just give myself 24 hours of play time, then I have to decide whether to buy it or to never look upon it again.

[small]NOW feel free to rage and report me all you want[/small]

Yeah, I do the same thing myself.
There's no way I'm paying full price for a game I have no idea how "feels".
I did pay full price for a game I almost knew anything about. I just heard a few things about it. I think it bragged about it's stealth or something. Alpha Protocol... I'm not going to that again.

 

[saruman31]

I should point out that MMOs generally have extremely low minimum requirements. MMOs are dependent on people getting their friends into it, most of whom will have shitty PCs that they have no intention of upgrading.

Unless your PC is astoundingly shitty, I'd say you'll be able to run it.

My pc is not bad. It`s just not great. It will definitely work on it but i don`t know on what settings. And i don`t like playing games on low settings. It ruins your experience completely. Yes, there may be a free trial but i don`t see that happening soon with GW2.
@TheNamlessGuy I agree with what you say but publishers should act on this and just make demos for all of their games.

 

[Absolutionis]

PC Games do have demos. Check them out on Steam. Many games have demos there.

As someone who is a huge fan of Arenanet and Guild Wars 1, I bought Guild Wars 2 as soon as it was announced and haven't been disappointed with the betas. Optimization is still wonky.

Regardless, note that Guild Wars 1 did also have 'Friend Codes' that came with each game that lets players invite their friends for a 1 week free trial. They eventually extended that to be a free trial for anyone which is still going on now.
However, the demand for GW2 was really big and if they allow friend codes and free trials at launch, it may end up being another Diablo 3.

So you could and should just wait and Arenanet will eventually give out Friend Codes so you can try Guild Wars 2. They're been giving out tens of thousands of beta codes for the past few months even.

While you're waiting, feel free to check out the many demos of games on Steam or (if you want to tread the dark path) maybe even EA Download Manager.
http://store.steampowered.com/freestuff/demos/

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[TrevHead]

Imo a way to try before you buy is needed more on PC than any other platform, buying PC games at launch and finding out they don't work is the main reason I stopped buying them at launch, it makes sense for me to wait a while so all the bugs have been fixed either by the devs or if not some gamers will have put out a work around. It's much cheaper too.

It is'nt so bad if I buy a game that I don't like, because usually more than enough info about the game can be found on the net without playing it, so if I buy a bad game it's usually because I fell for the hype, bought on impulse or didn't check up on it.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

There is a bit more than a trailer and a cinematic, but a bit less than a demo for almost EVERY game. And that is "First Looks"/"Lets look at"/"WTF is ...?"/"Lets play... part 1" on YouTube.

Sure you don't get to go hands on with the game, but a lot of people do professional first impressions videos on YouTube and give you a lot of different facts about how the game handles, runs, what graphics options there are and reasons for buying or not buying.

A couple of channels that do this are:
http://youtube.com/northernlion
http://youtube.com/totalhalibut

I'm sure that more channels do this and you can just YouTube search "... first impressions gameplay" for the game you want to research before buying.

As far as I'm concerned everyone should at least look at gameplay footage before buying any game, no matter the price.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Did I miss the period in history where every company made a demo for every game? That doesn't seem too familiar. Anyways, there are other ways of finding out if a game is good or not. If you have a computer, or phone, or tablet, or feet that can take you to an internet cafe, then you can go on the internet and find out what a game's like from a variety of sources. Nowadays you actually have far more options to learn about a game since back in the day some ads, a demand maybe a story in a magazine where all you had access to.

 

[JediMB]

While I agree on that we need more demos, we do have easy access to both professional and amateur reviews, as well as communities of people you can compare specs with to figure out how well a game is likely to run on your setup.

 

[sanquin]

I do notice for myself that if I played a demo before launch and liked it, I'm more inclined to buy the game at launch day or even pre-order it. I did so with Dragon's Dogma and The Witcher 2, and would have done so with Skyrim as well if I had the money to buy it at launch. (I bought it a month later.) Skyrim didn't have a demo, no. But like above was said, I pirated it first to test it out, then bought it because I liked it.

For the same reason I stayed away from buying FEAR 3 and Kingdoms of Amalur. The first I got totally bored of after 2~3 hours of gameplay. The second I got bored of after 4~5. I'm not paying $60 for a game that gives me less entertainment than what a movie ticket would have cost me. And movie tickets cost 8 euro's without 3d glasses here. (Which I have a pair of already, at home.)

 

[saruman31]

Did I miss the period in history where every company made a demo for every game? That doesn't seem too familiar. Anyways, there are other ways of finding out if a game is good or not. If you have a computer, or phone, or tablet, or feet that can take you to an internet cafe, then you can go on the internet and find out what a game's like from a variety of sources. Nowadays you actually have far more options to learn about a game since back in the day some ads, a demand maybe a story in a magazine where all you had access to.

Finding out about a game does not mean i`ll like it. For example, i didn`t like how DAO looked and played until i played it. And now it`s one of my fav games ever.
@Draech Yes.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

I agree completely, its insulting that game companies think all they have to do to sell a game is make a cinematic trailer with lots of explosions and flashy lights. Its a practice I think needs to disappear, cinematics are nice and all but show us some actual gameplay please. More demos would be great but I would love it if companies at least showed more gameplay in their advertisements rather than "look how big our cinematic dick is!".

 

[Spitfire]

I agree with you completely, but the fact of the matter is that demos have never really been a common practice for triple A studios, and there's little incentive for them to start doing so now, unfortunately.

But that doesn't mean that you can't make an informed decision on whether to buy a game or not. You can read about it, you can watch gameplay videos of it, and if it's an MMO, you can try and get into the beta for it, or play the trial for it.

There are exceptions, of course.
In your Guild Wars 2 example, I agree, ArenaNet took a huge gamble by not having an open beta for it. This is a game that is technically demanding enough, and gameplay-centric enough, that you have to play it, before you can commit to it. They're lucky that all the advertising they did for Guild Wars 2 payed off, and so many people were sold on it. Then again, maybe that says something about the state of the game itself.

 

[Signa]

Did I miss the period in history where every company made a demo for every game? That doesn't seem too familiar. Anyways, there are other ways of finding out if a game is good or not. If you have a computer, or phone, or tablet, or feet that can take you to an internet cafe, then you can go on the internet and find out what a game's like from a variety of sources. Nowadays you actually have far more options to learn about a game since back in the day some ads, a demand maybe a story in a magazine where all you had access to.

Last time I remember was in the early nineties. Though we didn't call them demos as much as Shareware. Being only 10 or so, I only really understood them to be games, because they were playable.

 

[tippy2k2]

This should be a challenge for the mods. I'm curious how strict they are with the rules. And I also applaud you for taking the chance, though considering your track record you don't have much to lose.

I'll answer that and do a bit of a public service announcement here:

Unless The Escapist has recently changed it's policies, that will still be a warning. Any recommendation for piracy (whether you feel justified for it or not) is grounds for getting a ban-hammer smacking. They've been flexible about it before but people do get smacked with that exact same statement (The "I pirate to try as a demo and delete it" statement that is).

As to the OP: I can understand why PC developers don't want demos but I don't understand why they can't have demos on digital distribution services (IE STEAM, GoG, etc.) If your service stops (or minimizes) people from being able to pirate, I don't see why a piece of the code would suddenly allow the pirate to steal the entire game. Maybe I'm just being naive as a console gamer but breaking a piece of the game off for demo use seems like it wouldn't cause pirates to be able to hack your system to steal the rest of it.