Sounds like they've got a plan to use this patent to sue companies than have limited-time demoes, using the justification that losing ALL your features counts as losing features over time.
Shiny Founder Calls Sony's Degradeable Demos Crazy
- Thread starter vansau
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While it wouldn't work in every (or for that matter many) games I thought Dead Rising's demo did it best. A room, weapons, zombies. You got 15 minutes, make stuff (re)die.
I don't know why Sony would make a degradable demo. Can't they just shorten the demos a bit more and take out a little more content. Only leaving enough stuff that can grab the consumers attention, and convince them to buy the game. Creating demos is tricky business. The creators have to be careful about what they put into the demo so that the player has fun, but is left wanting more, and is willing to buy the full game. Sometimes creators put to much content in and the consumers get the feeling like they have played some of the best or thee best things in the game which sometimes causes the consumer to think that the overall game won't get much better. The consumer won't think the full price is worth the rest of the experience that the game has to offer outside the limited boundaries the demo. If the demo is to short. The consumer might think the full game doesn't have much to offer at all. Usually this isn't a problem because demos for the most part have a video clip/s of game play showing all the other fancy things that you can experience in the full version.
Well yes, a demo is a free snippet to do with as you wish. HOwever, once you've started supplementing the game with the demo, you're abuse the purpose of the "Demonstration" You're no longer being shown a snippet of the game to determine if you like it or not, you've decided you like it, but you're giving the finger to the develloper by not even playing their game. Dont' degrade it too quickly. Maybe your equipment options dissapeer on the third play, or you have 5 minuites less play each time you turn the demo on. Make it gradual3nimac said:
I've got a better idea! Let's do what Mount and Blade does where you can play the whole game, but they cut you off at a certain point in leveling until you purchase said game. You can even cut off the story of the first chapter and just let them wander around doing stuff till they get a feel for the gameplay and think on whether or not they want to buy it. Like Saints Row did.
They seem to be doing fairly well for themselves. In fact, Saints Row did so well it warranted a sequel.
With the degradable demo as it stands now you're just asking for people to say, "The game gets shitty about thirty minutes in, don't bother."
They seem to be doing fairly well for themselves. In fact, Saints Row did so well it warranted a sequel.
With the degradable demo as it stands now you're just asking for people to say, "The game gets shitty about thirty minutes in, don't bother."
I like the way Spiderweb software does the stuff you can download from their site. You get a fairly substantial slice of the game to play and explore (generally the first area or the first few areas). Beyond that, you can't pass until you buy the game. And after a while, you run out of stuff to do. But you can always restart and play again. No degrading, no "only one hour to play" (although if you don't get the game from their site, many other places do set the "you can only play for 1 hour" thing. If you download it directly from Spiderweb software, you get easily 3-5 hours of play.
Oh god...Blackadder51 said:
That's...
[small]That's worse than mine...[/small]
You poor man!
Ot: Sounds like a sucky enough system to me; how will we know when the game is gimping itself or it just sucks? Better to give people something short and sweet than an experience that drags on but gets more sour as you go through it. It'd put off more people than anything.
Cloud based tech is already working in many other areas and needs to be developed and explored. Cloud based gaming is something that won't always be troubled and should be developed. There's rarely such thing as releasing technology when it's perfect. Generations onward, cloud based processing, distribution and storage will be integral in many ways. Gaikai clearly is emmergent and that makes it somewhere near the ROOT of something. Sony's patent is nothing like that. Where will IT go in the future? As a means to an end, it bears very little promise of enriching or advancing anything at all, that is, except Sony and co.'s pockets.mjc0961 said:
The thing I worry about when it comes to cloud based gaming is this: eventually the problems will be ironed out, and the cloud systems will expand dramatically...what happens when the big publishers will only deal with cloud services? why, the usual of course! tiny studios will be forced to take worse deals then they already get because the cloud services will represent a huge portion of the games out there, and bump out the other types of games.
Cloud gaming represents potential consolidation of the industry and culture, rather than any kind of expansion.
Cloud gaming represents potential consolidation of the industry and culture, rather than any kind of expansion.
I think the best way to make a demo is either a new construct showing the aspects of the game in a fun way, or perhaps a standalone level that is not part of the main game (think HeavyRain)
I played the Prey demo, and it was just a few of the first levels. I liked it, and bought it, but I put the demo after level 5 I think since I felt it was too long. (I did not want to replay half the game when I got it)
Lets say I wanted to make a demo for DOOM, Id just make a small and simple level similar to the other doom levels that has alot of the stuff from throughout the game.
The degrading demo would piss me off, and demos that are just levels from teh game I will have to replay annoy me.
Bad Company 2, and Guitar Hero both had good demos, since it made me want to play the full game.
I played the Prey demo, and it was just a few of the first levels. I liked it, and bought it, but I put the demo after level 5 I think since I felt it was too long. (I did not want to replay half the game when I got it)
Lets say I wanted to make a demo for DOOM, Id just make a small and simple level similar to the other doom levels that has alot of the stuff from throughout the game.
The degrading demo would piss me off, and demos that are just levels from teh game I will have to replay annoy me.
Bad Company 2, and Guitar Hero both had good demos, since it made me want to play the full game.
Where do you live? I'm coming over to steal your internet (as someone else said in the thread, fuck Australia's slow and expensive internet. 150kb/s sucks balls.)L1250 said:
OT: I'd much rather just have timed demo or one level demo that shows all the gameplay so that I can judge for myself.
Ooooh, I've always wanted to be able to hug Calumon... his portrait is also my favourite avatar on these forums.Jack and Calumon said:
OT: Exactly HOW would features be removed from a game without breaking the game? Having worked on a couple of games projects, I know it's hard enough to get all the features in a game working, without having to try to get them to work independantly as more and more of them disappear.
It's a programmer's nightmare.
I know why he's upset. Sony's degradable demos will 100% prevent shitty games from selling at all.
Both Sony's and Gaikai are terrible ideas. Neither gives players a chance to test how well the game works on their PC. The Sony one might do, but sometimes if a game has shitty menu setups, it'll take 2 hours of testing before I'll even get it running optimally - then I can choose if the (potentially dog-ugly) expereince is worth it on my not half-bad system. If sound quality is degrading whilst I'm tweaking my audio drivers then its a waste of time.
Seriously, PC demos are a little about gameplay, but more than anything they're about performance. Reviews don't even touch on that shit anymore!
I want to see demos that are the first portion of a game explaining some of the intro game mechanics, and then after completing that, you get saved (so if you buy you can continue right away) and get treated to a non-interactive trailer that is generated on the fly using chunks of the game, your graphics and audio settings and basically a macro - so that late game intense moments can be fully tested for slowdown on your system.
Arkham Asylum for example I felt was playable in the demo, but it seemed HEAVILY dependent upon how many enemies were onscreen. As there was no way to test late-game performance on my machine (perhaps the enemy count would spiral out of control and I couldn't even get halfway?), I chose not to risk the purchase. I bet in some suit's stats somewhere I turn up as a moocher who "felt I got enough of an experience from the demo" when in reality I'd love to buy the whole game, if only I knew.
Seriously, PC demos are a little about gameplay, but more than anything they're about performance. Reviews don't even touch on that shit anymore!
I want to see demos that are the first portion of a game explaining some of the intro game mechanics, and then after completing that, you get saved (so if you buy you can continue right away) and get treated to a non-interactive trailer that is generated on the fly using chunks of the game, your graphics and audio settings and basically a macro - so that late game intense moments can be fully tested for slowdown on your system.
Arkham Asylum for example I felt was playable in the demo, but it seemed HEAVILY dependent upon how many enemies were onscreen. As there was no way to test late-game performance on my machine (perhaps the enemy count would spiral out of control and I couldn't even get halfway?), I chose not to risk the purchase. I bet in some suit's stats somewhere I turn up as a moocher who "felt I got enough of an experience from the demo" when in reality I'd love to buy the whole game, if only I knew.
...I guess the irony in the entire thing, with Perry blasting Sony for hiding away the original gradually until you pay for it, is just too much to handle.
But this one, I can comment on:
"However, it turns out that demos are a bit of a double-edged sword, since players might not buy a game if they feel they got too much of a game experience."
See, the problem is that a good demo is a representation of the full game - it is not supposed to be just any part of the full game. Subtle difference, that - woefully - you need many years outside an executive office to understand.
But the difference is that one is a custom-made demo.. there I go again, using strange words like they mean something... that represents how the game plays and feels. If it's a story-game, it would represent the narrative. If it's an action game, it would demonstrate an action sequence and the combat system. If it's a role-playing game, it would perhaps demonstrate both.
Meanwhile, the demo must not misrepresent the game either, because that backfires. In other words, it means you need some attention on choosing which part of the game to display.
In fact, simply showing people the first hour of a game would be counter-productive - because it would very likely not show you the progression of the game. Intro-sequence, and character creation - and then *blip*.
Instead, it would suggest that the game perhaps isn't very good after the display case. Or that the beginning of the game is made more flashy than the rest of the game and the story would allow for.
Do trailers for movies show you the first ten minutes of a movie, for example? No. There's a reason for that.
A reason that moron execs who wish to save money on hiring one guy for a few days to elaborately craft and compile a demo by just using the full package - do not understand, it seems.
Of course, Perry is only upset because he didn't think of it first. With the entire "download assets gradually while playing the game, then just download the core engine and the first level for a demo" thing. No doubt Sony is going to call it something with "live" in it.
Of course - it's still crazy. And I'd never buy an "unlock" or subscription for a game like that - least of all on the PSN, where the user-agreement changes once a week. And any dropped items or disappeared services is met with a shrug from support: "we are sorry".
But that's what they're going to make eventually - games that are deliberately made so they can be downloaded gradually from a server. Which is an easy idea, but an impossible programming task - and will therefore be replaced with a completely different scheme that looks similar, and is at least as annoying for the end-user.
And this will of course also go splendidly with some fantastically expensive DRM that will forever prevent you from actually playing the game if your internet connection breaks. Have fun!
But this one, I can comment on:
"However, it turns out that demos are a bit of a double-edged sword, since players might not buy a game if they feel they got too much of a game experience."
See, the problem is that a good demo is a representation of the full game - it is not supposed to be just any part of the full game. Subtle difference, that - woefully - you need many years outside an executive office to understand.
But the difference is that one is a custom-made demo.. there I go again, using strange words like they mean something... that represents how the game plays and feels. If it's a story-game, it would represent the narrative. If it's an action game, it would demonstrate an action sequence and the combat system. If it's a role-playing game, it would perhaps demonstrate both.
Meanwhile, the demo must not misrepresent the game either, because that backfires. In other words, it means you need some attention on choosing which part of the game to display.
In fact, simply showing people the first hour of a game would be counter-productive - because it would very likely not show you the progression of the game. Intro-sequence, and character creation - and then *blip*.
Instead, it would suggest that the game perhaps isn't very good after the display case. Or that the beginning of the game is made more flashy than the rest of the game and the story would allow for.
Do trailers for movies show you the first ten minutes of a movie, for example? No. There's a reason for that.
A reason that moron execs who wish to save money on hiring one guy for a few days to elaborately craft and compile a demo by just using the full package - do not understand, it seems.
Of course, Perry is only upset because he didn't think of it first. With the entire "download assets gradually while playing the game, then just download the core engine and the first level for a demo" thing. No doubt Sony is going to call it something with "live" in it.
Of course - it's still crazy. And I'd never buy an "unlock" or subscription for a game like that - least of all on the PSN, where the user-agreement changes once a week. And any dropped items or disappeared services is met with a shrug from support: "we are sorry".
But that's what they're going to make eventually - games that are deliberately made so they can be downloaded gradually from a server. Which is an easy idea, but an impossible programming task - and will therefore be replaced with a completely different scheme that looks similar, and is at least as annoying for the end-user.
And this will of course also go splendidly with some fantastically expensive DRM that will forever prevent you from actually playing the game if your internet connection breaks. Have fun!