magerette
Hedgewitch
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- October 18, 2006
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Shacknews editors Aaron Linde and Nick Breckon have a joint article up arguing the pros and cons of game demos.
More information.
Breckon takes the pro argument, arguing cost of games makes a demo necessary to increase consumer involvement and satisfaction:Recent data out of the MI6 video game conference appears to show that demos may actually hurt sales of games across the board....
Potentially deceptive evidence aside, plenty of developers have passed on a demo release recently, for reasons ranging from cost of production to unrepresentative gameplay. What would happen if publishers began to cut down even more on demos? Would that be a good thing--from either the consumer standpoint, or that of the industry?
Linde argues that most games have enough information available before release that fans shouldn't need a demo to make up their minds, and that it takes money away from game development:If the industry were to generally phase out demos, it would be a slap in the face--not in a nostalgic sense, but purely from the standpoint of a consumer...
If you haven't noticed, a game is $60 these days--$60 goddamned dollars. This isn't a movie, where a decent trailer is enough to warrant a $10 investment. We're talking 60 trips to the dollar store here...For the gaming industry to strong-arm consumers into making blind purchases seems counter-productive to me. Are they trying to encourage rentals or resales? Are they looking to prop up piracy even more? How does that help their business?
Of course you can make the argument that great games don't need demos to sell, and terrible games are hurt by them. This ignores the fact that most games released today don't fall into either of those extreme categories.
There are some additional points about how reviews and industry coverage factor in, so for the whole 3 page article, check out the link above.I'm not going to suggest that demos aren't useful, because they are. ... But industry-wide delirium notwithstanding, there's so much coverage and so much information out there that you have to make a significant effort to buy a game knowing virtually nothing about it. A lot of big name titles like Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 won't be featuring demos, and I'm okay with that. It takes a shitload of time, effort and money to craft a demo, and often requires extensive tweaking to make it work in a standalone setting, and that's work that I'd rather go towards polishing the game. Dumping budget into a demo rather than development proper is like dumping budget into expanded marketing, which is something I could do without.
More information.
- Joined
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