BioWare - Demo Moments #1

QA guy Bruce Venne writes for the BioBlog about the potential difficulties demoing their upcoming games at various events. This first part includes an anecdote, although I doubt it will end up in any "most embarrassing gaffes" lists. The intro:

Demonstrations or demos are an important tool for BioWare to let people know about the games we have in development. It is always a challenge to put a demo together. We have the challenge of creating a ten to fifteen minute slice of the game that showcases all the RPG elements that our fans expect in a great role-playing game, some exiting combat in order to make the demo interesting to watch but framed by the story. The demo has to tell a story since rich-story-telling is a hallmark of any BioWare games. Subsequently there is a lot of stuff in the soup that eventually becomes a game demo. Having all of those game elements colliding into one another can lead to chaos. Our demos tend to be very complicated. Things can go wrong.

More information.

Personally, I prefer demos with content I can find later in the game, too.

I don't like levels, for example, that can be found ONLY in a demo and nowhere else, especially in strategy titles. The worst case is for me if these "special levels" are even hardcoded … and cannot be imported into the later full game at all … (Example: The Settlers 5 Demo.)

But maybe I'm just picky …