Electronic Arts to charge for game demos?

JDR13 said:
Holy shit guys… stop with the semantics.
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If only we were arguing such, mate, this would be so much easier.
As it is, I return to my "brick wall" analogy. :wall:

Ubereil said:
They aren't wrong because pepole dislike them. It's the thing that makes pepole dislike them that makes them wrong.
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Brilliant logic there, mate. Keep it up. Nothing like a little post hoc ergo propter hoc assertion.

Ubereil said:
Some pepole don't like swearing. Does that make swearing wrong?
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In the eyes of those "pepole"…yes.
Frankly, in the mind of any linguist as well. Swearing is little more than a corruption of language used to substitute the ability to pointedly or poignantly express a concept or emotion. That it is the recourse of the unsophisticated is precisely why it has garnered the term "vulgar" as a descriptor.

Of course, you're going to reply with some semantic argument, thus I find myself asking: what's the point of even trying?

Well, it was you who made the point that if you buy the demo and don't like it you're sitting on a product that you don't have much use for.
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Time to hone those reading skills. Here's what I wrote:
a) "…demanding money for what, essentially, is an incomplete product." That's what I said about the "product" which, as a chopped-down version of the final software is really nothing at all. You are familiar with what "demo" is actually short for…right? It's not "marketable product" it's "demonstration of a marketable product."
b) "…let us assume, having completed the demo, that you don't like the game and have no interest in a full purchase. What then? You're out the $15…" That's the point I made.

I fail to see why it's such a big deal in this case and no deal at all in all other cases. You keep claiming that all other cases are irrelevant without explaining what makes this case so incredibly different.
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If you haven't grasped why on your own and what I've written had no effect, then I can only despair for your plight…and question whether you're being paid by EA to spread this sort of nonsense. ;)

In either case, I've devoted far too much effort to this thread already (and attempting to make some painfully obvious points), thus I concede. To each his own...
 
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For a minute there I thought I was in the P&R forum!! :)
 
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Corwin said:
For a minute there I thought I was in the P&R forum!! :)
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You too? That's rather why I decided to concede with a "to each his own" line. I was getting some distinct flashbacks of my behavior in the "educated atheists" (or whatnot) thread.
Just feeling argumentative of late, I suppose. Oh, and...

JDR13 said:
*Yawn*…. :bored:
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*YAWN!!!!*
...sorry, those things are contagious, you know?
 
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All I'm going to say about the meta-ethics discussion is that it's a bad idea to dwell into that kind of territory with a cold since the cold makes it hard to think through new positions properly and leave it at that for the time being.

It's made easier by the fact that instead of calling me an idiot (which is bad form, by the way) you've acually said something about your original point.

themadhatter said:
a) "…demanding money for what, essentially, is an incomplete product." That's what I said about the "product" which, as a chopped-down version of the final software is really nothing at all.
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The first, obvious and kind of silly point is that a demo always is more than nothing at all, since if it weren't it wouldn't be much of a demo!

The second point (and this is where I get serious) is that you never said you thought the demo was an incomplete product. All you claimed is that it was a part of the game and not the full game, which isn't the same as an incomplete product in itself.

Wether it's "nothing at all" (or something that's so little it might as well be) depends on the demo. The Dungeon Siege 2 demo definently was something. It was (I guess) ten hours of gameplay with two of the classes (I'm making things up, I don't recall how many classes you could play, but I doubt you got all classes and even if you didn't you don't in most other aRPG games). And, since it was a demo and not the entire DS2 game it was an incomplete product, by your definition.

Diablo II with Throne of Bhaal enhanced the existing functionality and added an entire new act. Did this make the Diablo II base game incomplete? D2+ToB might not have improved as much on D2 as the full DS2 game improved on the DS2 demo, but that's just a question on where on the scale of incompleteness you are. DS2 was (say) 30 % complete and D2 was 80 % complete, but it was still incomplete, right? And the thing is, if you're creative enough you could probably add to ToB as well (say, add a new class), which makes D2+ToB incomplete as well.

Every set is a subset of another, bigger set. The set {1, 2, 3} is a subset of {1, 2, 3, 4} which is a subset of {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. D2 is a subset of D2-ToB. The DS2 demo is a subset of DS2. Every game demo is a subset of the full game. Every full game is a subset of another, more polished verision of that game. So, if your logic that demanding money for an incomplete product holds true it's immoral of gaming companies to demand money for their products.

The alternative is that the game set is a set in itself that shall be judged on it's own merit when it comes to charging money for it. This also means that the demo (which is a subset of the full game) also is a set in itself that shall be judged on it's own merit when it comes to charging money for it.

themadhatter said:
You are familiar with what "demo" is actually short for…right? It's not "marketable product" it's "demonstration of a marketable product."
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Would you feel better if they renamed it part-product? Since that, if they decide to charge money for it, is ultimately what it is.

themadhatter said:
…and question whether you're being paid by EA to spread this sort of nonsense. ;)
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Damn, you caught me! You have to admit though, claiming what EA was doing was either pretty stupid or incredibly stupid was quite a slick move though? I thought no one would figure out the truth after that!

Übereil
 
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GothicGothicness said:
I am boycotting EA and this surely does not make me stop.
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I don't even need to. Because until the buy of Bioware, EA never released games I would like. They just didn't "hit my taste".

So - I just wouldn't buy games from them because they just didn't and don't do games that appeal to me. 'Nuff said.
 
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It just seems like that would encourage even more pirating, at least on the pc side. Want to try a game before purchasing, but the demo costs money? BitTorrent to the rescue! Maybe this is an insidious plan to stop making pc games. If it's only EA, I'm all for it. I'd miss the occasional Bioware game, but I'd get over it.
 
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Well, well, well. EA has certainly topped themselves this time.

Seriously! Is there no depth that EA will NOT sink to?
 
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Ah, damn it. And I had just lifted my EA boycott of 15 years to buy Dragon Age. Granted, that's a Bioware title. And before I bought BC2 as well. Oh well. I'll stick to CoD: UO for another 5 years. And it saves money on not buying the DA expansion.

Demos are a marketing tool. While GT5:p was a glorified demo that was charged for, that is the exception, and should not be made the norm.

If you want to sell $10-15 games, then do so. EA could easily start repackaging hundreds of older titles from their catalog. Package them with DOSBox, or a loader that interfaces between the game and Win7 (in those cases where the game doesn't work under Win7, or even WinXP). Boom, they've just got a nearly pure profit way of selling $10-15 games. Retro is in, look at Mega Man 9 and 10.
 
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themadhatter said:
Bravo, I say, bravo!
Sure, most people will remark that a one-person boycott is "meaningless" or whatnot, but from where I stand it is the single most-powerful act an individual can take. Besides, in cooperation with others these single-person boycotts can create sufficient market force to generate a real change.
EA isn't in the process of developing anything that peaks my interest, so I'm with you.
Also: banana. Somehow I managed to insert the word into every other paragraph. It just seems appropriate to continue the motif.
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I concur. Voting with your wallet makes sure that your opinion is tallied (in that they did not make the sale!)
 
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JDR13 said:
I tried the PSN demos for both of them this week. I really enjoyed the first few Mega Mans back in the NES days, but to be perfectly honest, these should have been given away for free imo.
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My comment was irrelevant as to whether you or anyone else liked them, but to the fact than MM9 sold so well that there's an MM10. And the fact that MM10 is selling so well that we'll likely see MM11 next year. :p I wonder if we'll hit MM14? 6 NES games, 6 NES-styled games... :D

For what it's worth, I thought MM9 was one of the best in the classic series, and the only one with an entire weapon set you want to use past the boss that is weakest to it. Not MM2 or 3, mind you, but better than the others. I haven't played MM10 yet. Both also offered something the classics never did; Protoman as playable. Bass makes his second playable appearance in MM10.

But, to each his own. I enjoyed having a real platformer, not some 3rd person shoot em up with piss poor gameplay and badly designed, frustrating platforming segments. Lets face it, only Mario took to 3D well. And his 3D games suck compared to SMW or SMB3.
 
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azraelck said:
My comment was irrelevant as to whether you or anyone else liked them, but to the fact than MM9 sold so well that there's an MM10. And the fact that MM10 is selling so well that we'll likely see MM11 next year.
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Sure they did, because there's always a market for people looking for a cheap piece of nostalgic gaming, which is exactly what those games are.


azraelck said:
Lets face it, only Mario took to 3D well. And his 3D games suck compared to SMW or SMB3.
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Definitely not true. Haven't you played any of the Metroid Prime games? What about Zelda Ocarina of Time, or Twilight Princess? The Metal Gear series started as 2D, but didn't truly become great until it went 3D.


*Edit* At first I thought you were referring to classic game series in general, but now I realize you were only talking about "platformers", in which case Zelda and MG obviously don't apply.
 
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How counter productive. Part of the reason folks download pirated games is because of a lack of demos.
 
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JDR13 said:
Sure they did, because there's always a market for people looking for a cheap piece of nostalgic gaming, which is exactly what those games are.
Exactly. I suspect we'll be seeing a MM11 next year. I'd like it if they went with modern graphics but stayed with the sidescrolling platforming, but that would cost more money. Plus, they failed utterly doing that with MMX8. Though MMPU was good, it didn't sell (being a PSP only title).

Definitely not true. Haven't you played any of the Metroid Prime games? What about Zelda Ocarina of Time, or Twilight Princess? The Metal Gear series started as 2D, but didn't truly become great until it went 3D.

*Edit* At first I thought you were referring to classic game series in general, but now I realize you were only talking about "platformers", in which case Zelda and MG obviously don't apply.
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Yeah, I meant the platformers like Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man, my bad for not making that clearer. Super Mario 64 was good, Sonic Adventure 1 was fair if incredibly buggy. The rest ended up meh to incredibly bad, with the majority being the latter.

I didn't like Metroid Prime, but I also never cared for the classic Metroids. So I'll go with you're opinion there. Console shooters never do it for me, so I'd probably rate the originals higher. I never played Zelda at all, or Metal Gear. Of any era. I did play some classic Castlevania, but none of the newer ones.

For RPGs, 3D just opened new possibilities. Mostly untouched, but still there.
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A console gamer who's *never* played a Zelda game? :thinking:

You've played Metroid Prime though, so am I correct to assume you have a Gamecube or a Wii? If so, you really should give Zelda: Twilight Princess a try. It's truly a fantastic game… by console standards at least. :)
 
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I'm not much of a console gamer, actually. Platformers are my forte there, anything else I generally don't get into. RPGs are hit and miss, I don't like the jRPG style generally, but some just grab you and pull you in, like PSIV or Tales of Symphonia. Occasionally another style action game will grab me as well, like Batman: Arkham Asylum or Ghostbusters.

I do NOT like first person shooters on the consoles, and hate the consolization of the shooters coming out for PC. That's why I didn't like Metroid Prime (which I got for free. My brother owed me money, which is how I got the entire Gamecube). I'll try Twilight Princess if I happen across a copy, but I make no promises as to whether I'll like it.
 
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Ah, same here. I have a tendency to more of a "collector" when it comes to console games, especially jrpgs. I'd estimate about 90% of my gaming is on PC.

I don't like first-person shooters on consoles either, I can't stand playing them with a gamepad. I wouldn't call Metroid Prime a shooter though, it's really more of an action-adventure. You spend most of your time exploring, and searching for artifacts, etc.
 
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I got the shooter vibe myself when I played it, though admittedly that has been some years. I think I still have it, I rarely trade games since you don't get any value from it. They have to be truly horrible to get me to trade them.

Some games work better with a game pad. Some work better with a mouse and keyboard. FPS with any semblance of a challenge (ie guns that actually recoil, and having to aim to actually hit stuff) require the precision of a mouse.
 
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