Are demos bad for the industry and developers?
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Game Demos have been part of the industry for as long as we can remember and offer gamers the chance to try out a game without taking any money from their pockets.
However we ask ourselves, are demos actually bad for the industry and developers?
When a developer releases a demo for a game, they hope that in making the effort to do so it will persuade more gamers to invest cash into buying the whole game.
They can come in many shapes and sizes, from a section of a first level – think Killzone 2 – to a completely new level that you can’t play in the actual product.
Burnout Paradise is an example of a game that had a very good demo. I remember when I downloaded that 1GB+ demo a year ago, I enjoyed it so much and it pushed me into spending my money to experience the whole title, after previously having little intention of getting the game in the first place.
Although demos take a small amount of time from developers’ busy schedules that they could be used to improve the final product, if done right, it can help them in hyping up their game and driving sales.
So if they choose to take this approach, it’s important to leave gamers wanting more instead of being disappointed, especially if they intended in getting the game in the first place and now have a change their minds.
Many of you have downloaded the recent Killzone 2 demo that hit the European PlayStation Store and was available to those who pre-ordered the game from Gamespot in the States. Of course the sequel to Killzone has been extremely anticipated before the demo even hit the PlayStation Network, so in many ways the demo was not required.
However some gamers were disappointed, mainly with the slow controls and the reported lag. So what message should this give to developers?
If you are going to make a demo, make sure that the demo is as representative of the final experience as possible and not leave gamers disappointed.
Indeed, most demos do clearly state that the demo is not a final build, however when you want to get people to buy the game, you want it to be as good as possible.
We must point out that many were more hyped for the title and taken aback by the extraordinary graphics after playing the demo so it did have a positive effect for the majority.
And then there is another argument against demos… does it ruin your first experience with the game when you pop it into the machine?
If you get so familiar with a demo, when you actually play the game in full you may feel your time is ruined by the fact that it is not so fresh and new. It’s probably a small price to pay for trying before you buy.
These days, demos appear to becoming less and less important for developers. Not only does it take away valuable developing time, many gamers now just go onto the internet to find out about games and see how it plays.
On the other hand, with the increasing number of casual gamers who won’t necessarily do their research, demos are still a good way of enticing new people into games. For as long as the casual crowd continues to grow, demos will still be part of the industry.
This is especially for games like Mirror’s Edge that offer a new genre of gaming. In this case a demo can be a good way in getting people to be interested in a game if they are unsure by the new style of gameplay that has been created.
A good discussion of the pros and cons of demos. Personally, I’m a big fan, and there are a number of games (Everybody’s Golf:World Tour being the standout) I wouldn’t have picked up without playing them first. Done well, I think they’re a valuable addition to gaming, particularly for games and genres on the edge of a gamer’s range of interests.
For example, I didn’t initially download the KZ2 demo, because I was actually a pretty big fan of the original KZ (I’ve studied a bit about war, so got a lot of their war references – which were well done – which I think were lost on a lot of the shooter crowd (who, ironically, generally know very little about what war is actually like or about)), saw a whole heap of demos and pre-ordered with confidence, so didn’t download it as I didn’t want to mar my experience. On the other hand, I’ve never really been into the Resident Evil series, so gave it a look to see what I thought (as if I didn’t, I almost definitely wouldn’t pick it up). The jury is still out on that one, but without the demo I’d have much less of an idea of what to get. This can be particularly important for established and successful franchises, as I’ve found these often get reviewed a little differently as it’s almost impossible for the reviewer not to have some small positive bias (I’ve personally found a lot of Ninty titles, while still good, to receive ridiculously positive reviews which after playing the actual game (I grew up on Sega and the Playstation, so don’t have the same Ninty-centric emotional baggage) I can only put down to one or 2/10 being added for sheer nostalgia value. Accordingly, the online reviews are much harder to judge for new entrants to the series that won’t get the ‘nostalgia’ benefit, and need to judge the experience based on gameplay alone.
Hmmm…rambled a bit there – will leave you all to it – have good ones
A lot of interesting points raised both in the article and by yourself, Axe99.
My own view is very much mixed on the whole demo issue. As demonstrated by Nintendo, with the right amount of advertising demos aren’t necessary. Look at that balance board thing. It didn’t have a demo – it simply wasn’t possible.
Yet it sold like hotcakes. Crack-filled hotcakes, at that.
The Killzone demo is a strange one. I played it with almost tingly nervousness. But at the same time, once the short demo was done, I was left with a ‘is that it?’ feeling.
The reviews online are all saying that the single player portion of the game is more sluggish than the multi player and that the graphics are significantly better in the full game, but that simply leaves me wondering what on earth the point of releasing the demo was.
The hype around this game would have been enough to carry sales alone.
As Whoelse mentioned in the article, Burnout Paradise is a lesson in how to do a demo. Make it fun, make it representative, make it leave you wanting more.
But then, Burnout is a lesson in how to make a game keep giving and giving. It’s quite possibly the most impressive game on the current consoles in terms of longevity.
In the end, demos for unknown games do no harm, even if they are bad; they raise awareness of the game.
However, games for massive games are on a very sharp knife-edge; if they are anything less than awesome, it could damage hype. If they manage to pull off ‘awesome’, they can really set the hype train into Crazy Mode.
And I too have rambled. :s
I hear ya Phreaky, the KZ2 demo has got a mixed reaction, and it’s not as if they needed to get a demo out there to raise awareness! A lot of the reviews talked about needing an hour or so to get used to the controls in KZ2, and the demo was nowhere near long enough for people to do that (although I do know a few who have played the demo for far longer than that!) which probably made it an unnecessary risk for Guerilla. Not that I don’t reckon they’ll do alright with KZ2
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