GMAN-GAMES: Free Video Game Demos Destroy the Industry?

Free Video Game Demos Destroy the Industry?

August 8th, 2006

Both XBox 360 and now finally PSP (and soon the PS3 and maybe even the Wii) allow for downloadable demos. I love them. It's great. I get to try many games I would never have tried for free! As a player, what could be better?

But....I wonder, is this helping the industry or hurting it? (or just changing it?). I'm finding for the most part once I've played the demo I don't need the game and I believe though I can't prove that some of these games I might have bought if I didn't have the demo.

Some examples:

Rockstar's Table Tennis. The demo is all I need. I don't need other players or other tables. 2 Player table tennis is available in the demo. Maybe there is something awesome about the retail version I'm not seeing but the demo seems like enough. I can play with my friends, we don't need to pick other characters. It's just not important.

Dead Rising: For most people this is a must buy game and I'm sure based on word of mouth alone I would have bought it. But, I hate brawl games. So, since I've had a chance to play the demo I can see how it's an awesome brawl game and people who like brawl games will love Dead Rising but for me the demo is all I need. I got a taste of the game. I believe given how much my friends will be loving this game that their hype might have gotten me to purchase it but having played the demo I can tell that even if I bought it the demo's worth is about all I'd play

G.R.A.W: I wanted to buy this game when I first got my 360. In fact the review on Ars Technica is one of the things the convinced me to finally get a 360. Then I played the demo and it was clear to me I'd never personally get into it. That's good for me, I saved myself some money but it's bad for Ubisoft because I believe they lost a sale. I would have bought into the reviews and hype and probably purchased if I had not played the demo.

Saints Row: The demo just came out. Of course the real game may be better than the demo but from the demo it doesn't seem like they met the bar set by GTA. Of course technically it's better than the older series by virtue of it being on new hardware but the demo is missing something the GTA series had. Maybe it's the sense of humor. I don't know what it is. They clearly did a great job and I'm sure it will have it's fans but the demo was enough for me to think "pass....I'll wait for GTA4". Would I have bought Saints Row if there was no demo? Probably not unless the reviews were amazing or friends told me it was a must play game.

カズオ(Kazuo): This is a version of Sudoku for the PSP. There's a downloadable demo on the Japanese site. I have no idea what extra features make the commercial version worth buying but like Table Tennis above, the downloadable version of Sudoku seems like all I need. I can play forever. It's hard enough for me still that I can only finish it in the required time limit maybe 1 of 5 times so the demo alone is challenging enough and it's fun. What do I need the real version for?

Prey: I don't know what to say about Prey. I downloaded it, it's exactly what I expected. Yet another FPS. I'm sure some fans see it as the bees knees but for me it's nothing special. Would I have bought it without a demo? In this case almost assuredly not since unless it just got the best reviews ever it seems like yet another Space Marine game. Sure, you aren't a space marine but it's pretty hard to tell the functional difference between shooting aliens/demos in Doom 3 or Half Life 2 or Prey.

Oblivion: There is no downloadable demo for Oblivion and I did buy it. I played it for maybe an hour and it was not personally my thing. I'm not saying it's bad. It's just not for me. If there and been a downloadable demo I would have realised that and not bought it in the first place. Instead I read the hype and heard from some friends who loved it and so I purchased it.

I'm not calling for a end to downloadable demos. They are here to stay and as a player and consumer I love them. It just seems clear they will change the industry in some way.

Maybe they will change it by no longer making games like Table Tennis or Kazuo because having a demo makes buying them pointless. Maybe they will change it by companies learning to make more disabled demos. Table Tennis with just one round for example. The problem there is unless you get a full taste for the game you are unlikely to like it enough to want to buy it. Maybe they will not have demos for smaller games like Sudoku or maybe small games like Sudoku will become free and advertiser supported like TV shows. Maybe it will force more games to be super fun and addictive because otherwise no one will buy them after having played the demo.

So far the only counter example for me is Lost Planet. I think this would have been off my radar without the demo but the demo as turned out to be one of the funnest games I've played in a while. I don't know why. Logically it's another space marine game though it's 3rd person. But for whatever reason it's fun. Maybe it's the incredible effects and art. Maybe it's the awesome sounds and controls that feel so good but in this one case the demo has made me want the real game.

PS: I know PC demos have been available for years. I also know the PC game market is like 1/10th the size of the console market. I have no idea if there is any correlation.

Pass it on

Comments:

Demo Prudently

I think (at the moment) it's hard to say how it will affect (positive or negative) the sales of the full versions of the game. As a developer, I surely would hope the demo motivates people to buy the game, but as a consumer I'd be sure glad to not waste money on a title that really does nothing for me (I've done that way too much as it is).

If anything, perhaps the developers need to add a little "marketing" in that the demo shouldn't have all the features enabled or at least highlight some compelling aspect of the game.

I tried the Prey demo on the PC and was sure glad I didn't waste my money on it. It really is just another FPS with really nothing new ... yeah the portal stuff is interesting, but not really all that compelling.

I think (over time, at least hopefully) developers will clue in to what should be in a demo and what shouldn't be. As you noted, the PC has had downloadable demos for years and those demos that are really fun and enjoyable always seem to end up being bought by people.

Here's an odd idea though ... though I'm not so sure how well it would work in a home setting. I think one of the things that made the arcades in the past so compelling was the 25 cent "fee" you had to pay to play a game. The hook seemed to be the challenge of getting the most out of the 25 cents you paid. Obviously, the game itself was fun, but you could only keep enjoying the game (on just 25 cents) as long as you did well.

I'm thinking more along the lines of the psychology that goes on in such a situation ... though I think folks would possibly get angry if there was a situation say where they played a demo, and died after 3 lives were used up and had to wait for a certain time period before they could play again.

posted by globulousAugust 8, 2006 at 22:14 [ e ]

Irony to PC ears

This is an interesting, yet ironic, quandary: demos hurting sales. I am a PC gamer myself, and so I have been a demo-based buyer for a long time. Demos hurting sales? It sounds, well, odd. Not that I’m saying that I think it isn’t possible. I’m just saying that I base almost all of my purchases on the demo. If I don’t like the demo, I won’t buy the game. If a company wants me to buy its game, it’s going to have to impress me with its demo first. I’ve been burned far, far too many times over the years by a lame game that had no demo. This is one of the reasons why I am strictly a PC gamer. We have had demos for a long time. It is only recently that console games have started to have demos, and so it is only now that a gamer like myself would consider getting a console. But then, the world of gaming has been changing a lot lately. Maybe PC gamers like me are out of date. I suppose I don’t represent the majority of gamers. I suppose that it is plausible that games would sell better if they didn’t allow you to play them for free first. The idea of it still sounds funny to me. But then, maybe it today’s gaming world, this is now true.

posted by gramuraiAugust 10, 2006 at 15:43 [ e ]

Only buy what I've played

Personally, after having been burned many times by games that seemed good but really weren't, I generally won't buy a game without having played it in some way first. Often times my much-hipper-than-me younger brother will buy the game and I'll play them at his house before buying them myself. Other times I'll download demos. If those options aren't available, I may rent a game from Blockbuster before buying it. The only real exception is the really big blockbusters (I have a copy of Final Fantasy XII on reserve), and the really cheap ones (I took a chance and bought Big Brain Academy and Brain Age without trying them first. After all, it's only $20).

posted by VorteksAugust 14, 2006 at 16:01 [ e ]

Haven't consoles had "cover disk" demos for years?

I don't know about Japan, but in the US many console game magazines have "cover disks" that contain game demos.

I don't think there is too much difference between a DVD-based demo from a monthly magazine and a downloadable demo, in terms of how it affects the market.

posted by jackpAugust 14, 2006 at 22:56 [ e ]

There's a huge difference. A DVD based demo only reaches a very very small number of people in relation to the entire market. A downloadable demo, especially on XBLA or similar service will basically reach everyone that is interested in the game. A downloadable demo is free. A DVD based demo usually costs the price of the magazine. A DVD based demo is only available if you seek it out (go find the magazine). A downloadable demo is instantly available the moment you decide you want it.

Of course for an awesome game that might mean lots more sales since more people will get to try it. Or maybe a game like Okami, it didn't do well in Japan I believe. Maybe if word of mouth said it was awesome and all it took was a click or two in an XBLA like service to try it out, maybe it would have done better.

posted by greggmanAugust 15, 2006 at 13:41 [ e ]

If demos of bad games dissuade you from buying a bad product, that's a *good* thing for the industry overall. Demos encourage good games and punish bad ones.

Re Prey specifically, the purportedly new and interesting stuff is the portal-heavy design and the messing about with gravity. It's no Portal ( http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=if3Qv2tHyfA ), but all the screenshots of people standing on Escheresque twists of geometry do make it look pretty cool.

posted by jimAugust 21, 2006 at 20:09 [ e ]

I agree if bad games lose that's a good thing.

My point was at least in my case I often buy games and then never finish, even supposedly good games. Maybe 2/3rds of the games I own. Examples: I bought "The Warriors", "Rainbow Six ???", " "Halo 2", "Splinter Cell". Those are all good games but for me the majority of those games I would have been better off with a demo. The same with the games above. I believe I would have bought "G.R.A.W." at least if I hadn't played the demo. So, now that I have demos my game purchasing *should* go down 66%. I don't know how true that is for other people.

On top of that there's just the entertainment value. I can turn on my 360 and play Tennis, Ping Pong, 2 Areas of Lost Planet, 3 Missions of G.R.A.W, 3 characters from Dead or Alive, and several other games and I haven't spent a dime. For some people that might be enough.

posted by greggmanAugust 22, 2006 at 1:48 [ e ]

it may work the other way round

ubisoft may have lost a sale on you, but perhaps because of that demo, ubisoft might have picked up sales on other people who never really gave GRAW much thought, or people who were on the fence, but know they had to buy it after playing the demo.

Ubisoft and GRAW are just examples of course, i mean it for other demos as well.

We can't really say for sure if it's a positive or negative effects if we do not have the statistics from the sales, but so far, from Microsoft they have been saying it's been overall very positive.

I can imagine it, coz really if a demo is able to bring the game to people who like it and prevent other people who don't like to from spending money on it, it can only be a good thing. The game would have found more of its target audience this way.

That would allow you, if you don't like the game, to save that up and spend that money on another game that you like after trying the demos.

That's a healthy thing i would say, for both gamers and the industry.

posted by FrigidNovember 20, 2006 at 20:00 [ e ]

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