Are Demos Worth A Wait?

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 1:19 am

Sounds like a pretty good argument to this gamer, what do you guys and gals think? Are demos a necessity for a game to be successful in this day and age? Or would you buy a game on screenshots and press coverage alone?

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 2:35 am

well for console games were stuck renting or reading reviews, but for pc games, a demo is essential. one big mistake companies make is release a very limited demo, and months later release the game when the anticipation has dropped...Imo

UO Noob Joined: 24 Feb 2004 Posts: 5

A game that comes to mind is, Call of Duty. Quite a few peeps and myself included had no idea of this game. If it wasn't for the couple of demos that came out we would have had to go on reviews (and I wasn't paying attention to those either). Not a bad thing but when I got to play the demos I was sold instantly and to me that is the hook that they need to sell to the masses. The peeps that I turned onto the game were enticed by the demos as well. I think it's a great tool to help sell a game. Now look at 2K4 demo, it has been DLed some 1.5 million times. Can't tell me that ain't good for the sale of the retail version of the game.

Guest

That's weird ... just about any console (except the GBA) has an 'official magazine' with a new demo-disc each month or so.
Of course it's more expensive than just downloading a demo for a pc (altough I'd argue that the on-line subscription isn't cheap considering today's demo-size).

Good demo's can (help) sell even average games or ones that in theory were made for small audiences (ie : a flightsim-demo)
It's here where the developers show how serious they think of the quality-ensurance for their precious game.

Bad demo's can kill even the best game ...

The worst of them all are the 'tech-demo' and 'beta-demo' which have serious technical issues for the 'average' gamer. They tend to kill the game they're trying to sell, unless you're a real fanboy (the kind that believes that obvious errors & bugs will be fixed at release ... ).

Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 9:07 am

both excellent points.

and after reading them i totally forgot the topic for this thread....

so i'll read it again and let ya know what i was going to say when i hit the "postreply" button in the first place....

when i first played the COD demo (sp ver) i was so impressed how they managed to make the game realistic but still give the masses that UNREAListic feel.

I dont know how they did it, but they definately scored a BIG 100/50 for me. I went out and got the full game immediately after it came out.

After i played that i tried out MOHAA. I was so thouroughly unimpressed by that game that i lost all respect for realism shooters from that point on. (in fact i still havent finnised MOHAA, i bought it about a month after COD came out and played it twice) (btw to relate this paragraph to the topic, i never played the demo for MOHAA)

BF1942 brought my interest back into the Realism shooters. I only played that because i was on a lan and played some friends on the MP demo and totally loved wake island. So i tried out the full ver and loved it.

i'm 2/1 for realism shooters, but it's a short run....

i diddnt play the demo for UT2003 either, but i liked it, I like the mods for it more tho....