Isn't that possible already? Several greenlight projects offer demos from their websites.

Or are you suggesting through the steam client with intergrated steamworks and generally against all of Valves interests?

I do not think demanding it or offering demos through steam is a good idea. Devs will be preassured to diverting resources for the demos even against their will. Demos aren't allways easy to make, depending on their process they could be quite demanding and take far too much time to be worth it.

Yes, I understand that, but I just thought it may be something for Valve to look into. And I wasn't demanding it, I was simply suggesting it.

Originalmente postado por Railtracks:

Yes, I understand that, but I just thought it may be something for Valve to look into. And I wasn't demanding it, I was simply suggesting it.

It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for Valve to give up that space and the associated cost of the additional load on their servers for products that aren't making them any money yet. If a developer is capable of providing a demo, they'll offer it on their own site. If they can get into the Early Access program on Steam, even better.

Originalmente postado por Railtracks:

Yes, I understand that, but I just thought it may be something for Valve to look into. And I wasn't demanding it, I was simply suggesting it.

I wasnt saying that you were demanding it. I was talking about the hypothetical situation where Valve demanded it of greenlight projects.

Originalmente postado por GorlomSwe:

Originalmente postado por Railtracks:

Yes, I understand that, but I just thought it may be something for Valve to look into. And I wasn't demanding it, I was simply suggesting it.

I wasnt saying that you were demanding it. I was talking about the hypothetical situation where Valve demanded it of greenlight projects.

Oh, okay.

You know what Steam Greenlight needs? A way to put your money where your mouth is. People can offer pity votes and vote because of unrelated incentives, but the fact is if people vote with their MONEY, then you know that a game is truly wanted.

Steam Greenlight should offer a way to purchase games off of Greenlight to be tied to your Steam account for a price that the developer decides on. The most-purchased games, alongside the most-voted, are looked at for inclusion into Steam proper.

Originalmente postado por Mindwedge:

More and more we see devs of all sizes talking down the whole idea of making demos. Between the recent sentiment that it hurts more than it helps, and the rise of F2P I don't see this happening. Even Steam Early Access is only being opted into by a few of the lit titles.


Related video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X7m1hjssNs

Hold on a shilling...
Doesn't that mean that demos are reducing sales of games by not forcing people to buy a game they won't like? And if so, doesn't that kind of policy lead to dissatisfied customers reluctant to buy your next game, and telling others to follow suit? What kind of risk/reward strategy do you employ to offset a quick sale of a game against loss of reputation, including negative word of mouth?

Originalmente postado por Mindwedge:

A shilling? I get Schell's feeling about it. The psychology IMO extends into being vested in the experience. For example, we get more positive reviews from game owners than we do from demo players, and not by small margins either. One gets the feeling that a paying customer has a different mindset going in: "I'm going to play this". They commit.

I think the reason one gets more positive reviews from the game owners is that there is a higher percentage of people who wanna actually play the game. Hm, I don't know if that is clear. Good i will try explaining using arbitary numbers. People playing the demo don't know if they will like the game and hence, therefore playing the demo. So from these people 20 % will buy the game because they like it, the other 80 % won't. From the people who actually bought the game there it is the other way around. They bought it because they were sure they would like it, atleast the majority. Otherwise they wouldn't have spent money.

As for me I actually never play demos even from the games I'm on the edge if I should buy it. Im looking for the price, the screenshots and the gameplay video. And if those grab my attention I will start reading reviews. I usually do this on metacritic (forget the numbers they are meaningless) because there I can get user feedback. I mostly read the NEGATIVE reviews because I already am interested. Therefore I wanna know what problems are coming with the game, what do people not like and will it be a problem for me? Sometimes negative reviews are coming just from people who actually don't understand the game.

So for me a demo would be useless. It may be interesting if I don't know if my laptop could run the game.

Would be nice to get a try out beforehand..

I wonder how much of the 'more positive reviews' also comes from buyers not even willing to admit to themselves that they wasted their money.

Originalmente postado por Mindwedge:

The psychology IMO extends into being vested in the experience. One gets the feeling that a paying customer has a different mindset going in: "I'm going to play this". They commit.

"Invested" is one thing, often I end up more "Oligated" when I find myself trying to get my money's worth rather than being in the moment (Perhaps this is due to the long hours I spent beta testing some real dogs back in the days, or maybe it's just pathological)
Also, Adelion's point about statistics seems to stand. Of course in times gone by we had the option to borrow a game from a friend, blast it for a weekend, and then make a fully informed choice. It's kind of similar to the argument that piracy boosts sales by a certain percentage.

Originalmente postado por Mindwedge:

Would you like to suggest a strategy based on your own experience?

Well, a purely hypothetical case, you understand...
Supposing a young fellow were to sell small amounts of illicit substances at college. If there were alternative suppliers available within a reasonable distance and at a similar price, then the reputation of the product does come into play quite strongly. Further suppose that this college was in a seaside resort and popular tourist destination and another effect comes into play, to whit: There is a seemingly endless supply of fresh custom, can you replace the lost clients as quickly as they will drop off through natural wastage or disappointment with the product?
Year after year somebody tried that approach, it never ended well. There was the exposure of having to find new customers, you see...
As a wise man told me often "You can shave a cat every week, but you can only skin it once"