Demo not playable anymore

[Gabyskatedmc]

Deleting the demo just because the game released makes no sense. Downloaded it yesterday to see if i liked the game and planned to give it a try today, but it's been taken down. Nice, devs.

[Johnny 5]

Tends to happen a lot over the years its nothing unusual, when a game gets a full release the demo tends to fall behind on fixes / QoL updates etc applied to the main game which causes the demo to become less representative of the final product which can actually hurt sales. (I read all this somewhere in the past).

[FirestormMk3]

I'm in the same boat as OP. This is a regrettable evolution in demos not being part of the culture, I also set up the long download and sat down to play today only to be greeted with the purchase icon replacing play. I get not wanting to push the fixes onto the demo, seeing it as a waste, but maybe just having the demo be an up-to-date build that lets you play the game's intro is a better idea. I figured I'd play it and see if I wanted the game before the introductory sale was over. Now I'll only ever buy it on steep discount. Where before I was excited they were confident enough to offer the demo and cared enough to let players try it for themselves now I'm disappointed. It's a niche type of game and I wanted to know I'd get along with how it played, and I'm not one to try to use the two hour rule to "test-drive" a game, I use it like regular refunds - sparingly and because I feel the game was defective or falsely advertised.

It's an interesting enough concept of a game I'll probably keep it in my wishlist instead of just knee-jerk removing it over this, but it also means I'll only think about it again when I get sales notifications and this is always gonna be a first impression that left a bad taste. I think they'd have been smart to at least keep it up until the release sale period ended as that's when on-the-fence early adopters would most value a demo, but I also think more games should try to patch in the fixes to the demo. If the build for the demo is so different that's completely unfeasible maybe it wasn't all that representative of the game anyway?

[Gabyskatedmc]

Originally posted by Johnny 5:

Tends to happen a lot over the years its nothing unusual, when a game gets a full release the demo tends to fall behind on fixes / QoL updates etc applied to the main game which causes the demo to become less representative of the final product which can actually hurt sales. (I read all this somewhere in the past).

Taking the demo down also hurts sales. Mine is just one example. Other players might want to know how good the game runs on their hardware, if they find the game fun to play, etc. The demo should've been optimized after launch. If all of the above wasn't possible, then they could at least let people know that they were going to take it down.

[DeathSpectrum]

Originally posted by Gabyskatedmc:

Taking the demo down also hurts sales. Mine is just one example. Other players might want to know how good the game runs on their hardware, if they find the game fun to play, etc. The demo should've been optimized after launch. If all of the above wasn't possible, then they could at least let people know that they were going to take it down.

Well just buy it then. you have two hours to see if it runs well enough on your hardware, if not get a refund...

[Loot Hunter]

Yeah, it kinda sucks that demo isn't available anymore and you have to actually buy the game to check it out.

[0x41414141]

You can still play the demo if oyu had it downloaded. It's in the steamapps folder like a regular game.

[~T~D~]

Originally posted by DeathSpectrum:

Originally posted by Gabyskatedmc:

Taking the demo down also hurts sales. Mine is just one example. Other players might want to know how good the game runs on their hardware, if they find the game fun to play, etc. The demo should've been optimized after launch. If all of the above wasn't possible, then they could at least let people know that they were going to take it down.

Well just buy it then. you have two hours to see if it runs well enough on your hardware, if not get a refund...

Well I've spent 1 hour 33 minutes on a gamebreaking bug, not solved yet. There's many in the forums having it. - Releasing a DLC before a bug in the tutorial is hammered out i get bad vibes... sadly was looking forward to this game.