Why do games no longer have demos?

[Mr. Boncle Fanclub]

I'm sure im not the only one who thinks that games need to have demos. Its great to have the opportunity to try out a little bit of the game before you have to spend your money on it. There are a few games that i think i would have liked but i wasnt going to risk buying them without trying them first. If these were games on consoles i would just ask one of my friends if i could borrow it, but this is the digital market so borrowing is not an option. What this means is that the only games i can justify buying without trying them out first are the triple-A titles that do the same thing every time and leaves me almost unable to try out anything new. You might be saying "Just look up some gameplay footage on youtube" but gameplay footage only tells you how a game looks and sounds, not how its mechanics and gameplay feel. A personal example of this for me was dead space. I had looked up a walkthrough of dead space 1 on youtube and i watched quite a bit of it, but when i actually played the game myself, the gameplay felt completely different than what the video had led me to believe. Luckily I hadnt bought the game and was just borrowing it but imagine if i had bought that game. I would be stuck with a game that i didnt want and didnt enjoy. A more recent game that has brought me ack to this point is Cuphead. These run and gun shooters aren't usually my kind of thing but cuphead's art style and interesting approach to the genre had me interested. Because of the"tough as nails" reputation of this genre, i wanted to try out the game to see if it was something that i could handle, but when i looked for a demo, i was not surprised to find out that StudioMDHR had not bothered to make a free playable demo. It would have been easy, just have the tutorial and the first part of the first level, there, done. It seems like the only company out there that understands this is nintendo. My 3ds keeps just giving me demos even when I dont ask for them. Even then there are only a handful of games that have demos and most of them are games that were just released on the 3ds and were not made by nintendo. In closing: GAME COMPANIES. I WANT TO BUY YOUR GAMES. ALL I ASK IS THAT I GET TO TRY THEM FIRST!!

[Satoru]

The problem is that resources are a zero sum game

In the 'old' days there were very few ways to effectively market the game to people. YOu were limited to print media or downloadable demos.

Today there are infinitely better and cheaper ways to do so. Twitch streaming shows you gameplay immediacy. Same with YouTube Lets Plays. The necessity for demos is much less given these better much cheaper ways of marketing your game. Especially when the opportunity cost of making a demo is enormous compared to the literal zero cost of distributing a key to a streamer.

[Mr. Boncle Fanclub]

Start_running. Thats not what i mean by how a game feels. What i meant was things like, how precise the controls are, are they floaty, is there input lag, does the control scheme feel natural, and many more things that i cant put into words. Also, watching a video doesnt let me know how well a game will run on my computer, sorry but that's not how that works. Also, looking up the specs of the game and my computer doesn't help me either because game companies sometimes post the minimum required specs for their game and sometimes post the specs required to have the optimal graphics performance

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di Lazyninja 27:

Start_running. Thats not what i mean by how a game feels. What i meant was things like, how precise the controls are, are they floaty, is there input lag, does the control scheme feel natural, and many more things that i cant put into words.

These are all rendered irrelevant for most games. Controls are very remindable and input lag is not so much of a deal breaker. And all those things can also be figured from reviews. User and otherwise.

Also, watching a video doesnt let me know how well a game will run on my computer, sorry but that's not how that works.

Actrually it is. If you take the time to learn what your system is capable of you can figure out a lot from the videos and posted system specs.. And as said. A demo wouldn't really help with this. A demo is a scaled down set piece of the game, in which the number of enemies and actors are tightly controlled. More so than in the real game. A demo may be hard coded to only ever have 5 enemies in an area at any time. The Real game generally will not have such limitations on enemies, ai's and objects in any given area. A game can run smooth as silk in the demo but the real game will chug like a mofo because the environments loaded into memory are larger and there are that many more objects to keep track of. Demos are actually more likely to mislead than anything else.

Also, looking up the specs of the game and my computer doesn't help me either because game companies sometimes post the minimum required specs for their game and sometimes post the specs required to have the optimal graphics performance

If they only post the minumum then the minimum is the optimal. See there's no indusrty standard as to what denotes minimum and optimal in the industry. A dev may decide riunning the game with everything set to medium to be the minimum acceptable quality for the game. Another dev might decide the medium settings are the optimal for their game. SO again, you simpky have to learn your machine's capabilities and learn how to interpret the specs. It gets easier as to do it more.

Demos will not really ffix any of these issues because the demo is not the full deal. It's like comparing a spaniel to a rottweiler. Sure they are basically the same but the difference in scale makes for a hell variant.

This is one of the reasons developers stopped doing it. It's a money sink that doesn't really do anything. . IT costs them time and manpower that could be better spent polishing and adding content to the actual game.

[Mr. Boncle Fanclub]

1. Input lag is a huge deal breaker, and if you dont realize that then you dont know what input lag is
2. Some games with really good graphics run perfectly on my computer and some move like butter in slow motion and comparing the specs has never helped. As i said sometimes they say the minimum and sometimes they say what is required to play the game on the best graphics settings
3. How in the world am i supposed to tell any of this from watching a video?

[HLCinSC]

That's the risk you run with all media purchases. There is no guarantee you will like a book, even if you liked the chapter excerpt the author selected as a demo. There's no guarantee you'll like an album even if the artists lets you listen to a couple of tracks. There's no guarantee you will like a movie or tv show even if an extended clip is available. There's no guarantee you will like a game even if you enjoyed a demo or the first couple of hours.

Many developers/publishers however, feel that demos are less needed in this modern era. With professional and ameteur game reviews, youtube and let's plays, Steam Family Sharing, Steam Reviews/forums, Steam Broadcasting, Steam's Refunds, Steam Free Weekends, and the rest of the wealth of information the internet provides us, we've come along way with what we have to help us make an informed purchasing decision.

[Mr. Boncle Fanclub]

You want to know what the difference between video games and all the other mediums you listed? I actually CAN experience a bit of them without buying them

[Satoru]

Messaggio originale di Lazyninja 27:

You want to know what the difference between video games and all the other mediums you listed? I actually CAN experience a bit of them without buying them

You also know what the other big difference is

Making a demo now a days takes so much time/effort/support that its not worth it. Demo conversion rates were in the best of times single digit %. A 10% conversion rate would be literally god-like and amazing even back in the shareware days. Demo conversion rates today are sub 1%

So as a developer does it make sense to dump $10,000 in lost opportunity cost into a demo when you will in the 'best case scenario' recover almost none of that. That doesn't even take into account ON GOING costs of supporting the demo, updating it in the future, etc.

Demos were always a MARKETING tool. As such their utility as a marketing tool has basically diminished to the point of being useless.

Demos today are

1) Too expensive financially
2) Too expensive in lost opportunity cost
3) Twitch/Lets Play fill the primary reason for demos which is as a marketing tool for much cheaper and reach a wider audience with less friction

[Gwarsbane]

Most of the stuff you want to know about can actually be asked about or read about in the discussion areas. If people are complaining about input lag, it will be complained about on the discussion area.

The other stuff like the graphics will actually different from a demo anyway so a demo will usually not tell you that kind of info. It will not tell you if the game will run on your system or not. I have played demos that would would not run on my system but the game ran fine. I have had it the other way around too, the demo ran fine, but the game itself had many issues.

A video will tell if its the kind of game you like. It is side scrolling, top scrolling, FPS, third person shooter and so on. It will show you the kinds of levels you are dealing with. It will show you what the graphics generally look like.

I have also already covered how you find out about that stuff. The 2 hour play game before you can't refund.

The 2 hours is actually to find out if it actually runs on your system or not. You can usually find that out within the first 5 to 10 minutes of the game. In that same amount of play time you can find out if there is input lag and you can see if it really is the kind of game you would like.

BUT don't try to do this too much or else you could get that privilege revoked.

Personally unless there is some sort of issue where I can't play a game I will never ask for a refund, why? Because I do research into the games before I buy them. Ilook around to see if anyone is having any issues with it. If so what kind of issues. I look to see what the graphics are like.

I have never had any issues with any game I have bought for steam.

Remember when you buy it you have 2 hours to see if it actually does work on your machine or not. I suggest sticking to a max of 1 hour, and then reboot so that you don't chance windows keeping it running in the background and going over that 2 hours.

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di Lazyninja 27:

1. Input lag is a huge deal breaker, and if you dont realize that then you dont know what input lag is

Track down Zen intergalactic ninja for the NEs sometime. That's basically as bad as input lag gets in a game. I said it's not a deal breaker because as long as its consistent, it's pretty easy to work around and can be adjusted by tweaking the frame rate settings most times

Worst case scenario you refund the game since that's the sort of thing that takes at best ten minutes to sus out.

2. Some games with really good graphics run perfectly on my computer and some move like butter in slow motion and comparing the specs has never helped. As i said sometimes they say the minimum and sometimes they say what is required to play the game on the best graphics settings

Did you ever look into the engine of the games? That's usually a pretty big clue. Cry, Source, Unit, unreal, etc. All of themhave their own quirks and knowing the engine can tell you alot. And again. the demo wouldn't necessarily help with this since the deom is not rendering the full game. just a small section. The behaviour of an engine when there are 5 actors is very different from when there are 10.

Is the level 5 areas or 9 areas? All these things can create false impressions of how the actual game will play and there's no reliable way to correct for it.

3. How in the world am i supposed to tell any of this from watching a video?

Use your brain. It's great at figuring stuff out if you train it properly.

[76561198407601200]

Messaggio originale di Lazyninja 27:

I'm sure im not the only one who thinks that games need to have demos.

Of course not, but you are also not the only one who thinks games SHOULD have demos.

[GAMEDRIX 🦴]

Maybe cause of the cracked versions , they say to themselves , ohhh why bother , there's enough way to give them an idea of the gameplay nowadays

[Tito Shivan]

Messaggio originale di Satoru:

3) Twitch/Lets Play fill the primary reason for demos which is as a marketing tool for much cheaper and reach a wider audience with less friction

This is a big factor. Demos come from an age where the way of making your game known was to distribute a sample of it.
With no widespread broadband and no big gaming press the way of making yourself known was to offer a bit of the game to play to your future customers. It's the same reason why shareware was so prevalent at that time.

Nowadays you can just go twitch or youtube for visibility. And there's 10 gaming review sites behind every rock.

[Mr. Boncle Fanclub]

How many times do i have to say that watching a video doesnt let me know what i want to know about how the game FEELS. Not how it LOOKS or SOUNDS which is all that a video shows. Reviews dont let me know how the game feels because everything is opinionated and the reviewer is playing the game not me. Also ive seen plenty of demos that were exactly like the game. They would just be the first level. Some examples would be: Lego marvel super heroes, Castle crashers, and battleblock theater. Because of this i dont see how it costs so much for a company to make a demo. Just take the first level and make that into the demo. It already would have been made for the main game.

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di Lazyninja 27:

How many times do i have to say that watching a video doesnt let me know what i want to know about how the game FEELS.

And how many times do we have to say that your hurdle is one that can be overcome by a little mental training. You don't need to take a bite of a meal to have an idea of how it tases. You can smell it and get a fair idea and even looking can tell you alot.

Not how it LOOKS or SOUNDS which is all that a video shows. Reviews dont let me know how the game feels because everything is opinionated and the reviewer is playing the game not me. Also ive seen plenty of demos that were exactly like the game.

And there are plenty of demos where they aren't quite like the game. It boils down to the type of game (I mean how would you do a demo for Skyrim? or Fo4?)

They would just be the first level. Some examples would be: Lego marvel super heroes, Castle crashers, and battleblock theater.

Not all games are level based and even so even if it's the first level that still leaves a proble,m. The second level and the third level and the nth level. See unless all the levels are the same, you're not going to find out what the game handles like on say, the ice stage, or the stealth section, or the dirving sections.

Because of this i dont see how it costs so much for a company to make a demo. Just take the first level and make that into the demo. It already would have been made for the main game.

And when it turns out your system startrs dropping frams because after you get out of the first level you will wail that the demo was misleading. If the first level is say, in side a building and the second area is an out door area you just shot your system load up 300% right there.

Look. Its fine that you want that 100% certaiunty but just understand, you aren't spending enough to justify the cost to most developers.

[Mr. Boncle Fanclub]

1. Soap smells nice but you wouldnt want to eat it
2.For games like skyrim or fallout have the opening (your escape for skyrim for example)
3.When i look up gameplay of a game i dont look for footage from every single segment of the game so that complaint is even applicable to that as well
4. The only games ive really played that started out in a confined space and then abruptly went to open world were fallout 3 and crysis 3
5. If i dont get a chance to experience how a game feels then there is even less chance that i am going to spend my money on a game that isnt a triple A sequel. The reason sequels do so well is that people like what they know. If they cant fully expeience something new then they arent going to spend their money on it, which means one of two things: They will never play a new kind of game or they will just pirate it
6. I understand there are some things that cant be portrayed in demos, but even less is portrayed in gameplay footage. Trailers can only go so far and only show visuals and sound. Same with gameplay footage.