EA considering "paid demo's"

Ausdoerrt said:
Yes. They don't really want you playing demos.
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Then why even make them, with or without a price tag? I mean, it takes effort. It doesn't compute at all.
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Because it's hard to get away with never making them. But if publishers had their way, the demo would long since have been a thing of the past.

Developers generally like demos, they believe in their product and wish to share it with the world to entice them into buying.
Publishers know what they're giving isn't that good and gamers might be done with it when they're done with the demo, so they prefer to rely on hype and PR instead.
 
So I don't know what games cost around the world, but 10$ sounds like about a fifth of what a game costs? So if you scale this to, let's say cars, that would be about 2000€ at the least to test drive a new car?

Oh well, I don't really bother with demos so I don't care. But it feels insulting somehow.

heh, the power just went here and when I restored my session my post was still here. Good on you firefox.
 
Because it's hard to get away with never making them. But if publishers had their way, the demo would long since have been a thing of the past.
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Well, demos more or less ARE things of the past now. And lots of companies have been getting away with never making them easily. It's been a long time since I've seen a demo for a AAA title.

Developers generally like demos, they believe in their product and wish to share it with the world to entice them into buying.
Publishers know what they're giving isn't that good and gamers might be done with it when they're done with the demo, so they prefer to rely on hype and PR instead.
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Which is also why I don't get why they hate demos so much. A well-done demo is worth 100 PR campaigns. Take the Lionheart demo, for example; it was almost better than the actual game.
 
Which is also why I don't get why they hate demos so much.
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They count on the blind buyers. With a demo, people can see if they would like the game. The ones that don't like it are the ones that won't buy it, and the publishers don't like that. Every person, who does not like and buy their games in their eyes is a person who would have broth the game if only he did not knew that he won't like it. In short, capitalism.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
Which is also why I don't get why they hate demos so much. A well-done demo is worth 100 PR campaigns. Take the Lionheart demo, for example; it was almost better than the actual game.
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If the game is good. Or, as in Lionheart's case, starts strong but tapers off.

But this is a part of the whole "people start games but rarely finish them"-adage of the modern industry. Publishers know this. Imagine BioShock 2 had a demo? It already did pretty weak, but who would have bought it after playing the first stage?
 
Well, pick the best of the game and put it into the demo. Lionheart's demo stuff was made from mid-game chunks, and didn't even exist in the same state in the full game version.

In short, I think it'd be smarter to actually like demos, provided they put forward an effort to make good ones like game companies used to do in the past.

Although, naturally, breeding "blind buyers" lets them get away with more crap. Which, imo, is bullshit that needs to be eradicated.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
Well, demos more or less ARE things of the past now. And lots of companies have been getting away with never making them easily. It's been a long time since I've seen a demo for a AAA title.
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God of War 3, Aliens vs. Predator, Heavy Rain, Forza 3, Bad Company 2, etc...
 
I guess I should have said "PC games". I'm completely oblivious to the console world, but it's good to know they still do demos.
 
I think I have a new idea for EA though for the case they havnt considered that already:

pay for play!

Yes! You heard right! If you want to play, you have to pay. You not only have to buy the games but also pay a charge if you want to play the game. 0,02 $ per minute for all games 0,10 $ for AAA titles! Weekends its half the price, on high days its even just 25 % of the usual price ! If you preorder youre only paying 75% but have no bonus for weekends and only 50% for high days. Every 50 days the cost will be reduced for 50% till its reaching 0 ! Playing was never so cheap !

If youre a real gamer you want to support your "team" and will gladly pay!
 
Y'know, I wouldn't be surprised if publishers started doing something like this within the next 10-15 years. Hell, maybe even sooner.
 
well microsoft tried something similar like that with their games for windows or live crap I think ... glad it didnt worked on the PC.

But it did on the xbox ...
 
MrBumble said:
Can I pay for updates too please ?
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Its part of a big masterplan I think with the final end to conect the wallet of people via a cable directly to the game company/publisher sucking money out of it while you dont notice it.
 
Crni Vuk said:
MrBumble said:
Can I pay for updates too please ?
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Its part of a big masterplan I think with the final end to conect the wallet of people via a cable directly to the game company/publisher sucking money out of it while you dont notice it.
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"Welcome to the Ubisoft game launcher. Please open your wallet and place it near your modem for your game to launch"
 
I'm going to play the Devil's advocate here, and say it might not be entire shit (were it not that it's EA, ofc).

Say, you release a demo 1 year to a few months before the actual release date. You let people pay 5 to 10 USD for it. This funds your further endeavors a bit and aids with final production and debugging expenses (it's a crisis, it's expensive to fund 2-3 years of development for a serious game all up front).
When the game actually gets released, you get a 5 to 10 USD rebate when you buy it (and potentially some added goodies as thanks for springing the required money for finishing the dev cycle without total and utter stress and overly insane crunshing due to money problems).

While I agree a demo should demonstrate the product for free, a new sort of 'preview' could be made... Maybe...
 
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