It's all a cash grab scheme. As someone pointed out if you did a free trial, like 10 days or so you would probably knock out more then half the content.
Eve, offer a demo now and then, but then again they are arguably one of the better games out there so they can afford to let people take a free look and more than likely pick up some long time players when they do.
It should not be lost on people that crap games (pick one) won't do that as they are just wasting time. It's far better for the low end of quality to do as much cash grabbing as they can before people figure out just how horrible the game is.
I would like to see demo's come back, and I would like to see pay to play beta go away, and I would like to see subscriptions become more popular. I am certain none of this will happen, but it is what I would like.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
Rentals, perhaps, but free game demos used to be just shy of impossible. There used to be no Internet, you know.
Which games are you complaining about, anyway? If it's something that hasn't launched yet or only launched in the last few months, I'm going to laugh at you.
Maybe you are talking about the 80's. In the 95 era you could get a demo for just about any game on the market download straight off the internet. In the early 90's every game came with demos of other games. You just don't see that any more.
Well that's the entire point. Horusra argues that games used to not have demos, and you argue that more recently, they did. Well, they used to not. The universe existed before you were old enough to remember it.
I bought dozens of games in the late 80s and early 90s. I don't think any of them had demos at all apart from a rental. Not a one had a demo of some other game on it, as when you only have 1 MB of space, other games don't fit so well. The instruction manual might have had ads for other games, but that was about it.
It wasn't until CDs became prevalent that you had space to throw in a bunch of other, random stuff not necessary for a game. Before that, they had to compress data in all sorts of ways, such as only storing half of a rock and mirroring it to show the other side.
IDK why some of you are taking a title like I made and trying to think I compare it to pc gaming 30 years ago. That is not even remotely relevant to what we are seeing today. In 2k you could get a demo for any pc game and I mean any PC game. It wasn't untill recently about 5-7 years ago that the demo's really declined to the point where you don't see any.
About the time they started selling gamers early access.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
You must be too young to have purchased games on a floppy. :-)
yea , shoppin for games for the C64 128 or Amiga , you only had the box to look at and one or 2 magzines that may of had an arcticle on "X" game if you were lucky .... But honestly .. those were better times
Quit being lazy and do some research before you buy an MMO. I have never walked into a games store to just browse games to try and find something i would like. I always know exactly what i want, and why i want it.
Quit being lazy and do some research before you buy an MMO. I have never walked into a games store to just browse games to try and find something i would like. I always know exactly what i want, and why i want it.
You still buy games in a store?
Yep. Am married. Cash leaves no trail.
Lucky, in the UK you just can't find a store with PC games, seriously, if you want to buy a physical copy of a game, you have to order it online from Amazon etc.
Quit being lazy and do some research before you buy an MMO. I have never walked into a games store to just browse games to try and find something i would like. I always know exactly what i want, and why i want it.
You still buy games in a store?
Yep. Am married. Cash leaves no trail.
lol this translates to me .. " Your future ex wife doesnt approve of you spending money on games .. "
woderin if your joking , cause if not , this cant possibly end well..
Quit being lazy and do some research before you buy an MMO. I have never walked into a games store to just browse games to try and find something i would like. I always know exactly what i want, and why i want it.
You still buy games in a store?
Yep. Am married. Cash leaves no trail.
lol this translates to me .. " Your future ex wife doesnt approve of you spending money on games .. "
woderin if your joking , cause if mot , this cant possibly end well..
It's the exact opposite in our household husband is always saying I spend too much on games. So I use my paypal and hide the expenditure....damn Steam and GoG.
Yeah, you'd think that with digital distribution becoming standard there would be more demos out there, especially from the big AAA companies. Sadly, they're less common today than they were twenty years ago. They weren't always completely free (usually $1 or so in software stores), but they were quite prevalent.
I miss shareware. What a great way to advertise while spending barely a dime, while giving potential customers a sizable chunk of content to play through. A shame it fell by the wayside.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
They stopped offering demo's because 99% of the games on the market are utter trash and they know it. It would be bad for their company to offer demo's because they would never make sales. There use to be a time they offered demo's because they put their heart into making a game and were proud of it. Now its all about "subs."
The only one to blame is the consumer because people keep buying crap and they will just keep making it.
Steam is the way to go these days. Get your 2 hours of playtime then refund if needed.
Quit being lazy and do some research before you buy an MMO. I have never walked into a games store to just browse games to try and find something i would like. I always know exactly what i want, and why i want it.
You still buy games in a store?
Yep. Am married. Cash leaves no trail.
lol this translates to me .. " Your future ex wife doesnt approve of you spending money on games .. "
woderin if your joking , cause if not , this cant possibly end well..
My wife only plays WoW, gets salty when i play DAoC or try something new....have been together for 28 years now, if she was going to leave me she would have done it by now. I hope.....
I remember back when if a game was too hard you kept playing it anyways and didn't cry to your friends, you found help. I remember going to the library to try and find game guide books for the games. Monkey Island had a hotline you could call for help even. If a game sucked you chugged on through it anyways so you could at least say you finished. Those were the days.
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Indeed. No youtube to review the games. No gaming websites. You had to go to the bookstore and buy or stand there and look through gaming magazines to learn about current, new, and older games.
The box often game with a thick manual that told you nearly everything about the games lore, often including the storyline, and contained pics of keyboard shortcuts, along with a poster and a map.
I noticed Dragon's Age: Inquisition has a demo out. It's timed and give you five hours of gameplay. The new thing seems to be to not give demos but to rely more on the hype machines to capture victims players imagination.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I remember back when if a game was too hard you kept playing it anyways and didn't cry to your friends, you found help. I remember going to the library to try and find game guide books for the games. Monkey Island had a hotline you could call for help even. If a game sucked you chugged on through it anyways so you could at least say you finished. Those were the days.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I was overjoyed if I could get a computer game to actually work in the 80's. We would literally high five about getting a new game to work regardless if we liked the game or not. The fact that we got the game to work was reward enough...lol. Looking back it's amazing how far we have come.
I can't remember the last time I played a demo...until playing the Doom demo last week. Probably don't run in to too many demo as I try to stick with MMO's and avoid single player games.
Look at it from another perspective though. Free trials get abused by gold sellers and hackers. They also contribute to a lot of lag, due to the sheer numbers of people trying out the game. The best option is to get a buddy key from someone who already bought it.
I remember back when if a game was too hard you kept playing it anyways and didn't cry to your friends, you found help. I remember going to the library to try and find game guide books for the games. Monkey Island had a hotline you could call for help even. If a game sucked you chugged on through it anyways so you could at least say you finished. Those were the days.
Back when gamers were men!
Yeah, 20+ years ago when we were little boys/teenagers men!
Those are all old games or indie games. Very rare are the AAA titles.
AAA titles rarely have had demos at any time in history. And you're wrong. There are 1,077 demos on the Steam list and very few are old, which depends on what the cutoff date is. Doom has a demo. Life is Strange has a demo. Tomb Raider Underworld has a demo.
Many are indies or smaller studios, but you didn't mention that in your OP. You're moving goalposts now. So what if they're indie. They let you try it and see if you like it. It could be a great game.
Finally, like I mentioned earlier that you've apparently ignored, both GoG and Steam have a refund policy now. So if you do a little research, watch a Let's Play, and buy it but then don't like it, you can return it. So there is no risk.
I didn't move the goal post. Noone cares about the game "zombies ate my grandma"
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
You don't remember far back enough. Only the bad games could you only just see the box (We're talking pre to early 90's). Most of the games I bought had demos or betas (free betas).
Just saying
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
Not in the RPG or RTS genres..
Yes...they did
Sure some did it just wasn't all that common in those genres, as it's hard to break such games down into a demo version. An old game informer mag I had actually had an article about this (I think it was Game-informer).. Around the time of the playstation 2's release. They used to get the question a lot it seems in regard to those old multi-game demo discs, you could get in game stores or in magazines. I found the article rather informative at the time.
It simply wasn't cost effective is what it boiled down to. Which makes sense. How do you break something like KOTOR or Morrowind down into a representative demo? You'd have to make what would essentially be a separate product for that.
Same with RTS... Some would offer battle demos, few offered much more than that.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Comments
Eve, offer a demo now and then, but then again they are arguably one of the better games out there so they can afford to let people take a free look and more than likely pick up some long time players when they do.
It should not be lost on people that crap games (pick one) won't do that as they are just wasting time. It's far better for the low end of quality to do as much cash grabbing as they can before people figure out just how horrible the game is.
I would like to see demo's come back, and I would like to see pay to play beta go away, and I would like to see subscriptions become more popular. I am certain none of this will happen, but it is what I would like.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Not a coincidence.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
woderin if your joking , cause if not , this cant possibly end well..
Kinda old but it speaks to what the industry thinks of free demos
I miss shareware. What a great way to advertise while spending barely a dime, while giving potential customers a sizable chunk of content to play through. A shame it fell by the wayside.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
The only one to blame is the consumer because people keep buying crap and they will just keep making it.
Steam is the way to go these days. Get your 2 hours of playtime then refund if needed.
MMOs are much bigger now projects and you take all that content and quality for granted. Issue of myopatic perception.
The box often game with a thick manual that told you nearly everything about the games lore, often including the storyline, and contained pics of keyboard shortcuts, along with a poster and a map.
I noticed Dragon's Age: Inquisition has a demo out. It's timed and give you five hours of gameplay. The new thing seems to be to not give demos but to rely more on the hype machines to capture victims players imagination.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Back when gamers were men!
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I can't remember the last time I played a demo...until playing the Doom demo last week. Probably don't run in to too many demo as I try to stick with MMO's and avoid single player games.
Yeah, 20+ years ago when we were little boys/teenagers men!
Just saying
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
It simply wasn't cost effective is what it boiled down to. Which makes sense. How do you break something like KOTOR or Morrowind down into a representative demo? You'd have to make what would essentially be a separate product for that.
Same with RTS... Some would offer battle demos, few offered much more than that.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson