Why are demos so rare now?

[irishbeast]

Im 41 now and been into games since the CVG comic (Might have been UK only) but always loved them. Console at first until I got into computers and 30 years later I still game on PC and console. Not as much as I'd like but such is life. 

 

I remember when younger it was so easy to get demos of games, mainly on disk as internet was not around when I started gaming. Now neither console nor PC game companies release demos. 

 

Is there a specific reason? Is it to do with piracy? I remember once I bought a football game which was ace and my Packard bell Pentium 133mhz (16 meg of ram!)  made mince meat out of it. Wasn't fifa or pro evo, Can't remember the name. Obviously the game installs and then the PC just checks the disk and then loads up. I remember this particular game though where once I had to disk in do it wouldn't work. Grabbed the disk (or so I thought) and put it in, game worked fine. It was only days later I realised that the CD was not even a game, a music CD or something. Turns out that the ga,e just needed any CD to be present for the game to load. Pretty sure someone got sacked for that! Anyway, my point is that maybe releasing demos makes piracy easier? I really don't know. With fibre internet being commonplace now and some folk like myself having really fast connections (500meg which is the UK is top level) downloading big games is not a problem. 

 

So why don't developers release demos any more. I often played demos, liked them and so bought the full game. Yes I know people may not buy the game but if the demo is crap then why would you, especially as they are not cheap now. 

 

I sometimes end up downloading pirate versions of games to see if I like them but I don't like doing so. I genuinely do buy them if I like them as pirate games are generally not very stable. I know computer game companies make a fortune but they still employ people with families, mortgages etc so I always support the manufacturers now. 

 

I am sort of presuming that piracy is the reason as I recall downloading demos that were basically the size of the full game, so just needed a cunning crack and you had a free game.

 

Are there other reasons? I'm genuinely curious as I would love to be able to download a few demos, give them a quick blast and then buy the best one. Its a simple concept but doesn't really exists any more/ 

 

All input welcome but would be particularly keen to hear from anyone in the industry as a developer, tester, or whatever. Just curious as to why! Don't wanna pay a small fortune to play a game when 9 times out of 10 I'm disappointed!

 

 

[porina]

I think development resources are a problem these days, for bigger titles at least. They need to get the game out on time. Cutting up a limited demo is not a priority, and the download could still be massive too. If a demo comes out after a games launch, it will have more limited value. Watching others play the game is an option to get a taste of the gameplay.

 

Thinking around, two games on my radar that did have demos include FF7R and Stranger of Paradise. Then again they're from the same developer and somewhat related in series. So it does show demos can be planned for and released before game launch to help drive up interest.

 

Personally I'd love to have more games provide a stand alone benchmark, which could be part of the demo. I don't care about the game but as a tech showcase Shadow of the Tomb Raider was a good one to have.

[bal723]

21 minutes ago, irishbeast said:

Im 41 now and been into games since the CVG comic (Might have been UK only) but always loved them. Console at first until I got into computers and 30 years later I still game on PC and console. Not as much as I'd like but such is life. 

 

I remember when younger it was so easy to get demos of games, mainly on disk as internet was not around when I started gaming. Now neither console nor PC game companies release demos. 

 

Is there a specific reason? Is it to do with piracy? I remember once I bought a football game which was ace and my Packard bell Pentium 133mhz (16 meg of ram!)  made mince meat out of it. Wasn't fifa or pro evo, Can't remember the name. Obviously the game installs and then the PC just checks the disk and then loads up. I remember this particular game though where once I had to disk in do it wouldn't work. Grabbed the disk (or so I thought) and put it in, game worked fine. It was only days later I realised that the CD was not even a game, a music CD or something. Turns out that the ga,e just needed any CD to be present for the game to load. Pretty sure someone got sacked for that! Anyway, my point is that maybe releasing demos makes piracy easier? I really don't know. With fibre internet being commonplace now and some folk like myself having really fast connections (500meg which is the UK is top level) downloading big games is not a problem. 

 

So why don't developers release demos any more. I often played demos, liked them and so bought the full game. Yes I know people may not buy the game but if the demo is crap then why would you, especially as they are not cheap now. 

 

I sometimes end up downloading pirate versions of games to see if I like them but I don't like doing so. I genuinely do buy them if I like them as pirate games are generally not very stable. I know computer game companies make a fortune but they still employ people with families, mortgages etc so I always support the manufacturers now. 

 

I am sort of presuming that piracy is the reason as I recall downloading demos that were basically the size of the full game, so just needed a cunning crack and you had a free game.

 

Are there other reasons? I'm genuinely curious as I would love to be able to download a few demos, give them a quick blast and then buy the best one. Its a simple concept but doesn't really exists any more/ 

 

All input welcome but would be particularly keen to hear from anyone in the industry as a developer, tester, or whatever. Just curious as to why! Don't wanna pay a small fortune to play a game when 9 times out of 10 I'm disappointed!

 

 

you just explained my childhood with my ps3

[dizmo]

Steam lets you play the game and refund it if you don't like it within 2 hours. I think that basically takes on the roll of a demo, while at the same time saving the company time and resources in making a demo. You also have YouTube, where the game will be seeded to content creators and you can see how it plays. Not quite the same, but it seems to suffice.

[irishbeast]

3 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Steam lets you play the game and refund it if you don't like it within 2 hours. I think that basically takes on the roll of a demo, while at the same time saving the company time and resources in making a demo. You also have YouTube, where the game will be seeded to content creators and you can see how it plays. Not quite the same, but it seems to suffice.

 

I didn't know that. Thats a really good idea. Sometimes if I get a game and visually its rubbish, I almost discard it, within about 2 minutes. Basically judging a book by its cover

[dizmo]

17 minutes ago, irishbeast said:

 

I didn't know that. Thats a really good idea. Sometimes if I get a game and visually its rubbish, I almost discard it, within about 2 minutes. Basically judging a book by its cover

Yeah. I haven't had an issue with refunding a game yet, and I've refunded quite a few.

[irishbeast]

7 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Yeah. I haven't had an issue with refunding a game yet, and I've refunded quite a few.

Interesting. Quite forward thinking of them. I bought a ps5 a while back and it had a cyberpunk demo. I was highly unlikely to buy it as I had the PC version and was not blown away. Still though had CP been a better game I might have bought on both platforms. PC is visually much better but the ps5 is not too shabby either. Spoilt for choice!

[dizmo]

6 minutes ago, irishbeast said:

Interesting. Quite forward thinking of them. I bought a ps5 a while back and it had a cyberpunk demo. I was highly unlikely to buy it as I had the PC version and was not blown away. Still though had CP been a better game I might have bought on both platforms. PC is visually much better but the ps5 is not too shabby either. Spoilt for choice!

CyberPunk should get considerably better over the next year or so. I'd say it might even rival No Man's Sky for a successful comeback. 

[Middcore]

Because they lead to lower sales. 

[Brooksie359]

I am pretty sure some guy at some company did the math and realized demo's were not worth the cost and effort. I mean tbh watching people play the game on twitch or YouTube is probably going to give you a better idea of if the game is good. I mean from the game demos I remember they usually were very limited in the amount of gameplay and it was sorta hard to get a feel for if the game was good based off the limited gameplay the demo provided. Honestly I think the closest thing to demos we have now are open betas. 

[QuantumSingularity]

Not so long ago i also asked that question. I'm 35 and i also grew up with demos on CDs especially in the PC gaming magazines. It's true you can watch the gameplay on youtube but this doesn't give you the same level of information as a demo does, especially if the gameplay video has a narration and includes personal opinions. Every single big title at some point in the past had a demo - CoD, Battlefield, Half-Life, NFS. Some developers provided demoes to the graphics card manufacturer they worked with and you could download the demo from their site. The demo could also provide feedback to the developer how the game performs on various systems. With the gameplay video the first thing you lose is details. You can never get the the full scale of the details especially on YT, where after the initial compression from the recording software, you have one more step of encoding and compressing the video and the details going to the garbage bin. When i watch back my records from various gameplays, they always look way worse then the actual game itself and i have tried every single method recommended across the internet both for recording and for upload to YT. The only exclusion to that is ETS 2 where the textures are so old and low-poly that compression actually makes them look better. 

[Avocado Diaboli]

Demos are all around just bad for business, because customers will not buy your game if your demo isn't convincing and you'll end up spending unnecessary time and resources into creating something that doesn't demonstrably lead to increased sales. Extra Credits explored the reasons almost a decade ago.

 

 

[Jerakl]

On 9/30/2022 at 1:37 PM, dizmo said:

Steam lets you play the game and refund it if you don't like it within 2 hours. I think that basically takes on the roll of a demo, while at the same time saving the company time and resources in making a demo. You also have YouTube, where the game will be seeded to content creators and you can see how it plays. Not quite the same, but it seems to suffice.

Pretty much what I came here to say.
Functionally you can use that policy as a demo as long as you don't use it *too* much (or valve will restrict your ability to issue refund requests lmao)
Some games on a steam still have demos, but not a whole lot. And outside of those few? I think I see <5 games with demos available / year.

[Sarra]

I've seen a number of demos lately.

 

I generally don't bother with them, I wishlist, and if the reviews are good, then I buy it. If the reviews are mixed, I'll watch some gameplay, then decide.

 

Demos were awesome back when 1GHZ was blazing fast, and the P4 didn't exist yet. At least for me. Played demos on the family 66mhz Macintosh, too, but that thing was too limited to really offer any real gaming performance.

[Guest]

I studied game development and a key thing an accomplished businessperson said was

"Don't do demos. Trailers sell games because they're more enticing. If they try it then they can relieve their anticipation."

[irishbeast]

Thanks all. 

 

Only reason I asked is that I am a very very light ps5 gamer. Trying to download games for my partners kids and all I can get without paying a fortune is ps4 games from the psnow thing. Didn't buy a ps5 to play old games!

 

Games prices are mental now. Was gonna download a NBA2023 and tiger woods golf. £70 and £85 each. Roughly 75 USD and 85 USD each. I used to think £40 or so was fair but they are taking the mick

[NobleGamer]

On 10/1/2022 at 10:09 AM, Avocado Diaboli said:

Demos are all around just bad for business, because customers will not buy your game if your demo isn't convincing and you'll end up spending unnecessary time and resources into creating something that doesn't demonstrably lead to increased sales. Extra Credits explored the reasons almost a decade ago.

And yet what's interesting is that indie devs are more likely to put out game demos, even though they have less time & resources than AAA who could use their time & resources to put out a demo.

 

I wonder if indie devs' motivations for doing so are because they think their fans really want it and they put more effort into making it "compelling".

 

Or, with all due respect to indie devs, is it more because they on average have less business sense than non-indie devs?

[diegoaccord]

I feel like it's because most games are trash and even not trash ones are buggy at launch. I'd imagine a demo being even more buggy than retail. It would be easier to convince people not to buy the game than to do so.

 

 

[QuantumSingularity]

20 hours ago, diegoaccord said:

I feel like it's because most games are trash and even not trash ones are buggy at launch. I'd imagine a demo being even more buggy than retail. It would be easier to convince people not to buy the game than to do so.

 

 

That's the point - you get a feedback from as many systems as possible before launch, so if any general problems with your engine appear, you have time to work them out. I'll give Cyberpunk 2077 again for example. If they launched a demo back in December 2020 which consisted if 2-3 missions and ability to explore just Watson or any other single neighborhood, then launched the game in let's say April 2021, they would've had more than enough time to iron out the bumps, at least for the PC version since most of the bugs were hardware sensitive. What i used to do before was to pirate the game from some torrent site and if i liked it aka spent more than the initial 1 hour in it, i'd go ahead and buy it.

 

But i think the biggest problem and reason why we don't have demos anymore is because the games themselves have become the demos. More and more games launch with just some basic vanilla content and from day/week/month 1 get paid DLCs and expansions. Back 15 years ago when you bought the game, you had the full game. Now there are deluxe editions, day 1 DLCs, pre-order packages and so on. So i guess that's why no one bothers with demos anymore. 

[irishbeast]

On 10/15/2022 at 9:42 PM, diegoaccord said:

I feel like it's because most games are trash and even not trash ones are buggy at launch. I'd imagine a demo being even more buggy than retail. It would be easier to convince people not to buy the game than to do so.

 

 

Very good point. You would think though for consoles it would be easier as my ps5 is the same as everyone elses.  PCs on the other hand, completely different. 

[Ebony Falcon]

There called betas now 

[LapsedMemory]

I used to ask for PCGamer magazine subscriptions for Christmas.  Every copy came with a Demo CD for the games discussed in the issue.  I didn't have money for full games, but I played the hell out of those demos.  It accounted for >75% of my gaming habit in high school until I got to college and finally had access to a high speed internet connection. 

[ewitte]

On 10/15/2022 at 3:42 PM, diegoaccord said:

I feel like it's because most games are trash and even not trash ones are buggy at launch. I'd imagine a demo being even more buggy than retail. It would be easier to convince people not to buy the game than to do so.

 

 

Why would the demo be more buggy?  It is usually just a very small subset of the game and may not even have the same functionality.  I mean RE Village demo you just walk around the castle by yourself in the demo.