EA charging money for a demo

[Guest]

Everyone bashing EA, I think Valve has done much worse by allowing early access. Considering your paying for a very early alpha of a game. Oh yeah, and valve wont refund you if the company goes belly up.

 

Really? Ok Valve aren't the glimmering company everyone makes them out to be, but giving the ability for Indie Develops to make something of their games in my opinion isn't a case of paying for a demo... And not only that the community, you, choose whether the game should be made available 'Green Light'. And them bam, every now and then there's a dodgy game with a thieving developer, but why should Valve refund you? They only take a certain margin of the profit, the developer makes the most, its the developer you're buying into, not valve.

[XTankSlayerX]

spook811, on 04 Jul 2014 - 12:32 PM, said:

Really? Ok Valve aren't the glimmering company everyone makes them out to be, but giving the ability for Indie Develops to make something of their games in my opinion isn't a case of paying for a demo... And not only that the community, you, choose whether the game should be made available 'Green Light'. And them bam, every now and then there's a dodgy game with a thieving developer, but why should Valve refund you? They only take a certain margin of the profit, the developer makes the most, its the developer you're buying into, not valve.

Okay fair play, I just don't like the idea of having an entire section dedicated to unfinished games. We already have EA to do that.

[Guest]

Okay fair play, I just don't like the idea of having an entire section dedicated to unfinished games. We already have EA to do that.

 

But at least with green light you buy them knowing that they're not finished!

[AlwaysFSX]

Everyone bashing EA, I think Valve has done much worse by allowing early access. Considering your paying for a very early alpha of a game. Oh yeah, and valve wont refund you if the company goes belly up.

WarZ? No?

[dusty594]

There's a few demos that I've played that I would have actually happily paid money for to be honest, but I'm glad this was just an error. The point of a demo is to try before you buy, not pay to try before you buy.

 

(Anybody remember the Just Cause 2 Demo? I played that for what must have been days worth of playtime.)

 

 

Edit: Thinking about this a little further, I could see a possible move by companies where a pay-demo system might actually be successful.

 

I've noticed that a large group of people online justify piracy by saying that if there's no demo available, that they download the game illegally and treat it as a demo. If they enjoy it enough, they pay and continue playing but if they didn't enjoy it, they can simply forget about the game and it hasn't cost them a penny. This pay-demo system may actually have a reasonable chance at toning down some of this piracy that this group of people thinks is justified.

It costs money for a company to put together a demo, that we all know. If there was an incentive for a company to put together a demo for the audience to try (such as a small fee for it) then they would be more likely to actually produce a demo for their upcoming title, which in turn has a chance to reduce some of this piracy.

 

Now, up until now you may be scratching your head and thinking that this sounds like a horrible idea; Demos are free, and should stay that way. Here's the part where I attempt to change your mind.

Let's say companies decided to go forth with this plan of charging for demos. How would they convince a consumer to pay for something that was traditionally free? >>A discount<<

What I mean by discount is essentially conditional pricing. If you don't own the demo you pay full pop, but if you own the demo you receive a discount on the title (most likely equivalent to the cost of the demo).

 

Now this probably still sounds insane, and to be honest I agree. I hope that demos remain as a free trial of a game, but who knows what companies will be getting away with in a couple of years. At least with the system I've mentioned it would still be somewhat fair to the consumer.  

[Imaginaerum]

Actually I think Ubisoft joined Square Enix and EA was feeling left out 

 

 

I say that because the game Sleeping Dogs has had Horrible issues with th PC version since release in 2012 and Square Enix has yet to fix it

Squeenix can't even fix their MMO. Sure the new one is better but that doesn't mean there still aren't a bunch of characters stuck in limbo that can never be retrieved.

[LukaP]

You can't spell steal without EA. 'Nuff said.

 

 

stEAl

 

 

Nor can you spell great without EA. (joking of course) 

 

 

Great steal?

 

 

 

guess this applies again *one upping you all*

 

[Damikiller37]

*snip*

Well at least Steam steals and gives something good and working back

[juretrn]

Wow, another thread with a misleading title. You'd really have to stoop low to charge for a DEMO.

[Tsuki]

people seem to forget that "demo" and "early access" are very different.

 

demos are supposed to be a small teaser section of working gameplay, maybe a full level, maybe even a couple levels, to entice you to purchase the full game, they are meant to be free.

 

early access games are the alpha or prealpha release of the game, theoretically to help the developer fund its completion, and supposed to get patched to the full game, thats why you actually spend money on it.  you put money into it knowing its unfinished and full of bugs hoping.