When/why did pre release demos become a rarity and not the "norm"?
- Thread starter Gimpymoo
- Start date
doesnt matter then if bad game they have your cashBecause it costs time and money to produce a demo and it seems most devs are well aware that many potential customers will realise the game is a steaming pile of crap and not buy it. It seems to be becoming quite rare that the devs may actually be proud of there game enough to produce a demo for it in the belief that it will actually sell the game.
Associate
The majority of games are designed with a console being the lead version, that is where you will find game demos these days.
It's also depressing how true that is.
It's also depressing how true that is.
Soldato
Modern beta = historical demo but allows devs to append some caveats to them. Namely if a game is complete tosh they can bleat "zomg its beta and X number of weeks old code, the current version is Y times better, wait and see". Also the devs who mainly churn out ports rarely release demos or betas for fear of exposing just how cack it usually is.
I think the main factors are:
-High production cost
-Proliferation of other marketing tools (video, social media, gaming press etc)
-Risk of alienating potential customers by letting them find something they don't like, rather than walking them through in a controlled fashion (videos).
-Community acceptance of beta versions which have the ready-made excuse of "it's only a beta!". I've lost count of the number of times down the years that I've seen people on forums coming out with these vain hopes that performance optimisations are suddenly going to make a beta that runs like a dog into a silky smooth affair. In my experience 90%+ of betas are indicative of retail performance.
-High production cost
-Proliferation of other marketing tools (video, social media, gaming press etc)
-Risk of alienating potential customers by letting them find something they don't like, rather than walking them through in a controlled fashion (videos).
-Community acceptance of beta versions which have the ready-made excuse of "it's only a beta!". I've lost count of the number of times down the years that I've seen people on forums coming out with these vain hopes that performance optimisations are suddenly going to make a beta that runs like a dog into a silky smooth affair. In my experience 90%+ of betas are indicative of retail performance.
Man of Honour
Well if we take the latest beta frenzy of Battlefield 3 then you'll see exactly why we don't get pre release demos anymore.
Reading through the Battlefield 3 thread you will loads of people pre purchasing the game through Origin just to get the open beta just two days before it's available to everyone. You'll also read of many many people buying the very average Medal of Honor for exactly the same reason. So EA are making money from 2 games by having a beta rather than a demo. You can guarantee that what ever state the beta is in that's the state the game will be in, just like BFBC2 game was after it's beta.
Now some people have said we don't get demos because of the cost, but if you go back to the release of Battlefiled 2, you'll see that the demo was one map (same as the BF3 alpha and BFBC2 beta) so there's no real extra cost at all.
Beta's generate pre orders and are a maketing tool and nothing more. They certainly have no influence on the final release of the game other than maybe a day one patch.
Reading through the Battlefield 3 thread you will loads of people pre purchasing the game through Origin just to get the open beta just two days before it's available to everyone. You'll also read of many many people buying the very average Medal of Honor for exactly the same reason. So EA are making money from 2 games by having a beta rather than a demo. You can guarantee that what ever state the beta is in that's the state the game will be in, just like BFBC2 game was after it's beta.
Now some people have said we don't get demos because of the cost, but if you go back to the release of Battlefiled 2, you'll see that the demo was one map (same as the BF3 alpha and BFBC2 beta) so there's no real extra cost at all.
Beta's generate pre orders and are a maketing tool and nothing more. They certainly have no influence on the final release of the game other than maybe a day one patch.