Sorry, I thought this was an interactive media
It seems like the later into the Xbox 360’s life cycle we get, the less that developers have a need to justify their games to us. Just a thought here, let me run with it.
Let’s turn back the clock. Nov/Dec 2005 at the Xbox 360’s launch there were 17-18 launch titles (North America/Europe), all but four of which had demos available to download on XBL Marketplace. This was awesome and great of the developers to give us a tryout of their respective first next-gen efforts before having to shell out £50 for the honor of HD gaming.
Fast forward to now, and Epic has announced that there will be no demo for Gears of War 2 (Shacknews), and Bethesda has announced that there will be no demo for Fallout 3 (EuroGamer). This is disappointing news seeing as these are two games I am looking forward to playing. The key word in that sentence being “playing.”
I can now look forward to scouring reviews, and trusting people who have had the fortune of actually playing these games. Sure, these are two franchise games, with a great chance of success anyway, but I won’t know whether they feel right until I take the plunge.
Demos available on XBL Marketplace have been the decision maker in many of my purchases for the system. To start off, as far as I know, every Xbox Live Arcade title has a playable demo in which to entice you to cough up your hard earned Microsoft Points. This gives you a taste of what is on offer, and most importantly, lets you evaluate whether it feels right.
For bad games, demos are invaluable to consumers, giving us the warning that Sonic the Hedgehog would be damn near uncontrollable and that F.E.A.R. just wouldn’t feel quite right without a mouse and keyboard. Added to that list are demos that sealed the deal, with notable titles including BioShock, Prey, Tomb Raider Legend, and the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta.
I understand that producing a demo can take away from development time on the actual game and that many studios don’t have the time or resources to implement an overall summary of their game in a trial level. What I do have a problem with is the feeling that sometimes a developer doesn’t see the merit in a demo when they know that their franchise will sell without it.
A trailer can sure build hype, but seeing as much of the population can’t afford to spend £40 on a game in the same way that they would go see a film on a whim, then a bit of reassurance in our games would be nice.
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Comments
bennybenbenj And the Crackdown demo sold a pretty much unknown game to lots of people. Oh and Dead Rising.
I’m sure with new IPs demos will get put out as customers don’t know what to expect, but Gears 2? It’s just Gears 1 all over again why waste the time on a demo?
And Fallout, as they said it’s a large world that would take a lot of effort to compartmentalise, as long as they slap ‘From the makers of Oblivion’ on the box the not-so-well-informed players who are into that kind of thing will buy it for sure.
The real point of a demo for a game is as a marketing tool.
If yoru game is going to be a blockbuster (like a sequel to a blockbuster) then there is no point for the developer to invest resources in a marketing tool.
Look at all the AAA games that have no demos. I am not sure why we would even expect these titles to have demos when GTA, Halo, etc have no demos.
Its the new IPs that need that demo. Bioshock used that demo and I think it sold a lot of people on the game.
Doing a demo for Halo ont he other hand, would not have added any sales, so what would have been the point.