In this episode of "By Design" - we explore the past, present, and future of the game "demo". Are demos a relic of the past or a necessary component in makin...
I remember the good old days of being super excited every time a new PCGamer magazine arrived in the mailbox and you’d get a fresh CD with it stuffed full of the hottest demos to try. Good times.
Fair enough, I do it all the time and so do people in my friend group. There’s a new game, it’s on sale, I know I buy games on steam regularly, I buy the game, I try it, it doesn’t work, it’s not fun, something. I return it within the 2-hour window fairly regularly.
In fact, this steam two hour window has been part of game developer philosophy for a while, putting the good content first, so you don’t get bored before the 2 hours expire. There’s been a fair few reviews where people speculate this was just front-loaded so people don’t return it
But it’s a very small minority. You’re cutting out like 90+% of a potential demo audience by demanding cash on the barrel head up front. It’s objectively worse for the customer by a significant margin.
I send my refunds to my Steam wallet. Either I eventually get a “free” game that I like or I get to keep trying until I find a keeper.
As someone who has used the refund system a lot, you can exceed the 2 hours. I don’t know if they look at my Steam account or just accept my reasoning for a refund but I know I’ve received a full refund for games that were well past that 2 hour mark.
He has bills to pay like the rest of us, and considering he left traditional games media to start a crowdfunded project (NoClip), I doubt he would take a deal like this unless he needed to.
I think Steam NextFests have been a big part of the prevalence of demos. Before we had those, sure, a few games would have demos, but they wouldn’t really gather much attention. NextFests are a good excuse for players to try a bunch of demos (think of the old demo discs that came with gaming magazines) and post about them on social media. This is a great way for smaller games to attract eyes, so now developers are more incentivized to actually produce demos, rather than just neat trailers and screenshots for marketing purposes.
I just don’t like that everyone also does time-limited demos. Like you’re only able to play the demo from this date to this date or something like that. Why not just keep the demo around for others who want a crack at it?
My guess is that the demos are released to find bugs, so if the demo stays up, they’ll get bug reports for bugs they have fixed (and I’m not a game dev but I’d imagine that constantly having to compile new builds that are specially made as a demo with the bugs patched out would be annoying)
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I remember the good old days of being super excited every time a new PCGamer magazine arrived in the mailbox and you’d get a fresh CD with it stuffed full of the hottest demos to try. Good times.
The steam 2 hour return window is the new defacto demo for all games.
It’s entirely different, though.
I’m not going to pay to try a game and lean on a refund. I just won’t play it at all.
Fair enough, I do it all the time and so do people in my friend group. There’s a new game, it’s on sale, I know I buy games on steam regularly, I buy the game, I try it, it doesn’t work, it’s not fun, something. I return it within the 2-hour window fairly regularly.
In fact, this steam two hour window has been part of game developer philosophy for a while, putting the good content first, so you don’t get bored before the 2 hours expire. There’s been a fair few reviews where people speculate this was just front-loaded so people don’t return it
There are people who do; I’m not disputing that.
But it’s a very small minority. You’re cutting out like 90+% of a potential demo audience by demanding cash on the barrel head up front. It’s objectively worse for the customer by a significant margin.
That’s a good point. I agree with that. It adds friction.
It’s the defacto demonstration of last resort, at that point somebody’s just using it to escape from a bad purchase.
I send my refunds to my Steam wallet. Either I eventually get a “free” game that I like or I get to keep trying until I find a keeper.
As someone who has used the refund system a lot, you can exceed the 2 hours. I don’t know if they look at my Steam account or just accept my reasoning for a refund but I know I’ve received a full refund for games that were well past that 2 hour mark.
If you accidentally go over 2 hours, though, then you’re stuck with it.
he should be ashamed of himself working for a16z. reactionary VC ghouls
He has bills to pay like the rest of us, and considering he left traditional games media to start a crowdfunded project (NoClip), I doubt he would take a deal like this unless he needed to.
yeah i’m sure this top 1% acclaimed journalist had no other options
Whats wrong with a16z? I’ve literally never heard of it before now
Ah, that’s a bummer. I love Danny’s stuff in general, didn’t know that about this company.
Demo or beta testers?
Haha, Shareware.
Switch has been using demos. A lot of them, too.
They’ve been back. Indie Steam games have them sometimes. Probably on Epic and GOG too, but who cares about them.
I think Steam NextFests have been a big part of the prevalence of demos. Before we had those, sure, a few games would have demos, but they wouldn’t really gather much attention. NextFests are a good excuse for players to try a bunch of demos (think of the old demo discs that came with gaming magazines) and post about them on social media. This is a great way for smaller games to attract eyes, so now developers are more incentivized to actually produce demos, rather than just neat trailers and screenshots for marketing purposes.
I just don’t like that everyone also does time-limited demos. Like you’re only able to play the demo from this date to this date or something like that. Why not just keep the demo around for others who want a crack at it?
My guess is that the demos are released to find bugs, so if the demo stays up, they’ll get bug reports for bugs they have fixed (and I’m not a game dev but I’d imagine that constantly having to compile new builds that are specially made as a demo with the bugs patched out would be annoying)
Epic can go kick rocks, but GoG is actually pretty important. Only one outside of humble bundle that gives DRM free downloads as god intended.