Electronic Arts may be planning to release paid-for downloadable content as a promotion for games before they release, essentially charging gamers for long demos.
Analyst Michael Pachter made the revelation after attending an investor visit with EA, where Nick Earl, general manager of Dead Space studio Visceral Games, unveiled the new scheme.
"The PDLC would be sold for $10 or $15 through Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, and would essentially be a very long game demo, along the lines of 2009's Battlefield 1943," Pachter explained.
"A full-blown packaged game would follow shortly after the release of the PDLC, bearing a full retail price. Mr. Earl believes that the release of the PDLC first limits the risk of completing and marketing the full packaged version, and serves as a low-cost marketing tool."
Pachter also told Gamasutra: "I think that the plan is to release PDLC at $15 that has 3-4 hours of gameplay, so [it has] a very high perceived value, then [EA will] take the feedback from the community (press and players) to tweak the follow-on full game that will be released at a normal packaged price point."
"If DICE were able to follow Battlefield 1943 with a full-blown European WWII campaign game a few months later, it would have been a wild success," Pachter said.
He continued, "EA's view is that the PDLC costs a lot less to develop (essentially, it's the first few levels of the full-blown game), and they have the opportunity to fix whatever needs to be fixed in the packaged product that is released a few months later, whether that entails doing more of what people like or doing less of what they don't like. It sounds like a brilliant strategy to me."
Would you pay for early limited access to the next Dead Space or Battlefield title?
My immediate reaction is NO F***ING WAY. But then if they knocked off the price of the demo off the full price product once I decided to buy it, then maybe.
$15 to be charged for 4 hour experiences on XBLA and PSN, says Pachter.
Then I will stop playing EA's demos then. No big loss anyway considering I hardly play demos of games anymore. I know what my tastes are and I read enough reviews to see what games are good / overhyped.
No, I would not pay for an early demo of a game. It sounds to me like they are looking at how to charge for a beta and let me show them where all the bugs and problems are before they release the full game. I'm not interested in paying for this at all.
I'm sure they could probably figure out a way to spin the whole thing to make it appealing to a fairly wide audience; but it seems this would only work with the hardcore demographic.
Getting older has definitely made me more stingy with how and where I spend my money.
so i pay 15 dollars for 4 hours of gameplay, N then pay 60 dollars for the other UM? six hours of gameplay! add the TAX and your total is around 80 for a the full experience! What a Great idea! I wonder why other publishers didnt think of this sooner!
I think this could work but itd need to reward the person who bought the demo, this could work in two ways.
One, being that when the game is released like xbla trials at the end you get the option to purchase the game directly to your console with the price of the demo knocked off.
Secondly, when you buy the full game be it download or disc, the game notices and when paid for dlc comes about you get the equal amount for free.
Otherwise its just abit of a slap in the face. Though saying that $15/£10(ish) is pretty good value for 4 hours of gaming considering most games are around the 8/10 hour mark.
As long as there is the option for a free demo as well as the paid for demo then I see no problem with it. Yes, if they add special features for people who download the paid demo that would be good, but if not then I personally wouldn't buy it.
I am not a huge fan of demo's anyway, so this will put me off completely. I would rather read a review, consider it fully and then buy the game and if I don't like it in it's entirety then I would swap it for something else fast.
If it allows me to try out or just play a game I'd never pay at full price then yes, I do like the idea. I don't think this will get rid of demos. But tons of people loved Battlefield 1943. A game that will keep you busy for awhile while waiting for a full blown game. A very similar concept here. I like it. (:
There are already enough costs involved with being a gamer, and now EA wants to charge for extended demos. There tends to be less demos around these days anyway due to some AAA titles being short (MW2 being a prime example).
Timeshift got a total redesign after the (short) demo got a bad reception and there was no need to charge people to find that out. I think that it would be quite a strange feeling playing the full game having played 3-4 hours of the demo, saying look what they changed there and why did they change that for.
If EA are worried about a full game bombing because of the reception of the demo then they should create a demo initially (for internal testing and a select few). Then you should make changes, make a full based from that and release a public demo (making final changes from that).
typical EA if it isnt a crappy yearly release with 1 upgrade and a 40 quid price tag than some wiseguy who eats burgers all day long thought lets charge people for demo's EA are just greedy F***ers
It seems a lot of you commenting have overlooked the fact that these are the views of one Michael Pachter; a man who's track-record of clairvoyancy is ropier than Derek Acorah's ghost-hunting credentials.
As Kevin Butler would say, I'm going to file this under "not an issue".
Like someone else has already said, why would I wana pay to find things wrong in a game and then pay top dollar for the finished product which will have the problems i found in it, still in it?
if this takes off....in other news all EA games testers are unemployed-so according to the article we get to beta test a demo and PAY for the privlage?!?-is it April the 1st or have EA lost it!, I hope they launch this service purely because it will never take off and they will lose a fortune setting it up....just omg
My immediate reaction is NO F***ING WAY. But then if they knocked off the price of the demo off the full price product once I decided to buy it, then maybe.
This is exactly what I was thinking.
If it was a game that I knew I was gonna love 100%, then I could see paying $15 for some early access. But only if I got that $15 taken off of my purchase price of the full game. Great concept, if its done correctly.
nobody is going to pay money for a demo of a game to see if they like it enough to spend even more money on the full game.
only a company as stupid as EA could come up with this
Isn't this just what GT5rologue was? Didn't see many people complaining about that?
i dunno, i went out & got Race Driver: Grid instead.
My immediate reaction is NO F***ING WAY. But then if they knocked off the price of the demo off the full price product once I decided to buy it, then maybe.
This is exactly what I was thinking.
If it was a game that I knew I was gonna love 100%, then I could see paying $15 for some early access. But only if I got that $15 taken off of my purchase price of the full game. Great concept, if its done correctly.
what if you don't like the game, you have wasted $15 so why not just read a review of the game ?
His comments don't actually state that the pre release dlc will be content that's available in the eventual full games. I think its not such a bad idea to release small side missions or the like for people looking forward to a big title. Fable 2 had the mini game dlc pre release, and though that was rubbish, it wasn't necessarily such a bad idea.
what if you don't like the game, you have wasted $15 so why not just read a review of the game ?
Like I said, if its a game that I absolutely know I'm going to buy, no matter what the reviews would say. And only if I get the $15 to go towards the purchase price.
For example I would fork over $15 right now to play the first few levels of Red Dead Redemption. Since no matter what, I am buying that game. But only if I can then put the money towards the full game when its released.
And worst thing, if I didn't like the game (not gonna happen), it was better spending the $15 than paying $60 + tax. Then hoping I could trade it in for $45-$50 (very unlikely)
But most importantly these would only be the games I know for a fact I'll be buying, I wouldn't hand over the cash on just a maybe.
$15 for a Demo?! I wouldn't pay $1. That analyst spun some interesting marketing jargon, that really boiled down to "we want to charge twice for the same game." $15 is about the price I'm willing to pay for the full game out of the bargain bin.
I do hope EA goes bankcrupt sooner rather than later.
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good luck ar$eholes....
rologue was? Didn't see many people complaining about that?
