Crysis 2 developer Crytek has predicted that free game demos face extinction - and that gamers will have to start paying for them.
In an interview with industry site Develop, Crytek's co-founder Cevat Yerli said he wasn't sure that a demo of Crysis 2 was going to be released.
He said: "A free demo is a luxury we have in the game industry that we don't have in other industries such as film. Because we've had this free luxury for so long, now there are plans to change this people are complaining about it. The reality is that we might not see any free game demos in the long term."
EA recently admitted it was considering plans to release premium demos "for $10 or $15" before a game's final release.
A game lasts for hours and hours & costs 3-4 times that of watching a film which is why we only get a few minutes at most of a trailer. If I like a trailer & it has a few trusted reviews I'm sold. If I like a demo & has a few trusted reviews I'm sold too.
A good demo to me is better than 10 good reviews. Reviews are all so varied and hard to trust with all the 'paid for good reviews' around.
The day I pay for demos is the day I pay for movie trailers - never.
As much as we all know that this is pure robbery, it WILL happen because the same people that bought the MW2 DLC will also be the numptys that buy demo's.
I only use demos for games I'm unsure whether to spend Ł40 - Ł50 on. I there will no longer be a free demo then I won't be spending money on those games, unless word of mouth/games industry buzz prove it's a winner.
Depending on how they price these demo's you could end up spend a fortune playing demo's trying to find a game you like and never actually own a full product.
It's like if you went to buy a car and they said Car salesman - "Stand their and watch while I drive it around, see if you like the look of it"
Me - "But I want to know what it feels like to drive"
Car Salesman - "Pay me a tenner and you can take it for a spin"
are they joking $10 -$15 for a demo - isnt that the cost of a DLC? this is crazy. I wouldn't pay Ł1 for a demo if they start charging just rely on the CVG reviews of games to determine purchases.
Imagine paying Ł12 for a demo and than Ł40 for the full game, in no way can I see that being appealing to anyone other than the producers. At the very least the cost of the demo if you decided to purchase the full game needs to be taken off the full retail price.
This is a horrible plan if true and would hurt sales rather than aid them.
I thought EA said it was experimenting on releasing a premium demo on top of the usual free demo where the premium demo would be more substantial than the free one and could then be unlocked to the complete product, at least that's what I read, I think.
Getting rid of free demos would be wrong. I only need to point to the fabulous work on the X-Box Live Arcade where every game has a demo and I honestly believe its a great marketing move. There have been more than a few XBLA games that I've not been interested in buying but after playing the demo I've gone ahead and thrown my cash at it
Hasn't there been articles on the fact that the PS3 does not have demos for all its arcade games and sales are not as great as games with them?
Alas poor Crytek, I knew the well, as a level headed European Dev. Now thou has fallen into the pit of despair. Fare well to thee, and let thy path to hell be paved with good intentions.
Ok, Jesus H Whatchamacallit... Is anyone else f**king sick and tired of hearing s**tty little tidbits of pointless info from these dickturds?
I posted about this before, but I have had it with this bulls**t. It's all over N4G, all over CVG... all over everywhere. Crytek says this, Crytek says that. Crytek can f**k off.
What exactly makes them think people want to hear their opinions on this stuff? They must be really really overestimating the perception of their worth as a development studio. Make a good game and maybe then you can start doling out the life lessons, alright guys?
Demo = ability to persuade consumers to test a product that they might not actually buy.
No demo = lost sales. I'm not taking a punt on a Ł40 game when all the review sites (this one included) are not too reliable with their views.
Having said that, if there was a demo of MW2, I wouldn't have bought it, so the COD series got my last cash on that occasion.
I think the only thing that companies have to worry about is making a rubbish game. If the demo is positioned well and captures the spirit of the full title, then it can only help them convert consumers... IF it is good
i havent played a demo in my life that i would consider worth paying Ł5 for so in my own words EA and any devs thinking of doing this... f**k off. seriously i find it absolutely ridiculous that they're even considering this. demos have been free for as long... well ever and quite frankly unless there was a reason to fork over said dosh for this demo... then it damn right better be a new generation of videogame that takes more 5-6 goddamn f**king hours to complete.
Come'on, charging us for the privilege of playing one level (if even that) is totally retarded. It's bad enough being shafted by DLC.
Reviews are useless and trailers are misleading leaving demo's being the only way to get a feel for a game.
Recent DRM has resulted in me not buying a number of games so far this year. Why not add a few more to the list if this does really happen. If bull like this carries on I may be driven to scrap games and... wait for it... venture outdoors into the sunny world that I've so often heard about!
Weren't Sony working on giving the gamer the whole game before taking it away slowly as a demo. That would be more interesting than the developer saying: "hey pay Ł15 for our advertising that is for you to give us a further Ł40..."
Its upto a publisher to convince me to buy their product, i shouldnt have to pay for their advertisement. Either way if most companies charge ill just be more reluctant to spend my hard earned cash on something i dont even know i will like.
How about pre-DLC acting as a demo ? Showcases how good the game is (or bad) by giving you a level not included in the game. I know people will say that the developer would leave content out on purpose but add an extra 200 gamerpoints or trophies on it and the hardcore achievment/trophy whores will be happy. It's a better idea than you paying twice for a level.
Getting rid of demos is really stupid actually, I myself will never buy a game unless I'm 100% sure I'll get plenty of fun out of it, demos provide me with a means to check a game out, take that away and the end result is I'll take my money elsewhere, so in an effort to save money they will actually lose money, not my loss though, you can't miss what you've never experienced.
Which means that any game released that I am 50/50 about I'm not going to buy because I can't play a demo to see if its good..............yeah there's a good idea....................
Since the first one ran like a sack of s**t and supported nothing at the beginning of the release and hasn't really had much support only Punkbuster updates, I simply can't be bottomd to spend my good honest money on a game which could run horribly like a horse having terrible diaherra (yes, I did actually think that one up) - That is what demos are for to test and benchmark how the system handles the game, even a benchmark demo would do.
Sorry Crytek, I found your Crysis horrible and the storyline was crap.
Maybe invest more time and money in your storyline writing instead of the fancy bottomd graphics.
And EA can suck my c**k with their bulls**t prices, they are another bulls**t publisher like Activision who are being careless about their clients' releases.
OK some companys might start 'selling demo's' but i think the majority will still be free as its a great way to promote the game and also convince more people to get the full title!! why would anyone want to pay for a demo to try a game that they may not want to buy anyways??? makes no sense eh?
man wont this crap company ever shut up, firt its there writer bashing everything, then its there ceo crying about how gamers are not nice to them, now they are heading the resistance for charging for demos? lmao, go back to PC exclusive and stay there man seriously
I can see his point. A lot of demos are weighing in over the 1Gb mark and while for the PC there are usually a number of ad supported sites that will carry the demo on consoles they have to go through the store and the company pays a fee for the amount of data downloaded. Bigger demos can end up costing companies a lot of cash. However, if companies aren't going to demo their games they need to be a lot more creative than just charging for what we are used to getting for free.
Sod paying for Demos!!!! Rent instead, play the whole game for Ł3.95 and only if it's worth keeping go and buy it when the price comes down. This thinking will only reduce the quality of games being made. And to be honest i would say it is at an all time low!
So, with the UK government passing the law meaning you can have your internet connection cut off for downloading content illegally. The entertainment industry has made it more appealing for you to abide by the new laws by charging you more money for more content. Profiteering at it's best...
Demos are try before you buy. Not buy before you try. These guys need to stop talking s**t.
I am sick and tired of these c**ts. If this ever did happen then I will not be getting any demos at all. Infact you could buy mags that offer free demos cheeper then this so called plan.
Ah well, guess I won't be playing demos for much longer then, and will be putting a LOT of faith in future reviews...
This is a ridiculous, and greedy (borderline corrupt!) idea. Hell, it's so bad I'd think Activision came up with it... I bought Just Cause 2 SOLELY because I loved the demo. I had absolutely zero interest in buying it until then. Demos are good for sales. The money these companies would make from selling demos they'd lose ten fold from lost sales.
Wow, Crytek sure seem to have an inflated opinion of themselves.
Whinging about how 'dissapointed' they are in other game's storytelling, slagging off console gamers for not appreciating all the hard work they do and now suggesting that we should start forking out for demos of their games.
And yet all they've ever produced is a couple of generic first person shooters. They need to go away and produce some decent games before deciding they know what's best for the games industry.
"A free demo is a luxury we have in the game industry that we don't have in other industries such as film."
Yes we do. They're called "trailers".
In fact, to not have free demos would make gaming a complete oddity. Movies release trailers, which are free to watch. The music industry releases sample tracks from albums onto radio stations, which are free to listen to. Why should it be any different for games?
Well that just sounds ridiculous. I doubt people would really go out and pay for demos. For starters his comparison is flawed, a demo is a teaser of part of a game, what in fudge name does he think a film trailer is? Douche.
As for the concept itself, only one way it could work. Be it Ł5, Ł10 or whatever price, no one wants to pay for a demo and then buy the game, because then they've paid extra simply to play part of the game they've now bought! the only way it could work is if the demo came with a code, which allowed you to somehow claim your money back once you go on the full game, perhaps give you some PSN funds. I still think they'll stay free but at least that way it isn't unfair on those who pay to try it and then actually buy the game as well.
This is quite a daft idea for one reason, very few people are going to pay money to play a demo when they could play a similar amount and rent the game for a few days from a rental service.
Mirroring Daedalus' comment, the only way I see this hare brained idea having just a half-assed chance of success would require either that:
1) The demo only costs a few pence/cents/what-have-you which would presumably result in the demo being quite short.
or
2) The demo is of considerable size and thus costs more. The trick in this case being that the demo will have to be of sufficient length to challenge renting the full game while keeping the demo price much lower than that of a rental price.
Finally, demos can be a hit-or-miss thing. Some people won't buy a game until they've had a chance to play it either at a friend's place or a demo. If everyone feels reluctant to buy the game then demos are the only remaining option and I very much doubt that significant numbers of gamers will pay to play a demo. I certainly won't. That may mean that I will avoid some games entirely where I might have purchased them if there had been a readily accessible demo - short or otherwise. Thus developers and publishers have a vested interest in getting their games out to potential customers which a free demo theoretically allows for (note: A free demo by no means guarantees commercial success however).
man wont this crap company ever shut up, firt its there writer bashing everything, then its there ceo crying about how gamers are not nice to them, now they are heading the resistance for charging for demos? lmao, go back to PC exclusive and stay there man seriously
Crytek already p**sed on the PC community by complaining they weren't making the profits they felt entitled to on that platform in spite of Crysis being a hit on the PC. So they turned their hands to the consoles. Where they may not be all that popular right now. They're possibly even less popular in various quarters of the PC community. Crytek's ramblings are getting really old, really fast and they're running out of friendly gamers' ears.
This is why I have no regrets conducting piracy. I only support genuine artists/developers and not greedy publishers/record labels/movie studios. Seriously, hit them where it hurts - It's the only way they will understand that us fans WILL NOT TAKE ANY s**tE from them!
Maybe they should start charging if people want to keep demos long term. I have heard of xbox owners complaining of not having room left on the hard drive because of all their demos. Those sort of people should have to pay.
If it were not for the demo, i wouldn't have bought just cause 2 the other day. If theres no demo then i'm thinking why dont they want me to see this game running?
So even though we now have more demos of games than ever before this guy thinks demos will end in the future. Pah! Demos that have expiry dates built in to them like PSN/XBL video rentals, did he ever think of that?
theres no way ill pay for a demo. infact, all this will do is increase piracy. do you really think im going to shell out Ł30 on crysis 2 without even being sure if it'll actually work well on my pc?
i cant remember the last time i bought a game full price without playing a demo first.... if it doesnt have a demo, then the most it'll get from me is a 2nd hand purchase from CEX in a year.
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