Five Things Devs/Publishers Do in Demos That Drive Me Away. - by lost_soul
nicked on 19/8/2010 at 16:50
Yes, there's surely a market for cheaply made indie FPSs and RPGs, but it seems the imaginative indie stuff is usually platformers or puzzle games or some combination of the two.
Renault on 19/8/2010 at 17:04
I don't understand why shareware still can't work as a business model. Say for instance you take The Witcher, a game I'm playing now. If you hand out Act I (which is pretty complete in and of itself) for free, it's going to sway a lot of people over who probably wouldn't normally have bought the game. And if it doesn't, so what? Nothing lost for the devs or publisher but some bandwidth.
I think in the end it comes down to high paid execs in big corporations not wanting to give away any of their product for free, because it goes against whatever business training they've had. It takes a small, creative company like the old id to make something like this work.
Yakoob on 19/8/2010 at 17:31
Quote Posted by lost_soul
Last time I checked, Deus Ex and Thief weren't AAA Blockbusters, but the gameplay was damn good in those games.
That "last time" was some 10 years ago, buddy. You need to flip your calendar some 120 pages.
Koki on 19/8/2010 at 17:42
Quote Posted by addink
On the topic of semantics:
For games demos and shareware are near identical.
Originally shareware was only distributed outside the retail market. Demos were tastes (small or big) of games that were distributed through retail. Again the internet blurred this distinction out of existence.
Shareware is distributed as a final product with limitations. Demo is simply incomplete version of the final product.
catbarf on 19/8/2010 at 17:43
It's not like being incomplete is a limitation or anything.
june gloom on 19/8/2010 at 21:28
Semantics.
And I love how lost_soul continues to whine like it's 1999. Still not joining the army 'cuz of the DMCA?
doctorfrog on 20/8/2010 at 00:15
Civ 5 is gonna have a demo on Steam. :)
It's the only new game I've given a crap about since BioShock (only it's gonna live up to the hype, yes it is).
EvaUnit02 on 20/8/2010 at 04:27
Quote Posted by lost_soul
Well perhaps they should concentrate on making *games*, not interactive movies where you're not allowed to deviate from their path of beautifully-rendered in-game cinematics. This would give them more time to produce more levels.
Protip:- Making broad generalisations like this makes you look like a totally ignorant idiot. The obtuseness of this statement isn't worth commenting on further, TBH.
Quote:
Also, define "AAA Blockbuster Arena". Is that the type of game I just described above?
Really, do I have to explain the obvious? Almost any game that financed by a big publisher could be considered a "high budget, AAA blockbuster". The exception being probably low key download-only titles that you'd see on the likes of XBLA/PSN/Steam/etc. Basically almost anything that the big publishers has deemed worthy enough to see a boxed release on retail store shelves.
Quote:
Last time I checked, Deus Ex and Thief weren't AAA Blockbusters, but the gameplay was damn good in those games.
Get a reality check. Deus Ex and Thief were very much high budget, major titles in their day - funded by big publisher money. The PC mass-market was very much at its peak sales wise and their publisher Eidos would've been at their height of power at this time. Tomb Raider's Lara Croft was a mass cultural icon back then, appearing in the likes of energy drink commercials (Lucozade) and the like across Europe.
Koki on 20/8/2010 at 06:21
Quote Posted by catbarf
It's not like being incomplete is a limitation or anything.
Shareware is a chick who says no sex before marriage.
Demo is a chick without a vagina.
Better?
Briareos H on 20/8/2010 at 09:18
Pirates are rapists!
