The Witcher 3 Demo

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Demos are definitely a double-edged sword for sales. On one hand, it allows the player to give the game a try and evaluate how well it runs before committing to a full purchase. If it fails to meet their expectations, then obviously they wouldn't buy it.
Publishers simply don't want to take that risk as they're worried about the latter.

If that's some publishers' consideration - it's really bad, since it means they are looking for a sneaky way to sell an unfit product (i.e. to those who would buy it and then won't be able to run the game properly). Normal publishers aren't supposed to have such kind of attitude. Such attitude also is potentially conductive for piracy, since some can get a pirated copy for a "demo", if there is no official demo to try (hopefully they buy the game if it works out of them and don't stick with the pirated copy).

 

[charmes]

I hope that demo will be released. Of course Witcher 3 will be great - i know it, but i can't wait to play it

 

[Kaldurenik]

Aint these numbers abit strange?

I mean he showed a chart that meant... Nothing.

If you take the top 10 sellers on Xbox360 they wont have a demo. Only a trailer (and 30-100million$ thrown into advertisment) Then if you compare it to most of the games that do get demo's these are mostly "smaller" games that sell for maybe 100 000 copies or so. So like i said aint the numbers showing what he (the guy talking about it) want it to show.



In the end it come down to this:

Is the game good? Yes/No

If the game is good then the demo(if its good and dont have 3894828 bugs) then it will help hype and increase the sales for said game.

If the game is bad... Well if people already knew that it would be bad (see DA2) then all it would do is reinforce that the game is **** And because there is proof that the game is **** it will sell less.

And if they did not know that the game would be **** and the demo is **** yes it will spread and you will sell less games.

So...

Good games with a good demo = more sales

Bad game with with a demo = less sales!



They should hire me to do this for them... Oh wait he showed them what they want to see so i guess they would not want to hire me

DA2 had a good demo, then I bought the game and it ended up being crap. Haven;t played any demo since.
If I had my own game coming out and my own savings at stake I would definitely spend more on marketing rather hope and prey my demo will convince those 2000 teenagers to buy my game.

DA2 only did the thing i said above. I knew it would be a crap game before i played the demo. All the demo did for me was reinforce my opinion that the game would be crap.
If the game is good and you have a good demo you will get people to talk about the game and say good things about it. It will make people want it "NOW!" in other words when these people post all over the net on how great the demo is people will download it and try it and then maybe they will have another sale just due to that.

While if your game is crap you dont want to do a demo because if you release a demo people will talk about how crap it is. This will decrease sales.

 

[mxYELLOW]

Nah, a good game is a good game. New comers can always wait for reviews.

 

[Greed1914]

All that tells me is that DICE cares more about marketing the game rather than making a good game. I think that what they said is half bs. To me it's more that people try out the demo and don't like it and therefore don't buy it. Whereas when you don't provide the demo, the person goes into the game blindly and therefore buys into the hype and realizes that the game sucks after the fact and regrets the purchase. However, Dice/EA already has the customer's money so they don't care.

That's almost like an As Seen On TV product. The commercial makes it look so great, but once you buy it you realize how bad it is. If you could have tried it for a week prior to buying it then you would have never spent the money.

Yeah, that is basically what I took from that. I'm highly suspicious when the guy's argument basically boils down to, "get them to buy it before they realize its bad." Sure, there have been demos that made me not buy a game, but those are usually games that I was already on the fence about, and I ended up not being impressed. A demo might not be completely representative of the final product, but it is supposed to give the customer a good approximation. Generally, I think it is more a case that the underlying game was poor, rather than the demo being poorly designed.

I've always been a big proponent of the idea that if developers and publishers are actually confident in the game they made, they shouldn't fear giving customers advanced notice. If you genuinely believe you've made a good game, then there shouldn't be a need to hide behind things like review embargoes.

 

[MUPPETA]

No demo, but a benchmark of redengine3 with geralt sailing would be nice />

 

[username_2064020]

DA2 had a good demo, then I bought the game and it ended up being crap.

You're probably the first human being I ever heard describing DA2's demo as "good".
Not even fans of the game (yes, they exist) ever dared to go that far.

Back o the topic, a common mistake from people releasing demos is this idea that you should put as little as possible in them.
No, you actually should put in a demo all that's needed to hook a player, obviously without giving away too much.
But that's very relative. For a five hours game 20 minutes of action shooting could be enough.
If your game is a huge RPG with more than 100 hours of content, on the other hand, you can be bold and put even ten hours of gameplay in your demo.
be assured that if your game is good enough, when the player will finish that demo he will crave to continue his adventure.

Let me make an example: I remember being totally sold when I played the leaked press demo of Deus EX: Human Revolution, which was all the first "act" of the game.
Now, if by any chance I had to play a demo of the same game ending end just after the starting tutorial, I wouldn't ever consider to purchase the game.

So yeah, I guess a bad demo (or a demo fro what's actually a bad game)can damage your sales, but a good one can increase them to a significant degree.

A demo is also a big deterrent for casual piracy. If a guy can just download an official demo to test how the game runs, there are good chances he won't bother with downloading an illegal copy.
But if he's "forced" to pirate the game to try it, then there are far lesser chances that he will also buy it once he's convinced it's good.

 

[dragonbird]

If a guy can just download an official demo to test how the game runs, there are good chances he won't bother with downloading an illegal copy.
But if he's "forced" to pirate the game to try it, then there are far lesser chances that he will also buy it once he's convinced it's good.

This, definitely. I don't know how much piracy it would actually prevent, but it would definitely remove one of the reasons commonly given to legitimise piracy.

On how long the demo is, it really depends on the game. If we are talking about Day 1 demos, when the player is getting actual game content rather than something that the developers have to produce separately, then it's really where the developers decide to cut it, it could be anywhere. There's probably a fair number of games where it could be 2 or 3 hours in, others may be a lot later. And I agree that DX:HR (and probably both Witcher games) would need to be after the Prologues, because you don't really get that good a feel for the game during the Prologue - DX:HR because it's pre-cyber (is that a word?) and all three games because they're so linear at the start.

 

[volsung]

Nah, a good game is a good game. New comers can always wait for reviews.

Yeah... because gaming magazines are completely fair and unbiased, and never accept bribes.

I think we're just going in circles now. Good demo of a good game -> good sales. Any demo of a bad game -> bad sales.

DA2 demo is such a weird case. It has about the same variety of scenarios as the full game, except in 10 minutes of gameplay. And you're led to believe the simple game mechanics were done purposefully to not spoil the final experience.

 

[Agent_Blue]

Yeah... because gaming magazines are completely fair and unbiased, and never accept bribes.

I think we're just going in circles now. Good demo of a good game -> good sales. Any demo of a bad game -> bad sales.

DA2 demo is such a weird case. It has about the same variety of scenarios as the full game, except in 10 minutes of gameplay. And you're led to believe the simple game mechanics were done purposefully to not spoil the final experience.

In all fairness, there's no escaping the misperceptions, misguided assumptions. Publishers might even be counting on them. I remember watching Skyrim's 3 part promotional video and thinking to myself "Wow, that claw puzzle is really neat. They must have lots of other inventive puzzles in store for us".

Not really.

The way I see it a demo of a vast open world RPG is like strolling down the street and passing by a lady pedestrian who catches your eye. You instantly place her in one of three categories, A ) I would definitely date her; B ) Never in a million years; C ) Maybe, under catalysing circumstances. Now, even if she finds her way into groups A) & C) and the two of you proceed into courtship, that initial assessment where you've pigeonholed her is really unrepresentative of a long term relationship.

 

[dampflokfreund]

I agree with you, a PC demo is necessary for Witcher 3

 

[harhar]

Worth reading Game demos can cut game sales in half.

Is this even adjusted for the 'size' of the game? Maybe smaller teams just make more demos then bigger teams, because they don't have the money to do a full CGI trailer but still need people to know their game. It seems to me like misleading data. Also maybe it just means that you shouldn't produce a shitty demo? Where are the numbers, that only include good demos? Isn't that much more important?

 

[daddy300]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND1AVvXTfZA

 

[cmdr_silverbolt]

If the demo is fun and pulls you into the game, you're going to buy the game to play it. I agree with people in this thread who said that demos only work poorly for games that suck, or those which had poorly made demos.

 

[Aver]

They have a good point about demos not being representative for huge/long games.

 

[ReptilePZ]

That's true. I remember playing the DA2 demo and thinking "Hmm, maybe this game won't be so bad after all." Oh, boy...

 

[eva02langley]

A demo is a waste of time and money. People use demos for testing a game but nowaday, the whole hacker communauty just crack it in hours.

Demos were a good things 10 to 15 years ago.

Unfortunately, you should not listen to your fans that much. I know it is necessary to have feedback, but it is still your game. It could become a chaotic situation.

 

[eva02langley]

This, definitely. I don't know how much piracy it would actually prevent, but it would definitely remove one of the reasons commonly given to legitimise piracy.

On how long the demo is, it really depends on the game. If we are talking about Day 1 demos, when the player is getting actual game content rather than something that the developers have to produce separately, then it's really where the developers decide to cut it, it could be anywhere. There's probably a fair number of games where it could be 2 or 3 hours in, others may be a lot later. And I agree that DX:HR (and probably both Witcher games) would need to be after the Prologues, because you don't really get that good a feel for the game during the Prologue - DX:HR because it's pre-cyber (is that a word?) and all three games because they're so linear at the start.

Because people who download games are never going to purchase them... right? Wrong, I have a collection of video games and I download games and I choose where I am putting my money.

That 1 pirated copy = -1 game sold argument is getting tiresome.

 

[gregski]

I think a demo should be a very thought out, planned thing. There is always risk that if a wrong part of the game is chosen, it might affect negatively the game's sales.

Best example - Bulletstorm. An awesome game, that failed with the demo so much. Mostly because the developer chose a part of the game that wasn't able to show the game's strengths. People got confused and put off and despite good reviews - it flopped.

 

[dragonbird]

That 1 pirated copy = -1 game sold argument is getting tiresome.

Did you respond to the wrong post? I didn't say that, and for the record, I agree with you on this.

The availability of a demo removes one reason for piracy. That's all.