The Witcher 3 Demo

[secondchildren]

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.

Well yes... and no.
Yes.... when the demo is crappy, too short, bad designed and 1/10 of the full version of a game.
No... when it's well designed like gregski said. I've played a few of them and I have to say that I have found them very useful. I mean in helping me to decide if to buy the game or not. Most of them on Steam.

Regarding piracy, I'm quoting dragonbird: a demo can be one reason for some to renounce to an illigal download. Not certainly to stop piracy in the whole. When that demo is well constructed and not too short, may help a lot of people in that decision (especially those who wanna test if their rig runs the game)

The other main reason would be: lowering the price of a game tho

Demos were a good things 10 to 15 years ago.

Well, I'm an old dinosaur then, since I'm still making use of them

 

[kythor]

Dragon Age 2's demo made me not want to buy the game. Haha.

 

[cmdr_silverbolt]

If the W3 is going to have a demo then it should let the players go through a good amount of quests in the first quest area, but it would be nice if not all quests, items, features etc. are revealed in the demo, so the player still has something to look forward to while replaying that part of the game.

 

[Agent_Blue]

If the W3 is going to have a demo then it should let the players go through a good amount of quests in the first quest area, but it would be nice if not all quests, items, features etc. are revealed in the demo, so the player still has something to look forward to while replaying that part of the game.

I have a question for those advocating a TW3 demo:

Just whom would it be for?

Because those making a plea for it on this forum are fans of the series and will likely buy the game anyway. It would be preaching to the converted - whose faith would be just as reassured with a carefully crafted demo as with official gameplay footage. So people asking for a demo here surely must have others in mind, maybe potential new fans. Now, for example, I never knew about The Elder Scrolls prior to Skyrim's release teaser. I simply wouldn't have downloaded a demo. Teaser and gameplay footage, that's what got me to buy the game.

The small share of people for whom a demo would be critical in making up their minds doesn't justify the time and personnel needed.

In summary:

1) The converted will buy the game with or without a demo. A demo would be pointless for them.
2) Gamers who haven't heard about TW series will likely be more persuaded via straightforward gameplay footage. A demo would be ineffective at them.
3) The small fraction of undecided fans aren't a good enough reason to swerve precious resources from the actual game into polishing a demo. A demo would be time ill spent.

So I say none at all.

 

[dragonbird]

OK.

I do *not* think that it's in anyone's interest to create a demo version while the game is still in development/testing. I agree that it's diverting developer and tester resources, and I think that the risks of the demo being buggy or just different to the final product are too high - if something CAN go wrong, it WILL go wrong. I'd prefer the marketing/PR to be via trailers (including pre-recorded gameplay demos made in a controlled environment).

The time to release the demo is when the game has been finalised, after the retail version goes into manufacturing. Close enough to the launch date to discourage most pre-order customers from holding back until the demo (or you don't reveal in advance that you're going to release a demo). By then, you're no longer diverting effort, as the only thing you need to do is cut the game into a smaller version, and, unless you're planning to release a buggy game, you should have removed the risk of a buggy demo. Also, if the demo is from the start of the game, they could carry their savegames forward into the full version after buying.

With that approach, the costs to bring in that group who are unsure become minimal, and I think it becomes justified.
- People who are concerned about marginal or sub-minimal PCs can check it for themselves. Yes, the company would lose sales from those who currently buy and then find it doesn't work for them, but an ethical company shouldn't want to be getting those sales anyway.
- People who genuinely resort to cracked versions because they "want to try first but would be more than happy to pay if they like the game" won't be tempted to just stick with the cracked version. Yes, that's just an excuse for some people who'll go for the cracked version anyway, and yes, some people will decide they DON'T like it after playing, but the existence of the demo won't make things any worse.
- People with limited budgets are probably more likely to be willing to spend their money on a game that they're already confident that they'll like, so if they have a choice between two games, one of which they've only seen in trailers and one that they've already started, they're more likely to pick the safe option - the one they've already tried.
- People are starting to get very cynical about reviews, with good reason. Who better to trust than yourself?

 

[zeta16]

Watch THIS SPEECH from DICE 2013, around 10 minutes in the guy starts talking about this.

Game demos hurt sales drastically.

Also, Hi y'all! This is my first post!

 

[volsung]

Are we on an infinite time loop?

Are we on an infinite time loop?