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Stop Being Tricked Into Buying Demos

Stop Being Tricked Into Buying Demos

If I may get a bit sentimental for a moment, I remember a time when game demos were a thing that would frequently accompany gaming magazines. I bought Crash Bandicoot because I enjoyed the demo that I received for free. That was my understanding of how it was supposed to work. I get a trial, and then I pay to play more if it suits my tastes. Demos were a thing that were supposed to work like advertising for the company, but I guess now they have become a product in and of themselves. Lesser games are bolstered by the demos they contain. Pre-orders give access to betas. Practices like this, and more, are evidence that respect for the consumer has diminished and companies have found clever ways to directly monetize marketing tools.

Gaming has moved to a largely digital place, and online speeds are higher than they’ve ever been. Demos for games are still available for download, but with far less regularity. That’s a bit strange, right? Shouldn’t things be getting better?

The first major example of this that comes to mind for me was the beta for Halo 3. Customers who purchased Crackdown, a mostly unheard of and, frankly, pretty average game, could access the beta for the hugely anticipated Xbox 360 debut of the Halo franchise. Not only was this a costly way to try the beta, but the Halo 3 servers didn’t work through most of the short-lived testing. Sure, a little bit of time was tacked on for the inconvenience, but why was that the approach taken? Companies need beta testers, and outsourcing that job to gamers is already a great arrangement. We get to try a game we want, and they get to collect data for balancing and server stress. It’s mutually beneficial. Using the beta to market Crackdown was just a little bit devious and underhanded, while admittedly smart.

Currently, Ubisoft is employing a similar technique on the Humble Bundle website. Humble Bundle is an store which allows gamers to pay what they want to download select games. That, on it’s own, is pretty cool and can be a good way for publishers to profit from old games which are past their marketing period. But, if gamers pay more than the average donation for the bundle, they receive guaranteed access to the beta for Tom Clancy’s The Division. A beta isn’t a full game, though, and adding it on as a bonus to a different purchase is a good way of effectively selling a demo. How have we gotten to a place where demos have monetary value? How have we reached a stage where publishers charge us for services they need anyway before they can confidently launch a game?

Stop Being Tricked Into Buying Demos

Other times, betas come packaged on with pre-orders. Statistically speaking, most of the pre-orders a game receives will translate into sales. And a store carrying those pre-orders will order at least that many copies of the game. A beta will usually show off the best modes and scenarios that a game has to offer, as well, so once again this feels a bit manipulative on the part of publishers. It also further feeds into the horror that is pre-order culture, which is a big enough issue in its own right.

Square Enix also knows how to sell demos to its fanbase. The company packaged a demo for Final Fantasy XII with the full release of Dragon Quest VIII. It packaged a demo for Final Fantasy XV with Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. In the first example, gamers interested in the demo actually got a good game out of the deal. In the latter, gamers had to buy a pretty sub-par title for the privilege of playing the demo for Final Fantasy XV. Square Enix knows how diehard Final Fantasy fans can be, though, and this method works wonders for putting less marketable games on gamers’ radars and, undoubtedly, contributes to sales.

The thing is, gamers should be able to experience games in some capacity before they commit to buying them. And, from where I sit, it should be the publisher’s job to have faith in their game and provide access to portions of the experience, free of charge. Demos are promotional material. They shouldn’t be products, and the fact that they’ve somehow been packaged as such makes me feel just a little bit disappointed in the industry as a whole.

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