Topic: Why charge for demos?

[manunited4eva22]

What I am ranting about or will rant about is how the developers are trying to make you pay for demos.  Like the idea of me prepaying for mario kart to play a demo is just stupid to me.  Why am I going to pay anything for something that is meant to be an incentive to buy the games later down the road.  This isn't what I really am bitching about, because those discs do cost money, so its not too horrible.

What I am bitching about is when a PC developer tries to give a demo exclusively to one company.  Call me cheap or lazy, but when you have many companies willing to serve as download sites, and when a lot of people want the demo, its stupid not to give it to them.  This has been going on with Call of Duty.  The first demo was absolutely mind blowing, but this did not go off without a hitch.  Infinity Ward thought it to be clever to give the demo exclusively to file front, and in the process pissed off a whole bunch of people.  A few days before the file was supposed to be launch, they figured out that pissing off customers was not the way to go, and everyone was free to download from anywhere hosting.

Alas, they did it again, and this time its exclusive to PC Gamer.  Having a friend who subscribes I got to play it, and it really is good, but I by no means think it is something that you should make exclusive.  It's a demo for christ sake, you are trying to get people to buy your game, not to piss off your customers repeatedly.  Oh well, I just hate seeing companies trying to make a selling point a selling point to something else. /end rant.

[Bill Aurion]

Well you don't have to pay extra for the MK demo disc...You just have to preorder, as in putting 5-10 dollars down and paying the rest later...Don't play too many PC games, so I wouldn't even know about exclusive stuff like that ^_^

[Cap]

the way nintendo handles demo discs is a complete joke. why only make them available to people who preorder one of your games, and why is this only the second demo disc in gamecubes lifespan? nintendo needs to realize that demos sell games, and make them more widely and reguarly available.

[manunited4eva22]

Well it's not so much that you have to pay for it, but they are trying to make it a selling point to preorder.  A demo disc just isn't something I am going to preorder something to have.

 

[Berny]

Yeah, they need to rethink a few things. But hey, beggars can't be choosers. We didn't even have demo anythings until last the month or so. They'll realize that people REALLY like free stuff and start giving them away like mad eventually. I have faith in Nintendo. They haven't let me down yet.

[honda_insightful]

Yeah, it's dumb.  I saw a demo disc for PS2 that I wanted to get, but they were charging $5 for it.  So, I decided to forget about it.  I can understand a nominal fee of 50 cents or 1 dollar to cover publishing costs, but $5?!?  That's a $4 profit... no thanks!

Not all companies are dumb though.  I was able to get a free demo of Summoner 2 last winter.  It turned out to be a good thing for the company, because the demo enticed me to buy the game!

[honda_insightful]

Here's another possibility:

- Pay $5 for the demo disc.
- Trade it in for a $5 credit when you buy the game.

This is how JCPenney does with their catalogs.  That way the companies don't lose anything if you take a Disc but do not buy.

[ThePerm]

Demo's are advertising.....look at viewtiful joe. I'm sure Nitendo will star to release them more when they rtealise that.
Also demo disks are one thingh fans beg for. Its one of the things Nintendo needs to do to make the fans feel their being fully serviced. Right now id fill my gamecube was worth more of my time if i had more stuff to play. But it doesnt...demo's would fill this void of emptiness. I can't really explain what i mean.

[SuperLink666]

They sell them so people don't own 10 of them. If they gave away those Preview disks people would have 20+..


Oh and the viewtiful joe demo sold me the game. Good work guys

[gnom]

friendsgames.com - here you not must paid for demo

[kennyb27]

Quote
friendsgames.com - here you not must paid for demo  

Man, please work on your grammar.  That is barely readable.

Er...isn't that advertising of some sorts anyway?

[Cap]

Quote
Originally posted by: SuperLink666
They sell them so people don't own 10 of them. If they gave away those Preview disks people would have 20+..


Oh and the viewtiful joe demo sold me the game. Good work guys

which is why they would either have to sell them for a marginal amount($1-$2), or package them in with nintendo power like sony and ms have been doing for the last 2 years with their official magazines. making someone preorder a $60 game is quite abit different then making someone buy a $6 magazine.  

[manunited4eva22]

Well I am just really against 'promote preorder with a demo' If you want to put it in your magazine, thats fine with me, but letting your magazines writing go to hell and then adding a demo disc in an attempt to redeam it.  Do I want to play a bunch of games, sure, but I sure as hell am not going to pay the same for a rental of a full game as 4 demos of one level.

[Ian Sane]

One thing I don't like about Nintendo's most recent demo disc is that it has demos for games that have already come out like F-Zero GX and (when the disc comes out) Rebel Strike.  Isn't part of the point of demo discs to preview future games?  The appeal of demo is somewhat killed when you can just play the full game.  The two demo discs released by Nintendo thus far seem to be designed with new Cube owners in mind.  Therefore it's rather silly to have something designed for new fans to be only available with a pre-order since the hardcore longtime fans are the most likely to pre-order a game.  The sort of people that the demo disc appears to be aimed at probably have no idea when Mario Kart is being released.

One way to release demo discs that would be really cool would be for them to include "subscriptions" to monthly or bi-monthly demo discs with the purchase of a new console.  So if you buy a console and register (something I think many of us never do) you are then shipped all demo discs free of charge.  It would be a GREAT way to advertise lesser known games since nearly every console owner will get a chance to play them.  Seriously who wouldn't try out the demos if they got them for free?  I think the costs of giving away the discs would be worth the free hands-on advertising.

[GoldShadow1]

I bought the GameCube demo disk for $2.50 used.  I can't complain.

[Flames_of_chaos]

I cringed when i saw best buy charging 30 for the cube summer demo disc (sonic dx, billy hatcher, splinter cell, viewtiful joe). And abou tthe mario kart demo disc, some people maybe didnt buy those games yet and didnt have a way to check em out yet so its sort of a good idea.  

But I think Nintendo should demo discs once in a while in their Nintendo Power to yeild more sales and subscriptions.

[GoldShadow1]

Yup, if Nintendo Power had a demo disk every season or so I'd definitely subscribe.

[BlkPaladin]

They make you pay for demos because they eliminate people who just pick them up for free and no outside sales are being make from that. At least by charging they get some money for the time it took to make the demo disk. (It does take a bit of programming, and it takes time for the developers to make the demo so it would be blow back for them.)

The $10.00 price tag is the going price for demos today it more than enough to cover the expenses that go into making them.  

[ThePerm]

its always possible to limit how many you can take...

[BlkPaladin]

But it still alot of money to lose. Some people make it out that the only cost is floping it on a disc.  But they have to pull some of the developer to finalize code on pieces of a game and that takes money, and getting demo's from third parties that takes even more money.