What happened to Demos?!

Level1Techs INBOX.deb
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This is a question for everyone, but would love to hear Logan or Wendell's response.

I feel like this is going to be a bit of a issue with some people, because I feel like we have kind of hit a plateau that is not good for PC gamer's on AAA Titles.

My reasoning/theory, What the hell happened to Demos? I feel like some of us (not all) would Pirate a lot less if these still existed. Here's why, quite a few people I have talked to that have built PC's say they only spent about $500-600 on their PC, $1000 grand and up is not really an option if you are low income/or even slightly higher than average income. What I am getting at is $60 for a game IMO is ALOT, not saying it's not worth it, but $60 for the average person, I could eat comfortably for 7 days. Now obviously if you blow your food/bill money on a game that's your problem/choice. But if you only spent $500 on a "low end gaming" PC your chances are lower to have $60 to blow on various games vs. someone who spent $1000+ on a PC. (This is debatable, I know Im not getting into exacts here, etc, $500 you spent on PC, to save the rest on games....etcs) So my point is, lesser incomes will save up to buy a game they KNOW WILL WORK ON THEIR PC. Not just simply blow it without know everything is OK.

Why do pirates, pirate? Well a few years ago it was mainly because people didn't want to pay for a game. Today I feel like it has come more into the fact of people wanting to see if a particular game works on their system. It's kind of shitty that if you DO SPEND $60 on a game to find out it has issues or for some weird reason it does not work on your "high end" computer, OR IF you simply don't like the game, YOU CAN'T get a refund. 

Now getting a refund does open up a whole nother can of worms (EX: everyone would say they didn't like the game just to save some money)  But to solve this maybe they could do like what Google Play does (Or did?) give them like 12-24 hours? Maybe, even at BigBox stores with a physical CD?

Anyways I think a few issues could be alleviated or softened if we had DEMOS! You know those good old 1 mission demos that made us feel like we were worth something! With so many variations in hardware (and this day OS'es) this to me seems like it should be standard.

I hate when people compare Pirating to stealing cars, Why? Because if you buy a car legally and its shit, you can take it back!, or if you simply are not pleased, you can take it back!, or if there is a recall (lol bug issues), you can take it back! You can't do this with legally bought games/software. In turn people pirate, 99% of people would be a lot more inclined to pirate than STEAL A CAR! Now stealing would be a lot more profound if you could NOT do the things I just listed above, also there is Test Driving aka DEMOS!!!!!!! Need I say more?

I have pirated a game to make sure everything is hunky dory on my machine, and once everything checked out, Boom off to Steam/"Insert your company of choice" and bought the game. Unless the game did not work/tuned out to be complete shit then I uninstalled, and when I say this I mean like a total of 5-8 times in my life.

So this is not a post to defend Pirating, even though I see why it does happen a lot, what is everyone's thoughts on Pirating vs. Demos?

 

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I agree, demos would reduce piracy somewhat. But come on, people will pirate no matter what.

And game devs will use this excuse, instead of making a demo. They don't make demos anymore because it requires extra time to rip a piece of the game out or originality to make a level or two that includes most elements of the game without spoiling the story or giving everything away (because mostly there's no new content there in the first place, if we're talking about the modern "aaa" games).

I pirate because I don't feel the price is right for some games that I just want to try to see what the fuss is about. For example Advanced Warfare, it's not a bad game, it's nothing new, I wouldn't buy it even if I had all the money in the world. It's just not worth what it's asking and I can't respect that, and as I wanted to see Kevin Spacey in a 3d movie (because that's what it is) and couldn't find a demo, I went ahead. 

I try not to pirate anymore, except for a few cases: the one above and the few old games that are most likely abandonware (like Freelancer) because I can't buy them anywhere else. I'd love to have physical copies of my favorite oldies but shipping is costly and I am not giving the makers anything, so there's no point.

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if you make a good game, it will make money, piracy or not.

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No one releases demos because no publisher is confident enough in their games to be sure that the demo will make more people buy the game as opposed to turning them away from it.

However, I don't think that piracy as big of a problem as people tend to claim. People who mostly pirate games are generally those who don't have means of paying for them anyway.

As for pirating to try the game before buying: I don't really see how that's in any way a problem. Absolutely no one is getting hurt by it, so I see no reason why it should not be a thing.

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