1518
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
1518 points (99.9% liked)
Games
32521 readers
1663 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Developer here - currently indie but was in the machine at one point. Cold hard fact is that demos hurt sales for AAA games, and pre-orders get cash in the door today to keep the lights on. With millions and years invested, they must hedge and limit risk as hard and as quickly as possible.
If demos hurt sales, that means that game devs depend on gamers buying games they don't actually end up liking right? I understand making games has become pricier and pricier, but if the whole business model is dependent on "We want to trick people into getting stuff they don't want", then we have a problem.
The reality is probably closer to the flightily nature of us as gamers - We mostly just want to try the game because some part of it seems fun, if that can be tried for free with a demo, why buy it now that we got our fix? Why would a big AAA take that risk?
If people get enough from a free demo maybe it's time to make shorter cheaper games, and start churning out 2 hour playtrough 15usd games, but with high quality graphics/acting/voices/etc. Or just abolish capitalism and make fun games no matter if they sell or not 😂
If a demo is enough of a fix for a customer, then that's got to mean that something wrong with the product overall.
Good games keep you engaged, bad games you leave alone.
I personally agree with that sentiment. Rather than demos, I lean into cheap early access indie games that seem cool on steam, and use subscriptions to check out bigger games (humble choice and xbox gamepass). Tons of games to try, while still less than one "full" game in cost each month.