Game demos lacking...

I was considering buying the new Forza 5 or Ryse games and wanted to try them out before buying. I go to the demos page and all I see are four games I have no interest in (Zumbe, Soccer, Basketball and a kinect game).

Now, either I'm on the wrong demos page or, my decision against my better judgement to buy the One with a small catalog is catching up to me...

:)

 

Game Demos

It would be up to the developer as to whether or not there is a demo. If there is not one listed on the marketplace, there would not be a way to download it anywhere else to play on the 360.

As far as I'm aware, there is no way to filter the search to only demos.

 

Game Demos

As I am looking at games in the Xbox 360 Store, how do I sort by "game demo". I want to only look at games that have the "game demo" symbol. Obviously, I know that I search for games on my Xbox 360 but I find it faster to do it on a computer.

 

Demos are a devs/publishers choice....

Also demos takes time,money and energy to make and doesn't help the sales.

 

Its no better on the PS4 unfortunately, a friend of mine has the PS4 and the demos are almost exactly the same.

That's the slight problem with the Xbox One and its change on Xbox Live Arcade games, because their is no longer XBLA games, it means developers don't have to create trial versions. And trust me, developers don't like creating demos/trials because it actually
loses them sales.

www.pcgamer.com/.../analyst-game-demos

I realise that's no comfort to the consumer, but it at least shows WHY their are very few demos.

 

Not to mention that the time and money required for a demo could be better spent on further touches to the final game, marketing or just generally kicking back and throwing a huge launch party in the studio offices. Unfortunately, demos just don't make sense
anymore.

Perhaps if all games were polished to a great quality and not churned out every year like they were back in the PS1 days, demos would GAIN sales instead of opening our eyes to the horrors of rushed development before we spend cash.

 

I was a bit disappointed about this as well, until I realized that despite developers being shady in some cases by not providing a demo for their quality product, we still have the option to stream and view broadcasts showcasing those very games.

So if there's a game you're interested in and want to know at the least how it looks, you can view it being played on twitch, or on youtube, etc. I know I'll be doing that until they try and block that route as well. I work too hard for my money to not at
the least be offered a demo to try for that new $30 arcade game. SO glad that LocoCycle had a demo...

 

^^ Exactly! There are ONLY 2 drawbacks to not having demos: 1) You don't actually get to play it, & 2) you'll have to do more research to figure out if it's worth purchasing.

 

"Demos are a devs/publishers choice....

Also demos takes time,money and energy to make and doesn't help the sales."

I can honestly say that demos have sold games to me. Games I would not have purchased. And I have been told many times by other family and friends about games they tried the demo of and thought was good and said I should give the demo a try. They ended
up purchasing the game as did I on a few occasions.

And I know that the Titanfall beta/demo sold the game to a few people I know who said they were not interest in another fps. And, like me, they could not care less about reviews. I have seen to many reviews of games be 8.5-9.0 only to have the MP portion
broken or full of problems for weeks or longer after launch and a tacked on SP.

 

I played the Titanfall beta. I don't own Titanfall yet. I'll probably end up buying it, but I got kind of bored while playing the beta and went back to playing COD. If I hadn't played the beta, I know I would have bought Titanfall the day it was released.
I was excited about it months ago, but the beta didn't add to the excitement for me. In my case, I found it did the exact opposite.

On the 360 I downloaded a bunch of demos. None of them made me go buy the actual game. If I had any interest prior to the demo, the demo made me lose interest. I suspect my experience is not uncommon and if it happens that the majority of people are anything
like me, then it definitely wouldn't make any sense for a developer to release a demo.

 

I think a big problem with demos is the way developers try to use a small portion of the game and keep out the story. Of course this is good for avoiding spoilers but it can mean things get boring quickly and you may be left feeling like you don't really
understand it.

A good example of this is an experience I had on PS2. There was a game called 'Primal', from what I remember you basically swapped between playing a teenage girl and a gargoyle some kind of dark world and goth demons and stuff. Anyway, the demo I got in
the Playstation mag took place about an hour or so in to the game and made absolutely no sense, me and my friend didn't understand it at all. Then I got the game from my parents that Christmas, reluctantly I played it to be polite but the game was actually
really enjoyable!

I think an MP demo with only 2 maps or a demo with basic weapons/cars etc could make you feel like you're getting bored of it very quickly but in reality, the full game could be brimming with content that keeps you hooked for hours - days - weeks - months.