Xbox One Fewer Game Demos on Xbox Live?

[dyzposableherox]

What ever happened to demos?????I remember back a few years ago it seemed every new release had a demo out about 2 weeks before release. Now as I see it they are few and far in-between. Look at Payday 2. That game came out months ago but the demo was released last week. Demos really helped me decide if it was a buy. Wonder if this is a marketing ploy to get you to have to buy it to play it???

Thoughts??

 

[jstep]

I found this article on 360Achievements:

Games without demos sell better than games with demos. That’s the message delivered by Puzzle Clubhouse CEO and analyst Jesse Schell at a DICE keynote this year.
Citing data from the video game research and consulting company EEDAR, Schell said that Xbox 360 games without a demo or a trailer sold less than 100,000 units on average. Meanwhile, those with just a demo sold around 200,000 and those with both a demo and a trailer averaged around 250,000. However, those with only a trailer averaged over 500,000.

Kind of makes sense for many of the games. The big releases, sure. I can see having demos for them, but for the smaller titles, thinking about how I have reacted in the past, well I typically HAVE played the demo and then been like-Okay, I played it. I'm done.

 

[KN1GHTMARE]

What ever happened to demos?????I remember back a few years ago it seemed every new release had a demo out about 2 weeks before release. Now as I see it they are few and far in-between. Look at Payday 2. That game came out months ago but the demo was released last week. Demos really helped me decide if it was a buy. Wonder if this is a marketing ploy to get you to have to buy it to play it???

Thoughts??

Well at least all arcade games have free trials

 

[Claptrap]

Kinda wish demos were necessary for games, you know? Like for XBLA games. There's too much **** out there that may look good but then you buy it and it's awful. The demo would have prevented the waste of money. I guess that's why publishers don't release demos...

 

[BlackSolaris]

I found this article on 360Achievements:



Kind of makes sense for many of the games. The big releases, sure. I can see having demos for them, but for the smaller titles, thinking about how I have reacted in the past, well I typically HAVE played the demo and then been like-Okay, I played it. I'm done.

The bad thing is that it makes sense, because without nothing else but the original game to play, people have to buy into the hype for the game itself and just hope that the game is that good. That or reviews, but who trust those anyway?

 

[dyzposableherox]

The bad thing is that it makes sense, because without nothing else but the original game to play, people have to buy into the hype for the game itself and just hope that the game is that good. That or reviews, but who trust those anyway?

Good insight. But remember when there were demos for everything?? Also, has anyone else noticed that a week after release day, the games are on demand already?

 

[rkkeller]

I have one friend that is the demo/trial king on his 360 and I don't think he has ever bought one. He just downloads every demo he can and plays them.
Since the 360 has been released I bet he has not bought more than 10 games, he just downloads the trials and plays them.

 

[RivaCom]

It's a marketing thing. Take into account, if you make a game, and it generates a lot of hype. Your going to get a lot more preorders/sales based on that hype. If you release a demo, theres a good chance that most of those orders will be canceled due to dislike of the game. Now after the games release?

The second problem is time constraints, a lot of smaller companies and even large ones don't want to devote time for staff to branch off and produce a demo(it does take time).

 

[Landshark]

I found this article on 360Achievements:
Games without demos sell better than games with demos. That’s the message delivered by Puzzle Clubhouse CEO and analyst Jesse Schell at a DICE keynote this year.
Citing data from the video game research and consulting company EEDAR, Schell said that Xbox 360 games without a demo or a trailer sold less than 100,000 units on average. Meanwhile, those with just a demo sold around 200,000 and those with both a demo and a trailer averaged around 250,000. However, those with only a trailer averaged over 500,000.

Statistics are fun, but are easily skewed.

Those 'games without demos', what were the titles? What were the advertising budget for the games with/without demos? What were the projected sales for the games with/without demos?


Chances are, if you really looked deep enough you'd find that games with demos usually are the smaller titles that need the publicity. I also wonder how the study defines 'games without demo'. If that means a game that doesn't launch with a demo or what. A lot of the AAA games released today don't have demos, but I highly doubt the inclusion (or not) of a demo had that much of an impact on their sales numbers.

 

[Claptrap]

Statistics are fun, but are easily skewed.

Those 'games without demos', what were the titles? What were the advertising budget for the games with/without demos? What were the projected sales for the games with/without demos?


Chances are, if you really looked deep enough you'd find that games with demos usually are the smaller titles that need the publicity. I also wonder how the study defines 'games without demo'. If that means a game that doesn't launch with a demo or what. A lot of the AAA games released today don't have demos, but I highly doubt the inclusion (or not) of a demo had that much of an impact on their sales numbers.

This is true. Hell, for a game without demos they could use, say Call of Duty, for example. These never have demos, as far as I know, and sell like crazy. Then, for a game with demos, there's Dragon's Dogma, which is pretty cool but it's pretty niche when compared to CoD.

So if the comparison was between the sales numbers of CoD (game without demo) vs Dragon's Dogma (game with demo) the stats would be really skewed in favor of games without demos.

That's just an example, but yeah. Know what I mean?

 

[Damnlag]

Prime example . Medal of Honor Warfighters beta. Lots played it, but when the game came out nobody bought it.