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[stevesan]

As a consumer of indie games, it always astounds me when a small indie title does NOT have a demo. For big budget titles, I can rely on hype and reviews to tell me if a game sucks or not (even that's pretty imperfect), but if an indie game doesn't have much press, what's possibly going to get me interested? Not much. So if you don't have a demo that I can try out, chances are I'm definitely not going to give you any money on an unknown quantity. The biggest indie purchase I made recently was $10 for "To the Moon", because after the 1 hour demo, I was completely hooked and just had to finish the game/story. Other examples include: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Limbo, and tons of Wadjet Eye games.

So, enlighten me: Why do some games, like Frozen Synapse, not release a demo? How is it not just a sign of insecurity in their game? Is there a well-established business reason? Please enlighten me.

[Christian Knudsen]

Personally, I couldn't imagine releasing a game for sale without a demo. At least so potential customers can make sure it runs well enough on their system before purchasing.

[RudyTheDev]

Honestly, I cannot think of a reason why one wouldn't want to release a demo. May be they're afraid it won't get bought once the user tries it and doesn't like it or something. But that's like selling clothes in cardboard boxes.

[eigenbom]

I don't think a demo is necessary if the game has low-ish specs (addressing Christian's concern), or if the game is short enough that by downloading the demo and playing it for an hour or two you 'get' the game and hence don't want to buy it. Also, screenshots, videos, ratings, or descriptions are often (for me) enough information to decide whether I'll like the game or not.

But in general, I'd say demos work really well for some style of games but not for others. Also the effort involved in creating a demo might not be achievable in the economy of indie dev.

[stevesan]

I don't think a demo is necessary if the game has low-ish specs (addressing Christian's concern), or if the game is short enough that by downloading the demo and playing it for an hour or two you 'get' the game and hence don't want to buy it. Also, screenshots, videos, ratings, or descriptions are often (for me) enough information to decide whether I'll like the game or not.

But in general, I'd say demos work really well for some style of games but not for others. Also the effort involved in creating a demo might not be achievable in the economy of indie dev.

That just makes me kinda think that if a game doesn't release a demo, it's a bit insecure in itself. Now of course, some games have tons of buzz around them, and I would probably buy those games anyway. I guess if your game is neither..then maybe it's just not that good and I shouldn't care if you release a demo or not.

[hanako]

The best reason I can think of for not having a demo is a game that has both a cool concept and a steep learning curve. Something where you will look at the game, think "AWESOME!" and then spend the first couple of hours playing it slogging pretty hard trying to get the hang of things before finally making it back into the awesome zone.  Making someone pay up front motivates them to get through those hours of hard work so that their purchase isn't "wasted" - and then they find the fun and are happy.

That doesn't mean the game is bad, just that it may not have been designed to sell itself in the first hour. If you're doing a demo-upsell, you need to be thinking about the demo early on in design.


Alternately, if the game is cheap enough, a demo may be a waste of production time.

[TylerYork]

Honestly, I think the concept of a limited-time or limited-gameplay demo has been replaced by the freemium business model. In essence, playing the "free version" of a game is essentially the same as playing the demo version, but worded in a way that is more fluid. Maybe the entire story is free but certain features require you to pay (like Kingdom Rush), or maybe the game sells level packs for more content.

Either way, freemium is similar in concept to a demo version, it's just typically a more flexible way of doing the same thing: introducing users to your game for free while enticing them to pay

[eigenbom]

@hanako Some good points.

Whether a demo is necessary or not definitely depends on the type of game, target audience, platform, etc. I definitely _expect_ demos from the big studios, unless it's obvious what to expect (I didn't expect a demo of Skyrim, for instance.) But for smaller indie titles, I have a completely different mindset. I'm willing to pay $5 for something, play it for a bit, then move on if I don't like it. In my mind, paying $5 for something I'll play for an half an hour to an hour is definitely worth it.  

I understand that some people are more conservative with their money, but is this because they underestimate the value of a game or are cheapskates? I know someone, for instance, who bought an iphone but ummms and ahhhs about purchasing a $1 game after playing the demo for hours. If the game didn't have a demo, the person might have bought it in order to play it. Is this because $1 to try something new seems more valuable than $1 to keep doing something you enjoy...?

[PompiPompi]

I think there should always be the option to play the game before purchase. With some games it is easy to just do a demo, but with others a demo is not a good solution.
So in the case where a demo is not a good solution, there are other solutions. Like Freemium, or just "shareware", usually the game has a time limit before you need to buy it.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

So, enlighten me: Why do some games, like Frozen Synapse, not release a demo? How is it not just a sign of insecurity in their game? Is there a well-established business reason? Please enlighten me.

http://www.frozensynapse.com/demo.html



i think the answer is that they need to make the demo button even bigger

[larsiusprime]

We've had a lot of success with a browser-based demo. Plenty of people will play a demo if they don't have to install something, and then you have enough of their attention to sell them the full version.

Not a silver bullet or anything, but definitely another tool to chip away at the "Exe barrier."

This probably has a lot to do with Minecraft's success, at least early on.

Course, this only works if you're using flash/AIR, Unity, Java, HTML5. Game Maker has a plugin I think to work in browser but not many people have that installed, and I guess they released a new "HTML5" version you have to fork out for to use, not sure how well it works.

[TylerYork]

Is this because $1 to try something new seems more valuable than $1 to keep doing something you enjoy...?

I've always wondered this myself. I feel like I spent a fair amount of money on $1 iPhone games that I barely play. At the same time, when I play a demo and enjoy it, I'm still only partially likely to purchase the full version (my ADD gets the best of me, especially with video games)

Yet on the flip side, freemium games earn 60% of the revenue in the Apple App Store (see http://blog.flurry.com/bid/65656/Free-to-play-Revenue-Overtakes-Premium-Revenue-in-the-App-Store) . A lot of these games make much more than $1 once per player (see http://blog.flurry.com/bid/67748/Consumers-Spend-Average-of-14-per-Transaction-in-iOS-and-Android-Freemium-Games) . I know that a lot of this seems like a pipe dream for indie developers, but hey, it worked for Tiny Tower pretty well

http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/12/14/free-to-play-pioneer-nimblebit-say-to-put-fun-and-user-experience-first-not-monetization/

Anyways, my advice would be to adopt a full-on freemium model for mobile, Facebook, or a web-based client like Flash/Unity/HTML5. If you're trying to get people to download a file to play your game, then maybe a demo is better? Not sure

[eigenbom]

@TylerYork Thanks for the link, was an interesting factoid about freemium on applestore -- I'll have to keep it in mind for my next phone game.