We need to bring back the era of demos

[S.T.A.G.E.]

sundin13 said:

S.T.A.G.E. said:

Transparency is what demos give. The industry needs more of it. It forces devs to up their quality. 

Not really...the content of reviews are far more indicative of the totality of a product. I mean, theres a ton of reasons why demos are tough. First of all, you need to both tutorialize the player and show them the interesting things in the game to get them hooked. That is a pretty big challenge in games with a learning curve or games that do much of anything out of the ordinary. Then you have story based games, which don't want to spoil anything and have difficulty getting the players to care about the world and characters in a short time frame.

Then you have the fact that the demo is an incredibly small portion of the game. Whether that portion is good or bad may not be indicative of the full product and the full product may be less/more than the sum of its parts.

Honestly, its not hard to figure out the things that I will like by reading reviews or listening to the opinions of others...

Demos just aren't worth the time, effort and money that studios have to put into them and they present a lot of design challenges which aren't a problem in full games.

Reviews are an arbitrary mainstay. Demos give hands on experience no matter which way you slice it. At E3 and other gaming shows the dollars are put forth by devs and publishers to show those lucky enough to play them. Gamers at home should have such access during even the major months of the year when the shows happen. 

Yes...a demo is supposed to a small part of the game. Its a demonstration. Its supposed to whet your palette for the full experience and be the best showcase of the parts of the basics of said game. 

In the end all of these preliminary previews, reviews and demos should benefit and influence the customer. If people who make it into expos can get the experience, why shouldn't the average joe at home? The previews that we get from a lot of the expo the gaming commentary providers we tend to trust come from 15-30 minute demos at these shows. So....is it alright that they get the demos but we dont?