Hi Tom and Dark, THanks for the feedback. As I tried to make clear in the original response, playable demos are something that are being continually discussed and thought about here. It's not an area where we are dead set on any specific course of action.
To clarify: When asking a user to invest $30-$40 in a title, we feel very strongly that it was essential to offer a playable demo. In lowering the price, we have to balance the added overhead of managing demos and accepting potentially higher levels of piracy from users finding ways to exploit the demos. Using some random numbers just to illustrate an example… If five people do not purchase the game because there is not a playable demo and no one of their acquaintance has a copy on their machine that they can play for a few minutes, we've lost five sales at most. If we offer a demo, and an exploit means that 50 people pirate the title, we have potentially lost a maximum of 50 sales, plus the time spent implementing the unlockable demo, etc. And, just to throw out some real world numbers…just in what we've been able to track, we know that MonkeyBusiness has been pirated by around 300 users at minimum, and potentially many more. In an industry as small as ours, that is not insignificant. We are not saying we will definitively not do demos…but it is something that we need to weigh the pros and cons for very carefully, and make sure that it is worth it overall. Sometimes, doing the best thing for the customer is costly. Our registration keys, for example, are not tied to hardware the way, for instance, GMA's are. We do this because we understand the frustration for users upgrading to a new system, or who have multiple machines they want to be able to play the game on. As a result, we've had to accept a very, very high rate of piracy of our games. In bringing the cost down, it is harder justifying all of these kinds of things, and we need to weigh each very carefully. Hope this helps clarify. On Jan 16, 2013, at 3:49 PM, Thomas Ward <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > I find myself in agreement with Dark on this issue of demos. While I > realize Draconis is attempting to bring the cost down on new and > existing games I'd still prefer to try before I buy a game. Even if a > game is only $10 I don't really have it to spend frivolously. As I am > married, have a family to worry about, etc I tend to watch every > dollar and only pay for things that I am absolutely sure I want. > Sometimes an audio trailer and a brief description isn't enough to get > me to purchase a product. > > I'll offer an example here. I do not consider myself much of a Harry > Potter fan. Oh, I've watched the movies, read the books, and for me it > is something I can pretty much take or leave. So I'm not actively > looking for games etc with Harry Potter themes. So something like > Sarah would not attract my attention because of the Harry Potter type > theme alone. > > Moreover I heard audio trailers, read descriptions of the game in > early development, and for the most part I blew them off. However, > when I got to play the demo of Sarah I became hooked on the game > itself, and wanted to see more of the castle, see how far I could get, > and it was the demo that convinced me to cough up the money for the > game more than any other factor. So you see even if Sarah had been > $10, which would be more than reasonable for that game, I wouldn't > have paid because I didn't think I would like it until I actually > played the demo. > > There have been other cases where my decision to buy or not to buy > have been based more or less on the quality of the demo. If a demo > isn't available I'm going to be less likely to pay for the game unless > I have money to burn and have no prior commitments which is usually > never. :D > > Cheers! > > On 1/16/13, dark <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi. >> >> As regards demos, I'm afraid I'm a little confused as to your reasoning that >> >> bringing the price down automatically means you don't need a demo. This >> might be true for games such as silver dollar where the over all price is >> extremely low and the game is more than simple enough to understand from an >> >> audio clip, but for something more complex that might not be the case, >> indeed there have been several occasions in the past that I only recognized >> >> the worth of games myself by playing them. >> >> I did not for example think much to the initial idea of audio pinball from >> the audio clips or promotional material. i was not convinced how much fun >> the game would be, since from what I heard it didn't seem you had much >> tronol over events in the game and had to just hit buttons occasionally. >> >> if you had asked me to hazard even as little as 5 dollars on the game, I >> probably wouldn't have done so, since I didn't find the idea appealing and >> being carefull about money, don't particularly like throwing away even a >> small amount on something which might not be entertaining for a long >> period. >> >> Since however a free demo was available, I had nothing to lose in trying the >> >> game, and when I tried the game i found the experience of playing the game >> extremely different from my preconceptions, which it turned out were utterly >> >> wrong. I now regard both esp pinball titles as some of the best arcade games >> >> available and would highly recommend them to anyone, but that would not have >> >> happened if I had not had the direct experience of playing the demo >> version. >> >> Likewise, I will probably not buy change reaction since I did not enjoy the >> >> previous demo, but if I had an opportunity to play the newer version and >> observe the changes (no pun intended), in the game for myself, that may well >> >> be different, however I don't particularly feel i have enough money to >> hazard 10 dollars on the possibility. >> >> thus, I would suggest that even if it does! take more time in developement, >> >> any game which is priced more than five dollars due to it's complexity and >> interest really should have some sort of demo available for it, particularly >> >> for games with a different audio complex, or games that require complex >> actions to play. >> >> Most Visually impared people are not particularly wealthy, therefore it >> makes sence they be carefull with money. Part of that care will naturally >> not involve hazarding money on things just on an offchance, and since games >> >> are a luxury item, people will need to be extra sure of what they're >> getting. >> >> this is why I myself rarely buy a film or tv series on dvd that I have not >> seen before and thus will be certain it is something I will want to watch >> through several times, and the same applies to games, which is why I'd >> personally recommend rethinking the demo policy, ---- even if not for all >> titles. >> >> All the best, >> >> Dark. >> >> >> --- >> Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] >> If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to >> [email protected]. >> You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at >> http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. >> All messages are archived and can be searched and read at >> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. >> If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, >> please send E-mail to [email protected]. >> > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to [email protected]. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. 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