In this episode of "By Design" - we explore the past, present, and future of the game "demo". Are demos a relic of the past or a necessary component in makin...
Fair enough, I do it all the time and so do people in my friend group. There’s a new game, it’s on sale, I know I buy games on steam regularly, I buy the game, I try it, it doesn’t work, it’s not fun, something. I return it within the 2-hour window fairly regularly.
In fact, this steam two hour window has been part of game developer philosophy for a while, putting the good content first, so you don’t get bored before the 2 hours expire. There’s been a fair few reviews where people speculate this was just front-loaded so people don’t return it
But it’s a very small minority. You’re cutting out like 90+% of a potential demo audience by demanding cash on the barrel head up front. It’s objectively worse for the customer by a significant margin.
It’s entirely different, though.
I’m not going to pay to try a game and lean on a refund. I just won’t play it at all.
Fair enough, I do it all the time and so do people in my friend group. There’s a new game, it’s on sale, I know I buy games on steam regularly, I buy the game, I try it, it doesn’t work, it’s not fun, something. I return it within the 2-hour window fairly regularly.
In fact, this steam two hour window has been part of game developer philosophy for a while, putting the good content first, so you don’t get bored before the 2 hours expire. There’s been a fair few reviews where people speculate this was just front-loaded so people don’t return it
There are people who do; I’m not disputing that.
But it’s a very small minority. You’re cutting out like 90+% of a potential demo audience by demanding cash on the barrel head up front. It’s objectively worse for the customer by a significant margin.
That’s a good point. I agree with that. It adds friction.
It’s the defacto demonstration of last resort, at that point somebody’s just using it to escape from a bad purchase.