Study Claims Demos Are Bad for Game Sales

[Rs0n1sT]

A study has been published that claims that releasing a demo for a game actually hurts its sales. They claim that trailers are the best way to push a game and point to the most successful games not having demos.

They even rigged up a fancy graph to try and prove their point.

We, however, don't believe this for a minute.

PS3 Sales



360 Sales



Here we see that sales are clearly higher for games that only released trailers, but let's think about this for a minute.

Two of the highest selling games last year were Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4, both of which this group claims had no demo. However, both of these games had multiplayer betas. Those could basically be considered "exclusive demos".

BioShock had a demo and went on to sell a whole mess of copies. It appears that good games sell well. A lot of bad games get demos and that could very well hurt their sales because gamers get to try them and realize that they are bad. Without a demo, they might be tricked into buying something that looks good, but actually sucks.

These researchers should re-focus their study to only deal with bad games.

MTV Multiplayer: Study: Publishers Shouldn’t Release Demos, Just Trailers

[Pathogenik]

quit making shitty games and they wont have to worry about it.

[Grahf16]

Demos are great, playing the demo for Two Worlds, Timeshift, Culdcept Saga, Sonic The Hedgehog, Guitar Hero III, and Overlord definitely helped me by avoiding buying the game, whereas demos for Crackdown, Saints Row, Halo 3, Tomb Raider Legend, Just Cause, Phantasy Star Universe and Lost Planet convinced me the games were worth buying.

[Alak]

^ what he said. The reason why demos hurt game sales is because they actually show how bad the game will be, unlike trailers which only spark interest through pre-rendered CGI cutscenes. It's a good thing if you ask me.

[Da 5th Dawg]

Originally Posted by Pathogenik

quit making shitty games and they wont have to worry about it.

Originally Posted by Grahf16

Demos are great, playing the demo for Two Worlds, Timeshift, Culdcept Saga, Sonic The Hedgehog, Guitar Hero III, and Overlord definitely helped me by avoiding buying the game, whereas demos for Crackdown, Saints Row, Halo 3, Tomb Raider Legend, Just Cause, Phantasy Star Universe and Lost Planet convinced me the games were worth buying.

Co fuckin sign!!!

[Lynx]

demos are good for us gamers but bad for the industry.

[Da 5th Dawg]

Originally Posted by DJ Lynx

demos are good for us gamers but bad for the industry.

The only people in the industry that should suffer are the ones that make bad games.

[grapevine241]

well if the game is shitty and the demo is shitty, the game is probably gonna sell like shit.

[vick0923]

Originally Posted by DJ Lynx

demos are good for us gamers but bad for the industry.

co' sign, it only benefits the gamers. but if the game is shitty they shouldn't make a demo.

[mrdwilson78]

Fuck the industry stop droppin shitty games for high prices and you wont have to worry about sales