Good news: Preorders are declining.

[bilateralrope]

I'm surprised you don't have game stop. They are here in Australia trading as EB Games. A few developers eventually release the "launch exclusive" content later on. Bethesda did it with New Vegas.

Gamestop aren't the only company with retailer specific exclusives. I only named them specifically because they want to make the problem of retailer specific exclusives worse. When I can't see helping anyone but that retailer with the exclusive.

It strikes me as Gamestop knowing that they can't compete fairly with digital distribution. So they use what leverage they have to force the publishers to tilt things in their favor by reducing consumer choice. This piece on Polygon goes over other things Gamestop has done to attempt to fight digital distribution.

[Cykeisme]

Even without going into specific titles (and thus outlining a mechanism that will continue the trend into the future), it's pretty obvious there's a declining trend in pre-orders:
The simple existence of games that had extensive pre-launch hype and marketing, that later failed to deliver as promised (either due to lack of features, content, or containing bugs) is the obvious reason.
For any given consumer who pre-orders titles regularly, he will eventually run into at least one such title. After being "burned", he becomes less likely to pre-order games again. Eventually, his likelihood of pre-ordering a game approaches zero. This no doubt carries across the entire market, thus the number of pre-orders drops.

There are games that were heavily marketed that were lambasted across review sites and word-of-mouth within 24 hours after launch (especially due to show-stopping bugs or service issues). People who pre-ordered games like this, and were disappointed, are even less likely to pre-order in future.


Overall, it's good and bad for the games industry in general. On the good side, it keeps publishers and developers honest; no longer can they expect to turn a profit based on marketing hype alone; now they have to actually deliver the promised product, in working condition.
On the other hand, indie developers often rely on this sort of thing to put out games at all; then again, the "Early Access" trend we're seeing now could be classified as something entirely different, iunno.

[TheFeniX]

Actually, the majority of the servers are vanilla. Because the DLC packs fragment the community.

Thanks for the info. That's good news.

Overall, it's good and bad for the games industry in general. On the good side, it keeps publishers and developers honest; no longer can they expect to turn a profit based on marketing hype alone; now they have to actually deliver the promised product, in working condition.
On the other hand, indie developers often rely on this sort of thing to put out games at all; then again, the "Early Access" trend we're seeing now could be classified as something entirely different, iunno.

One thing I noticed towards the end of my time gaming on 360 was the distinct lack of gameplay demos. A lot of bigger developers had switched to only offering hands-off and cherry-picked gameplay demos/videos to the community and this is not a good thing. In it's early life, the 360 was pretty much a demo machine for me. Now, even on PC, it seems gameplay demos are a thing of the past.

I remember the Battlefield 2 demo not only showing off that the game had some bugs, but also building an enormous amount of hype for the game. Now it seems you're basically at the mercy of video game reviewers and what they've been specifically shown for a given game. Not to say demos can't be easily misleading. The Dragon Age 2 demo almost had me buy the game outright, until I did more digging and found what the demo offered was pretty much the highlight of the game and also avoided showing all the recycled content and other letdowns that proved it was a rushed sequel. Still, at least what I played worked as advertised.

Indie developers generally handle this in their own way through actual gameplay demonstrations and, as you said, early access. In fact, they sometimes end up being way too truthful in their demonstrations, scaring off potential customers, such as they did with me and Shadowrun.

[Borgholio]

I recall fondly the old days of demos...where you could easily play 1/4 of the game for free and get a good feel for it. That more than anything helped sell games...trailers (when they existed) just didn't hold a candle to being able to play the first few levels of a game and actually judge if you wanted to buy the rest of it.

[Cykeisme]

Totally agree with your sentiments, FeniX.

Not making a point here, just something interesting that crossed my mind: it's interesting how in the Wolfenstein and Doom era, downloading the shareware episode actually required comparable bandwidth than a video with visual quality equal to the actual game
Heck, that was back in the time of dial-up BBSes instead of the magic of the intarwebs.


Now, after having double-checked forum policy to ensure that simply discussing it won't be against the rules (there are many forums where this is the case)..
I've often torrented pirated games with the intention of checking how it runs on my hardware, and getting a feel for the game. If I play more than an hour or so, that would be because I like it. Therefore, I buy it. In the last three or four years, I've bought every single game I've tried illegally. It's the simple fact that the developers did a good job, and deserve to be paid for it.

Something weird I've discovered is that I can actually put the pirated install into my Steam library directory, buy the game, and then let Steam "fix up" the directory content, replacing/updating any files that don't match the proper installation (the bulk of the large files containing art assets and the like are usually never altered). That saves me from having to re-download the entire game through Steam; it's good to go in minutes or even seconds. It's actually become something of a practice for me, now.


Getting back on topic, yeah, demos are a good idea if developers actually do a good job.. it's like the exact opposite of the dying pre-order trend.

As for Early Access, even if being too truthful can turn off some potential customers, hopefully the feedback might sometimes allow the developers to make changes to address the complaints, I guess?

[Crossroads Inc.]

The ONLY game I have ever pre-orders has been the new "Homeworld" game release, and that is only because you get a custom, USB powered version of HW's "Mothership" which is friggen awesome.

Other than that I am in full agreement about the negatives of preorders for gamers.

[InsaneTD]

I was talking to a couple gamer friends at work and both said they have stopped preordering cause they don't feel they need all the fancy memorabilia that tends to come with the game when preordered. One of them said he didn't have the space for the busts and miniatures he has now and had been thinking of selling them. Both of them had also said they had been disappointed by games in the past as well.

[TheFeniX]

Getting back on topic, yeah, demos are a good idea if developers actually do a good job.. it's like the exact opposite of the dying pre-order trend.

The thing is: demos are pretty much dead. Some random a year or so back stated something to the effect that a demo can reduce sales by a 1/3 to 1/2 because people may not buy your game when being allowed to see it in action. I'm pretty sure this is it.

Schell went on to assert that the best way to increase sales is to tease gamers with a trailer, and then to make sure there is absolutely no way the game can be tried out unless they buy a full version. As he said, "The thing is, with no demo, you’ve gotta buy it if you want to try it."

What really sticks in my craw is: he's not wrong. If a demo doesn't blow your skirt up, you aren't likely to buy the game. Even then, a great demo like BF2 might give you all the enjoyment you need because it's bundled with one of the best maps of the game. But I have to ask, is the same kind of person who would play a demo and not buy the game the same type who would gamble $60 then immediately drop the title because it sucks? At that point, the money is made by the publisher (also increasing exposure because sales > all) even though the player garnered little enjoyment from it.

But I think it goes without saying why his statement might be good for publishers, but bad for the industry as a whole. And it's pretty much what we're in for unless something drastic changes.

Hopefully, the drastic is morons quit dumping $60 into publisher coffers before a game is even out, based on a few screenshots and pre-rendered video. If bullshots, hype videos, and marketing budgets larger than the actual development budget stop working, we might start getting more games out of AAA developers that don't make me feel like a moron for playing them.

[InsaneTD]

Why don't they just go back to releasing just the tutorial level as the demo. On games like battlefield and cod, the fans would get to see how the game plays, but still need to buy it for multi.

[TheFeniX]

Why don't they just go back to releasing just the tutorial level as the demo. On games like battlefield and cod, the fans would get to see how the game plays, but still need to buy it for multi.

I can come up with a couple assumptions. If you release an introductory level on an established IP, you risk missing out on one last big payday if the community feels your series has become stale. So, if you release the first level (or two) of CoD: Ghost 3.75 and it's pretty much the same thing as the last 50 games, you've blown all your hype and there's no longer anything to cover up the marketing taglines. By forgoing a demo, you can at least score one last big hit before the next round of purchases takes a nose-dive.

It's a lot of risk for not a lot of gain.

On newer IPs, you also risk the removal of the mystery surrounding the game. Looking back to a successful no demo release: Gears of War. Microsoft and Epic had released some early showcase videos that were confusing yet got a lot of press for them and player interest. It wasn't until a few months later we started getting episodes of the actual gameplay. Now, a demo release might have lead to even more sales, but MS hid a great game behind a lot of marketing BS and it worked quite well. They risked many 360 owners playing a demo and not liking X or Y and deciding to pass.

Now, let's look at something more than a few years later: Brink. The teaser made it out to look like a story-driven game. Gameplay video showed off the team based-objective/stroytelling medium. From trailers and other jazz, the game looked real good. Anyone who actually bought it was in for testing what was barely a beta. I won't go into detail because I've done it in another thread, but the big fuck-up was that an 8vs8 game couldn't support 16 players... in 2011.

The BF2 demo showcased a lot of issues with EA's server system and some memory leaks, but it was a successful demo. Brink managed to turn a profit for Bethesda: a demo would have cratered the game as even the least technical person would have logged onto a server and realized the game was broken/unfinished. But with no demo, once you get to the point where you realize the game is fucked because you bought it on release: they already have your money and video games don't work like electronics or other products: "broken" to most retailers means "damaged" not "incredibly shitty device that you were suckered into buying and you'll be lucky if the creator ever fixes it."

Unless you live in a country with decent consumer protection laws (IE: not the US).