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Free game demos

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Submitted by souri on

With people getting a shorter and short attention spans for games, and a maturing age for the average gamer who are finding less and less time to devote on games, can you see a lot of people just depending on game demos for entertainment? I can see it happening..
Consider the game demo from Splinter Cell with a generous 3 entire levels for you to play with. That's 3 entire levels! Some games I don't even finish a few levels before I get bored.. There's the Postal 2 demo that was just released, and currently there's a patch which gets rid of the 7 minute time limit. I'm sure you can have a good hour or two with just that demo. (on another note, don't expect to see that game appearing on our shelves too soon [;)]). A lot of games have playable online levels too (Unreal Tournment 2, and well, a lot of other FPS's). How long does it take to finish an average game? 11-15 hours?.. You could just download one of those demos instead and play for longer. Or sign up as a beta for a MMORPG.. Check up on gamershell.com or shacknews.com and you can find demos to intersting games everyweek. If you have broadband, and if you don't care for all the other stuff that a complete game has to offer (like story, the satisfaction of 'beating' a game etc), then you're set!

Submitted by Daemin on Wed, 16/04/03 - 8:38 AMPermalink

That's an interesting idea Souri, although if you follow the logic, and play some game - Postal 2 for instance for several hours in the same set of levels, surely that would make you want to buy the full game and play around with the rest of the game for longer than you normally would?

Personally i've played certain demos for a while, but usually the one's I like are RTS's, and their demos are locked in some other way (like a turn limit for M.A.X.) - although using a C&C hack I could get every single unit in the original C&C demo.

The other thing is I think developers are starting to add more content to their games, thus allowing for people to play longer than the 11-15 hours for a regular FPS game now. Well at least I hope that is what they are doing.

Submitted by rezn0r on Wed, 16/04/03 - 11:05 PMPermalink

Back in the day, the only games I had were shareware, and they were just demos... I usually only played those rather than full games. The problem is that these days a warez copy is usually more freely available than the demo.

Scott.

Submitted by Fluffy CatFood on Wed, 16/04/03 - 11:30 PMPermalink

I love the postal2 demo, I really enjoyed just walking around and watching the people, how all of a sudden they might just go nuts.

Oh yeah to remove the 7 minute limit type "set gamestate demotime 999999" in the console.(without the quotes)

Submitted by souri on Thu, 17/04/03 - 12:59 PMPermalink

I got this from Ausgamers.com..

quote:Players will NOT need Return to Castle Wolfenstein to play Enemy Territory (or the ET test we're releasing soon). ET is a free
stand-alone game, so anyone who wants to play will be able to download.

How cool is that?! [:)] I'll definately be getting it. I wonder why it's being released for free though..

Submitted by Maitrek on Thu, 17/04/03 - 9:25 PMPermalink

I doubt that we'll see people playing game-demos solely, or not purchasing full games. All the benefits of a demo are in a pirated game anyway and they both cost next to nothing and are easy to get.

Submitted by Fluffy CatFood on Thu, 17/04/03 - 9:58 PMPermalink

I read a while back that enemy territory was canned because it wasnt going in the desired direction, or it was taking to long, something along those lines anyway. Good of them to give it away then

Posted by souri on

With people getting a shorter and short attention spans for games, and a maturing age for the average gamer who are finding less and less time to devote on games, can you see a lot of people just depending on game demos for entertainment? I can see it happening..
Consider the game demo from Splinter Cell with a generous 3 entire levels for you to play with. That's 3 entire levels! Some games I don't even finish a few levels before I get bored.. There's the Postal 2 demo that was just released, and currently there's a patch which gets rid of the 7 minute time limit. I'm sure you can have a good hour or two with just that demo. (on another note, don't expect to see that game appearing on our shelves too soon [;)]). A lot of games have playable online levels too (Unreal Tournment 2, and well, a lot of other FPS's). How long does it take to finish an average game? 11-15 hours?.. You could just download one of those demos instead and play for longer. Or sign up as a beta for a MMORPG.. Check up on gamershell.com or shacknews.com and you can find demos to intersting games everyweek. If you have broadband, and if you don't care for all the other stuff that a complete game has to offer (like story, the satisfaction of 'beating' a game etc), then you're set!


Submitted by Daemin on Wed, 16/04/03 - 8:38 AMPermalink

That's an interesting idea Souri, although if you follow the logic, and play some game - Postal 2 for instance for several hours in the same set of levels, surely that would make you want to buy the full game and play around with the rest of the game for longer than you normally would?

Personally i've played certain demos for a while, but usually the one's I like are RTS's, and their demos are locked in some other way (like a turn limit for M.A.X.) - although using a C&C hack I could get every single unit in the original C&C demo.

The other thing is I think developers are starting to add more content to their games, thus allowing for people to play longer than the 11-15 hours for a regular FPS game now. Well at least I hope that is what they are doing.

Submitted by rezn0r on Wed, 16/04/03 - 11:05 PMPermalink

Back in the day, the only games I had were shareware, and they were just demos... I usually only played those rather than full games. The problem is that these days a warez copy is usually more freely available than the demo.

Scott.

Submitted by Fluffy CatFood on Wed, 16/04/03 - 11:30 PMPermalink

I love the postal2 demo, I really enjoyed just walking around and watching the people, how all of a sudden they might just go nuts.

Oh yeah to remove the 7 minute limit type "set gamestate demotime 999999" in the console.(without the quotes)

Submitted by souri on Thu, 17/04/03 - 12:59 PMPermalink

I got this from Ausgamers.com..

quote:Players will NOT need Return to Castle Wolfenstein to play Enemy Territory (or the ET test we're releasing soon). ET is a free
stand-alone game, so anyone who wants to play will be able to download.

How cool is that?! [:)] I'll definately be getting it. I wonder why it's being released for free though..

Submitted by Maitrek on Thu, 17/04/03 - 9:25 PMPermalink

I doubt that we'll see people playing game-demos solely, or not purchasing full games. All the benefits of a demo are in a pirated game anyway and they both cost next to nothing and are easy to get.

Submitted by Fluffy CatFood on Thu, 17/04/03 - 9:58 PMPermalink

I read a while back that enemy territory was canned because it wasnt going in the desired direction, or it was taking to long, something along those lines anyway. Good of them to give it away then