this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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I miss the era of freeware and demos. Give me a taste with no strings attached and you are far more likely to get my money at some point.
Yeah it's a shame demos died out. Now studios (or publishers, more likely) just expect everyone to pay for a game they don't even know they'll like, and tough shit if you don't like it.
A lot of indie games on steam still do demos actually but yeah shitty that AAA games don’t do them anymore.
Huh, I haven't run into an indie with a demo recently, but it's definitely great to hear that demos are still a thing in the wider indie scene.
During the many steam festivals, there will be indie games with demos.
The last Steam Next Fest in June had so many demos, I only had time for like 4-5. There were quite a few posts and comments (including mine) on the demos we tried.
They want people to buy before they know what is like so they don't have a chance to reconsider or regret it. This is why they hype preorders.
But so many games still have demos? I feel like it's probably more that they're cheap and don't see a reason to pay whatever it costs to throw a demo together for free
Like people have been pointing out, it's usually indies which don't have an establish audience yet that do this. It's much rarer for triple A games.
I often grab a pirated copy to see if I like it first, and if I do, I'll buy it. If I play it once or twice and don't really get much out of it, I'm not out anything but some download time.
Demos have returned, on PC at least.
"Steam Next Fest" are events when devs launch demost for their upcoming projects. it's like 3 or 4 times per year
I love Next Fest, I usually end up wishlisting like 3-10 games. Lots of good stuff that I'd never know or care about otherwise.