Im getting sick of no free trials.

filmoret

We have reached the stage in gaming no matter if mmo or solo where they are not offering demo's or trial versions.  This is very frustrating because I don't want to fork over 40+$ for a game that I might end up deleting within a few hours.  But somehow the market has went in this direction and now people pay money to beta test games.  I remember the days where every game had a demo and every mmo had free trial versions.  Some of the mmo's even paid people to beta test.  Do the developers get more money from blind hopefulls because if they offered the demo's then half the people wouldn't even buy the game?  I mean I guess you can't blame them considering players still buy the games and they are willing to pay hundreds of dollars just to beta test.

Horusra

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

filmoret

Horusra said:

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

Most of those game had demo's.  Guess you didn't know that.

delete5230

MMos today only have 30 days of content, with a free trial, you would be doing half the content

Besides most here are looking for a free game......Kids !

Quizzical

filmoret said:

Horusra said:

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

Most of those game had demo's.  Guess you didn't know that.

Rentals, perhaps, but free game demos used to be just shy of impossible.  There used to be no Internet, you know.

Which games are you complaining about, anyway?  If it's something that hasn't launched yet or only launched in the last few months, I'm going to laugh at you.

Horusra

filmoret said:

Horusra said:

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

Most of those game had demo's.  Guess you didn't know that.

They were not free if you could find them.....unless you were getting it in a magazine sub.  At stores you had to pay $1-3 for it.

Sovrath

filmoret said:

Horusra said:

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

Most of those game had demo's.  Guess you didn't know that.

omg, how obnoxious.

You need to think a little before making that statement.

jesteralways

I got free demo of a lot of game to try them before even buying them back when i was 10. I remember playing Need for speed 3 demo before playing the full version. Then there was quake arena demo version, UT demo version, almost all the games i played from age 8-13 had free demo versions.

Sovrath

jesteralways said:

I got free demo of a lot of game to try them before even buying them back when i was 10. I remember playing Need for speed 3 demo before playing the full version. Then there was quake arena demo version, UT demo version, almost all the games i played from age 8-13 had free demo versions.

and ... what year was that ...

nariusseldon

Most MMOs are f2p. Why do you need a free trial?

SoloAnything

Youtube gameplay is what I do.

Shaigh

If we look at big publishers they have open beta for games like Destiny, The Division, Overwatch and sell millions of copies. Indie developers doing early access usually get sales in hundreds of thousands for a reduced price, DayZ being the aberration since people had already played the mod.

Steam games also have free refund if you played less than two hours and it was mostly beneficial for developers since people took more chances on buying games that they weren't sure about.

Horusra

jesteralways said:

I got free demo of a lot of game to try them before even buying them back when i was 10. I remember playing Need for speed 3 demo before playing the full version. Then there was quake arena demo version, UT demo version, almost all the games i played from age 8-13 had free demo versions.

if you downloaded it then it does not reference the days of no internet to get demos.

Quizzical

jesteralways said:

I got free demo of a lot of game to try them before even buying them back when i was 10. I remember playing Need for speed 3 demo before playing the full version. Then there was quake arena demo version, UT demo version, almost all the games i played from age 8-13 had free demo versions.

Need for Speed 3 launched in 1998.  That's very much into the Internet era when there were a variety of ways to distribute free demos, both legal and otherwise.  How many free demos did you try 10 or 15 years before that?  There were shareware games, but that was limited by the need to make physical copies.  And it was basically impossible to do even that for console games, so you were pretty much limited to rentals there.

filmoret

Quizzical said:

filmoret said:

Horusra said:

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

Most of those game had demo's.  Guess you didn't know that.

Rentals, perhaps, but free game demos used to be just shy of impossible.  There used to be no Internet, you know.

Which games are you complaining about, anyway?  If it's something that hasn't launched yet or only launched in the last few months, I'm going to laugh at you.

Maybe you are talking about the 80's.  In the 95 era you could get a demo for just about any game on the market download straight off the internet.  In the early 90's every game came with demos of other games.  You just don't see that any more.

jesteralways

Sovrath said:

jesteralways said:

I got free demo of a lot of game to try them before even buying them back when i was 10. I remember playing Need for speed 3 demo before playing the full version. Then there was quake arena demo version, UT demo version, almost all the games i played from age 8-13 had free demo versions.

and ... what year was that ...

1998/2000 i guess?

filmoret

You know noone really expected demos when computers first came out.  They were happy just to see a game at all back then.

Horusra

filmoret said:

Quizzical said:

filmoret said:

Horusra said:

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

Most of those game had demo's.  Guess you didn't know that.

Rentals, perhaps, but free game demos used to be just shy of impossible.  There used to be no Internet, you know.

Which games are you complaining about, anyway?  If it's something that hasn't launched yet or only launched in the last few months, I'm going to laugh at you.

Maybe you are talking about the 80's.  In the 95 era you could get a demo for just about any game on the market download straight off the internet.  In the early 90's every game came with demos of other games.  You just don't see that any more.

you can get random demo's like that on steam now.

Albatroes

Yup, gone are the days when almost every pc game had a demo/free trial before buying. Probably due to how much less effort companies are honestly putting into their products now. And no I'm not talking about the 'amazing' graphics but how long a game can last. Prime example is the Saint's Row Franchise. I love the franchise to death but honestly they've been putting less and less content in each game. Heck, 2 had more stuff to do versus 3 and 4 combined....less graphically impressive sure, but honestly, people who care more about graphics than content honestly aren't gamers imo.

Jermzy

Quit being lazy and do some research before you buy an MMO.  I have never walked into a games store to just browse games to try and find something i would like.  I always know exactly what i want, and why i want it.

Panther2103

You couldn't get that many demo's on the internet even in the 90's. Most of them still came out in magazines through the little discs attached inside, or through some other means like buying a game and it came with a demo disc for the companies other games inside. Even on the internet when they had a demo back in the 90's it was still mostly dial up unless you were lucky enough to have a dsl connection which even then a demo could take forever to download. 

Most games now do actually have demos and trials, just not really the MMO scene because 90% of them are F2P anyways. The ones that aren't you can easily watch a couple videos and find out whether or not the game is for you.

Kyleran

Jermzy said:

Quit being lazy and do some research before you buy an MMO.  I have never walked into a games store to just browse games to try and find something i would like.  I always know exactly what i want, and why i want it.

You still buy games in a store?

Quizzical

filmoret said:

Quizzical said:

filmoret said:

Horusra said:

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

Most of those game had demo's.  Guess you didn't know that.

Rentals, perhaps, but free game demos used to be just shy of impossible.  There used to be no Internet, you know.

Which games are you complaining about, anyway?  If it's something that hasn't launched yet or only launched in the last few months, I'm going to laugh at you.

Maybe you are talking about the 80's.  In the 95 era you could get a demo for just about any game on the market download straight off the internet.  In the early 90's every game came with demos of other games.  You just don't see that any more.

Well that's the entire point.  Horusra argues that games used to not have demos, and you argue that more recently, they did.  Well, they used to not.  The universe existed before you were old enough to remember it.

I bought dozens of games in the late 80s and early 90s.  I don't think any of them had demos at all apart from a rental.  Not a one had a demo of some other game on it, as when you only have 1 MB of space, other games don't fit so well.  The instruction manual might have had ads for other games, but that was about it.

It wasn't until CDs became prevalent that you had space to throw in a bunch of other, random stuff not necessary for a game.  Before that, they had to compress data in all sorts of ways, such as only storing half of a rock and mirroring it to show the other side.

Distopia

filmoret said:

Horusra said:

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

Most of those game had demo's.  Guess you didn't know that.

Not in the RPG or RTS genres..

Horusra

First computer game I ever bought myself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH8eqPnSSEo

There was no demo.

filmoret

Quizzical said:

filmoret said:

Quizzical said:

filmoret said:

Horusra said:

I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.

Most of those game had demo's.  Guess you didn't know that.

Rentals, perhaps, but free game demos used to be just shy of impossible.  There used to be no Internet, you know.

Which games are you complaining about, anyway?  If it's something that hasn't launched yet or only launched in the last few months, I'm going to laugh at you.

Maybe you are talking about the 80's.  In the 95 era you could get a demo for just about any game on the market download straight off the internet.  In the early 90's every game came with demos of other games.  You just don't see that any more.

Well that's the entire point.  Horusra argues that games used to not have demos, and you argue that more recently, they did.  Well, they used to not.  The universe existed before you were old enough to remember it.

I bought dozens of games in the late 80s and early 90s.  I don't think any of them had demos at all apart from a rental.  Not a one had a demo of some other game on it, as when you only have 1 MB of space, other games don't fit so well.  The instruction manual might have had ads for other games, but that was about it.

It wasn't until CDs became prevalent that you had space to throw in a bunch of other, random stuff not necessary for a game.  Before that, they had to compress data in all sorts of ways, such as only storing half of a rock and mirroring it to show the other side.

IDK why some of you are taking a title like I made and trying to think I compare it to pc gaming 30 years ago.  That is not even remotely relevant to what we are seeing today.  In 2k you could get a demo for any pc game and I mean any PC game.  It wasn't untill recently about 5-7 years ago that the demo's really declined to the point where you don't see any.