Steam game lending?

[ZaO]

http://pcgmedia.com/game-lending-coming-to-steam/

What do you guys think?

[kalniel]

Oo that would cut our household spend on games.. nice

[ZaO]

I would love this as we get a severe lack of demos on pc!

There are some games I just never bought for ages, or at all, because there was no demo. Only to try them a couple years later when they were on sale for a few quid. And think, damn, I would've paid full whack for this!! Also some people will get pirated versions when there is no demo, then if they like it, well they already got it now so may as well finish it. Which = no money spent. I cannot get my head around most games not having pc demos. Unless of course, they're terrible games that they know wont sell well if people get to try them first. But they're causing themselves to lose money just by saving a little bit of effort in not releasing a demo.

I would love if someone could give a good explanation on why we don't get demos much?

[kalniel]

Sadly hardly anyone actually pirates just because of lack of demo - plenty of games have demos these days and they're pirated just as badly. If you can't afford to waste money on a game that might not be good, then you can surely wait a while to find out what other people think first - by which time the price is likely to have come down and you'll be more likely to afford it anyway.

Dedicated demos however do take a lot of development time away from making the game better, so they add to the cost and/or release time (or bugs etc in the final game).

[Raz316]

ZaO: This came up recently in indiegames.com yeah it's one developer's opinion based on his own data, but it makes sense to me!

http://indiegames.com/2013/06/the_de...sited_by_.html

[outwar6010]

this would be awesome

[chuckskull]

Sounds great. I think this is a riposte to the next gen consoles, if this whole Steambox thing ever really takes off(supposed to be putting into testing about now aren't they?) they would of have painted themselves into a corner on sharing just by nature of where Steam came from and it would be a brilliant stick for their competitors to beat them with, if PS4 and XBone do it, steambox must, to really compete. They can't of missed the backlash about sharing lately and it wouldn't surprise me if this was a deliberate leak with it's timing.

If it is deliberate, Microsoft should be taking notes on effective PR and controlling the narrative. Steam will be able to maintain a level of DRM that will be far more restrictive than even the MPAA's wet dreams and Valve will get a round of applause when they announce it.

[shaithis]

I do indeed wonder if this is a response to the new XBO licensing.....as I have seen phases similar to the follow a bit recently:

"It's like steam, except you can have multiple people sharing the account with any 2 people playing at once"

Sadly hardly anyone actually pirates just because of lack of demo

I pirate, even if there is a demo as too many demos have not been representative of the final product.
I mostly buy anything I have played for more than a few hours though......which is something that all this online purchasing should be able to leverage. 1+ hours free before you get asked to pay, might get sales going a bit better.

[Dooms]

Good idea, wouldn't really use it much myself tho.

[ZaO]

Sadly hardly anyone actually pirates just because of lack of demo - plenty of games have demos these days and they're pirated just as badly. If you can't afford to waste money on a game that might not be good, then you can surely wait a while to find out what other people think first - by which time the price is likely to have come down and you'll be more likely to afford it anyway.

Dedicated demos however do take a lot of development time away from making the game better, so they add to the cost and/or release time (or bugs etc in the final game).

There are definitely cheapos that will never pay for any game if they can get away with it. But other peoples opinions aren't my opinion. I do listen to reviews and what other people say. But the majority of people have been bashing grid 2 for example. I wasn't going to buy it. But I just took a chance and did. I enjoy it I really wanted a demo for that. In most cases I wouldn't have purchased the game. We're so used to crap games being flung left, right and center these days that I would assume most of us are cautious to purchase without getting a real taste of the gameplay. How much development does it really take to make a demo though? Just cut out a small section of the finished game and let people play that, right?

ZaO: This came up recently in indiegames.com yeah it's one developer's opinion based on his own data, but it makes sense to me!

http://indiegames.com/2013/06/the_de...sited_by_.html

Well that's only their case. That doesn't apply to everyone. This is just an indie dev too right? And I'm shocked that losing $72,000 from customers that would otherwise just not buy or pirate the game doesn't matter. How does it cost that much to put a demo out... Maybe it does... But again, this is just one indie developer. I think companies like EA rely on the rep of something like Battlefield to sell an absolute piece of crap like Warfighter. What a disgrace. If there were demos then I think they would've sold a lot less copies. Not to mention they used the Battlefield 4 Beta access to sell it. It had dodgey written all over it...

Sounds great. I think this is a riposte to the next gen consoles, if this whole Steambox thing ever really takes off(supposed to be putting into testing about now aren't they?) they would of have painted themselves into a corner on sharing just by nature of where Steam came from and it would be a brilliant stick for their competitors to beat them with, if PS4 and XBone do it, steambox must, to really compete. They can't of missed the backlash about sharing lately and it wouldn't surprise me if this was a deliberate leak with it's timing.

If it is deliberate, Microsoft should be taking notes on effective PR and controlling the narrative. Steam will be able to maintain a level of DRM that will be far more restrictive than even the MPAA's wet dreams and Valve will get a round of applause when they announce it.

I like that idea of not even making a demo. Just let people play it for a set amount of time for free. Some games do that. Problem with that is the beginning of games is not always the best part to demonstrate. I like when they just give you a random level from any point in the game which lets you see some story, cut scenes, and most of all - some good varied gameplay.


I know for a fact that people pirate games they would've otherwise bought if there were a demo. Maybe it is cost effective for some companies. But I don't believe it's the case for all..

[kalniel]

How much development does it really take to make a demo though? Just cut out a small section of the finished game and let people play that, right?

No. For starters, a demo would usually have to be made before the finished game, secondly you can't just cut a chunk of code out of a program and hope it will work - the cut content requires a huge amount of extra testing to tie off all the links cleanly to other content or you end up with a demo that's way buggier than the game, and that ends up costing you sales rather than gaining you them.

[ZaO]

No. For starters, a demo would usually have to be made before the finished game, secondly you can't just cut a chunk of code out of a program and hope it will work - the cut content requires a huge amount of extra testing to tie off all the links cleanly to other content or you end up with a demo that's way buggier than the game, and that ends up costing you sales rather than gaining you them.

Why does it cost so much? Once the game engine is built and optimized, I don't see why it'd be so hard to put together 10 minutes worth of gameplay. Like grid 2 for example again - they could've just let us race on one track to test the feel of the game and see if we like it. Surely it wouldn't be hard to set that up.. I don't write programs myself though so I may be missing how difficult something like this can be. Either way, lack of demos suck and definitely loses some sales.

[kalniel]

Why does it cost so much? Once the game engine is built and optimized, I don't see why it'd be so hard to put together 10 minutes worth of gameplay.

I think you've answered your own question:

Surely it wouldn't be hard to set that up.. I don't write programs myself though so I may be missing how difficult something like this can be.

Honestly, it's hard from a QA point of view and expensive. Games are about so much more than just an engine.

Either way, lack of demos suck and definitely loses some sales.

Well apparently not. It probably actually gains sales. Or they'd do them, right?

[ZaO]

I think you've answered your own question:

Honestly, it's hard from a QA point of view and expensive. Games are about so much more than just an engine.

Well apparently not. It probably actually gains sales. Or they'd do them, right?

How did I answer my own question?


As I said before - I know people get pirated versions of games because there is no demo. Then when they like it they don't buy it. Because they've already got the full game, so just continue playing it. If they had a demo and liked it, they would've then purchased the full game. So it's definitely losing sales to those people! But over all, it might be cost effective for some companies. Will vary with each publisher/developer I'm sure. But like I also said - I believe they don't put out demos for some games as they're crap and only riding on the success of other games, so are expected to be good. Don't tell me you don't believe that happens!!

[kalniel]

How did I answer my own question?

You don't program games so don't know how hard it is.

As I said before - I know people get pirated versions of games because there is no demo. Then when they like it they don't buy it. Because they've already got the full game, so just continue playing it.
If they had a demo and liked it, they would've then purchased the full game.

I doubt that very much - if they were willing to pirate before, why wouldn't they just pirate the game if they liked the demo?

But like I also said - I believe they don't put out demos for some games as they're crap and only riding on the success of other games, so are expected to be good. Don't tell me you don't believe that happens!!

I know it doesn't happen. The reason most games don't have demos is nothing to do with crapness. Let's look at some recent games with no demo:
Skyrim - not crap
Tomb Raider - not crap
Crysis 3 - sort of not crap.

On the other hand, games with demos include the likes of Dragon Age 2, which was crap.

[chuckskull]

I think mulitplayer betas are becoming the new demos. It's much simpler to implement and you can turn it off before launch.

In terms of the engineering requirements of games. It can be very deceptive. Take BF3 for example, 18 months old now. Successor was just announced to much fanfare. you'd think Bf3 would be 'finished' from a development standpoint, it isn't and probably never will be now thanks to it's successor coming along, seemingly simple things that proved unresolvable after numerous patches and their inherent time and money investment by one of the worlds largest and most successful developers;

70 tons tanks can be made to back flip by things such as shrubbery and children's toys,
Being shot in the face can cause you to jump a couple of thousand feet across the map,
Guns don't always fire
Guns don't always reload,
Guns sometimes fire other guns bullets,
Guns sometimes disappear entirely,
Various gadgets suffer similar bugs reviving people in particular is just a nightmare
Some maps runs like treacle no matter how fast your computer is,
Serious hit detection issues, hitting someone around a corner and 10 foot back from it isn't uncommon,
Flight controls are buggy as hell with anything other than a mouse and keyboard,
Kit selections and perks reset or change without warning,
The clipping, oh god, the clipping.

They did fix all the serious bugs in the single player campaign though... 15 months after launch.