Hi,
Is there a demo? I realise they’re going out of fashion, but this is pretty expensive as games go in the era of the bundle and steam discounts. That’s fine if the game is worth it, but watching trailers isn’t the same as actually trying it.
I can obviously “acquire” a copy and use it for demo purposes, but I’d prefer not to when you’re indie devs and it’s available for sale DRM free.
I’m particularly surprised given: positech.co.uk/talkingtopirates.html
I was wondering the same thing. This looks like a game I might like, but I’d like to give it a spin first.
I guess the alternative is to buy on Steam and use the refund option if I don’t, since you get 2 hours of gametime while you can do that.
I don’t know how ethical it is (probably better than pirating it) but you could buy it on steam and ask for a refund if you don’t like it (since it is apparently easy to get a refund if you have played under 2 hours).
I have not tried it but I figure it you could use that time to make your opinion about the game.
Honestly I had my doubts too. I ended up buying it and I have no regrets!
I guess that’s one option, but the parent posted stated DRM-free. Some people take exception to Steam for that reason (I’m one of them).
Personally I’m not sure I agree with the concept of having to pay for a demo, even if you get the money back. It’d suck if something happened and you accidentally went over 2hrs.
Well, if you run steam in offline mode it won’t update the hours played, add on that things like SteamEMU again allow you to bypass the steam client…
Still, the death of the Demo is very unsettling to me because I recognize demos actually reduce overall sales.
Let me explain, the current marketing tactic is to have high initial pricing (which helps to pay for development costs), but to have a large amount of volume sales with strong discounts. These are impulse sales which get driven even more so by how strongly discounted it is, this means that between an item $5 10% off vs an item that is $5 90% off the human mind associates higher value to something that WAS priced higher and purchases something that seems like the “better deal.”
Demos are anti-impulse buy, they have people thinking before they purchase. The prior tactics of “buy if you like, but pay at premium” was better supported via demos, but I suspect piracy made it less tenable since you’re competing against a price tag of zero. (The DRM argument for piracy is hollow since you can easily buy the game and download the crack… as well as steam being blatant drm and still being a major player.)
Really, I’m not fond of the way the industry is going… the death of demos being one of the issues.