As I have gotten older I have found myself playing more demos for games. I cannot recall playing a lot of them when I was younger, but now I look at my PS3 and Steam and there are at least 15 waiting for me. I will most likely purchase maybe one if any, but it is my downloading of them that startles me.
I was talking with We$$ the other night and we were talking about some demos that I had. I told him that I had written up a quick draft of this post and we had a nice conversation about how things have changed since we were young in the world of demos.
I don't know why in the past I did not partake in them. Maybe it was because I was young and did not want to waste time on something that was not the full product. Thinking that if I liked it great, and if not I wasted my time.
I hate wasting my time.
I think another part was I felt games that were not going to make it big went out on demos. These were inferior products.
I think about it and I also realize that availability played a big role in things as well. When we were young the internet was only a small fledgling of what it is now. Downloading grainy porn pictures was a 30 minutes process for just getting one. Dial up was king. The idea of sending music, or even videos, over the internet to someone else was there, but most of us didn't pay too much to the notion. We were happy with our fuzzy, low resolution pictures.
We$$ reminded me that it used to be that demos only came in gaming magazines. You would get your issue for that month, and in the middle of the magazine, or in the sealed bag that contained the issue, there would be a disc (I cannot remember any demos for cartridge games, correct me if I am wrong) that you could put in your PC/PS and that was that month's demo. I didn't really buy any of the gaming magazines. I got my info through word of mouth and made my gaming purchase decisions based on company that made it, series it was in, genre, and the box art.
It was hard to get demos this way at home. Yeah you could go to the store and play the game when it was at the kiosk, yet you always ran the risk of some little jackass hogging all the time in this mortal realm playing the game on an infinite loop. I do remember FFVII being on a full game play at a MediaPlay back in the day that I played at. In fact, I now remember a lot of full games that one could play.
Anyways, back to the point at hand. All of this has lead me to talk about just finishing the Journey demo. Yeah, I am quite late to the Journey game (DON'T START SINGING!!). The game is absolutely beautiful. Simply amazing.
I mean really, look at that screenshot. That just blows me away.
The wordless story as you adventure alone with the seldom help of a mute stranger, who is someone in real life, is such an appealing, grand idea. You get to interact with others without having to worry about being shy or taken aback by talking with them. There is no judging in this realm.
Maybe because of money or some other reason I did not pick this game up. I have heard about it a lot even before the release. Even then it seemed appealing to me. I just did not take the bait of it. Part of me wants to now. Amazing how a short, maybe 20 minute demo will do that.
I have other demos on my queue waiting for me to get to them. Some I will, some I will not. I think my outlook on them now is that I hope demos really start to kick some ass. Start bringing in a lot more people to games. Maybe I was distracted by one amazing one in a haystack filled with crap, but it only takes one to make you want to experience more of them.
It only takes one of make you use it as a viable way to purchase new games.
So here is to good demos. May they bring good companies more sales.
I was talking with We$$ the other night and we were talking about some demos that I had. I told him that I had written up a quick draft of this post and we had a nice conversation about how things have changed since we were young in the world of demos.
I don't know why in the past I did not partake in them. Maybe it was because I was young and did not want to waste time on something that was not the full product. Thinking that if I liked it great, and if not I wasted my time.
I hate wasting my time.
I think another part was I felt games that were not going to make it big went out on demos. These were inferior products.
I think about it and I also realize that availability played a big role in things as well. When we were young the internet was only a small fledgling of what it is now. Downloading grainy porn pictures was a 30 minutes process for just getting one. Dial up was king. The idea of sending music, or even videos, over the internet to someone else was there, but most of us didn't pay too much to the notion. We were happy with our fuzzy, low resolution pictures.
We$$ reminded me that it used to be that demos only came in gaming magazines. You would get your issue for that month, and in the middle of the magazine, or in the sealed bag that contained the issue, there would be a disc (I cannot remember any demos for cartridge games, correct me if I am wrong) that you could put in your PC/PS and that was that month's demo. I didn't really buy any of the gaming magazines. I got my info through word of mouth and made my gaming purchase decisions based on company that made it, series it was in, genre, and the box art.
It was hard to get demos this way at home. Yeah you could go to the store and play the game when it was at the kiosk, yet you always ran the risk of some little jackass hogging all the time in this mortal realm playing the game on an infinite loop. I do remember FFVII being on a full game play at a MediaPlay back in the day that I played at. In fact, I now remember a lot of full games that one could play.
Anyways, back to the point at hand. All of this has lead me to talk about just finishing the Journey demo. Yeah, I am quite late to the Journey game (DON'T START SINGING!!). The game is absolutely beautiful. Simply amazing.
 |
| From thatgamecompany.com |
The wordless story as you adventure alone with the seldom help of a mute stranger, who is someone in real life, is such an appealing, grand idea. You get to interact with others without having to worry about being shy or taken aback by talking with them. There is no judging in this realm.
Maybe because of money or some other reason I did not pick this game up. I have heard about it a lot even before the release. Even then it seemed appealing to me. I just did not take the bait of it. Part of me wants to now. Amazing how a short, maybe 20 minute demo will do that.
I have other demos on my queue waiting for me to get to them. Some I will, some I will not. I think my outlook on them now is that I hope demos really start to kick some ass. Start bringing in a lot more people to games. Maybe I was distracted by one amazing one in a haystack filled with crap, but it only takes one to make you want to experience more of them.
It only takes one of make you use it as a viable way to purchase new games.
So here is to good demos. May they bring good companies more sales.
I feel like I got a lot of PC demos from discs included with magazines, or demos that were included in a game I bought that were from the same publishing company or something. I remember playing a lot of demos for games that never made it big; a lot of them I don't recall ever actually being available for sale at any later point! After a while I kind of felt they were a waste of time though, for some reason simply reading reviews to decide whether to buy a game just wasn't good enough. Now a days I just hit metacritic :-P even though I disagree with some of those journalist ratings anyway haha
ReplyDeleteoh metacritic. I used to use that a lot of see what would be a good game. Then I looked into their rating system and how it worked. Now I barely use it at all. It favors so much the AAA games and companies that seem to advertise a lot.
ReplyDeleteI have a copy of FFX demo that I got from a square soft game. I can't remember which one though. It was a good demo