For those still deciding to get gw2: 30% Off!

[draykorinee]

They lose money.

Doozerjun linked the Penny Arcade explanation of the issues. However, I would advise you check out the recent lecture from GDC on game demos/trials. As it is more thorough and supported by actual industry research.

That video was pretty terrible, shallow and short sighted from a developer only perspective, the outcomes were poorly thought out and it offered no statistical insight just anecdotal thoughts, excluding the 'eader' statistics which i cant find on google.
outcome number 1 if the game is terrible and the demo is terrible = no more sales...really? Definitely wasnt worth the effort of watching, I might watch the GDC bit if i can find it, but penny arcade really offered no convincing information at all. And I had to listen to that terrible voice too.

[Svifnymr]

That video was pretty terrible, shallow and short sighted from a developer only perspective, the outcomes were poorly thought out and it offered no statistical insight just anecdotal thoughts, excluding the 'eader' statistics which i cant find on google.
outcome number 1 if the game is terrible and the demo is terrible = no more sales...really? Definitely wasnt worth the effort of watching, I might watch the GDC bit if i can find it, but penny arcade really offered no convincing information at all. And I had to listen to that terrible voice too.

I've seen the penny arcade one, and I can see their side. It's like the discussion about no-used-games for next gen consoles, it's more a reflection on the market that game makers have created where so many games are simply mediocre transitory experiences that are easily digested in the first 10 hours of play and then discarded.

I can see that they don't want to waste resources on demo's for some games, but it would be neat if GW2 had a tiny self-contained single player demo game.

Trials are pretty standard though for MMO's, so I'm sure they'll do them again. I think it'd make more sense to not tie them to massive events though.

[Lane]

Don't make half-assed games and half-assed demos then? :P

The only time I've experienced a terrible demo vs. good game was with Tera, and that was the fault of the US publisher and their god awful prologue they custom designed.

As far as, "How many times has a demo prompted you to buy a game that you weren't already planning to purchase?" Plenty. If I'm looking for demos it means I'm already erring on the side of not buying, but am willing to give the game a shot. Such was the case with GW2. Apparently I'm an anomaly though.

[Valeron]

My view with demos and trials is this, if I do play the demo/trial then I've pretty much decided that I will get the game (since I was interested in it in the first place). The only thing they can do for me is hurt my impression of the game, it has done that on several games I've demoed.

[Meledelion]

With killzone one I had a very nice demo experience, I get the game (mainly for singleplayer since I still played socom2competitively back then) and after 8-10h of play it was over.

Needless to say I didn't buy the following killzone games just because I felt ripped off due to how great the demo was.