News Molyneux: "Demos are a horrible concept"

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/07/01/molyneux-demos-are-a-horrible-concept/1

 

Soooo....he thinks demos are stupid, but releasing the first 'chapter' of a game for free - which would essentially be a demo anyway - is a good idea? Oooookay.

 

^ My thoughts exactly!

 

Why on earth is Molyneux still taken seriously at all?

Who cares what he thinks?

I don't think there's a single catch-all model for all games, when trying to decide if demo, or episodic releases is the way forward.

He seems to be looking at his own very circumstances and assuming it applies to everything.

You could even argue that if a game's good enough, and the marketing done properly, then demos aren't even necessary!

Basically Mr. Molyneux, make games that are clearly good, and people will want to pay for them.

 

How could anyone still respect this looser? There are plenty of reasons why demo is a good idea and episodic concept is good only for certain games...

 

There's very little difference between a demo and a free first chapter, and doing either is only ever a bad idea if your game isn't very good to begin with. Fable 2's free first chapter did for me exactly what Molyneux claims demos do: it satisfied my curiosity. It proved to me, in the first 10 minutes, that it was a shallow, ugly and uninspiring game. So, not a good idea from his perspective. Useful for me, though.

 

The problem here is the fact that if the games crap then why buy the game after playing the demo.
Obviously companies want to get a massive return back, regardless if its decent or not.

 

Demo's like Half Life: Uplink were great since they're not part of the actual game and doesn't spoil the story but includes all of the gameplay elements

 

...and episodic gaming has been really successful so far...

 

Lmao, a demo is usually a free installment of the game which lasts around an hour... that's exactly what he's suggesting.

 

lack of a demo is the only possible justification of piracy

how can this b*ll*nd expect us to pay £25 - £50 without any real idea of what the game is like.

 

I wonder if the Spore creature creator that was available before the full game could be considered a "demo"...

 

How can it be a justification of Piracy, nothing is a justification of Piracy. Read reviews, watch the videos or simply don't buy it..

 

...preparing to install SiN Episode 2. Hey, wait...

 

"for free, and then offering users the rest of the chapters at a small price."

that 'small' price being equivalent to the full retail price, ergo not small at all

 

The $10 shareware was nice back in the day. Duke3D anyone.....

 

Did you lot read the artical? Think about it.

He said the problem that he had with demos was the time effort and money that it took to make them and that they then didn't do much.

By making an episode based system you can easily have set up through say an xbox live account it is easy to just hit "sure i'll pay another 5.99 for the next chunk" in game rather than have to go down to the shops to buy the next bit AND THEN have to play it all over again.

I'm not a massive fan of this system BUT I can see the benifit in games like Fable 3. Ever bought a game realised you didn't like it as much as you thought and stopped playing? I know i have a few in my game box, well if you stop (or get stuck) after the first £10 then you've not paid £40 for a new game you didn't finish.

The real key will be whether they charge more for the game overall because there is no way that I would pay over £40 for game software without getting extra content over the hard copy.

But thats just my opinion. Feel free to disagree.


Edit: And for those that didn't know the fable system was actually based over 4 chapters at about £7.50 each.

 

Half Life 2 : Episode III comes to mind........

 

hahaha, hey Pete i feel much the same way about your games

 

Yeah Pete....you're full of good ideas....like the 360 degree view of that falling piece of bird **** in the beginning of Fable 2.