News EA to create paid-for demos

EA seem to be on a mission to go under lately...

 

Thar not gittin' ma munneys!

 

The way this MIGHT work is if the "demo" is an entirely seperate "prequel" or scene setter, utilising the same engine and mechanics to give you a feel for the game, but being an entirely different storyline.

For example, say a game like Crysis comes out and they produce a "demo" that details the events leading up to the main event. Basically, something substantial that allows you to do the easy "training" level and leaves you thinking "wow, I want the real game now", but not so integral to the plot that you can't miss it out entirely.

Think about the last but one series of 24, which had a feature length "prelude". People bought that on DVD before watching the full 24 episodes.

And as a previous person said, Gran turismo prologue's have been around a while.

Having said that, it could always start like this, then greedy suits will dilute it more and more until you really are getting only a free demo. That would suck.

 

Well there is precedent for this in terms of GT5, or even in the past where for $5 you could get the first few levels of Deus Ex on a CD... but really? **** off EA. $10-15 for a "Very Long" demo? At what point in your corporate flowchart did "rape the customer" leave the realm of being a "Don't do it!" and become standard practice?

 

And I thinking that EA was becoming an OK company... damn my hope... I feel used...

 

Even though they have stated that these paid-for demo releases would not necessarily affect the release of normal, short, free demos, I can't see them bothering to release both.

There are only two ways I would submit to something like this - both mentioned above in various places:
1) If the content is not part of the full game and so adds to the story, rather than simply being the first few levels, or
2) If the price you paid for the content was subtracted when you decide to buy the full game (although this mechanism would lock you into buying direct, rather than from knock-down price merchants like Amazon, so I can't see this one working)

Either way it would still have to get good reviews for me to buy it - whereas with traditional demos I'm happy to download and try for free and it _might_ get me hooked on the game

 

Haven't they already tried this with episodic gaming, first chapter was just a "very long demo" then the game was cut....

 

The most irritating part of all of this is them knowing there _will_ be idiots actually feeding them cash for this stuff ... there always will be.

*sigh*

 

The age of the pirate is here tbh. If there was ever a reason, this is it!

 

isnt april fools a week away EA?

 

What a joke. I'd laugh but its not funny.

 

EA gone mad.

 

Hell it's now the right time, we are paying for advertisment, but with no disguise.

 

Ahhh, I see what's happening, EA got jealous that people were hating Ubisoft more than them.
Ubisofts online DRM requirement obviously caught them on the hop and they needed to pull an idea this stupid out of the bag in order to stay "Most stupid/evil corporation in gaming 2010".
It's only March folks, stay tuned, we've got a lot of stupidity still ahead of us!

Coming soon, Ubisoft increase the price of all games older than a year, to cut down on that second hand market, and to increase sales of this years games. EA respond by actually killing a kitten for every copy of Dante's Inferno sold.

Fortunately no kittens were harmed.

 

Wow they never cease to amaze me, that's another bullet in their own foot. The games industry just seems to want to push customers further and further away at the moment! Yet they complain it's the customers who are ripping them off....

 

In an ideal world where EA isn't completely evil

I might actually buy a "very long demo" if it truly was additional content on top of a full fledged game, but seeing fiascos like Bioshock 2's DLC I find it hard to be sure. Who's to say they won't make a full game, then cut out the first two levels and call them "PDLC"? What's more, nothing's stopping them from making level 1 a free beta so all you really pay for is level 2. You have no way of knowing what's additional and what's just content ripped from the real game until it's actually released, at which point a prologue is useless. It has great potential, but far greater risks.

Of course, like you and others mentioned, the Gran Turismo prologues are a nifty little thing. Or if Valve did this it might turn out quite well, for example it would work well with Half-Life 3 (if there was one). I'd immediately buy a smaller teaser/prologue for that series because it's based around a strong story and is from a trusted developer.

 

Too true man. Seems as though Gamers no longer run the big game company's. Used to be they made games because it was something they loved doing..but now they are being run by suits who don't give two shits about us or the industry. They just want our money. It's almost as though the gaming industry has become a giant strip mine.

We are consistently being spoon fed re-hashed, unoriginal and unfinished games. And then they insult us with DRM, Locked data, and DLC which isn't up to the standard of the modding community. And now they want us to PAY for demo's?!

 

Too true, too true .

 

Ridiculous - I don't get where they get these ideas from. Oh, wait... EA... They don't think like a user of there own products... There slogan will be like this eventually; "Free samples! Only $1"

 

Did someone mention this was console only for now? I see they are not keen on getting people into piracy then.

Charging for demos on the PC is like putting a collection box next to an unwatched local attractions pamphlet rack and telling people they need to pay £3 for each one.