In Datart, here in Prague, they have a PS VR setup. No needed to queue, no fee, no staff vulturing around. I just had the biggest smile on my face in VR.
Isn't this pretty much the same as when Sony charged £20 for a demo with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. There is no way that could of been called a full game and plenty of people fell for it, so they probably will here too.
It is a bit of a gouge, but if there are queues or limited availability of product. It is certainly one way to restrict the demo to people that do intend on purchasing it, rather than the same broke kids coming in and using the demo rig.
I'm not quite sure what side to come down on this. £15 for 30 minutes may be a bit steep (perhaps £10) but they do put it towards buying a system. I don't think Overclockers and Game can use the same strategy when it comes to this as Game is used to more thoroughfare and IMHO Overclockers clientele are likely to be a bit older (and therefore more careful) with the hardware. I imagine not many people will be inclined to try it for that amount of cash though.
The required babysitting for damage / theft prevention prevents a staff member from doing their job guarding the register for 30 mins, only way I see around it would be to massively limit availability of the demo (lets say saturday mornings only or something) so it could be handled by a part time employee rather than paying someone for doing nothing all week long just in case someone accidentally enters a Game.
I can walk into Currys right now and try out £5,000 TVs, £500 headphones, and even the £770 HTC Vive, completely free of charge, so remind me again why Game 'needs' to charge for people to play with the £350 PlayStation VR? Same highstreet, same clientele, same minimum-wage staff (I should know, I worked in PC World for all of six weeks before quitting in disgust many moons ago).
Based on my local Currys they always have plenty of spare staff anyway, you could barely walk through the door without being assaulted ehh assisted. Of course my local Currys may not be the best one to judge on since it closed down some time ago, so if it wasn't busy that may explain why they always had far too much staff.
Strikes me as being like bicycle demos, serious customers only, cost of the demo comes off the purchase if you make it. Whilst I'm sure plenty will make accusations, it's just a way of stopping fourteen year olds and losers with no intention to buy from dicking about with the expensive hardware and wasting shop time. There are plenty of other places with free demos for people curious about VR, for someone seriously looking at PSVR £15 to discover it makes them motion sick or they don't like it is better than spending full whack and discovering that at home.
Entirely empty. Wonderfully worded! I understand the want rather than need to keep troglodytes from touching the equipment and wasting staffing resources but the training paragraph from the statement has me in stitches. Trained.. honestly? If training comprises of anything other than generic email and a moment to RTFM I'll eat my hat.
Lets be generous, they might even get to spend a half day listening to some dude in a Primark suit spout rubbish about how to trick people into trying it
I dont see the problem with it really, and IMO all the comparisons ive seen are completely invalid aside from Spades. You've got Xmas shopping coming up, a product that has to be seen to be appreciated, and you cant simply stick it on a shelf or leave it running like a TV or laptop in order to demonstrate it. Its going to have groups of kids wandering in with no intention of purchasing anything, manhandling it with their grubby mitts and mess with whoevers using it at the time, plus room has to be set aside for something like this too, its one thing adding a console booth, but you need a roped off area so shoppers arent trying to squeeze past you whilst getting struck by dual shocks and whatever those wandy controller things were called. Their choice is between letting you buy them without trying them (nothing wrong with that), putting out demo machines and filling the stores with kids in for a play and potentially damaging things, or putting a premium on the experience and saying its there to be tried if you're genuine about it, and £5 for 10min is hardly unreasonable knowing you'll get it knocked off the cost if you're buying one. Every other store will let you buy them off the shelf, Game is just giving serious customers an opportunity others wouldnt give them, and yeah, at a refundable cost of £5, i cant see why anyone would really need more than 10min to evaluate it either, but if they want 30min (or 2x £5 and be in for 20min) then they can.
What's wrong with some of you guys? I'm 47 now, but when I was a kid I would hang out in town asking shops to demo games and consoles I had no intention to buy. I now own or have owned most every console that has come out in the last 30 years and would hate to try and work out what I have spent on PCs over the last 20 years (built 5 PCs already this year just don't tell the wife). All this from a kid with grubby hands getting free demos all those years ago.
