The Power of the Demo

Look, I've said it many times, not necessarily on this blog, but the best way to sell your game is to put a demo on Xbox Live BEFORE the game comes out. A demo after the fact is stupid, lame, and redundant (I'm looking at YOU, Call of Duty: World At War).

Here is a list of games, that from personal experience of not only playing the demo but also selling the game at retail, I have found that the demo definitely increased the sales for the game:

• Dead Rising
• Fight Night Round 3
• Bioshock
• Mirror's Edge
• Skate
• Army of Two
• Battlefield: Bad Company
• Red Faction: Guerilla (though personally, I HATED this demo)
• Lost Planet

Now, if you noticed, save for Red Faction and Fight Night, all of these games are NEW IPs (intellectual properties). And in the case of Red Faction, most people that played the new one never played the first two anyway, and Fight Night was the first WOW HOLY CRAP demo for the 360. That demo sold systems. What do all of these games have in common? A demo that didn't treat you like an idiot. They all gave a very reasonable length of time to experience the demo, didn't cut off at a bad part that angered you, but left you wanting more in some cases, while increasing awareness of the game.

On the flip side, there are demos out there which have clearly hurt retail sales, either because the game itself sucked, or the demo was TERRIBLE. Those demos include:

• Bionic Commando (this demo was so painful)
• F.E.A.R. 2 (the demo cuts off in a TERRIBLE place)
• Blacksite: Area 51 (again a terrible cut-off)
• Fracture (the game just sucked)
• Iron Man (impossible to control)

Why do I bring this up? Because 3 phone calls in a row at work last night, I was asked 'When does Batman: Arkham Asylum come out?" After the 3rd call, I asked the person on the phone, "Why is everyone calling?" He says, "The demo just hit the marketplace." "Oh, is it good?" He replied, "It's fucking awesome."

When you have a game that might be missed, overlooked or one that people just plain forgot was coming out (Batman was supposed to drop in June, now it's coming out dangerously close to Madden 2010) you get people interested in it again. I know, it's Batman, how can people miss that? Well, there hasn't been a GOOD Batman game in about 20 years (NES and Gameboy versions). TWENTY YEARS!? Superman has never had a good game, period. Spider-Man 2 was phenomenal and a genre-changer, Iron Man sucked, Marvel Ultimate Alliance was good, Wolverine was awesome, but Batman shouldn't have sucked for so long.

Dear Game Developers of New IPs (or old ones you are finally bringing to next-gen):

Please give me a demo. Please make the demo an accurate representation of what the game is. Please make the demo at least 20 minutes, especially if the download is more than 1 GB. I don't want to spend more time downloading the demo than I do playing it. Please give me a multiplayer option, even if it is just one map for deathmatch or co-op (Thank you Resident Evil 5). Please make sure you don't cut it off when you get a totally kickass weapon and then have it fade to black (FEAR 2, I'm looking at you). Please leave it off where the story starts to get very interesting (in the case of a single-player game of course) and then leave me wanting more (Bioshock, FTW!). Please don't release the demo AFTER the game comes out (Dead Space, Ghostbusters, Call of Duty: World at War [BETA doesn't count]). Please don't make it multiplayer only ON THE SAME SYSTEM (Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 on PS3 WTF!?). If your game stinks, don't release a demo. I'll only really never play your game. You know if it sucks. Don't lie to me.

Sincerely,
The Marc
Gamerologist
Gamerologyscience.blogspot.com

See below for some screens of Batman: Arkham Asylum in action. The last image seems a bit out of place. Early Rocksteady concept art perhaps?