this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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My old person trait is that I think 'ghosting' is completely unacceptable and you owe the other person a face-to-face conversation.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In terms of piracy, I wonder how much could be prevented by having demos, like Factorio does

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Demos used to be everywhere back in the day! I think they have a huge impact, because it's a way to try to play a game without dumping all the money on it without knowing what the gameplay is like and if its actually fun.

When I was a kid, DOOM having the first episode of the game available as shareware was huge and I used to walk to my friends place after school and watch him play until he would get bored and let me play for a while.

From an old interview in 1999 with John Carmack about this very subject (emphasis mine):

Carmack: DOOM 2 was explicitly a commercial release. We sort of half heartedly did some shareware distribution with Quake, but I think the industry has almost unanimously decided that the three or so level demo is the best test vehicle.

A lot of people consider themselves to have "finished DOOM" when they just finished the shareware episode.

[–] DrQuint 13 points 1 year ago

Funny how Steam has been making sales and events around demos for a while (called Next Fests) and some games absolutely blow up out of nowhere thanks to them.

Also some people think FF16 having a demo was some weird, oddball marketing move by Square Enix, except they have been making "try now, continue later" demos for games since Bravely Default.