Tavernking
Don't believe his lies
...Given that demos traditionally decrease sales? I am really curious as to why the developers thought it infact a good idea for their specific game?
I'm afraid you're an idiot if you believe that. You have to ask yourself why demos would reduce sales. How do demos make players feel about the game that playing part of it would diminish their interest in the game. And the answer is that demos only decrease sales when a game is sold based on strength of marketing rather than strength of gameplay. That applies to most AAA productions where the actual game is nowhere near as good as the absurd hype and nothing will kill your enthusiasm faster than actually playing the damn game and realizing how underwhelming and boring it actually is. A lot of companies compile statistics on how many players finish their game (just check the percentage of players who have the achievement trophy for finishing the game, really) and it's a safe bet that a lot of those players who didn't finish the game wouldn't've bought it to begin with if they had a demo to experience it first. Some players never even go beyond the basic intro of a game. Those guys would almost definitely not have bought the game if they tried a demo first. On the other hand, when the game is actually fun but you need to convince your audience of that, the best way is to get people to experience part of the game themselves so that they will buy the whole game if they end up liking it, so you release a free demo....Given that demos traditionally decrease sales? I am really curious as to why the developers thought it infact a good idea for their specific game?
It's not that simple. Things changed a LOT since the 90s.I'm afraid you're an idiot if you believe that. You have to ask yourself why demos would reduce sales. How do demos make players feel about the game that playing part of it would diminish their interest in the game. And the answer is that demos only decrease sales when a game is sold based on strength of marketing rather than strength of gameplay. That applies to most AAA productions where the actual game is nowhere near as good as the absurd hype and nothing will kill your enthusiasm faster than actually playing the damn game and realizing how underwhelming and boring it actually is. A lot of companies compile statistics on how many players finish their game (just check the percentage of players who have the achievement trophy for finishing the game, really) and it's a safe bet that a lot of those players who didn't finish the game wouldn't've bought it to begin with if they had a demo to experience it first. Some players never even go beyond the basic intro of a game. Those guys would almost definitely not have bought the game if they tried a demo first. On the other hand, when the game is actually fun but you need to convince your audience of that, the best way is to get people to experience part of the game themselves so that they will buy the whole game if they end up liking it, so you release a free demo....Given that demos traditionally decrease sales? I am really curious as to why the developers thought it infact a good idea for their specific game?
To put it simply: Demos decrease sales when your game sucks. Demos increase sales when your game is good. It's never a good sign when you have to hide the game from the gamers (ie. avoid releasing a demo) in order to avoid losing sales.
And traditionally speaking, releasing demos for your games to increase sales was the norm. Back in the 90s the primary means of popularizing games was through spreading shareware demos and it was traditional for the overwhelming majority of games to have a demo. Heck, Quake 3 Arena is a good example of a game where the demo was incredibly popular and no doubt led to a large surge in sales.
Yes, on GOG. Steam isn't as convenient because it requires a client, on GOG all you need to do is to log in to download. It might be one of the reasons why it sells so poorly on GOG, once they try the demo it's more likely they will buy the full version also on Steam.You mean on GOG?
It doesn't hurt to ask. Maybe you can still add it?Now it's too late, probably.
That's not necessarily the case though. Going back to Quake 3 Arena again, Q3A was not lacking for hype or brand awareness at the time of its release. Nevertheless the Q3A Test demo succeeded in getting a lot of players who weren't into the Quake series to check out the game and buy it. Demos too are a form of marketing, and the main use of demos is to convince an audience that otherwise would not have given your game their time of day to check it out and see if they would enjoy playing it.It's not that simple. Things changed a LOT since the 90s.
1) Marketing and hype do play a key role today. If your game can sell millions of copies (meaning top visuals and good hype) offering a demo IS counter-productive for many reasons. From a marketing perspective, you offer someone an opportunity to sample your wares when the interest and/or brand awareness are low, which is not the case with AAA games at all. The goal is to sell the highest number of copies on release (ideally in the first 24 hours), which makes news and boosts visibility and thus sales. Offering a demo will simply slow down the buying frenzy.
Agreement on what constitutes a good game is unnecessary. The main point of demos is exactly that players who are uncertain whether your game is any good can find out for themselves if they'd like it. The other point of demos is just marketing. Back in the day you found out about a lot of games mostly through finding/playing demos for them since people would share them freely. But these days not a lot of effort is put into spreading your game's demo and videogame media has stopped emphasizing demos too.2) Viral marketing is always the best form of marketing but it's not something that can be easily replicated and the 'strength of gameplay' isn't always a factor because such things are very subjective. Even on the Codex (i.e. mostly like-minded community that seemingly likes the same things) people can rarely agree on what constitutes strength and whether or not specific examples fit that definition. The Elex thread is a good example of that. Half of the people posting there are convinced the game is good, the other half is convinced that it's shit. Just another day on the Codex. So if you take a slightly wider group (let's say add the Watch into the mix), the results will change dramatically. Throw in the Obsidian forums and it will be a battle for the ages
I'll tell you right now that if you just replicate AoD you are in real danger of your next game doing worse than the last one unless the quality of writing somehow improved considerably. The main reason is that most of the newness of AoD has worn off and the emphasis on primary questlines and character skill over player skill tends to reduce a lot of gameplay decisions into you fiddling with your character page rather than you interacting with the world (which seems to be mostly on autopilot for you). If AoD does have a low completion rate, then a failure to sustain interest to complete the game could translate into a failure to sustain interest to buy a successor. With the noncombat gameplay being minimal, it falls to the strength of narrative to sustain appeal and interest in the game.Undertale and Darkest Dungeons went viral, becoming massive success stories, but it will be interesting to see if their respective developers can replicate their own success. In fact I'm wondering the same thing myself. For obscure indie games, AoD and Underrail were well-received and sold over 100k copies. While I hope that The New World will do even better, I can't help but wonder what if it will do worse or be ignored? Too many factors: sci-fi vs fantasy (fantasy is more popular for a reason), the story might fail to grab people, gameplay changes, etc. While we do want to make a better game, it's never a guarantee of success
While completion rates are not necessarily an indicator of quality, they are an indicator of the game's ability to sustain interest. Pillars of Eternity was also a very hyped-up game (until the tranny drama), since it was supposed to be a return to oldschool RPGs, and regardless of positive impressions, it didn't exactly live up to that hype. AoD on the other hand is a very unforgiving oldschool game with minimal gameplay, a mediocre tutorial, and no manual. AoD's gameplay can be basically summed up into 3 parts: Walking/click interaction, combat, and text adventure (which is largely brainless, heavily skillcheck-gated content, even if it's fun to read). At the same time almost all content is gated in a way that you have to reroll if you didn't build your character properly to do the job. Players are used to hoarding SP and saving before skillchecks so they can reload and reassign their stat points to pass checks instead of just building up their characters the way they want. A lot of vignettes are jokes (nobody cares about mercenary vs drifter, for instance), starting stats for most backgrounds are suboptimal (making the game harder for newbies - also, thieves don't have the starting stats needed to climb around), certain builds are abject failures (try playing a dodge+daggers+crit assassin in leather armor without crafting, you will die a horrible death from wasting SP on crit, having pisspoor vsCrit and DR, and get absolutely murdered by nets and aimed strikes to the legs), the division of combat vs civil SP deceives players into thinking they should go hybrid (which is widely agreed to be the most difficult way to play AoD), and it deceives players into assuming Craft and Alchemy are noncombat skills while in reality they are overwhelmingly combat skills. The revamping of the economy also resulted in healers being too expensive to rely upon, ensuring that combat builds will remain very poor if they make the mistake of actually using healers instead of alchemy. Healers are simply a trap option in AoD, with great big flashing lights saying "Go here."3) Completion rates are an interesting factor but it's not an indicator of the overall quality. Battle Brothers is another successful indie game, yet less than half of the players reached 1,000 renown, only 25% managed to kill a necrosavant or a fallen hero, only 16% reached level 11, only 9% killed a goblin shaman. According to your logic, only 10-15% would have bought the game if it had a demo, which is not a very accurate assumption.
Pillars of Eternity's stats are also interesting: 43% completed Act 1, 22% completed Act 2, 12% completed Act 3, only 10% completed the game. Based on these stats you'd think the game was a complete failure, losing the players left and right, yet it sold over a million copies and rated Very Positive. Our own stats aren't that different either:
AoD: 45% of players reached the second city (not sure if the demo's stats are factored in as well), 25% reached the third city. It's harder to figure out how many people beat the game due to all possible combinations.
DR: 71% beat the first fight but only 40% managed to reach the second level, which is a staggering drop. Only 16% wiped out all 3 gangs, 12% killed the Emperor, etc.
It's ancient history now. Quake 3 was released 4 years before Steam was launched. Today digital distribution is king. On Steam alone there are nearly 16 million customers who can buy a game with a click.That's not necessarily the case though. Going back to Quake 3 Arena again...
I don't disagree. My point was that today demos are no longer the best marketing tool for AAA games.Demos too are a form of marketing...
Like I said, what constitutes strengths is a very subjective area. If I have to name 3 things that were consistently praised by other players (including those who didn't really like the game overall), the writing will be one of them. I'm aware that some people didn't like it, of course, but they are a minority. So overall, the quality of my writing isn't a pressing concern. Other things are (the ones that didn't make the top 3 list).I'll tell you right now that if you just replicate AoD you are in real danger of your next game doing worse than the last one unless the quality of writing somehow improved considerably...
These rates seem be fairly standard across the entire board:While completion rates are not necessarily an indicator of quality, they are an indicator of the game's ability to sustain interest. Pillars of Eternity was also a very hyped-up game (until the tranny drama), since it was supposed to be a return to oldschool RPGs, and regardless of positive impressions, it didn't exactly live up to that hype. AoD on the other hand is a very unforgiving oldschool game with minimal gameplay, a mediocre tutorial, and no manual.
As of opposite to what game?So it's not exactly surprising if players lose interest in your game.
Sure you can buy games with a click now, but the basic consumer issue of "is it worth buying" is still relatively unchanged. Lowered standards and a rise in AAA mass-marketing may have encouraged people to purchase games they might not even enjoy that much, but for the average game which is still jockeying to not only get a gamer's attention but also convince him to buy it, free demos still carry a lot of value in convincing people to give your game a try.It's ancient history now. Quake 3 was released 4 years before Steam was launched. Today digital distribution is king. On Steam alone there are nearly 16 million customers who can buy a game with a click.
Best is a debatable and subjective thing, but I'm pretty sure that demos still have strong positive value in marketing, provided your game is good.I don't disagree. My point was that today demos are no longer the best marketing tool for AAA games
I didn't say your writing quality was bad. What I meant was that if you're going to turn your next game into a massive CYOA narrative for the most part, you might as well go all the way and turn your writing into a selling point by achieving a level reminiscent of the science fiction classics.Like I said, what constitutes strengths is a very subjective area. If I have to name 3 things that were consistently praised by other players (including those who didn't really like the game overall), the writing will be one of them. I'm aware that some people didn't like it, of course, but they are a minority. So overall, the quality of my writing isn't a pressing concern. Other things are (the ones that didn't make the top 3 list)
I think you need a greater focus on environment interaction, possibly build that stealth system you were considering for AoD (might make the game more XCOM-esque), and you should probably borrow notes from classic adventure game puzzles to build solutions to quests beyond the braindead "push skillcheck = win" design that was so prevalent in AoD. If I were you I would also consider implementing something like a calendar and allow people to pick which people they were going to run errands/etc. for while progressing the timeline instead of locking them into a faction's questline like AoD does. That way events will keep progressing and players can enjoy greater freedom in how they spend their time aboard the ship without creating large imbalances of quest exp. If you want an example of the design pattern, this was more of a RTS but Sacrifice used a system where you could choose which faction you'd run errands for (and factions would slowly become unavailable depending on your choices as the story progressed) at each stage. Honestly a colony ship like yours seems like people would be counting down until the final arrival anyway, so emphasizing a calendar might have narrative value.While we aren't planning to replicate AoD, we aren't planning to change the design core either. It's outlined here, so feel free to comment:
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7217.0.html
One important thing to note is that steam achievements tend to be extra sketchy, since a decent number of players prefer to disable steam overlays with their obnoxious popups. And if you have the overlay disabled, you never get any achievements no matter how far you get in the game. In other games like Divinity: Original Sin 2, you won't get any achievements if you applied mods to your game, so a lot of players will finish the game without ever getting the achievement because they installed mods partway through. And I think steam achievement stats go royally to shit if you do a free weekend. Console statistics are probably more reliable.These rates seem be fairly standard across the entire board:
Dishonored: 78% completed the intro (22% couldn't be arsed to install the game or what?), only 46% completed the forth mission, only 25% completed the 6th mission, etc.
Underrail's achievements paint the same picture, ranging from 60% (dropping fast to 25-30%) to 0.6%. Witcher 3's achievements start at 66% and go down equally fast
As of opposite to what game?
Demos decrease sales of shit games and publishers know that....Given that demos traditionally decrease sales?
Because we aren't a AAA or AA studio. When Bethesda releases the next Elder Scrolls game, people will rush to buy it and it will sell over a million copies in the first 24 hours. Giving them a demo would only distract them and slow things down. When we release The New World, maybe a thousand people will rush to buy it, the rest will need to be convinced. That's what the demo is for.
Plus, our design is different, so it's only fair to give people an opportunity to try it first and see if they like it. Our demo was downloaded 47,120 times. I can't see the conversion rate at the moment but last I checked it was 12%. So 47,000 people tried the demo, only 5,640 people felt the urge to buy the game. While it's tempting to think that had we not offered the demo, 40,000 more people would have bought the game, it's not how it works. Just like piracy, it doesn't mean lost sales.
Because we aren't a AAA or AA studio. When Bethesda releases the next Elder Scrolls game, people will rush to buy it and it will sell over a million copies in the first 24 hours. Giving them a demo would only distract them and slow things down. When we release The New World, maybe a thousand people will rush to buy it, the rest will need to be convinced. That's what the demo is for.
Plus, our design is different, so it's only fair to give people an opportunity to try it first and see if they like it. Our demo was downloaded 47,120 times. I can't see the conversion rate at the moment but last I checked it was 12%. So 47,000 people tried the demo, only 5,640 people felt the urge to buy the game. While it's tempting to think that had we not offered the demo, 40,000 more people would have bought the game, it's not how it works. Just like piracy, it doesn't mean lost sales.
How do you know those 12% were not composed mainly from Codexers and other people who would buy your game even if they did not try the demo?
No one compiled concrete statistics on it, and even if you tried, results can be specific to the game and demo in particular. If you want to get the numbers, try making a game and A/B testing releasing a demo vs not releasing a demo, but it's the internet so the no demo guys can still get a demo offsite. Plus the results will be inconclusive in the scheme of things since it depends on the game, depends on the demo, and depends on how well the demo was marketed (if people can't find a demo offsite, you're doing it wrong). And then there's the fact that you can use demos as a pre-release open beta to tune the game, compile bug reports, and adjust design decisions for a better final release. So we're left with armchair analysis in lieu of hard data. The general trend for AAA games has definitely been that releasing a demo damages sales, but that's likely because most AAA games are seriously overrated trash cashing in on marketing, cinematics, and general production values to make up for the boring gameplay.You know, I'm still waiting for empirical data showing that demos have helped sell good games. All we have here so far have been rationalizations based on nothing more than personal/anecdotal evidence and subjectivity.
Wait, were you suggesting that Steam's data supports demos costing you sales? If so, you'll have to provide links. If this is just one of those vague "well there's totally data out there that supports my case" arguments, then fuck off.STEAM's data isn't complete or absolute, but it's data. Between this and the unsupported personal opinion of random people on any internet forum, it's not difficult to think of which one has the most persuasive power.