Matrixgames and Demos

[ravinhood]

I can give another example of waiting till some games are bargain bin even for a demo of it. Like recently I got Call of Duty Game of the Year edition. It was around $5 and I bought it because it got so much appreciation and awards and blah blah from the gaming world and communities. Well I loaded it up and got to the 3rd or 4th mission I think and that was the end of that. I had already played the demo that was the 2nd mission I believe in the full version. I really should have known and stuck to my guns that "all levels are alike, once you've played one you've really played them all" because that is exactly what it turned into. Just repeating the same basic stuff over and over again each mission. Kill, capture, destroy for this particular game. For $5 I don't feel ripped off for as many games as I've got under $10 even under $5 it didn't hurt my feelings a bit that I only got about an hour maybe 2 hours worth of play out of this game.
 
This is my point once again though that a good/great demo for some is a complete game to them. I'm not the only one that thinks this way Judge. Good/Great Demos can lose a sale for a game is a fact. Now, on the other hand I got the demo of BF1942 AND bought it full retail as well. BF1942 is the first shooter that I like, I like how it plays I like that it's not really mission based and is a FFA shooter and that you respawn when you get killed even in the solo player games. Even the MPer was fun online and I don't usually go in for MPer anything online except Guild Wars now. But, I didn't like it enough to buy all the expansions of BF2 or the Sci-Fi BF game. That's where it gets to the point that if you have one shooter you have them all as well. BF1942 was just the first really innovative shooter I had played since Doom origional. Therefore it was new and I bought it.
 
Before the internet it was usually a buy it to find out if it's any good, but, back in those days we could "RETURN" the game for a full refund or another game as well. So, back in those days that was how you demoed the games. Today some people known as pirates demo the full game before they buy it. They are still labeled as pirates even if they do buy the game. But, welp that's just society for some. Like these guys wanting demos of the games before they buy them. Some will buy after the demo, some will not buy, and some will just download it off a warez site for free. lol Anyway you look at it though if a person really wants the game they will get it one way or the other.
 
Let's see how many types of consumers we have:
 
1: Buy it on the spot release no matter what is inside the box because you're a fanboi of the company/developer
 
2: Buy it after reading great reviews/consumer responses
 
3: But it after previewing a demo (if there is a demo) if the demo provides enough information that is to your liking
 
4: Download it for free off of warez, if it's good then go buy it
 
5: Download it for free off of warez and that's that.
 
6: Wait till it's bargain bin and buy it based on great reviews, consumer reports
 
7: Wait till it's bargain bin and buy it on a whim you will like it or because you are a collector.
 
8: Be fortunate enough to get it as a gift from a relative, though rare cause relatives hardly ever get you what you really want.
 

[Joram]

ORIGINAL: sterckxe

ORIGINAL: SittingDuck
I'd like some input as to why Matrixgames products rarely, if ever (because I can't recall the last one - that is, a wargame) are promoted with demos. I find it discouraging and it has really limited my purchasing of games from Matrixgames.

Well, fyi : last demos from Matrix were :

Gary Grigsby's World at War
Panzer Command - Operation Winter Storm
Battles in Normandy
Tin Soldiers - Alexander the Great

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

I seem to remember 3 out of 4 of those having demos before even being picked up by Matrix so I don't think those are good examples.

Any company that truly believes in their product would make a demo in my opinion. It will certainly cause some people not to buy it but if it's a good product, it will gain more than it loses. I've expressed the same complaint but it has pretty much fallen on deaf ears. With that said, wargaming is a pretty niche market so a demo probably doesn't have as dramatic effect as it might in other markets but that's part of the problem. How do you expect to ever draw in a larger audience if you don't try?

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: Joram

ORIGINAL: sterckxe

ORIGINAL: SittingDuck
I'd like some input as to why Matrixgames products rarely, if ever (because I can't recall the last one - that is, a wargame) are promoted with demos. I find it discouraging and it has really limited my purchasing of games from Matrixgames.

Well, fyi : last demos from Matrix were :

Gary Grigsby's World at War
Panzer Command - Operation Winter Storm
Battles in Normandy
Tin Soldiers - Alexander the Great

I seem to remember 3 out of 4 of those having demos before even being picked up by Matrix so I don't think those are good examples.

??? - SSG and Grigsby have been at Matrix for ages and Panzer Command is by the same outfit that made Tin Soldiers.

Mr. Rutins has once posted somewhere that Matrix is demo-agnostic - they let the individual developers decide on the demo/no-demo question, but I'm pretty sure they've monitored it's effect. Or non-effect.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Ike99]

I like demos because they allow me to make sure if a game will work on my system before I buy it.

[David Heath]

ORIGINAL: Joram

ORIGINAL: sterckxe

ORIGINAL: SittingDuck
I'd like some input as to why Matrixgames products rarely, if ever (because I can't recall the last one - that is, a wargame) are promoted with demos. I find it discouraging and it has really limited my purchasing of games from Matrixgames.

Well, fyi : last demos from Matrix were :

Gary Grigsby's World at War
Panzer Command - Operation Winter Storm
Battles in Normandy
Tin Soldiers - Alexander the Great

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

I seem to remember 3 out of 4 of those having demos before even being picked up by Matrix so I don't think those are good examples.

Any company that truly believes in their product would make a demo in my opinion. It will certainly cause some people not to buy it but if it's a good product, it will gain more than it loses. I've expressed the same complaint but it has pretty much fallen on deaf ears. With that said, wargaming is a pretty niche market so a demo probably doesn't have as dramatic effect as it might in other markets but that's part of the problem. How do you expect to ever draw in a larger audience if you don't try?

Hi Joram

You got this completely wrong. We do believes in our products it just that some games do not make for good demos its that plain and simple. Also we never have notice an increase in sales of any type do to having a demo. So in most cases the deveoper does not see the need in making a demo and instead works on improving the game etc.

David

[Joram]

You're right, I am sometimes too cynical.  And not being a developer I can by no means dispute you on the cause/effect but I just have a hard time reconciling the fact that there is a preponderence of demos out there for every crappy game when many of the very good games here don't ever get a demo.   If you want to say it's because of the niche wargame market, then that's fine but if you expand your analysis to other markets, I don't think you could discount the power of a demo. 
 
As a consumer, I have bought games for 3 reasons, concept (I buy most Napoleonic games for instance no matter what), reviews (which suckered me into buying RoN and BC3000 so I don't trust them a whole lot anymore) and demo's.  The demos being the only way I have bought games I never thought I'd enjoy.  If you want to expand the wargame market, then a demo seems to be the best way to do it! 

[David Heath]

ORIGINAL: Joram

You're right, I am sometimes too cynical.  And not being a developer I can by no means dispute you on the cause/effect but I just have a hard time reconciling the fact that there is a preponderence of demos out there for every crappy game when many of the very good games here don't ever get a demo.   If you want to say it's because of the niche wargame market, then that's fine but if you expand your analysis to other markets, I don't think you could discount the power of a demo. 

As a consumer, I have bought games for 3 reasons, concept (I buy most Napoleonic games for instance no matter what), reviews (which suckered me into buying RoN and BC3000 so I don't trust them a whole lot anymore) and demo's.  The demos being the only way I have bought games I never thought I'd enjoy.  If you want to expand the wargame market, then a demo seems to be the best way to do it! 

Hi Joram

You are 100% right there. A large part has to do with the fact that we are making detail strategy games for the most part and they just don't do well when it comes to making demos. First person shooters or RPG games you can pretty much play with never neededing to read a manual. If we did make those type of games I guess we would make a demo for them as well. I agree there is no hard fast rules in either case.


David

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

Well, that defies belief. But each to there own

I don't understand that philosophy, I have to be honest. The basic premise is "That demo was great. I don't want the game"...the floss around it takes away the point, and I don't get how it works.

Charles, in your example, you did get the game, so how can you use that to reinforce the point being made which was basically "demos can be so good as to make me not buy it"?

I only partially made that point, if you go strictly by my example that is. I was basically in agreement that it "can" happen, since MOHAA was the most recent and closest I had come into that situation. The point being that the demo was good enough in my limited case, that if the price had not drastically gone down I would not had bought it. It wasn't so good that I wouldn't by it entirely, but then again different people have different amounts of monies available, even though my attitude rides my decisions these days than my money (you keep or attain plenty of money by being discriminating and thoughtful about it).

[Charles2222]

Actually a go-between that might work fairly well for the Matrix games that are not good demo material, which harkens quite a bit to AARs, would be to have a video.
I realize it probably wouldn't be that hot an idea for games which are just repeats of others, but for games that have some innovative point, the case could be made more effectively through a well designed video presentation. I don't know if just having a camera on somebody playing the game would work, nor do I know if having lots of splashy special effects outside of the game, to where you're making more of an infomercial than anything, work too well, but it would satisfy to some degree the gap that is between AARs and demos. You get a sense of the pace and what is really going on and how diffiuclt the controls are, without having to put too  much or too little into a demo. AAR's are often just screenshots, which neither answer the pace nor concerns on how easy the interface may be. Naturally anybody can make any form of media and claim all the aspects of the game are superior, but then there are different tastes and fanboyism too. I'm not saying this is a panacea, but it does seem a bit peculiar that often people don't even seem to remember it as an option. Now if only it will vacuum up 30 marbles off the carpet in 3 seconds, then we will have it made. 

[mek42]

So, how should a newcomer use the AAR's in lieu of a demo? Looking at some of the products that have been on the market awhile, the AAR's seem full of heavy, advanced concepts.

Would the best way to use the AAR's as an evaluative tool for purchase decisions be to go to the last page and read the oldest AAR's first?

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: mek42
So, how should a newcomer use the AAR's in lieu of a demo? Looking at some of the products that have been on the market awhile, the AAR's seem full of heavy, advanced concepts.

Depends on who's doing it [;)]

<plug-mode>

Take a look at MarkShot's excellent AAR of Conquest of the Aegean - babysteps, 1 concept at a time, plenty of explanation of the how and why (pdf in zip)

ftp://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/conquesto ... 2-2005.zip

or get a quick impression from watching the 5-minute guide (avi in zip)

http://cota.matrixgames.com/downloads/c ... 20v2.0.zip

then visit the game's webpage at

http://cota.matrixgames.com/

</plug-mode>

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Deride]

Just wanted to jump in with the opinion of a developer.
&nbsp;
At Koios Works, we made the decision to release demos for our games because:
&nbsp;
1) We were a new company without an established record -- we were hoping that players with doubts about quality or the game system would be introduced enough the enjoy the game.
&nbsp;
2) Our games are more tactical and therefore more amenable to demos.
&nbsp;
For developers who have established&nbsp;reputations and more complex games might want to skip the effort in building the demo so that they can add in more features or spend more time fixing bugs.
&nbsp;
Deride
&nbsp;
(P.S. Whoever said that demos to these games were available before Matrix picked them up -- that isn't true. At Koios Works, at least, we worked closely with the Matrix team to determine the right mix of features to add into the demo versions and how much documentation was necessary to make players able to play the game successfully. Building a demo is not a small feat by itself -- there is a lot of planning and work to it.)

[Erik Rutins]

As Russ pointed out, we've never to my knowledge "removed" an existing demo when a developer joined us. What would be the reasoning behind that?

Here's what I posted on UseNet on this topic:

Just FYI, we are indeed demo-agnostic. There are several reasons for
this, the first being that demos generally consume a decent additional
chunk of development time and provide virtually no sales benefit (for
the types of games we generally make). The second is that if the demo
is not great, it can actually be counter-productive in terms of making
a game seem in some ways worse than it is. People don't spend much
time on demos, not nearly as much time as they do in learning a game
they already paid for and most of our games require learning and some
commitment to really appreciate and enjoy. We feel that screenshots,
feature lists, AARs and open discussions with developers on our forums
for Q&A do a very good job in communicating what the game is really
like to those that are interested. We're doing everything we can to
keep potential customers informed and to inform their purchasing
decisions - I think for many mainstream companies the demo is the
stand-in for that type of personal customer contact. Of course, one
can do both but given past results we don't always find the additional
development time worthwhile simply to overlap the efforts we already
make to inform the customer.

With that said, the one thing a demo does do well is compatibility
testing - however there also it can be counter-productive. Some folks
mentioned that the Panzer Command demo didn't work for them. That
game and demo comes with Managed DirectX and .NET as required
components for installation. 99% of the support issues on that game
were from people who bought it and skipped the DirectX installation
(even though it said Managed DirectX - Required) and then couldn't get
the game to work as a result. Running that component installation
manually fixed that 100% of the time. No doubt even more people who
tried the demo made the same choice, ran into the same problem, but
just figured the game didn't work - most would never invest time
contacting a company for a support question on a demo, They just ditch
it and move on, hence there's an instance where a demo likely mis-
informed people and cost us sales for no real reason.

In any case, we tend to look at each of our games to see if we think
it would benefit from a demo and also discuss the demo option with
developers to see if they have any interest in putting the time in to
make a good demo. When we and/or the developer feel a demo would be
worthwhile, we do one. The result has been that a minority of our
games have demos, but we definitely have put them out there and will
continue to as it seems appropriate.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

Well, fyi : last demos from Matrix were :

Gary Grigsby's World at War
Panzer Command - Operation Winter Storm
Battles in Normandy
Tin Soldiers - Alexander the Great

I seem to remember 3 out of 4 of those having demos before even being picked up by Matrix so I don't think those are good examples.

That's incorrect - all of these games had no demos at all until we worked with the developer to get a demo out there on our site. None of these games were "picked up by Matrix" after being finished, all were developed along with us from start to finish and we funded development on some of them and participated in design and development work on others.

Regards,

- Erik

[Joram]

I'm fine admitting I'm wrong.  Thanks for the history lesson.    And thanks for the perspective from the developer.  Those are good thoughts.  I'll stand by my statement that I can't hardly think it's ever wrong to produce a demo but I'm also happy to agree to disagree too. PS that's from a consumer's perspective of course and PPS, I could have sworn I got Tin Soldiers and it had nothing to do with Matrix, hmm, will have to break it out again and see!

[Marauders]

As Erik stated in his "Demo Agnostic" post, demos can take a lot of time to get right, and many of the games that Matrix Games sell have small programming and production teams.&nbsp; That doesn't mean there should not be demos for some games, but it does mean that there is often more incentive to work on the development of the game rather than a demo.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Marauders

As Erik stated in his "Demo Agnostic" post, demos can take a lot of time to get right, and many of the games that Matrix Games sell have small programming and production teams.

From deme of The Operational Art of War, Vol 1 I got feeling it is totally working game but only with one scenario and saves disabled. Similar feeling from Supreme Commander: just couple scenarios from Cybrid campaign and that's it. Why wouldn't that work for all war games?
(note: I don't know if there are something more extensive in those demos that didn't meet my eye, but otherwise it seems simple like that)

And then is SPWAW: Mega-Campaigns cost money but everything else is free for download. That seems almost like whole new approach compared to old concept, where each Mega-Campaign would had been game on its own (like KP, BIN and BII). I would like to see more of that in future (almost whole new approach of SPWAW that is).

[Widell]

This is obviously not a yes/no issue. The demo is one channel to present the product to a potential buyer, and as with most products, the seller of the product must decide what channels are best suited for the intended audience and the type of product. It is not as obvious as all games should have a demo or the other way around. If I would have started my WITP gaming with a demo, I would most likely not have bought the game. Why? Because I don't think it possible to make a demo of WITP that gives a fair idea of the complexity and depth of the game, and the potential customer gets ticked off by a demo that has him/her moving counters around for a long time, and then the demo ends. Even if one of the shorted scenarios would have been the demo in this case it would most likely not have worked. At the other end of the scale there are the FPS's and Colin McRae type of games where a few missions or races give you a fair idea of if the game is something for you or not. In my case it was the AAR's that sold me a copy of WITP, but somehow I can't see that happening with Colin McRae!

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Widell

It is not as obvious as all games should have a demo or the other way around. If I would have started my WITP gaming with a demo, I would most likely not have bought the game. Why? Because I don't think it possible to make a demo of WITP that gives a fair idea of the complexity and depth of the game, and the potential customer gets ticked off by a demo that has him/her moving counters around for a long time, and then the demo ends. Even if one of the shorted scenarios would have been the demo in this case it would most likely not have worked.

Isn't that (moving counters around the map) the case with most of operational-strategy scale wargames? Of course one short scenario with live ammunition won't do when player don't know how damn thing works. Tutorial scenario or 2 along with serious scenario or 2 and with decent documentation are in order. And those same things can be part of sale game.

At the other end of the scale there are the FPS's and Colin McRae type of games where a few missions or races give you a fair idea of if the game is something for you or not. In my case it was the AAR's that sold me a copy of WITP, but somehow I can't see that happening with Colin McRae!

I have! Chief editor of MikroBitti (Finnish computer magazine) and someone else played Coling McRae Rally and Richard Burns Rally against professional rally driver and his map reader. First game in order was Colin McRae and rally men weren't impressed. Next was Richard Burns and they shouted out of joy for all the available tools and variables how to customize car and magazine staff didn't understand much anything about their tech babble. Even though I'm not interested about racing games, it was very interesting to read. AAR of racing games can be done.

And back to topic. When there are more information channels available, people tend to get more information about things they are interested about. AARs, reviews and other text based information channels along with screenshots will give some information of game. Add demo, and it'll be whole lot more, likely with more satisfied customers and less dissapointments.

[Widell]

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
Isn't that (moving counters around the map) the case with most of operational-strategy scale wargames? Of course one short scenario with live ammunition won't do when player don't know how damn thing works. Tutorial scenario or 2 along with serious scenario or 2 and with decent documentation are in order. And those same things can be part of sale game.

Well now that's a can of worms! I'm not really into the huge, huge games like WITP and the large scenarios in TOAW, mainly due to real life constraints (This RL thing is a show stopper, isn't it?), but to simplify a game like WITP or TOAW (and others by all means) to the point where a "counter-shuffle-demo" would be reflecting the depth and quality of the gameplay offered is to make things too easy. I am not saying that a good demo cannot be made for such games, just that it has to be one good demo to make the full game justice, and the question is if the effort needed to open that sales channel cannot be put to better use in developing the full game instead?

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
I have! Chief editor of MikroBitti (Finnish computer magazine) and someone else played Coling McRae Rally and Richard Burns Rally against professional rally driver and his map reader. First game in order was Colin McRae and rally men weren't impressed. Next was Richard Burns and they shouted out of joy for all the available tools and variables how to customize car and magazine staff didn't understand much anything about their tech babble. Even though I'm not interested about racing games, it was very interesting to read. AAR of racing games can be done.

But still, the demo of the racing game would, for most of their intended buyers, be a better sales effort compared to an AAR describing how they tune the suspension and adjust the turbo charger. Again, I believe this discussion is more about selecting where to spend time and effort when promoting a game

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
And back to topic. When there are more information channels available, people tend to get more information about things they are interested about. AARs, reviews and other text based information channels along with screenshots will give some information of game. Add demo, and it'll be whole lot more, likely with more satisfied customers and less dissapointments.

This I agree 100% with, as long as the demo will give the potential customer a fair enough experience of what the full game would be, and the effort to create such a demo does not mean less features or less development of the full game