Demos - what's the point?
James Price

Who plays game demos? And why?
You do. We do. I do. Why? Well, partly through curiosity, occasionally because we have a genuine interest in a particular title, but mostly because it's free. Technically, at least. A few years back, certain publishers began to experiment with the concept of releasing extended demos as commercial releases, with a nominal RRP. Tellingly, it was a brief flirtation with a flawed marketing concept and little more. We're willing to chuck a few pennies in the direction of BT to download certain demos of specific interest. Similarly, a fiver for a magazine with a whole load of the things doesn't seem too unreasonable, either. But how many demos make you think, "I must buy this game!" Now reflect upon the amount that inspire the opposite response...

Why do software publishers release demos?
You know, sometimes we really do wonder. You probably already know this, but major magazine publishers and software houses made an agreement, after the 8bit era, to prohibit the sale of videogame magazines with 'full', former commercially-available titles. The reasoning for this was elementary: if a consumer gets a few titles for free every month, he or she will be less inclined to go out and buy games.

This flawed argument conceals a deeper truth. The type of game that magazines would place on covermounted tapes, disks or discs were old and, more often than not, of questionable quality. Besides, you could reasonably expect any given title to have been released as both a full-price and budget reissue prior to its eventual appearance on the front of a magazine cover - and, possibly, as a part of a compilation, too.