Bad Demo=Bad Game

[Squarewave]

depends on the game. WIth sports, fighting, fps and a few others a demo can give a good grasp of how the game is. However with RPG's, strategy, heavy story based and such demos are not that great as they often leave you confused or show parts of the game with ether extremely weak and simple enemies or throw you into the hard ones without any idea of how to play

Basically the more complex the game is the less chance of the demo being a good judge of gameplay

 

[Scops]

The way I think of it, a bad demo typically* means a bad game. However, a good demo does not necessarily mean a good game. The Force Unleashed and skate come to mind. The first one had a very fun 10-15 minutes of gameplay. It just turns out that that's the same 10-15 minutes of play that happens repeatedly in the actual game.

*"typically" is the important word in that sentence.

With skate, I felt like I picked up the controls pretty well in the demo, and thought I'd be able to do pretty well with the full game. Picked up the full game, and found that I almost immediately plateaued on the skill curve. The game quickly became too difficult for me.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

A demo is supposed to be a game putting it's best foot forward to give the player a good idea of what the content of a game is. So, to answer the question, when a demo is bad I usually assume the game is bad and hold off on buying it until I hear something good about it (which is relatively rare).

 

[cordeos]

i really like demos for pc games, lets me test if my computer can run it before i spend money on it

 

[axelmaxima]

for me its a trial and error thing, but i never trust demos because like trailers they only show the good stuff. me i go with my gut when it comes to buying games. i get some good ones, but i also get some shitty ones!

 

[Weaver]

Most demos now a days are like 3 bloody minutes long cause games are getting shorter and shorter.

Remember the days of shareware? Those were good times.

 

[Kstreitenfeld]

Demos are horrible things I believe. It's like if you were about to buy a car and you simply get a picture of the front. Then you find out the paints scratched and the steering sucks. Graphics and control in the game respectivly lol

What demos have you been playing that have different graphics and controls then the full version?

 

[NeedAUserName]

The demo for Burnout Paradise was awful, but its a decent game.

 

[Samman]

Demos are horrible things I believe. It's like if you were about to buy a car and you simply get a picture of the front. Then you find out the paints scratched and the steering sucks. Graphics and control in the game respectivly lol

Bad analogy. A demo is not like a picture of a car, that would be a screenshot. A demo is more like a test drive.

Demos are supposed to help sell a game. If a demo is bad, it's likely that the game will be EVEN WORSE. Granted, there are exceptions to this, but the whole idea behind a demo is selling the game. They'll try to show the good, not the bad.

 

[I Love The U.S.A]

Yeah, I used to play demos all the time but I don't think that developers bother so much with them.

I don't usually buy games straight away and so when I do come to buying a game there are always plenty of reviews out there for me to properly decide.

 

[JediMB]

Most demos now a days are like 3 bloody minutes long cause games are getting shorter and shorter.

Remember the days of shareware? Those were good times.

Yeah, no developers these days would dish out one third of the game for free, the way id and 3D Realms did with Doom and Duke Nukem 3D.

 

[Kiutu]

I think Demo's are good to give you an idea, but should not always be your decider. Demo's are sneaky. I remember playing the FEAR demo and the demo mashes up like, parts of 5 different levels together.

 

[Haydyn]

The only time I would not buy a game because of the demo is that if the demo wasn't the right kind of game for me. Most of my games I buy used so I don't usually buy a game because of the demo.

 

[Lukeje]

Most demos now a days are like 3 bloody minutes long cause games are getting shorter and shorter.

Remember the days of shareware? Those were good times.

Yeah, no developers these days would dish out one third of the game for free, the way id and 3D Realms did with Doom and Duke Nukem 3D.

Did you not play the World of Goo demo?

 

[Clirck]

Belive or not but Soldier Of Fortune 2 Multiplayer demo [Yes a pretty old game] has a very big community. Like thousands and thousands play MP demo which has only one map. This is crazy !!!

 

[Flying Pilgrim]

It depends if the demo is crap and the game was released before the demo,the game will be crap.If it was good then I will make a plan to buy it.If the demo is released before the game,I will wait until the game is released and look at reviews for it.

 

[ryai458]

demos are well just that they are not the full game they lack certian parts but with your example with re5 it turned out to be a great game

 

[Gormers1]

The demo is never representative for a game. IMO demos often gives you an impression of the game that is often worse than the actual game if you were to buy it. Like with the banjo kazooie nuts n bolts demo.