Poll: Have you ever gotten a game because you liked what the demo/free game had?

[StriderShinryu]

Absolutely. The first example that pops into mind is Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo. It was on one of those PSX demo discs and I had never come across it before that. The demo had only 2 characters and, upon completion of a single match that lasted maybe a minute, it made you exit the demo and go all the way back to the main menu screen just to play again. Even with those limitations, I still played the demo religiously pretty much to the exclusion of everything else on the disc until I was able to get a full copy of the game for myself.

 

[DoPo]

OK, hi - for the uninitiated, I am a big, big fan of the Legacy of Kain series. If I had to name my favourite game, I can point to all of them as if it's one. And this all dates back to playing the Soul Reaver 2 demo. My gods, I played it so much, I can almost narrate the opening sequence which is an unskippable dialogue 3-4 minutes long, yet, I never got bored. This lasted until I got the full game, then all the rest.

So yes, I guess you could say that has happened to me.

 

[Caiphus]

Uh, I generally stay away from demos in all honesty. I don't enjoy downloading a game just so it can cocktease me for an hour!

That said, the last demo I played was probably for Dark Cloud back near the launch of the PS2. That game was teh awesum for 10 year old me so I went out and bought it. Not me, personally, of course. I begged my parents.

In any case, Let's Plays perform the same sort of task for me these days. Just bought The Wolf Among Us a few days ago after watching Totalbiscuit play it.

 

[Story]

I like Demos a lot and I download them any chance I can get.
Titles I bought because I liked the demo include Zelda: Twilight Princess, Journey, Limbo, Insomna's Spyro games, Pokemon Coliseum and Pokemon Snap.

Now there have been a few cases where I didn't buy the game because of the demo. The earliest ones I can think of include Legendary and Kameo.

But I agree that I rather save my hard drive space nowadays and look at reviews and lets plays if I'm iffy on a game instead, but demos are still nice.

 

[Broken Blade]

Ratchet & Clank. Still my longest active video gaming relationship involving a series that still gets games released (Jak & Daxter is older, but they haven't had a new game in a while. Sadness).

 

[Miss G.]

Yes, but its mostly through my favorite LPers or my brother playing the demo for more unfamiliar titles. Anything I normally buy, like Pokemon, Shin Megami Tensei games, and other JRPGs, I pretty much know I'll love sight unseen.

 

[Lur-King]

Killzone 3

I loved the "Botzone" feature because I personally love single-player bot-killing fests. Reminded me so much of Battlefront 1 and 2 that I just geeked and bought it as soon as I could. It as that game that I also managed to get Internet working for the very first time on any console, so I was ecstatic about finally getting to play online. Though the Botzone is still way more fun, I still love the game and story.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

Civ V and Just Cause 2 are a couple that spring to mind fairly easily. I spent a load of time playing the demos for those before getting the full games(and then spent a load of time playing those).

 

[Vykrel]

im currently trying to beat Rayman Origins 100%. i played the demo a while back and bought the game based on how fun it was.

Split/Second is another one. and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. and Red Faction: Guerrilla (one of the best demos ive ever played), Splinter Cell: Conviction, FEAR 2, Dante's Inferno, Bionic Commando (that one ended up being a huge disappointment), HAWX, Spec Ops: The Line, Crysis 2, Bulletstorm, etc. etc. etc. and a bunch of XBLA games whose free trials convinced me to buy them.

its a shame that demos seem to be getting rarer and rarer. i suppose publishers think that demos are more likely to turn away potential buyers than to secure them.

i also bought CoD: World at War based on how fun i found the BETA to be. the thing is, i didnt even have an invite for the BETA. i found a video on youtube where some guy had posted his key, and oddly enough, everyone could use it successfully. i would have never bought the game if it werent for that dude.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

There was a time when Demo Discs were a great source to test out newer games. There are a few games where I liked the demo enough that I bought the full game like Mirror's Edge and, Dragon Age 2...those are horrible examples but, Fire Emblem Awakening and, Symphony of the Night are better examples (I downloaded the demo of SotN off of XBLA then years later got the PSX disc...I'm weird like that.)

 

[Willy Hernandez]

One word, Journey, you see, when i first see the game i think "what a pretentious sh1t", then I see the word free in the demo, give the game a check in, and well, all end with my mom stealing my ps3 just to keep playing it.

Since then i give must of the games a demo check, if they have good gameplay and good hooks, they are worth for the full price, if they had horrible gameplay or a ton of cinematic BS, I pass...

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Actually not really. I don't play demos very often because they take a while to download. On occasion, I've been bored and downloaded a bunch of demos at once and played through them but I don't recall any games ever blowing my mind and making me want to buy them. I do recall playing a friend's copy of game and being impressed enough to buy it. Let's Plays have done some convincing. Seeing Two Best Friends Play the first hour of Deadly Premonition convinced me I wanted to buy it (and thus not watch the rest of the playthrough)

I'm a huge proponent of demo's and quite honestly, simply can't find any downsides to them. Every developer should strive for one of they can, genre permitting. (A demo of Skyrim/The Witcher would be...difficult.)

I read that Sony has a growing interest in the free to play market and one model they're going to try is ad-supported games that you can play by streaming. So you instantly test a game with ads and play as much of it as you want and even beat it. Sounds like it would work well for huge games by demoing several hours of gameplay

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Yes and no with The Wolf Among Us.

I was never into The Walking Dead, but one of my favorite LP-ers played the game and then I wished I had played it instead of watched it. That's when I said "Okay, the next game Telltale does, I'll wait until the collection comes out and rent it."
Then I made the mistake of playing the demo for The Wolf Among Us and I bought the season pass the next day. And the comic the day after that.
I was going to get the game anyway, the demo just turned "rent" into "buy" and closed that waiting gap up pretty well.

 

[Maxtro]

First game I ever bought because I liked the demo was Xenogears.

The most recent game I bought after I played the demo was Dragons Dogma.

I wish more games had demos, simply because I can usually tell from a demo if I'd like a game or not.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Most recently I bought The Stanley Parable because I enjoyed the free mod which was released years ago.

I also bought Just Cause 2 because of the demo.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Lunar: Silver Star Harmony

I was kinda like "Ehhh, ok" about it at first. Then, once I got into combat, that music theme... Those amazing battle animations, that enemy DEATH SOUND EFFECT! AUGH! It was so awesome!~ Great first experience, and I snatched the game up almost instantly~

 

[Silverbeard]

This happened for me regarding Xcom Enemy Unknown. I was in the 'it's not exactly like the proper XCOm so it must be awful' camp but I was convinced to try the demo by a mate of mine.

Rest is history, fellows!

 

[Something Amyss]

Erm...Am i the only one (no you're never) old enough to remember the demo discs of PC gamer and the like?

PC Gamer was the one with Coconut Monkey, right?

My brother and I joked about him frequently.

Those discs sold us on many a game, btw

 

[ghostrider409895]

I bought Infamous because I they released a large amount of in game content - a main level and side missions - as a demo that I really enjoyed playing. That demo also really showcased what I can do in the game from the electricity powers to the climbing mechanics which helped sell the game.

One game I really considered getting was Just Cause 2 based on the demo. I was able have some awesome experiences from playing the demo alone. The only reason I didn't go ahead and buy the game was probably the price point at the time, and that I was able to do a lot within the hour playtime I was given.

 

[Elvaril]

I bought Crusader Kings II because of the demo. It sounded like the kind of game I was interested in, so I decided to take a swing at it. Admittedly I had to look up a tutorial on YouTube because the in-game tutorial is terrible, but once I did that I sunk about twenty hours into the demo until I got off my wallet and purchased the full thing plus DLC.

The opposite also happened for me with Civ V. My friends play and talk about Civ V all the time and it also seems like the kind of game I would be interested in. I probably would have bought it eventually without the demo, but Steam had it as a free trial one weekend so I decided to give it a go. As a result of that trial, I decided not to get Civ V. I just didn't like it at all.