THE INDUSTRY HAS GROWN BEYOND REGULAR CONSUMER DEMOS. THE COMPLEX RESULTS AFFECT PLAYERS AND DEVELOPERS ALIKE.

What on earth happened to ‘try before you buy’?

As the philosopher Sheryl Crow once sang, a change would do you good. Now in most situations, this is true. After all, you and I alike, dear reader, benefit every handful of years from a new Sony console. And do we not all enjoy a change of gaming scenery on a regular basis (usually leading to a Pile Of Shame)?

Yet ath change giveth, so altho do it taketh away. Remember when OPM used to hit the shelves with a demo disc? For many years now, the majority of us have enjoyed a fast and uncapped internet connection, giving us easy access to demos and rendering the disc irrelevant. And strikingly, nowadays you’d never be able to fill a disc with new demos each month.

This has been an incredible year for games, and it’s not over yet. Make a list of your ten favourites, then look on the PlayStation Store to see how many offer a free demo. Go on, I’ll wait, I have chocolate. Back already? Wasn’t very many, was it?

It would be awesome if a State Of Play ended with Sony saying “…and you can download a demo of each of these games right now!” wouldn’t it? But the reasons this doesn’t happen also partly explain why demos overall are so rare now. For one thing, creating demos isn’t nearly as simple as you might think, plus it takes time and resources away from development of the final game. Given the industry’s notorious crunch problem, I’m happy to sacrifice demos on this score.

Also, games can – and almost always do – change significantly during development. A demo unleashed on the public in today’s climate, generally, has to be entirely representative, as certain loud and unpleasant people blow tiny differences from the final product out of all proportion (spider-puddles, anybody?). In compensation for the near-extinction of demos, players are being offered increasingly widespread public and private betas. Betas give players a free taste of an unreleased game, and developers a huge sample of player behaviour and feedback. Everyone’s a winner, right? Well… not quite.

Betas are dangerous rolls of the dice for developers. They’re not demos – they’re unfinished testing grounds by definition – but, thanks to this gradual, informal exchange of demos for betas, this is very difficult to communicate to the public. The Modern Warfare beta’s controversial removal of the minimap, for example, was partially revoked for the second round. I had to remind myself that this could be reversed completely by the time it hits shelves (but no, Infinity Ward stuck to its *cough* guns).

It’s worth remembering, too, that public betas (which are free to play) will attract people who’d never usually consider playing the game. Some behaviour will therefore be misleading, and not representative of people who might actually put up cash for the game. Devs are well aware of this, but I wonder how easy it is to identify and sift through data like that?

DEMO MOORE

So to developers, I say this: betas are great – keep ’em coming! – but don’t underestimate the power and importance of a good demo. If you plan one in, a carefully curated and complete experience can get people excited about your game like nothing else. Then I – erm, I mean, we – get to try out some cool games before handing over the moolah. Things will be beta than ever!