While I wait for Serious Sam HD to download so I can try the new deathmatch mode, I felt I needed to take a moment to comment on the latest announcement by Electronic Arts (EA). According to Michael Pachter, the publisher is planning on selling “premium downloadable content,” which amounts to essentially a very long demo of an upcoming game. EA will then gauge the popularity of the title, and adjust development accordingly.
At first, this sounds like it could have some excellent benefits. The consumer gets an early sneak peak of the game, as well as the ability to provide feedback to developers. This also benefits the publisher by allowing them to gauge popularity and how to go about developing the title. However, I feel there are quite a few drawbacks that people are not realizing.
First and foremost, from my understanding, money applied to the “premium demo” will not be discounted from the final release. Really? Instead, if I hope to see a game I am interested in be fully developed, I should pay $10-$15 for the pre-release in addition to the full retail cost post-release. This borders on extortion. The company is essentially trying to wrestle more money out of me, or I risk getting a low quality game, or nothing at all.
Secondly, there is some concern with player fatigue. While many will obviously buy the full product, other gamers can and likely will get their fill from the demo. This has happened to me a few times, where I found the demo entertaining, but played it so much I had my fun and did not care to purchase the full game. If Electronic Arts is looking to sell lengthy demos, this could result in the same reaction, leaving the company with slightly less overall sales than if they had followed a normal business model.
In my opinion, you cannot judge the popularity of a game by selling a small portion of it for $10-$15. I am a gamer on a budget, and not one who carelessly spends on whatever developers are shoving at me at the time. By EA’s logic, my reluctance to purchase a $10-$15 demo means I am not interested, and they should scale the game back accordingly. In reality, it is quite the opposite. There are titles I am extremely interested in, but I would rather wait and pay for the full game than pay extra for a demo.
There are some more points I would like to touch on, but I believe this gives a good idea of the problems associated with this system and how I feel about it. I wonder how many amazing games will be scaled down or dropped completely, because Electronic Arts based their decisions on a terrible marketing scheme.
2 Comments
Should have been sort of like a preorder of the game, with the full product price reduced. Basically they’re saying be a beta tester of our game for just 15 bucks! Sure you can influence the game, but this strategy works atm with a lot of software products without the need to actually pay for the stuff (Win7 beta, Heroes of Newereth). This works like a promotion to the final product and you can generate relevant data without the need to pay cash for it as a gamer(heck, even motivate people if its good). Problem is playing satisfied customers won’t buy anything else, so it’s more profitable to have unsatisfied customers that keep testing new games for a small amount of cash.
EA sux, the Spore Creature Creator is paid.