I got free demo of a lot of game to try them before even buying them back when i was 10. I remember playing Need for speed 3 demo before playing the full version. Then there was quake arena demo version, UT demo version, almost all the games i played from age 8-13 had free demo versions.
I agree it shows that the replies here are really crazy. I got free demo's all the time. Heck every mmo back before Wow had free demo downloads on their freaking web site. Free demos used freaking fall out of magazines. Some of those cd's had 10 games on them. Heck i still have some of them.
I got free demo of a lot of game to try them before even buying them back when i was 10. I remember playing Need for speed 3 demo before playing the full version. Then there was quake arena demo version, UT demo version, almost all the games i played from age 8-13 had free demo versions.
I agree it shows that the replies here are really crazy. I got free demo's all the time. Heck every mmo back before Wow had free demo downloads on their freaking web site. Free demos used freaking fall out of magazines. Some of those cd's had 10 games on them. Heck i still have some of them.
And most of those games were level based platformers, fighters, sports or racing games.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I want to say "Grow up and get over your entitled self! Get a job and be freaking responsible like the rest of the world that doesn't care of you want a free trial!"
But I can't. Because of the piles of incomplete shit these developers crank out year after year and call "video games", and how many times I've been burned buying games that suck, I just can no longer find fault with the sentiment that says "No, you show me why your game is worth $40.00"
And OP, IMO, the reason for the decline in playable demos, is because the publishers know dam well their games are worthless and after playing the demo, no one in their right mind would pay a dime for most of this crap.
I got the feeling that the OP is a younger player, less than 30. Probably never played games before the invention of the CD other than maybe Nintendo games. The only time I really remember starting to see demos were with PC gamer if you bought the disc version of the magazine. I know there were some others but can't ever say I saw a floppy drive demo in my life.
With this whole f2p crap now you will probably never really see free trials for MMO's much anymore. How do you expect free trials when they want you to pay for beta testing. Things change and this ship has sailed for MMO's. You can still get demo's for single player games a good bit of the time thru steam or GOG though.
I want to say "Grow up and get over your entitled self! Get a job and be freaking responsible like the rest of the world that doesn't care of you want a free trial!"
But I can't. Because of the piles of incomplete shit these developers crank out year after year and call "video games", and how many times I've been burned buying games that suck, I just can no longer find fault with the sentiment that says "No, you show me why your game is worth $40.00"
And OP, IMO, the reason for the decline in playable demos, is because the publishers know dam well their games are worthless and after playing the demo, no one in their right mind would pay a dime for most of this crap.
You say this as if most games weren't "crap" back in the day. Most big publishers have always sold more crap than anything else "shovelware". This has always been the case and will always be the case.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
Not in the RPG or RTS genres..
Yes...they did
RTS games are a relatively recent phenomenon. The earliest that I'm aware of is Command and Conquer in 1995. Other early hits included Age of Empires in 1997 and StarCraft in 1998. But there weren't any RTS games in the eighties, so any questions of free trials for RTS games is necessarily a question of free trials for relatively recent games.
I want to say "Grow up and get over your entitled self! Get a job and be freaking responsible like the rest of the world that doesn't care of you want a free trial!"
But I can't. Because of the piles of incomplete shit these developers crank out year after year and call "video games", and how many times I've been burned buying games that suck, I just can no longer find fault with the sentiment that says "No, you show me why your game is worth $40.00"
And OP, IMO, the reason for the decline in playable demos, is because the publishers know dam well their games are worthless and after playing the demo, no one in their right mind would pay a dime for most of this crap.
You say this as if most games weren't "crap" back in the day. Most big publishers have always sold more crap than anything else "shovelware". This has always been the case and will always be the case.
WORSE than not having the free trials is that new trendy that started..... besides no trials they are charging people to test their games... 75 per cent of the MMORPG news and marketing are focusing on those Kickstarter stuffs that people don't even know if it will be released....
one of the most popular game at the moment is makin people buy pets on the cash shop to have more inventory slot and they wont even let you TRY the thing to figure such thing by urself....
its a big sad joke nowadays....
but it makes sense what people says......they wont give u a free 15 days trial like they used to do when the content is not worth of 2 , 3 months playin...
I got the feeling that the OP is a younger player, less than 30. Probably never played games before the invention of the CD other than maybe Nintendo games. The only time I really remember starting to see demos were with PC gamer if you bought the disc version of the magazine. I know there were some others but can't ever say I saw a floppy drive demo in my life.
With this whole f2p crap now you will probably never really see free trials for MMO's much anymore. How do you expect free trials when they want you to pay for beta testing. Things change and this ship has sailed for MMO's. You can still get demo's for single player games a good bit of the time thru steam or GOG though.
Maybe I was savvy and using internet while others were still wondering how to turn on their computer. From 1995-2005 there was a demo for just about every major game out there. Now its very hard to find one.
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
Not in the RPG or RTS genres..
Yes...they did
RTS games are a relatively recent phenomenon. The earliest that I'm aware of is Command and Conquer in 1995. Other early hits included Age of Empires in 1997 and StarCraft in 1998. But there weren't any RTS games in the eighties, so any questions of free trials for RTS games is necessarily a question of free trials for relatively recent games.
All those games you listed had free demo's. I know because I owned and played them.
I got the feeling that the OP is a younger player, less than 30. Probably never played games before the invention of the CD other than maybe Nintendo games. The only time I really remember starting to see demos were with PC gamer if you bought the disc version of the magazine. I know there were some others but can't ever say I saw a floppy drive demo in my life.
With this whole f2p crap now you will probably never really see free trials for MMO's much anymore. How do you expect free trials when they want you to pay for beta testing. Things change and this ship has sailed for MMO's. You can still get demo's for single player games a good bit of the time thru steam or GOG though.
Maybe I was savvy and using internet while others were still wondering how to turn on their computer. From 1995-2005 there was a demo for just about every major game out there. Now its very hard to find one.
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
Not in the RPG or RTS genres..
Yes...they did
RTS games are a relatively recent phenomenon. The earliest that I'm aware of is Command and Conquer in 1995. Other early hits included Age of Empires in 1997 and StarCraft in 1998. But there weren't any RTS games in the eighties, so any questions of free trials for RTS games is necessarily a question of free trials for relatively recent games.
All those games you listed had free demo's. I know because I owned and played them.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I got the feeling that the OP is a younger player, less than 30. Probably never played games before the invention of the CD other than maybe Nintendo games. The only time I really remember starting to see demos were with PC gamer if you bought the disc version of the magazine. I know there were some others but can't ever say I saw a floppy drive demo in my life.
With this whole f2p crap now you will probably never really see free trials for MMO's much anymore. How do you expect free trials when they want you to pay for beta testing. Things change and this ship has sailed for MMO's. You can still get demo's for single player games a good bit of the time thru steam or GOG though.
Maybe I was savvy and using internet while others were still wondering how to turn on their computer. From 1995-2005 there was a demo for just about every major game out there. Now its very hard to find one.
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
Not in the RPG or RTS genres..
Yes...they did
RTS games are a relatively recent phenomenon. The earliest that I'm aware of is Command and Conquer in 1995. Other early hits included Age of Empires in 1997 and StarCraft in 1998. But there weren't any RTS games in the eighties, so any questions of free trials for RTS games is necessarily a question of free trials for relatively recent games.
All those games you listed had free demo's. I know because I owned and played them.
You do realize that people were playing computer games 20 years before the timeframe you listed. You just proved my point you are only taking about 11 years ago so as savy as you think you were being many of us have been playing a lot longer. I started messing around with computers in the mid 80's but I remember watching my uncle playing mud's in 78, fond memories of Zork. And to be honest not every game from the time period you listed had demo's in fact many did not.
The main reason you saw some demos back in the early 90's was the major push of the CD. All the sudden these companies could send out game demos for the cost of a nickel to make.
Don't get me wrong a lot of games did have demos but it wasn't majority of games. Maybe a majority of what you played, but there were many that didn't. And you can bet you will see few if any demo or free trials for MMO's in the future, can still get them for single player from some developers, but again not many.
I mentioned this complaint from day 1 of my gaming endeavors.
Not only is it rare "well for the quality,larger games"it has got to the point they are asking gamer's to PAY for hardly no product at all,they are pretending that YOU the consumer are some factual part fo the ongoing BUILD,which is 99% BS an almost total lie.
Having said that,if you go to Steam you will load up over 140 pages of free trials,but make no mistake 99% of those games are utter garbage.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Actual trials have become more rare, when I bought a gaming magazine 20/25 years ago a disk/cd would be included most of the time featuring dozens of demo's for both big and small games and all kinds of software, EVERY genre. Now you have to search for a demo most of the time.
Nowadays I honestly think you can see F2P as a trial, a trial way more generous then any demo back in the day would have been. Of course most people these days treat F2P as a free game in which they should have access to all content without paying a dime but that is not what F2P stands for at all. For mmorpg's what they call beta these days is the trial although companies have started to exploit that as well. Current beta's are really just that, limited trials before the game goes live.
Man, I really liked these disks/cds, they introduced me to tons of games I would have never given the light of days otherwise, Crusader being a great example.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
I remember getting shareware 3.5 floppy's in the mail to test games... lol
Easy solution pirate the games first and try it... If its garbage you just saved yourself some money... If its good buy it and support it. This strat hasn't failed me over the past 14 years. I don't feel like i wasted a single penny. Screwed when it comes to MMO's though...
I remember getting shareware 3.5 floppy's in the mail to test games... lol
Easy solution pirate the games first and try it... If its garbage you just saved yourself some money... If its good buy it and support it. This strat hasn't failed me over the past 14 years. I don't feel like i wasted a single penny. Screwed when it comes to MMO's though...
Just buy on steam. You have 48 hours to get a full refund for EVERY game.
I used to make my purchases based on if I liked a demo I got with some of the magazines I used to buy when I was a kid. You always had a disc (or very early on you could get tapes) that had loads of demo's, loads of shareware and freeware programs and bucket loads of resources for budding computer programmers. Usually any games I purchased were made due to those demo's. Although it seems this mag only came out in 1993 I am sure there were earlier mags that did the same, it is just too long from me to remember what they were called: -
The British edition of PC Gamer has been in constant monthly publication since 1993. Subscribers get a special edition of the magazine with no headlines on the front cover (only the masthead and BBFC rating).
Almost exclusively devoted to PC games, the magazine has a reputation for giving in-depth reviews.[13]
The magazine originally shipped with an accompanying 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy disc. A CD demo disc (labelled CD Gamer) was released alongside the floppy disk edition from issue 11 onwards with the first CD Gamer containing all the content from the previous 10 issues' floppy discs. The single CD was later expanded to two CDs.
An edition with a 9 GB DVD known as DVD Gamer ran alongside the 2CD edition for a couple of years, until production of the CD Gamer edition ceased as of issue 162. The UK Edition then only came with a single double-sided DVD. In August 2011, the UK magazine announced it was to be discontinuing the disk as of issue 232, and replacing it with more pages of content within the magazine and exclusive free gifts.[14]
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
You don't remember far back enough. Only the bad games could you only just see the box (We're talking pre to early 90's). Most of the games I bought had demos or betas (free betas).
Just saying
I call BS on the free betas.
What we did have, though, were free demos given away on disks attached to the front of gaming magazines. But by no stretch could they be considered betas.
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
Not in the RPG or RTS genres..
Yes...they did
RTS games are a relatively recent phenomenon. The earliest that I'm
aware of is Command and Conquer in 1995. Other early hits included Age
of Empires in 1997 and StarCraft in 1998. But there weren't any RTS
games in the eighties, so any questions of free trials for RTS games is
necessarily a question of free trials for relatively recent games.
I would like to bring to your attention the Westwood classic Dune II, which released in 1992 and pretty much created the format that RTS games would follow from then on.
We have reached the stage in gaming no matter if mmo or solo where they are not offering demo's or trial versions. This is very frustrating because I don't want to fork over 40+$ for a game that I might end up deleting within a few hours. But somehow the market has went in this direction and now people pay money to beta test games. I remember the days where every game had a demo and every mmo had free trial versions. Some of the mmo's even paid people to beta test. Do the developers get more money from blind hopefulls because if they offered the demo's then half the people wouldn't even buy the game? I mean I guess you can't blame them considering players still buy the games and they are willing to pay hundreds of dollars just to beta test.
I've been complaining about this issue for years already. The only thing the industry achieves because of not providing demo games is a loss in income. People will not buy the game if they're not sure they'll like it (as you said), AND people will grab a pirated copy of the game (or play on a private server in case of a MMO) elsewhere.
Sadly the industry has such a tunnel vision (mainly focused on selling only and gain profit) on both subjects (pirated games and not providing demos of their games) that they're actually their own downfall on sales.
I even suspect the industry not to provide demos anymore because they know that most games released these days suck balls anyway
It really sucks. I understand why (gold sellers etc) but I wish there were more alternatives like player invitations. I know FFXIV does both invitations and normal free trials but just giving codes to current players and letting them hand them out would be a great way to combat a bit of the random account situation.
We have reached the stage in gaming no matter if mmo or solo where they are not offering demo's or trial versions. This is very frustrating because I don't want to fork over 40+$ for a game that I might end up deleting within a few hours. But somehow the market has went in this direction and now people pay money to beta test games. I remember the days where every game had a demo and every mmo had free trial versions. Some of the mmo's even paid people to beta test. Do the developers get more money from blind hopefulls because if they offered the demo's then half the people wouldn't even buy the game? I mean I guess you can't blame them considering players still buy the games and they are willing to pay hundreds of dollars just to beta test.
The simple reason is because they don't have to, people will buy it no matter what.
Why offer a demo when it doesn't boost sales? Modern gamers are retards, with more money than sense. You treat these kinds of people with the disdain they deserve.
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
Not in the RPG or RTS genres..
Yes...they did
RTS games are a relatively recent phenomenon. The earliest that I'm
aware of is Command and Conquer in 1995. Other early hits included Age
of Empires in 1997 and StarCraft in 1998. But there weren't any RTS
games in the eighties, so any questions of free trials for RTS games is
necessarily a question of free trials for relatively recent games.
I would like to bring to your attention the Westwood classic Dune II, which released in 1992 and pretty much created the format that RTS games would follow from then on.
Dude how can you forget Warcraft. Your humans would just stand there getting hit by orcs untill you told them to fight back. They didn't even have drag for multiple characters either. Man that was really bad.
I remember when you only had the back of a box at a store to determine if a game was good or not.......kids these days.
Most of those game had demo's. Guess you didn't know that.
Rentals, perhaps, but free game demos used to be just shy of impossible. There used to be no Internet, you know.
Which games are you complaining about, anyway? If it's something that hasn't launched yet or only launched in the last few months, I'm going to laugh at you.
There were demos on diskettes and CD's with PC/Games related magazines.
Comments
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
But I can't. Because of the piles of incomplete shit these developers crank out year after year and call "video games", and how many times I've been burned buying games that suck, I just can no longer find fault with the sentiment that says "No, you show me why your game is worth $40.00"
And OP, IMO, the reason for the decline in playable demos, is because the publishers know dam well their games are worthless and after playing the demo, no one in their right mind would pay a dime for most of this crap.
With this whole f2p crap now you will probably never really see free trials for MMO's much anymore. How do you expect free trials when they want you to pay for beta testing. Things change and this ship has sailed for MMO's. You can still get demo's for single player games a good bit of the time thru steam or GOG though.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
WORSE than not having the free trials is that new trendy that started..... besides no trials they are charging people to test their games... 75 per cent of the MMORPG news and marketing are focusing on those Kickstarter stuffs that people don't even know if it will be released....
one of the most popular game at the moment is makin people buy pets on the cash shop to have more inventory slot and they wont even let you TRY the thing to figure such thing by urself....
its a big sad joke nowadays....
but it makes sense what people says......they wont give u a free 15 days trial like they used to do when the content is not worth of 2 , 3 months playin...
All those games you listed had free demo's. I know because I owned and played them.
1995 is late to the game Internet-wise.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
The main reason you saw some demos back in the early 90's was the major push of the CD. All the sudden these companies could send out game demos for the cost of a nickel to make.
Don't get me wrong a lot of games did have demos but it wasn't majority of games. Maybe a majority of what you played, but there were many that didn't. And you can bet you will see few if any demo or free trials for MMO's in the future, can still get them for single player from some developers, but again not many.
Not only is it rare "well for the quality,larger games"it has got to the point they are asking gamer's to PAY for hardly no product at all,they are pretending that YOU the consumer are some factual part fo the ongoing BUILD,which is 99% BS an almost total lie.
Having said that,if you go to Steam you will load up over 140 pages of free trials,but make no mistake 99% of those games are utter garbage.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Nowadays I honestly think you can see F2P as a trial, a trial way more generous then any demo back in the day would have been. Of course most people these days treat F2P as a free game in which they should have access to all content without paying a dime but that is not what F2P stands for at all. For mmorpg's what they call beta these days is the trial although companies have started to exploit that as well. Current beta's are really just that, limited trials before the game goes live.
Man, I really liked these disks/cds, they introduced me to tons of games I would have never given the light of days otherwise, Crusader being a great example.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Easy solution pirate the games first and try it... If its garbage you just saved yourself some money... If its good buy it and support it. This strat hasn't failed me over the past 14 years. I don't feel like i wasted a single penny. Screwed when it comes to MMO's though...
PC Gamer UK
Magazine[edit]
The British edition of PC Gamer has been in constant monthly publication since 1993. Subscribers get a special edition of the magazine with no headlines on the front cover (only the masthead and BBFC rating).
Almost exclusively devoted to PC games, the magazine has a reputation for giving in-depth reviews.[13]
The magazine originally shipped with an accompanying 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy disc. A CD demo disc (labelled CD Gamer) was released alongside the floppy disk edition from issue 11 onwards with the first CD Gamer containing all the content from the previous 10 issues' floppy discs. The single CD was later expanded to two CDs.
An edition with a 9 GB DVD known as DVD Gamer ran alongside the 2CD edition for a couple of years, until production of the CD Gamer edition ceased as of issue 162. The UK Edition then only came with a single double-sided DVD. In August 2011, the UK magazine announced it was to be discontinuing the disk as of issue 232, and replacing it with more pages of content within the magazine and exclusive free gifts.[14]
What we did have, though, were free demos given away on disks attached to the front of gaming magazines. But by no stretch could they be considered betas.
I would like to bring to your attention the Westwood classic Dune II, which released in 1992 and pretty much created the format that RTS games would follow from then on.
Sadly the industry has such a tunnel vision (mainly focused on selling only and gain profit) on both subjects (pirated games and not providing demos of their games) that they're actually their own downfall on sales.
I even suspect the industry not to provide demos anymore because they know that most games released these days suck balls anyway
Why offer a demo when it doesn't boost sales? Modern gamers are retards, with more money than sense. You treat these kinds of people with the disdain they deserve.
Yea but back then when you were walking through the snow 5 feet tall and you were only 4 feet yourself. The games only cost 10$.