No Left 4 Dead Demo

[CSN NewsBot]

According to CVG, Valve has confirmed that there will be no demo for Left 4 Dead. While this isn't a surprise on Valve's part, it is interesting because many big games do release demos through the Xbox Live Marketplace. But there is sound reasoning behind it all.

"It is something you have to schedule and it is another release, so you have to make the choice there between completing the game by a certain date and getting it out to folks who want the full game or trying to create more demand by doing a demo."

And honestly, I would prefer to have the whole game sooner. However, demos do generate hype for games, and as CVG points out, the demo for Bioshock probably helped spur its sales.

[Linux]

if valve gave us a damn demo the game might just never get done then HAHA... At the rate they work sometimes on stuff, it might delay another year atleast .

[HostFat]

They usually give us free we or guest pass ...

[DeAceShooter]

Edited by [user="14170"] @ [time="1211040982"]

Or they could do what they do always for demos - make it a shorter version of the full game.

[sathanas]

Like they eventually got around to the Portal demo.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Personally I don't see any reason why demos need to be released before the full version of the game ships. There's enough media out there for your hype-influenced buyers to pick up their copy on release day. For those among us who insist on doing the "try before you buy" thing, either they'll wait for a demo, a free weekend, rent it, play it on a friends' box or find some other means of obtaining a sample to play with.



For some games I sometimes wonder if demos hurt sales -- there have been plenty of titles I was interested in until I played the demo, then I realized I really didn't want more of the same. With what I've seen of L4D though, I doubt that'll be the case. :)

[Thortok2000]

Yeah, I'm not getting why a demo has to come out before the game does. I mean, it'd be great if it did. I'd rather demo a game before I actually buy it any day. Demos are just about the best way to know if you'd actually like the game without buying, when it comes to PC games anyway.