Demos: a growing misnomer

People have been lamentingthe growing trend of publishers' releasing demos only to those who pre-order games.  I agree that 'demos' are a misnomer because the traditional demo is conceptually different from what the publishers are actually giving.  What they are giving is a promotional 'first look', which provides incentive to buy early, first-sales rather than a preview/sample to convince undecided people to buy.

First off, let's vet out what people generally feel a demo is.  Demos have traditionally been used as a free, extremely scaled down version of the full game, to give players a peek at the full game before buying.  Usually, the demo code is more or less the complete, final code but limited in features, levels, etc.  Gamers use these demos to see for themselves how the gameplay mechanics work, and (especially for PC games) to see if the game will run well on their system.  Conceptually, it is a validation tool, used to convince people on the fence to buy the game and hopefully that means more first-hand sales (remember: even if a gamer likes the demo, she may still pirate it or buy second-hand).

However, publishers are using pre-order-code-locked previews as incentives for gamers to pre-order the game by providing a taste before the full release.  The alternatives to buying first-hand are to buy second-hand or to pirate, both of which net the publisher $0.  So publishers need to add value, especially with relation to second-hand games.  The value added by the so-called 'demos' is time-value (i.e. get a sneak peek earlier than even the full release), plus the "cool" factor of having a sneak-peak before all your non-pre-ordering friends.  But what these 'demos' don't do (and indeed are not intended to do) is convince people on the fence that they should get the game.  So conceptually, pre-order-code-locked previews are actually incentive to buy first-hand and in practice, they do directly drive more first-hand sales.

Either way, the end result of pre-order-locked demos/betas is that publishers get more money and gamers get more value via access to unreleased games.

Looking at it from a cost perspective, if the publisher/developer is going to release a (traditional) demo anyways, what does it cost them to release a pre-order incentive instead?  Adding some tracking codes.  Cheap!  Ditto for Stardock's prev-order-locked beta.

I suspect that publishers just call the pre-order-code-locked previews "demos" because they are probably implemented by releasing the actual demo with a pre-order-code lock.  Their SVN tree and entire internal nomenclature is probably the same for both, so that seeps into the marketing/promotional material as well.  Indeed, the concept of a demo (convince people to buy via scaled-down preview) is different from the concept of 'incentive preview' (give people incentive to buy first-sale and to place pre-orders), but implementation- and feature-wise, they are almost identical.

So what we end up with is what I (as an end user) would call a misnomer: a new, conceptually different thing given the name of something else.  The fact that the actual implementation is the same should be irrelevant.

People have been lamentingthe growing trend of publishers' releasing demos only to those who pre-order games.  I agree that 'demos' are a misnomer because the traditional demo is conceptually different from what the publishers are actually giving.  What they are giving is a promotional 'first look', which provides incentive to buy early, first-sales rather than a preview/sample to convince undecided people to buy.

First off, let's vet out what people generally feel a demo is.  Demos have traditionally been used as a free, extremely scaled down version of the full game, to give players a peek at the full game before buying.  Usually, the demo code is more or less the complete, final code but limited in features, levels, etc.  Gamers use these demos to see for themselves how the gameplay mechanics work, and (especially for PC games) to see if the game will run well on their system.  Conceptually, it is a validation tool, used to convince people on the fence to buy the game and hopefully that means more first-hand sales (remember: even if a gamer likes the demo, she may still pirate it or buy second-hand).

However, publishers are using pre-order-code-locked previews as incentives for gamers to pre-order the game by providing a taste before the full release.  The alternatives to buying first-hand are to buy second-hand or to pirate, both of which net the publisher $0.  So publishers need to add value, especially with relation to second-hand games.  The value added by the so-called 'demos' is time-value (i.e. get a sneak peek earlier than even the full release), plus the "cool" factor of having a sneak-peak before all your non-pre-ordering friends.  But what these 'demos' don't do (and indeed are not intended to do) is convince people on the fence that they should get the game.  So conceptually, pre-order-code-locked previews are actually incentive to buy first-hand and in practice, they do directly drive more first-hand sales.

Either way, the end result of pre-order-locked demos/betas is that publishers get more money and gamers get more value via access to unreleased games.

Looking at it from a cost perspective, if the publisher/developer is going to release a (traditional) demo anyways, what does it cost them to release a pre-order incentive instead?  Adding some tracking codes.  Cheap!  Ditto for Stardock's prev-order-locked beta.

I suspect that publishers just call the pre-order-code-locked previews "demos" because they are probably implemented by releasing the actual demo with a pre-order-code lock.  Their SVN tree and entire internal nomenclature is probably the same for both, so that seeps into the marketing/promotional material as well.  Indeed, the concept of a demo (convince people to buy via scaled-down preview) is different from the concept of 'incentive preview' (give people incentive to buy first-sale and to place pre-orders), but implementation- and feature-wise, they are almost identical.

So what we end up with is what I (as an end user) would call a misnomer: a new, conceptually different thing given the name of something else.  The fact that the actual implementation is the same should be irrelevant.