Molyneux: "Demos are a horrible concept"
Peter Molyneux reckons demos are never a good idea and prefers a 'freemium' episodic structure.
Reported by GI.biz, Molyneux spoke at the GameHorizon conference in Gateshead, arguing that the episodic format supports a "freemium idea".
Molyyneux and his team took a similar approach with Fable II, as Microsoft sold the game in a series of downloadable episodes less than a year after its initial launch date, apparently generating $15m in doing so.
"It gets around this horrible concept of demos. Anyone out there who thinks a demo is a good idea is crazy," said Molyneux.
"It's never a good idea, because demos are usually done at the end of a game and they require an enormous amount of design talent to make a demo. The other thing is you're more likely to satisfy the curiosity of a user rather than entice them to play more," he said.
Instead of releasing a demo of the game, Molyneux prefers the idea of breaking the game into chapters and releasing the first one, around an hour long, for free, and then offering users the rest of the chapters at a small price. It’s this approach that will be used in part for Fable 3.
Check our Fable 2 review for more information on the series.
What do you think of Molyneux's comments? Is such an episodic approach something you would like to see more of, or do you feel that demos form an important part of the decision to buy a game? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyWho cares what he thinks?
I don't think there's a single catch-all model for all games, when trying to decide if demo, or episodic releases is the way forward.
He seems to be looking at his own very circumstances and assuming it applies to everything.
You could even argue that if a game's good enough, and the marketing done properly, then demos aren't even necessary!
Basically Mr. Molyneux, make games that are clearly good, and people will want to pay for them.
Obviously companies want to get a massive return back, regardless if its decent or not.
how can this b*ll*nd expect us to pay £25 - £50 without any real idea of what the game is like.
How can it be a justification of Piracy, nothing is a justification of Piracy. Read reviews, watch the videos or simply don't buy it..
that 'small' price being equivalent to the full retail price, ergo not small at all
Did you lot read the artical? Think about it.
He said the problem that he had with demos was the time effort and money that it took to make them and that they then didn't do much.
By making an episode based system you can easily have set up through say an xbox live account it is easy to just hit "sure i'll pay another 5.99 for the next chunk" in game rather than have to go down to the shops to buy the next bit AND THEN have to play it all over again.
I'm not a massive fan of this system BUT I can see the benifit in games like Fable 3. Ever bought a game realised you didn't like it as much as you thought and stopped playing? I know i have a few in my game box, well if you stop (or get stuck) after the first £10 then you've not paid £40 for a new game you didn't finish.
The real key will be whether they charge more for the game overall because there is no way that I would pay over £40 for game software without getting extra content over the hard copy.
But thats just my opinion. Feel free to disagree.
Edit: And for those that didn't know the fable system was actually based over 4 chapters at about £7.50 each.
Half Life 2 : Episode III comes to mind........
"It's never a good idea, because demos are usually done at the end of a game and they require an enormous amount of design talent to make a demo. The other thing is you're more likely to satisfy the curiosity of a user rather than entice them to play more," he said.
This is much more relevant. I suggest that Molyneaux is bothered not just about user experience, but the experience of the developers / producers. Making a demo can sometimes be just as tasking as making a full product. It has it's own release schedules, it takes developer and marketing hours away from core business, and ultimately it's a product that has a very limited lifespan.
The difference between a demo and a product that is released in episodic format is more than just what you see when you play a level.
Yes, I did thank you.
In one breath he says demos are a 'horrible concept', but in the next he says his idea of releasing (what is essentially) a demo followed by episodic content is a good idea. Whichever way you look at it, it's still a demo and it's still a hypocritical comment - the initial investment for someone who just wants to try out the game is £0 for a few hours play, whether it's called a 'demo' or 'free episode'.
To me, all he's saying in that article is that his method of releasing games as small chunks (or 'episodes') is better than the traditional method of releasing it as one big game. He may be right, he may be wrong, but it doesn't really have anything to do with demos and it certainly doesn't prove that they are a terrible idea.
I bought Just Cause 2 on the strength of the demo alone, without hearing or reading anything else about it. Now try and tell me demos are a bad thing for developers Molyneux.
I'm sure this method of releasing it in chunks to download is in no way designed to stop people buying the game pre-owned? Isnt that right Peter ;)
That says it all to me. Demos are only a good idea if you know you have a good product. If you have a bad product then letting people find out before they actually gave you any money is going to hurt your bottom line.
My thoughts exactly!
Would Generic multi player shooter II or Online racer III really work better as episodes or as taster demos with a full game following?
"please buy episode II of Online racer III to gain access to this section of the track"
"to complete air strike on bunker B, please purchase episode II for Generic multi player shooter II"
Ok maybe it wont be that bad , but the man does need to shut up.
Demos have been around like this for ages, why?
Because they work, people like them and they know what to expect, why mess with a winning formula.
Blokes a twatt and should go back to the swamp he been hiding in.
Hm. They called them 'Episodes' because the original plan I believe was to release about one every six months, so that gamers could get their latest fix of HL2. Obviously, the plan went to pot relatively quickly.
i only meant as a trial, before buying.
Reviews are often misleading, what one person thinks is good others would think awful Oblivion got great reviews but i thought it was terrible.
Videos are also incredibly misleading you can watch a 2 minute extract from a game in which all appears well then when you buy it you find there to be bugs everywhere (Stalker)
whilst it does help towards justification i can honestly say i have never pirated a game myself, but this situation would help me understand those that do.
Pisses me off how you get 15-20 hours of content on a 60 dollar game then they expect you to pay 5-15 for additional parts they magically finished right after / shortly after the game is released.
Maybe people would buy more games if they had value and included a bunch of cool stuff from the start instead of bending over the people that want to invest time in a game.
Sorry Im nostalgic for games like Baulders Gate (and 2), Neverwinter Nights, StarCraft, War Craft (rts series) even the Diablo games that took a decent amount of time to beat (at least the first time through before the only concern became item hording) and by the time you finished were more than replayable and the feeling that "i was just here" isnt much of a factor. X-Wing and Tie Fighter had some of the longest campaigns that I can remember. Wtf.
Crystalis, and Final Fantasy on NES had more content and a better storyline than a majority of the garbage that comes out now. So dumb.
If they were going to nickle and dime they could at least drop the price of the game down relative to the time it takes to get through it and how much crap they intend to release after.
secondly his principle point is that if you release a level as a demo then that takes a lot less effort than creating a specific demo.
thirdly that releasing games in chunks is better which I agree with for the following basic reason
If you dont complete the game you dont have to pay full price.
think of the savings you could make on games left half completed.
That's still not justification in any way. If you want to try a game first hand before buying it and you don't know someone else who has it, don't buy it! Not exactly hard.
Is he not entitled to his opinion?
If you don't like the look of what he does... then don't buy it.
To say that because he's not put out a demo is a justification for piracy isn't a very good excuse.
There wasn't a demo for Modern Warfare 2... but it sold 4.7 Million units within its 1st 24 hours.
Not every game gets a demo... & just because there's no demo doesn't mean the game will be rubbish.
Not sure why people mention Sin Episode 2 or HL2 Ep 3... What's that got to do with Fable 3? Sin didn't do as well as they thought... so there wasn't any more. Simple.
HL2 Ep 1 & Ep 2 are basically stand alone releases according to Valve... Ep3 has never been announced.
Read up people before spouting off hatred to someone who's brought out some fantastic games.
cant rent PC games
I suggest you read more carefully. Why did he say it was a horrible concept?
His problem is the effort required to produce the demo is wasted. I agree - I'd much rather they spent the time polishing the game, and fixing all the bugs then producing a demo.
His solution was to release the first chapter for free, this means they don't have to produce a custom demo - they essentially just give you the game with only one chapter unlocked. This means you still get something that looks like a demo yet the devs haven't had to spend much time producing it so could do something more useful instead.
Yes, but that would only work if the game was designed from the ground up to work like that, with separate chapters. Clearly his game is, which is why it would be much easier, but most aren't.
Besides, I've played plenty of demos which amount to nothing more than the first one or two levels of the game, which, I assume, is effectively what he is proposing with the free first chapter. I can't see how that would take too long to produce if they've already done all the work in creating those levels anyway.
I actually respect developers a lot more these days if they actually go to the effort of releasing demos, especially if it's for open world games like JC2 where it clearly does require a fair bit of dev time to create.
Except I am willing to bet the cost (in both time and money) to make a demo are about the same as making this free chapter they are never going to charge anything for.
Well Molyneux obviously thinks it does, and he has produced a fair few games in his time.
Another option is the steam free weekend where you can download and play a game for free all weekend, normally combined with a sale price on the game. That works well for on-line games - I sometimes end up buying something after that even if I didn't get around to downloading the game over the weekend because all my friends bought it and are playing it so I figure it must be pretty good and want to join in.
I think it sounds like a pretty nice idea. Play the first bit of the game for free, get a feel for it, get the story set up a bit. Then, once you've played through you get the option to simply keep on playing. Look at the success of free trials in MMOs: if you don't like it you stop playing, if you do you pretty seamlessly keep on playing without interruption. Also requires less effort to produce because it's an existing part of the game.
Thinking back to CoD4's demo I can see why Molyneux would feel a demo will simply sate a gamer's desire rather than entice them. In the CoD4 demo you start out on a random mission with no background information and no attachment to the story, get some fun shooting things around for a bit, then helicopters come save the day and it's concluded. You've already covered 75% of the game gameplay wise so there's not much new to get by buying it, and it does very little to make an appealing story. I doubt I'd have even bought the game if it had any sort of competition (it was a much needed replacement for CS:S in my life).
Steam free weekends are also pretty sweet. I like that they're usually for multiplayer coverage.
However: How would you do that on a racing game? Would you only give the player the first few slow cars? He's suggesting the same thing as was done already, but it can't be universally applied.
I haven't played a Molyneux game since Fable 1. He used to have a fair amount of the gaming world fooled into believing he was a genius. After playing Fable, which was barely mediocre and had about 20% of the content he claimed it would, I just chalked him up as a big fat liar.
Just like in movies... the first needle of heroin is always free!
It depends on the game, TBH. I feel like a game that breaks or even bends the mold might need a demo to convince you to try something out of your 'comfort zone' of tried-and-true games. Whether it's a custom scripted demo, or just the first level of the game doesn't really matter. But it can certainly help a game that you are unsure about or don't know what to expect from.
MW2 doesn't need a demo. It's as far inside as the box as you can get. Don't get me wrong, there have been some great reviews for it, and I know my brother thoroughly enjoys it, but it's more of an instance of them taking a very popular game and polishing and improving it than them coming out with a whole new concept. In general, games don't need demos if they are the direct sequel to a popular game. If you say "Call of Duty", people know exactly what they're getting. There might be minor changes to gameplay, and added content, but in general, anyone who liked the originals will also like the new releases.
When the next Halo comes out, when the next GTA comes out, when the next Starcraft comes out, when the next Half Life comes out - nobody is going to need a demo. They know what the gameplay will be like. They know the games will be fun. They've played the predecessors, and are very familiar with them. Maybe some people will want demos so they can ooohhhh and aaaahhh at the fancy improved graphics, or check out some of the new features and content that's been added, but few will play the demo to genuinely evaluate whether the gameplay is something they will enjoy or not, because they know exactly what the gameplay will be like. The people who like the old games will just cut to the chase and buy the new games.
MW2 sold that many copies because of how popular MW was, and how many MW players wanted to get MW2. It's not because it was such an amazing game that people who had never even heard of CoD before decided to rush out to the stores and buy it sight-unseen. It built on the popularity of it's predecessors.
It's only when a game comes out that doesn't follow the molds of previous games when a demo is truly needed. If it's a game that doesn't fall into a certain genre, or puts an exciting new twist on something, that's when a demo is nice to show you if it is a game you might enjoy.
Developer here saying episodic sucks, demo was useful-I proved that I can make engaging gameplay. Now to make it sufficiently long. Back to the grindstone...
The Half Life 2 demo on Steam basically sold the game to me - I had to buy it there and then.
I've just highlighted some of my fave games ever just to help... oh and the fable series is loved by my wife and kid so they're highlighted also (I also secretly have a lot of time for them also I have to admit
Pre-Bullfrog
The Entrepreneur (1984) (designer/programmer)
Druid 2
[edit]Bullfrog Productions
Fusion (1987) (designer/programmer)
Populous (1989) (designer/programmer)
Powermonger (1990) (designer/programmer)
Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods (1991) (designer/programmer)
Syndicate (1993) (producer)
Theme Park (1994) (project leader/lead programmer)
Magic Carpet (1994) (executive producer)
Hi-Octane (1995) (executive producer)
Genewars (1996)
Dungeon Keeper (1997) (project leader/designer)
[edit]Lionhead Studios
Black & White (2001) (concept/lead designer/programmer)
Fable (2004) (designer)
Fable: The Lost Chapters (2005) (designer)
The Movies (2005) (executive designer)
Black & White 2 (2005) (lead designer)
The Movies: Stunts & Effects (2006) (executive designer)
Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods (2006) (lead designer)
Fable II (2008) (lead designer)
Milo and Kate (formerly known as The Dmitri Project) (TBA) (lead designer)
Fable III (2010) (Lead Designer)
I can see the appeal of playing a demo, installing the full version and playing on from where you left off in the demo, but this is something which would only work for some games. A puzzle/platformer game like we're making would not significantly benefit from it.
Angry Birds
Released as a free version with limited play time. Sold for cheap as chips price for full version. Result - On the App store it is the highest grossing app out there. Out-grossing the TomTom app which sells for over £50.
The moral surely is that demo's and sensible pricing lead to profits. Greed, smoke and mirrors doesn't.
It would completely screw with the difficulty curve.
in games like HL:ep1 its fine, as they are self contained games (just set with an overarching story) whereas his idea sounds like you buy the game in three parts (or more) parts, so either chapter 3 starts off damned hard, or throughout the game (if you own them all) there is luls in difficulty.
You'll find that in ANY great game. It's all part of story telling and letting the player recover from any fatigue he's encountered playing that previous boss.
What did you do immediately post-helicopter gunship in HL2? Was it more or less difficult than beating the gunship?
I think episodic (and chapter-based) games definitely have their place and releasing the first chapter as a bundle, or free as a demo is fair play if it increases your sales and generates player loyalty.
If it does the above, you've created a great game.