Has anyone tried charging for their demo?

[Davaris]

I was thinking about charging people a nominal fee to download my demo. I'd call it a download fee and make it a small amount like $2-3. Has anyone tried doing this?

The theory is once someone has bought something from you, they will feel more comfortable buying other things.

You would probably need a very professional looking site to make it work though.

What do you think of this idea? Can you see any pitfalls?

[Hamumu]

Here's a pitfall: Why???

[gmcbay]

Can you see any pitfalls?


Yeah. Nobody in the world wants to pay a single red penny for something that is seen to be crippled or disabled in any way.

It'll never work.

[george]

well, it worked in the old shareware days... but the games were split into "episodes", like 1, 2, and 3. you would buy the first episode for a couple of bucks on disk (or download it free from a bbs). but the first episode was still a real game, no cripples or limitations. and it took a long time to beat. and if you wanted to continue playing after the first episode, you would buy the full version, which would include all 3 episodes.

it could work, but the game has to be really good and provide a lot of value and play time. i don't think it will work well with a small puzzle game or typical indy game, it has to be a really professional/grand game...

i don't see anything ludicrous about it, it is unconventional though. you created the game, it is your hard work, so i think it is not horrible to charge a couple bucks for it (maybe a bad business choice). but the demo needs to be really good and provide a lot of value. and don't call it demo, call it "Part 1", "Episode 1", whatever. and it really can't be a typical demo, it has to be a full game, something you would pay for...

[svero]

Supply and demand. There are so many free demos, your game would have to be something really really special for someone to consider paying a few bucks to see it. I can't even think of a plausible scenario where this would work today.

[Rainer Deyke]

I think an interestimng experiment would be to give the first episode away for free, charge a couple of bucks for the second episode, and charge the full price for the subsequent episodes. However, I would never pay for a demo.

[Davaris]

One problem I can think of is the low fee and credit card payments.

Is there a minimum charge for credit card payments on the net? Is it even possible to buy a $2 item with a credit card?

[ggambett]

Plimus does micropayments. I don't remember the specifics because I don't use micropayments, but you should take a look at it.

[KNau]

It worked back in the old days because people were paying for the physical disk. Otherwise they could download for free from a BBS, but back then with such slow modems a disk purchase was arguably more convenient.

The same way that you can buy demo collection CDs for cheap now, or download demos for free. A disk of 1000 demos is probably more convenient than downloading 1000 games.

It's doable in the sense that you can cover production and distribution costs but your margin would be so low that it wouldn't be a viable business move in itself.

[Surrealix]

I think an interestimng experiment would be to give the first episode away for free, charge a couple of bucks for the second episode, and charge the full price for the subsequent episodes. However, I would never pay for a demo.

I seem to recall that DXball2 did something like that. They gave the 'game' away free, but only supplied a handfull of levels. You had to buy the additional level packs, if you wanted to keep on playing.

As for charging for a demo... I wouldn't even think about buying it. Mabye if it wasn't called a demo I would, but then I'd want a demo of that to try beforehand.

[Roulette]

As for charging for a demo... I wouldn't even think about buying it. Mabye if it wasn't called a demo I would, but then I'd want a demo of that to try beforehand.

That brings up an interesting point. If you charge for your demos but people want to see what they're buying before they financially commit you could wind up needing to make a demo of your demo.

You could cover your costs by charging for that demo...but then you might need to make a demo of your game's demo's demo in case people don't want to financially commit before seeing something.

- Roulette

[luggage]

If you do charge for your demo any chance of having a...

"If you don't want to pay for a demo nip along to www.bigfizz.com for free ones"

Message and link next to it? :D

[baegsi]

As a customer that sounds a little like a rip off to me. I'd never pay for a demo. We live in times of file sharing etc. and I can get so much stuff for free I could never use in my lifetime. If you don't want to give something for free maybe you could skip the demo. But unless your real name is Sid Meier I don't think it would work. But who knows? Try it and let us know your experience :)

[ErikH2000]

I was thinking about charging people a nominal fee to download my demo. I'd call it a download fee and make it a small amount like $2-3. Has anyone tried doing this?
You are using the word "demo", i.e. "demonstration". It implies you are selling something that isn't a complete, self-contained game that stands on it's own.

Now if you just want to sell a smaller game for a small amount of money, that's been talked about here, and I think the answer was basically, "Who knows? Try it and tell us how it works out!" You might get Princec to comment on Puppytron 2084. But you probably have to first cough up five bucks for the game to get him to talk. ;)

Whatever you do, I think stay away from the word "demo". Everybody expects a "demo" to be free.

-Erik

[Andy]

Yes. The wording obviously should be fixed. Demo means demonstartion, demonstrations are going for free.

But idea in common sounds pretty fun though. I'd call it kind of "pilot version". Why not give it a try?
And yeah. Princes dives almost in the sames waters - so, he should know much more on issue. :)

[ManuelFLara]

IMO the sole purpose of the demo is convice the user to actually _pay_ for your game. If you charge for your demo (be 1$ or 10$) you'd need a better incentive for the user to buy it. Most retail games use magazine reviews, hype, stunning graphics, developer/publisher's reputation, a IP license, prequels, etc. as incentives. You usually don't have any of those.

[Mark Sheeky]

I got some pretty abusive emails when I tried a free but non-playable demo of Martian Rover Patrol a few years ago. Wouldn't people want a free demo of the demo to know whether it was worth $2?

Mark

[Diodor Bitan]

Wouldn't people want a free demo of the demo to know whether it was worth $2?

They might, but would they pay 15 cents for it? :p