Time Limits On Demos

[Davaris]

Hi Everyone,
I was wondering about the effectiveness of demos with two time limits. I was thinking of putting an initial 1 or 2 hour limit on my game so people have time to learn it and then when that time is up, let them play it as much as they want, but for only 5 minutes before booting them out each time. Has anyone done something similar to this? Did it increase sales? Or did it annoy the players? Currently my game has a demo area and you can play it as much as you want, but you have to buy the full version to play the rest of it.

[soniCron]

Not exactly what you need, but read it anyway:
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2137

[Davaris]

Yes I've read that thread. That Cas is a really depressing dude. ;)

What I'm after is a response from someone who has tried what I have in mind. Was it effective? Did you notice a difference in sales?

[soniCron]

Yes I've read that thread. That Cas is a really depressing dude. ;)

What I'm after is a response from someone who has tried what I have in mind. Was it effective? Did you notice a difference in sales? Jesus. From this post (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showpost.php?p=26742) in that thread (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2137):
...Puppytron nags an awful lot and eventually cripples itself but never stops you from playing. Turns out that's a crap upsell....

[Davaris]

Yes I'm after advice from a developers that make money (sorry Cas) :).

[soniCron]

Yes I'm after advice from a developers that make money (sorry Cas) :). Well, considering Cas' getting >6% CR on his latest title (a rate far higher than most developers on this board have ever gotten), he now qualifies as a developer who makes money and cleverly mastered purchase incentives. But suit yourself.

[digriz]

I agree with SoniCron's last comment. Don't knock Cas, his latest venture has kind of paid off. His conversion rates are impressive to be sure. Plus i believe that Puppy Games isn't cas' only company, he has another one (none games) that is pretty damn successful.

I have to say i don't think Cas is a depressing person, he's just very open and honest with his comments when it comes to his own success or failure. I have gained a lot of good information from Cas' posts.

Blindly believing that you are going to make a ton of sales because you think you deserve it, doesn't necessarily mean that you will. There's a lot more involved in your success than making a kick-ass game ( although this bit helps).

[Davaris]

Man its getting hard to get info around here. I'll ask at the ASP.

[soniCron]

Man its getting hard to get info around here. I'll ask at the ASP. Consider one of two possible scenarios:

Nobody who's made money and reads this board has tried this approach.
Everyone agrees with Cas that it's a stupid thing to do.

[Black Hydra]

Why can't you do a test?

Its not like such a modification would be a huge amount of work. Just do an A/B test on your site with your game until you get enough numbers to see what works. When in doubt test...

People like Steve and Mike have done lots of testing for their games (from my own observation), so if you aren't sure why not just find the answer.

Of course if you're sales are so poor that such a test would be impractical to gather a meaningful sample then you probably have bigger problems than slight upsell tweaks.

And if your in doubt, why not look at games made by successful companies and see what techniques they used.

Dan - Sorry to prove you wrong. Both Ricochet and Platypus used the technique described. Ricochet had about a 2 minute play time limit once you maxed the original limit (however they have since moved to using their wrapper for their games...). Platypus did the same (1 or 2 minutes I believe).

Now whether it is effective...

[revve]

What seems to be very effective for me (as a consumer) seems to be a time-limit (hour/etc), where they stop the game right in the middle of play. I played Beetle Bomp demo recently, and it kicked me off right as I was about to finish a stage. The timing for it was so perfect, I'm sure the developer (svero) designed it to not kick the person out if the timer runs out, but to rather wait for a suspenseful moment (like almost finished a stage) and then to do it.

I think he'll get many impulse buys using this method.

[BitBoy]

What seems to be very effective for me (as a consumer) seems to be a time-limit (hour/etc), where they stop the game right in the middle of play. [...] The timing for it was so perfect, I'm sure the developer (svero) designed it to not kick the person out if the timer runs out, but to rather wait for a suspenseful moment (like almost finished a stage) and then to do it.
Combine this with an in-game purchase method where the player can buy the game by just entering his credit card number (more or less) and then continue the game exactly where it cut him/her off. Now that would be a really good upsell! :)

[James C. Smith]

Hi Everyone,
I was wondering about the effectiveness of demos with two time limits. I was thinking of putting an initial 1 or 2 hour limit on my game so people have time to learn it and then when that time is up, let them play it as much as they want, but for only 5 minutes before booting them out each time.

Ricochet does exactly that (assuming you have the version from Reflexive. Other "portals" do other things with them trial time). In fact, almost every game in Reflexive works this way. But not all of them were designed to take advantage of it well.


I didn't respond before because I can't answer tell you how well it works. I have nothing to compare it to. This is how we have always made every game work.