Timed Game Demos

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By Ravenhawk | February 20, 2007

Game Demos: those wondrous things which enable you to try out a game before dishing out the cash for the real thing. They can be a gift from the heavens, allowing you to discover awesome games you would otherwise ignore, and warn you of games you may have bought that totally suck.

However, there are different kinds of demos. There are those I call the “Minigame demos” where you get just a level or two of the game. There are the “limited access demos” where you have most of the game, but you can’t use all parts of it, much like the minigame demos, only a bit longer.

And then there are the loathed, “Timed Game Demos.”

As you can no doubt tell from the above sentence, I hate these demos. Gaming is a leisurely activity, and I like to take it slow. I’m a fast gamer on fast games, but when I’m just trying something out, I don’t want to be rushed. So when I get the demo of an awesome game and it says “You can play this game for 50 more minutes!” I get a little irked.

This might not be quite fair, but I think I deserve more than an hour to thoroughly enjoy the game. I think it detracts from the happy experience of game playing if I’m sitting there like “Oh.. Must.. Have fun! I’m not having enough fun! Must.. make.. good.. use.. of.. time..”
And then you lose the ability to coherently make sentences and then everyone on the internets hates you. All ten of them.
Or at least everyone that matters.

And so I give this plea to all those who make games which have downloadable demos, (none of whom read this blog) PLEASE stick with the limited access demos.

And that goes double for those of you over at team17.
I want my Worms, dammit.

Until next time, Comrades.