What happened to video game demos?

[@jeremiahtisdell4823]

Todays video game demos are early access $60 games

[@matthewgoldberg]

That sadly is the way it goes a lot of the time.

[@OverloadDSN]

W video, the pizza hut demos were my jam

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@OverloadDSN thank you man

[@Gambit771]

I loved getting demos on tape in the 80s (still have them all) from the AA covertape and then from CD's and later downloading them on Xbox live. I would deliberately wait for the demo to be released. A shame they have mostly gone but just what modern game do I really want to play? I don't feel like I'm missing out.

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@Gambit771 oh man that’s wild. I didnt realize about demos on tape, very cool.

[@janisthyname]

i’m glad my algorithm brought me here

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@janisthyname Im glad you enjoyed. More on the way

[@CassiusZedaker-pr7kc]

I'm glad the algorithm brought me here. I haven't thought about game demos in *ages,* but I think a lot of your points are spot on.

[@matthewgoldberg]

Thank you, glad you enjoyed.

[@Anon_Spartan]

You completely missed the Robocop Rogue City demo from November that let you do both an action-packed rescue mission and then several cool and laid-back investigations. It clocked in over a few hours. Now THAT was a quality demo.

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@Anon_Spartan Didn’t know about it, good call out.

[@fossetti8216]

the demo of Return Fire and Big Red Racing kept me happy in 1995

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@fossetti8216 don’t know those ones but sounds like it was a ton of fun

[@XDRosenheim]

Good games have demos. Steam has a whole "fest" for games with demos. Next Fest.

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@XDRosenheim next fest is good, just wish the demos stayed up forever

[@LocalSlasher]

​@@matthewgoldbergSome do, actually! Seems like delisting demos post-Next Fest is entirely voluntary.

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@LocalSlasher I learned something today.

[@thydimov9909]

Very good video! I believe if you raise the camera on a tripod or something so you look up at it, it could make for a better angle. Wish you good luck on your youtube journey!

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@thydimov9909 thank you so much, appreciate the feedback.

[@Italian_Isaac_Clarke]

Mi sembri italiano. That aside, I agree with your conclusion. Still, games like DOOM 2016 and Prey 2017 still have their demos on steam. It's a shame they are not avayable on current consoles, at least as far as I know. Still, it's nice that some games still release demos, it's a great way for poor people to try stuff out. Even Minecraft still has the trial period where any new word you make can be played for at max 90 minutes, then you can't change the world anymore.

[@matthewgoldberg]

Gratzi! I'll take that as a compliment. I'm actually Jewish. Agreed it's nice when games provide demos. Always good for the customer to have as many options as possible. Also didn't know that about Minecraft, that's interesting.

[@kylespevak6781]

My man sourced Sakurai in this video. What a goat!

[@matthewgoldberg]

Big fan of Sakurai's channel and even bigger fan of his games.

[@kylespevak6781]

@@matthewgoldberg It's insane how many times he said he's done. He "retired", only to make a KZbin channel teaching people how to make better games. We don't deserve him

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@kylespevak6781 That's funny yea. Makes a new smash -> thinks he's too tired to go on -> realizes this is what he lives for.

[@Navss47]

I remember every year playing the fifa demo before the game come out with only 6 teams and time limited games

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@Navss47 curious how long ago did they get rid of it?

[@Nahbrev]

You have earned a subscriber brother I actually found this very interesting and I didn’t realise game demos went basically extinct sad times 😢

[@matthewgoldberg]

Thank you man, I appreciate it! Hope you enjoy what's to come.

[@kylespevak6781]

They became "beta", and you have to pay for it and be thankful

[@krisstopher8259]

Wow only 46 subs? It should be 46 000 minimum. The content and presentation is that level (based on thousands of youtubers). But maybe you just got started?

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@krisstopher8259 yup just got started. Really appreciate it, gonna keep grinding.

[@janegoldberg]

agree!

[@jacketofthe80s13]

remember the batman arkham asylum demo. wow.

[@matthewgoldberg]

Never played it, sounds like it was amazing.

[@furwerkstudio2057]

Old Sierra Online games they had a whole new short "game" using the game assets just to give an idea of the game itself.

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@furwerkstudio2057 that’s interesting, didn’t know that

[@digitalquintessence]

3:08 "marketing is sort of a legacy term"... kinda sounds like saying "farming is sort of a legacy term, and the way I think of it now is growing plants"

[@matthewgoldberg]

@@digitalquintessence that’s funny yea, it’s like replacing the label with the action behind it

[@Aiedail]

I politely disagree! (this endup much longer than I anticipated, english is not my first language so sorry for any typos and such xP) True big companies go for beta tests nowadays (I personally have 0 interest in AAA games, I occasionally try something but I'am not really excited about them) But as a game developer myself (I work in small indie game dev company, mostly level design and optimization) - I recognize fact the games which u so well remember been much easier to develop, they are much less complicated from code side, and rendering, or just amount of people working on it. We can especial see it in AAA Games now how they push fidelity which takes alot of people and work (Which also makes so much easier to have tons of bugs in such huge projects) - this is not excuse for new games "sucking" or day 1 patches, or being expensive, or being unfinished, or being hostile to players in design - I just saying that I kinda understand where these problems coming from, I don't try to justify these problems. Other important point which I think u not mention, the "new" thing nowadays which is more common than demos is for games to have "Prologue" instead of demo which is a playable usually opening of the game, always F2P, often in much earlier development built - which is also made to gather some feedback from players and steer game in direction which potential players would like to see it be developed and expanded. Getting to do that early makes really easy to implement these changes early on. Or make base for implementing them later, if needed without breaking things. And last thing which comes to mind, each year there are Demo Fests on steam, this is quite big, and it helps soo much. This is time where games which dont have demos often get one for purpose of showing game to people, and these demos, steam then pushes these demos to more people. (Yes steam got own algorithms just like youtube) These demos often are just up during this event, also to gather feedback and stuff. This helps a lot to find people which actually are interested in game and wishlist it becouse they are actually interested to play it. About developing 2 game builds (actual game and demo simulatusly) this well is not exactly hard. For once as I said demos usualy are early build of developed game - and sometimes are just left as they are with note this is early build and full game some aspects mind change etc, But its not that quite uncommon for demos to get updates. Games are developed in such way there always are backups of earlier versions (like via github etc) and you can have a "branch" with demo to which u can go back to and threw some new things into it from newset development branch to update it, and make build out of that for demo (ofc I don't need to explain - this is on game to game bassis , and engine and what not) - I personally got most experience with Unity and way we do things ourselves. We had one prologue for our first game which helped us alot to fix some preformance problems on lower end machines, and ofc based on feedback expand it with some new features. With game we work on currently we got demo runing during demo fest which also helped us tremendously. So for any developer out there which is wondering should they take extra steps to have some sort of demo available, I personally say there always is, and for many various reasons - now more than ever. IN past demos been just demos, of much simpler games - now they are way to gather feedback and help find problems. Ok i did not ment this to be so long sorry, but hey that just my 5 cents on the matter , peace!

[@matthewgoldberg]

I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts, you have a very interesting perspective. I see what you mean that demos have shifted from marketing tools to feedback mechanisms. That's an angle I hadn't considered and it's a smart move. The only Prologue type demo I've played is the Deltarune one. I liked Undertale, so I was really excited for the Deltarune demo to be there and I'm glad to hear other games are using this model.

[@fadercreek]

Gamers have to start seroiusly start speaking out and up for casuals some companies think there slick having no demo, no gameplay trailer and then overpricing the game way more than its worth then people buying the game and it ends up horrible

[@matthewgoldberg]

Best way to speak is with your wallet. If the game doesn't sell, companies will get the message.

[@reptheh]

they still exist. they just stay in early access until the end of time

[@matthewgoldberg]

That's a funny idea, quite the rebrand.