HOW TO MAKE A DEMO

How to make a good, functional demo in today's society

  • Tuomo_L
  • 01/26/2018 11:21 AM
  • 26660 views
First of all, let me start by saying, you should probably never make a demo. In fact, I'm starting this by discouraging you against such silly idea. Before you get the pitchforks, you should see this video.





The fact is 99% of the RPG Maker games demos that I've played have been totally awful and done massive disservice to the game. I was a RPG Maker reviewer for quite few years and over the tons of games I played, I only played one haf decent demo which stood out because of its gross out violence and mature themes but even then, it kinda broke my third rule which did dissapoint me a lot when I got so invested in it. The demos are relics of the past what with internet being stock full of information that you can already give great idea of your game, without playing a single second of the game by simply using youtube alone. Instead of dedicating time and resources to making a demo, you should focus in marketing and polishing your game. Promotional videos that show gameplay and things dev talks are infinitely much more useful and personal than just making a poor demo and thinking that's enough. If however you're totally set to the path that you wish to make a demo, I'll give you some sage advice that will hopefully help.



Golden Rules for making a demo



Never start from the start



This is the reason most of the RPG Maker demos fail. They have you play the slow start with your starter town and ages long text story and blah blah blah. This not only does reflect the overall game you are making very poorly, since most of the time the start of the game is not like the rest of the game but it also means when they get the full verison, they'll have to most likely play through the boring segments over again, which WILL turn people off your game. The only exceptions is very unique ways of starting a game but for most part, you should start somewhere middle, hopefully with all the important main characters already avaivable, to better give the player an idea of the overall idea of the game and the characters. 99% of the time, you want to start at the middle and not at the start and no, you having original characters and you wanting to show their personality more isn't a reason enough to start from the very beginning.


NEVER BEGIN THE DEMO WITH A TUTORIAL TOWN OR LONG STORY AND CUTSCENES!!!!


If you have complex gameplay elements that need explanation, you should have a picture at the start of the game that has all the controls listed and layed out for the player to pick up and play your demo from the get go, not after tons of tutorials and forcing them to do things.


If you want to go and make a demo from the start, go Bayonetta route. Leave out all the cutscene elements from the start and introduce the story through gameplay, skip any unncessary cutscenes and keep the action flowing, leaving the player wanting much more when the demo is done.



Make a game, when you have a game



Another critical failure is starting to make the demo when the game is still under work. If your game is not even in alpha stage, a demo is way too early to be released. A demo should reflect how your game is like, if you make a demo too soon (A.K.A "Everything will probably change") then it's not a good demo and will leave a very bad impressions on the player. You should make your game at least to beta stage, so that enough stuff are there to stay. It also means that you can easier crop a portion from the main game for the demo, such as from middle of the act 2. If you are selling the game, set the game store and such stuff up first, you can link to the game store and give teasers about the full game at the end of the demo.


Your game should be almost completely finished when you release a demo or in ways that you are 100% certain you will not change or alter aside maybe adding few tiny cutscenes or minor things like graphical filters or such.


Short is sweet






Sonic sez; your demo's too loooong!


A demo is meant to be a short, quick look into what makes your game special, to start interest and to gather following. Even though there's no time limit for a demo length, generally 30 minutes or so should suffice. I have seen some people make like 4 hours long demos which is going to piss off a lot of people when they've played already that long only to meet a brick wall of "see you at full version, btw your demo save file will not work in full version either, lol." Again, keep it short, keep it simple and to the point.


The longer you make your demo, the more likely you're not able to get players interested in your full version, because they already have the free version. You also are shooting yourself into foot because it takes more time which you could use to make full game instead. Too long games also have the chance of massive backlash when the demo ends and often leads the player into hating your game for "pulling the plug" just when things got good.


I'll play a 30 minute long full game over 5 hour demo any day. In fact, I have a personal rule that if your demo is over 2 hours, I will not play it for any reason.



If your game is already free, don't bother with a demo



The main reason for a demo is to give interest to your upcoming game and to give a buyer an idea of what the full game is like, before they are going to buy the game. IN theory, the demo is a way of a consumer to see the product before purchase and to help improve your sales. IF your game is already freeware, there's even less value in a demo since it's just a shorter and sometimes, less polished full version which has the same free price tag.


Seriously, there's absolutely no reason to make a demo of a free game. The price is exactly same as in the full game, free. Your player will not benefit at all for playing the demo as opossed to the full version.


Even worse, many times when people make demos, they never finish the game once they get the initial response. That or they just do 360 and completely begin to remake the game, wasting time to catch up to the point they were at when releasing the demo. For a prime example of this, compare Destiny's Call demo to Destiny's Call complete. The DCC version is shorter, has added tacked in features for "because..." reasons, had hunge, sleep, etc systems that weren't really explored in great edetail and generally feels a lot more toned down and shorter experience than demo, even literally ending the player's progress when trying to enter a tower by a message of saying "Stay tuned for part 2" and leaving the player to wander the map forever instead of the actual ending credits that demo version had. Also the demo lasted past the tower scene and far longer past that point the DCC stopped. Notice stopped, because there was no ending and the game didn't really end, you just couldn't progress anywhere anymore. DCC is the prime example of everything wrong with RPG Maker demos, the demo was released years before the full game with every single resource being placeholders and then the whole game began to be remade from the very first scene with every resource and feature changed, only for the game to stop even before it got halfway to the part it had been before starting to redo it. The game ended up never being finished and all we were left was a poor "episode 1" of the full game, which brings us to the next point...



Consider episodic format instead



Okay, okay, before you get the pitchforks at me again, hear me out. One of the reasons people have also made demos is that they have wanted to hear feedback and see reactions to the game they've made. This is especially true for the freeware demo games. There are multiple benefits to releasing your game in episodic format as opossed to demo version. First of all, once finished with one episode, you can release it and ask for feedback and use this to help fix issues in next episodes or if very major, polish them in the first episode. Then finish second episode, release it and so on and forth. This way, the playerbase and the reviewers will help you shape your game and it will be a lot more effective than releasing tons of demos and people won't be as angry to play a long episodic game, as opossed to overly long demo. This way you also build much more interaction with your audience and maybe establish long term fans that may even translate to future customers if you ever make a commercial game.


When making episodic game, MAKE IT EPISODIC FROM THE START. This is literally a decision you have to make before starting to make your game and you can NOT go back to this idea if you have already made a demo and you'll have a hard time in cutting the game into naturally flowing episodes if you haven't planned the game around it. DCC aside, I have seen more times than one where first we get a demo, then the maker decides they should rework the whole game from the scratch (because their standards have grown), with literal years being used to carefully craft things scene by scene only ending up with a shorter "episode 1" version instead which feels more like an after thought rather than something the maker planned in the first place. These games are also never finished and will forever be remembered in a poor, unfinished light instead of what could have been a fun game experience, had they just finished the game years ago. Making episodic format games should be done more in likes of The Way series.


That's all for now! If you have thoughts or suggestions or want to share your own thoughts, you're more than welcome to as I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this subject matter!

Posts

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OldPat
OrudoPatto, kisama!
5107
The first thing you said:
"First of all, let me start by saying, you should probably never make a demo."

still makes me wonder why you wrote an article on "How to make a demo" in the first place if you're so against the idea of making a demo.

In fact, the article is called "How to make a demo", but you're not actually explaining how to create one, you're merely listing all the possible reasons why someone should, or should not (mostly), make a demo.

I also don't agree with this statement:
"The demos are relics of the past what with internet being stock full of information that you can already give great idea of your game, without playing a single second of the game by simply using youtube alone. "

I mean, yeah, watching a gameplay video can, alone, prove useful to have an idea about what kind of game you're gonna play.

But that isn't always the same thing as actually playing the game. What if, for example, there's a noticeable input lag when you're playing? That's a really bad issue, but you won't notice it just by looking at gameplay videos (for obvious reasons).

What if the game looks boring when looking at it through a gameplay video but then when you're actually playing it it draws you in and never lets you go? That's another thing that should be taken into consideration. It's important. If a game manages to draw you in through its gameplay, that alone is one huge plus.

I much prefer playing a game in order to judge whether it's good or not, especially when it comes to games made by people of communities like this one, as it's much more useful for them to have feedback based on proper "playthroughs". Gameplay videos, LPs and stuff like that almost never deliver the same kind of experience, I assure you. It's still useful to watch those, though, yeah.

Also, the article itself concentrates too much on the "commercial" aspect of a game.
RMN is a place where developers share their creations to get feedback in order to improve. A demo, a beta, whatever you wanna call it, may help the developer getting very useful feedback in order to improve the final product. Free product or not, it doesn't make any difference. I think it's stupid not to make a demo just because you wanna make a free game, as getting early feedback is ALWAYS useful, especially if you're going for really complex game mechanics.

I agree that episodic formats may be just as useful in order to gain feedback for the reasons you've listed, although I don't agree that these benefits are true for episodic formats alone, as these reasons are very true for demo formats as well, imo. And yeah, episodic formats may prove useful for gaining fans and keep them interested in the story.

I also agree with the "don't make a demo too early and too long" part (small prototypes will do).

And please, resize that Sonic image a bit. xD
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
I would say this article has its sights misaligned, but I'm not sure where you're even aiming in the first place. For one, you should have focused on either free or commercial game development, as the same set of guidelines don't apply to both. If you're looking through the lens of sales, like in your EC vid (who, ironically, expressed a desire to see more of them in the world), then dismissing freeware demos is like calling a square peg faulty because it won't fit into a round hole. Seriously, the whole section related to freeware games is something I'd actually consider labeling as dangerous to a new developer looking for feedback on their work in progress.

Two: Consider the market that you're writing this article for. Most of us on RMN are hobbyist game devs building games for the joy of building, not to make money. What we call "demos" more often than not roughly translate to "what we've put together up til now," and are seeking feedback from the community on how their game is progressing so far. You can't view these sorts of games with a price tag at the corner of your vision.

Three, and most importantly: if you're so against demos, why do you then go on to offer "sage" advice on how to do them at all? You brushed up against it at the end with the suggestion for episodic formatting (hell, delving deeper into why that is a better solution would have made for an interesting article by itself), but perpetuating the very practice you want to see die off is a very good way to... keep it from dying off.

Freeware games are still an investment for the player because time & bandwidth (for some people) are commodities too.
You should avoid telling people to never do something. You can suggest what shouldn't be done, but I don't like being told I can never do something. Especially when I can think of many ways to do it, and do it well.
author=Link_2112
You should avoid telling people to never do something. You can suggest what shouldn't be done, but I don't like being told I can never do something. Especially when I can think of many ways to do it, and do it well.


I mean honestly, starting with the start tutorial town and dragging the experience down does slow the game down needlessly. Plus, most of the players who will play your RPG Maker demo, will have grasp on these mechanics as is.
author=Tuomo_L
I mean honestly, starting with the start tutorial town and dragging the experience down does slow the game down needlessly. Plus, most of the players who will play your RPG Maker demo, will have grasp on these mechanics as is.

The answer to this is to make your game more interesting, not avoid including the opening in a demo. It sounds like you are talking about a specific type of game, mainly people's first RPGmaker projects. Although you don't specify anything in your article so it appears that you are applying this to all games.

The fact is 99% of the RPG Maker games demos that I've played

Perhaps you should pick better games. Because I have played MANY good demos. Just recently I played this demo and it was really quite amazing. It includes the opening of the game with a tutorial map and it was still amazing because it was well put together.

If you have complex gameplay elements that need explanation, you should have a picture at the start of the game that has all the controls listed and layed out for the player to pick up and play your demo from the get go, not after tons of tutorials and forcing them to do things.

It is well documented in player feedback that this is a terrible idea. You can't expect someone to memorize complex controls and gameplay elements before they even engage with the game. Showing the player by example, slowly over time, is a proven method that has been used since the early console days because it works best.

Also, if you release a demo of a middle portion of the game the player could be confused on how it works and it will ruin their experience. They will think it's bad, when they simply don't understand it. Showing them all information at the start is not a valid countermeasure.

But that doesn't address my actual comment of telling people to never do something. There are few absolutes in game design so you can't say never release a demo. Or if you do, to never include a starting tutorial. That is simply incorrect.

It's fine if you want to offer specific advice to people, and leave it up to them to decide what they want to do, but this article comes across as you demanding everyone do things your way for all games. Without question, "never do this", and it's all based on your own opinion/experience. But my opinion/experience is different and I can't say I agree with very much here.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
author=Tuomo_L
author=Link_2112
You should avoid telling people to never do something. You can suggest what shouldn't be done, but I don't like being told I can never do something. Especially when I can think of many ways to do it, and do it well.
I mean honestly, starting with the start tutorial town and dragging the experience down does slow the game down needlessly. Plus, most of the players who will play your RPG Maker demo, will have grasp on these mechanics as is.
This is startlingly untrue. I was and still in some ways am that developer who thought that people would understand the mechanics and I've been proven wrong a bunch. Having some kind of tutorial helps a lot of people. I for one don't usually need them but that's just me. I've also learned that showing an image isn't helpful to many people. Because just like a long intro text wall, people don't retain much from a controls sheet etc.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Nier: Automata's demo was sick, and was about 4 minutes from the beginning of the game (skipping over the shmup sequence, but you have one at the end of the demo anyway). The only differences between the demo and the final product (that I noticed) was that you had upgraded weapons.





Dragon Age 2's demo starts at the very beginning to run you through the tutorial, then skips forward roughly 8-10 hours to a more combat-heavy sequence with a more complete party with higher level characters you could customize to your liking.




Seems like you can make the beginning of the game interesting enough to include in a demo, I think.
Releasing multiple demos/iterations of the games I've been working on have been invaluable endeavors that not only helped build interest in my games, but also help me make a much better game.
Once again Red_nova has taken the words right out of my mouth.

author=Tuomo_L
author=Link_2112
You should avoid telling people to never do something. You can suggest what shouldn't be done, but I don't like being told I can never do something. Especially when I can think of many ways to do it, and do it well.
I mean honestly, starting with the start tutorial town and dragging the experience down does slow the game down needlessly. Plus, most of the players who will play your RPG Maker demo, will have grasp on these mechanics as is.

This is definitely not good advice. You should absolutely never assume that everyone who will play your game knows the standard mechanics of the genre (in this site's case, mostly RPGs); all that will do is risk alienation of newcomers entirely.
You guys realize that you at first say it's only hobbyist and you're not looking to go into many commercial routes or market the game much but then you say not everyone in here knows the RPG mechanics, when everyone on this website probably knows what Max HP stands for, without the tutorial explaining about it among tons of the other core mechanics that the tutorial towns are exactly all about. It's only when the gameplay concepts and the elements are changed in ways that are out of the ordinary, at least in terms of RPG Maker that you may need to really tell about them. Focusing at start to tell about these things that your playerbase already does know about does nothing but pad out the experience and slows it down before getting to the actual content.


It's very different in commercial market where the exposure to your game is far bigger and your game may literally be the first ever RPG someone picks up. You have to have the tutorials that'll guide the player by hand as much of possible if they need it, but also have the option to skip it if they're scarred RPG veterans already. You guys also keep comparing to commercial games and pointing to demos like Nier while still telling me this is only hobbyist site and not everyone is interested in monetization. But in order for us to have a debate, we have to agree on some common ground on what we'll compare these demos at and from what point of view we'll approach to this discussion, shall we focus on hobbyism or commercial titles? Because Nier nor the demo for it wasn't made by hobbyist and it had a budget of over 10 million. None of us on this website have even close to that sort of budget.
I understand where you're coming from, but please consider this:

I'm not really sure where you're getting this idea that the only people playing games from this website are people who frequent it in the first place. I've personally had friends who downloaded my games from RMN but hadn't really played many menu-based RPGs before and were not sure how the game worked. And that feedback led me to having simple mechanic tutorials in my next project for those who may not be so experienced. This isn't something that can only happen in the commercial market: how many people played OFF, a freeware game, without ever having played a JRPG before? I'm willing to bet quite a few.

The thing you need to understand is that commercialism is that it's not as big of a divide as people make it out to be, and not everyone who does it is in it to make a living or a business out of it. Just because you're selling a game doesn't mean that you necessarily have to treat your project like a product in the traditional business sense. My own commercial game was a labor of love that I just happened to sell an extended version for on Steam, that I treated exactly the same as I did with any of my freeware projects.

There is an entire spectrum of commercialism. From the ascended hobby project to the multi-million AAA company. It's really not that black and white.
author=SgtMettool
I understand where you're coming from, but please consider this:

I'm not really sure where you're getting this idea that the only people playing games from this website are people who frequent it in the first place. I've personally had friends who downloaded my games from RMN but hadn't really played many menu-based RPGs before and were not sure how the game worked. And that feedback led me to having simple mechanic tutorials in my next project for those who may not be so experienced. I'm not entirely sure why you think this can only happen in the commercial market: how many people played OFF, a freeware game, without ever having played a JRPG before? I'm willing to bet quite a few.

The thing you need to understand is that commercialism is that it's not as big of a divide as people make it out to be, and not everyone who does it is in it to make a living or a business out of it. Just because you're selling a game doesn't mean that you necessarily have to treat your project like a product. My own commercial game was a labor of love that I just happened to sell an extended version for on Steam, that I treated exactly the same as I did with any of my freeware projects.

There is an entire spectrum of commercialism. From the ascended hobby project to the multi-million AAA company. It's really not that black and white.

Still, to have a good and mature discussion about such a topic where I'm sure everyone has their own opinions we need to make a distinct difference in something.

There are varying levels for game development in terms of budget and such, from lowest to biggest they are

Hobbyism
Indie game
Big budget indies
Triple A games

Hobbyists have nothing to lose, in this case at most, a poor demo will just make a person lose interest in the game but since you have probably very little money involved, it's not really any harm, the demo is for YOU for YOUR fans and you will probably find your own fans regardless. Still, you should most likely not start from the start and try and make it as simple and neat as you can. You may get a lot more fans and may find new friends and people who want to help you with your project if you "wow" people. So, while there's nothing to lose you have a lot to GAIN, so you need to think a lot if you really want to put out a demo that doesn't give a good lasting impression on the player.

However, for indie game level of development where actual money gets involvevd, you usually have a very limited budget and small team if even that, sometimes you do it alone. Making a demo does take time, it does take resources. The saying "time is money" is very true when you're indie dev and you have to literally make games to pay for your bills and the food you eat. Demos may not be the best course of action in this case when you literally need to use all the time and resources you have to focus on getting your product out.

For big indies, they have larger budgets and large number of people who support them. These people can easily do demos and many do (such as Nier) because they have the manpower and budget to organize their workforce far more than again, anyone on this website.

For triple A's, they could easily do demos but they honestly, don't bother. They don't need to, most of these already will have massive sales and massive marketing campaign as is and demos don't really help contribute to the overall sales at all.


So, as you can see, in the case of game development for demos it is like this

Hobbyist- Can make a demo (But probably should consider if they can make it look GOOD)
Indie developer - Can't in most cases, it takes too much time and focus from other projects and the game itself. Plus, if you release a bad demo, you'll run the risk of losing more sales and since you're small, you need EVERY single sale you can get. The only other alternative is to focus a lot of time and effort into making a great demo, really polish and hone it to like a fine diamond but that will take a lot of time and money, something most indie developers literally don't have.
Big indies - They can and often will release demos.
Triple A - Totally could but most often don't, because they don't honestly benefit from them that much.


None of us are in Bid Indies. I made this post on RPG maker net, not on Steam Developers discussion board. You need to understand that most of us are on tier 1 or tier 2 at most. You guys can point to Nier all you want and how great demo they made, but unless you have similar levels of budget and teams, I don't think that's a good comparision to draw from.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Tuomo_L
But in order for us to have a debate, we have to agree on some common ground on what we'll compare these demos at and from what point of view we'll approach to this discussion, shall we focus on hobbyism or commercial titles?

You cover both freeware and commercial games in your article, so it sounds like both arguments are equally viable here.

Regardless of budget, something that devs should be more aware of while building the game is their target audience. Is this game for young children? Teens? Adults? RPG newbies? RPG veterans? That's going to influence how you market your game, including what you want to put in a tutorial. If you're developing a game for RPG veterans, you can most likely skip over explaining what MaxHP is or what the Attack command does.

author=Tuomo_L
Because Nier nor the demo for it wasn't made by hobbyist and it had a budget of over 10 million. None of us on this website have even close to that sort of budget.

I never said or even implied that you needed that kind of budget to make a strong intro. The point was that Nier's intro covered a little bit of everything it had to offer, and that it was possible to do in an RM game if that's how the dev wants to go about it.

author=Link_2112
The answer to this is to make your game more interesting, not avoid including the opening in a demo.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying you HAVE to have demos start at the intro. I'm just saying you CAN have a demo at the intro if you work it a specific way.

EDIT2: Oh hi, new post. Damn, I'm slow at this. *reads*
You, uh, do know EC isn't the be-all, end-all of references, right? They're one reference that schools use. There's more than just them used.

Besides, schools can be wrong and sometimes fuck you over when it comes to teaching due to relying on bad references and teaching, especially schools that are relatively new to teaching certain subjects (like, say, game design and development which is a relatively new field of teaching and of which there isn't as many references to pick and choose from as other fields which have proof and documentation up the wazoo to prove and disprove practices.)

You can't quote just one source as the only way.


Quite frankly, demos are great and have been used for years apon years. I still recall how they helped hype such big shot games as, say, oh, Tomb Raider and Doom and a thousand other games out there. They still exist today because they WORK - not only to hype up the sales, but also to showcase what you're making and, yeah, get feedback (yes, even big name companies get fucking feedback from their fans. You can bet the Andromeda team wish they'd put out a demo so that fans would point out the ridiculous faces and say "yo, fix this shit and take your time please. we want a good game not some shite" instead of the backlash they got on release (which did not help sales at all)).

Look at games like The Long Dark - a game that started out showcasing the beta and demo development of the game to widespread approval of the fans. Now the full game is out and they've gotten a hell of a lot more sales than they would have without having shown anything before full launch.

Frankly, demos are a good thing and anyone who says they're not are, imo, either a big enough name that they don't need to care about not having that hype build or just plain wrong.

Sorry, not sorry.
author=Liberty
(yes, even big name companies get fucking feedback from their fans. You can bet the Andromeda team wish they'd put out a demo so that fans would point out the ridiculous faces and say "yo, fix this shit and take your time please. we want a good game not some shite" instead of the backlash they got on release (which did not help sales at all)).
I'm pretty sure that's very incorrect. By not releasing a demo and making it all about "day 1 sales" (which is how AAA operates), they probably sold a lot better than if they had released a demo that was as shit as the game was. Some AAA games do limited-time demos (they call them 'open betas') these days. But there's no marketing point (I'm talking about the big games now) in releasing a demo so far in advance of the actual release date that they'd delay the game because of it. (Remember that a massive marketing push towards a certain date is really costly. So a last-minute delay is going to cost a lot of money for these giant publishers. They basically have to do the accounting "how much will we lose by delaying the game by a year after we've already spent 50 million on the marketing? Are the better sales later going to make up for that?" (and also factor in like pre-orders that started half a year ago with bonus bits and bobs people expect)

No. That's what QA and internal testing is for.
Oh, I dunno. How many of those 'sales' took one look at the in-game character creation and went "nope" and got a refund? Quite a few from the hullaballoo that surrounded the game for the first few months before they actually got around to fixing it. And they never really picked sales back up after that disaster, even after the fix. Which is a pity because the game is pretty good, just... could have used a demo of some kind to get a general consensus from their intended audience.
author=Liberty
Oh, I dunno. How many of those 'sales' took one look at the in-game character creation and went "nope" and got a refund? Quite a few from the hullaballoo that surrounded the game for the first few months before they actually got around to fixing it. And they never really picked sales back up after that disaster, even after the fix. Which is a pity because the game is pretty good, just... could have used a demo of some kind to get a general consensus from their intended audience.

The publishers don't care if the game is totally broken, if the deadline is set and the company doesn't meet the deadline, the company will be blamed for the delays. We've seen this time and time and time again. The company who made the game will lose a lot of money and may have a hard time working with big time publishers after that. It's silly to think that the triple A industry that's so focused on stuff like lootboxes, pre orders and DLC, would actually care for a demo of any sort. It wouldn't even matter to them since games like Mass Effect Andromeda was a sales success despite all the backlash, it still made over 111 million dollars.
Hmm... Actually. I had to google it so...
Andromeda HAS a demo https://www.masseffect.com/trial I don't think it did much either way.
(edit: Apparently the demo became free-for-all in July, a number of months after the release and patches. But before that it was part of an "EA Access" thing that... I odn't know... is a subscription service that might give access to betas and free games and stuff maybe)

The people who refunded after the kerfuffle I would say are... not very many in the grand scope of things. People who are loud on the internet are generally not a huge portion. It's over time that publishers might see the effects of their policies.
Even if people assume to know the inner workings of AAA studios, and sales, that doesn't really change the issues about the content of this article and how it relates to people on RMN :/ This wasn't posted on Steam or Nintendo.com.

I mean, really, saying things like

Seriously, there's absolutely no reason to make a demo of a free game.


is pretty stupid. There is no saving grace here. Talking about AAA studios and big business isn't going to divert attention from the gobs of bad advice here directed towards us amateur game makers.

I'm just disappointed I posted here and will have to continue to see notices on this because it's quite obvious Tuomo has no intention of backing down.
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