HOW OFTEN SHOULD A WORK IN PROGRESS UPDATE THE DEMO?

Demo is short for "Demonstration." It shouldn't really be used to put up unpolished drivel, so much as it's there to give players an idea as to how the final product would actually look like. It's a marketing tool for the most part.

I think you could still show progress without putting up something playable, through the use of screenshots and the likes. Talk about any features of your game that could be potentially interesting, and build up hype!

I just feel that people begin to lose interest after a while when a project is constantly updated with incomplete demos and no final product.

I think only one demo should be published. Maybe if you release a demo of a quarter of you game/arc while you are already in the mid-way to finish it? If a demo of a very early stage is published, some things may drastically change so the demo may not resemble the final product.

Or maybe publish each arc after completed (So they aren't demos, they are Game part I, II and III)... LockeZ ideas about updates are also nice. If you publish something weekly or monthly it may keep you doing things for your game and keep your players interested about it.

I wouldn't release demos at all unless there is a good reason to do so.

Good reasons include:

1. You are done with the basic core of the game and just want to check if people consider it playable. Sometimes it's useful getting some suggestions early on because it's easier to change core mechanics before everything is done.

2. You are nearing completion of your game and want to build up some hype. Never release a demo in this case unless you are sure you will be done within the next 30 days.

3. The game is finished and you are convinced it is good and want to sell it, but just screenshots and videos don't show what's truly good about the game, so you release a free demo to get people interested.

4. You want to crowdfund your game, but screenshots and videos don't show what's truly good about it, so you release a demo to get people interested.


That means at max you should be releasing a demo of a game twice (early stage to get feedback/pledges and during the release phase to build up interest/hype).

Good stuff and I'll take it into account.

Hi!
Honestly, I put up WIP's and update it a lot. But that's mostly because I want feedback on my work. I ditched the 'Demo' tag and named it verion 0.x

Most of the stuff I put in are experimental and their stay on my game relies on whether or not the people will want them. So yeah, update whenever you need player feedback.

Granted, yes this may diffuse hype. But come on, I don't care much about hype. If the people really wants it, they'll stick with it 'till the end. Hype will follow afterwards. It's my logic, so yeah.

But I'm still a n00b (technically), so I could be mistaken.

author=karins_soulkeeper
Hi!
Honestly, I put up WIP's and update it a lot. But that's mostly because I want feedback on my work. I ditched the 'Demo' tag and named it verion 0.x

Most of the stuff I put in are experimental and their stay on my game relies on whether or not the people will want them. So yeah, update whenever you need player feedback.

Granted, yes this may diffuse hype. But come on, I don't care much about hype. If the people really wants it, they'll stick with it 'till the end. Hype will follow afterwards. It's my logic, so yeah.

But I'm still a n00b (technically), so I could be mistaken.

The problem is if you keep releasing new experiemental versions of your game, eventually nobody will want to play them anymore and then you don't get any feedback at all.

Also to add what others above have said, you don't need to have a demo for every added-in feature. Kylaila hit the nail on the head I think. While a developer may think it's necessary to release a multitude of demos, how many people are willing to play the same game (demo or not) multiple times in a row? I can't even be bothered playing the same game twice in a year.

There are all sorts of avenues for getting feedback, and demos shouldn't be the only one. If you have drastic changes and features, an updated demo may be warranted. Otherwise, write up blogs to encourage discussion - sometimes a blog about a feature you are planning to add may generate more hype (even if it's not yet included in the demo) because the player is in anticipation of what this will look like in the final product.

SnowOwl also made a good point. If you're releasing demos 1/2 way into the project for feedback, chances are you are either lacking the confidence needed, you waited too long, or the project is a mess.

That's not always the case, but I would speculate that in most cases you want enough feedback while the project is still in its early stage in order to ensure you are planning the game the way it should be planned right from the get-go, rather than risking having to delay the project considerably or scrapping it entirely near the end.

Finally, feedback is certainly more important than hype, but there comes a point where people get tired of giving feedback, especially if they're concerned whether or not the game will ever be finished. Considering that some developers thrive on feedback as a source of attention to the point they never finish anything, I understand why game players go weary and drift away from projects that appear to be in an infinite development cycle.

There is really no one correct answer to this question.

But I will say this: an RM ("amateur") game development cycle is nothing like a traditional development cycle. It's much more like a prototypical form of the *EARLY ACCESS* concept that was well...accessed ten years earlier by the RM community before the concept became mainstream. In a normal development cycle, a demo (they almost aren't a thing any more in commercial games, really) is something maybe 30 minutes long that you release for promotional & marketing purposes when the game content is 80-90 complete%. In the RM community a demo is something often much more substantial (as much as 2-4 hours sometimes) that you release for more diverse reasons MUCH earlier in the dev cycle, sometimes with as little as 10% of the game complete.

In the world of RM, a playable demo emerging when a full game never will is the norm. It is the fate of most RM games. In the world of commercial game development, it is something that almost NEVER happens.

It has always struck me as strange almost to the point of baffling that we are even using the word 'DEMO' when generally speaking DEMOS of RM games have so little in common with actual demos.

None of this provides an actual answer to the question but it does provide the context and foundation needed to seek an answer that's "right for you".

I have to say additionally that the first ten or so replies in this topic seemed quite wedded to the way that demo content is throttled by the "professional" game industry. I have said stuff like this in the past: 'one demo per game, don't be ridiculous'. But I am really reconsidering my position. Very recently I released a build of a game that was very rough to get it out in time for a contest. This game is still near the beginning of it's dev cycle and there will almost certainly be one or more additional demos in it's dev cycle. Because a one-person dev cycle for a full length game can take an inordinately long time.