A while agowe talked abouthow game demos were seen as not being anywhere near as effective as trailers, and it seems a few developers are taking that to heart. Both Epic Games and Bethesda havecome out to saythatno demosare forthcoming for their respective titles,Gears of War 2andFallout 3.
Talking aboutFallout 3, Bethesda’s Pete Hines said it was impossible to provide a demo of such a huge game world:
“When you build it as one thing, there’s no way to portion off a section and have it stand on its own without putting the whole game in the demo, which we’re just not going to do … And it doesn’t really capture the fun of a game like anElder Scrollsor aFallout, where you can go where you want and do what you want. So no demo, sorry.”
Fair enough. BothFallout 3andGears of War 2would be first day buys in my book anyway, and I trust Bethesda and Epic enough to not feel like a demo is truly necessary. Still, I hope too many other, less trustworthy developers don’t follow their lead. Demos have saved me from a number of purchases in the past, and I’d hate to lose that safety net altogether.
