I don't think anyone buys a game because of the demo bonus for pre-ordering....I think they're the type of people who are already sold on the game, regardless of reviews. It also happens a lot over Steam, where people pre-order upcoming games more than in store anyways so that they can cache and be ready to play as soon as they're unlocked. I've also noticed that most Steam pre-order deals are slightly discounted, including those that allow you access to the beta or demo. It's usually like $4.99 off or something insignificant like that, but still...a far cry from paying for a demo.
The other thing is sometimes will throw in another game from the same dev's/publisher or a previous iteration in the series for FREE if you pre-load a game.
Steam's pretty slick w/ their pre-load deals.
I actually didn't realize that they were talking about paying for demos. I thought they just meant that there won't be demos. That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard. You see, when it's actually literally just as easy or easier for me to get your game for free rather than paying for it, you should be trying to add value to the package in order to win me over. It shouldn't be that way, but sadly, it is. The last thing you want to do is try to bleed me more. It only takes me buying one shitty demo and losing $5 to decide that torrents are my new demos.
MMOs are slightly different because the starter kit usually offers something like an extra month of free play when compared to a standard new account. This is just companies looking for new artificial revenue streams.
I usually don't do many demos, these days and age.
The thing w/ a demo is - if it's a game I really want, if I say don't meet some of the requirements (usually, it seems to be the processor requirement), I'll DL the demo and check to see how it runs. This has actually caused me to buy a game or flat-out not buy a game.
A few years back, I bought Max Payne 2 b/c the demo ran fantastic, despite my system being under the box's requirements (processor requirement).
On the other hand - Res Evil 5 PC, I tried the Benchmark program and it ran like shit on my aging rig. No surprise, since I was under the requirements. No sale, for now - since Benchmark program ran horrible on the PC.
The thing w/ MMO's is - you're usually paying that monthly fee so the dev's can add new content, fix bugs, improve performance, and (most importantly) support shit-loads of players at once on a server. That seems more logical then shelling out some $$$ to play a demo - which sounds like DLC treatment.
I would say have no problem w/ say shelling out $10-20 for a 5 hour game. But, really - that wouldn't be a "demo." That'd be more like an "episode" - like HL2 Episodes length or Sin Episodes: Emergance (Episode #1) Length.
