Molyneux: Demos are "horrible"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 30 June, 2010

Fable III episodes detailed.

Peter Molyneux has labelled demos "a horrible concept" and revealed plans to release upcoming action RPG Fable III as a series of downloadable episodes.

"Soon after the retail launch we're doing episodic," he said at the GameHorizon conference in Gateshead, and reported by sister site Gamesindustry.biz.

"We break it down in chapters. We give away the first chapter entirely free, the first hour. When you reach a certain point in the game it says 'thank you for playing the pilot of Fable III, do you want to spend an extra 2-5 or whatever dollars to buy the next episode, or buy the whole lot?' Press 'yes' and you will immediately continue playing."

"It supports this freemium idea," he added. "It gets around this horrible concept of demos. Anyone out there who thinks a demo is a good idea is crazy. It's never a good idea, because demos are usually done at the end of a game and they require an enormous amount of design talent to make a demo. The other thing is you're more likely to satisfying the curiosity of a user rather than entice them to play more."

Molyneux insisted selling Fable III in downloadable chucks as well as at retail will help achieve targeted sales of five million and generate a whopping $150m in profit.

"We are driving to sell more than five million units and to make a profit in excess of $150 million. We have to do that because if a franchise doesn't reach that level it will inevitably wither."

We've seen this approach before, of course. Nine months after the release of Fable II, Microsoft sold the game in downloadable episodes on Xbox Live.

Apparently the first episode was downloaded 1.6m times, and as a whole the episodes earned $15m.

Fable III will be released on 26th October simultaneously for PC and Xbox 360.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (98) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Entity #1 2 years ago

    That horrible concept has sold me on games I'd never have touched before.

  • dsmx #2 2 years ago

    Yeah demo's are horrible, getting a chance to see if your game sucks before they pay any money for it. That's a terrible idea.

  • Xboxfanuk #3 2 years ago

    This is a brilliant idea. And I hope other devs will get behind bringing digital distribution for day and date releases. For a busy person who can't devote tons of time to gaming this give them a chance to play the game in chunks and buy it in chunks.

  • menage #4 2 years ago

    "t's never a good idea, because demos are usually done at the end of a game and they require an enormous amount of design talent to make a demo. The other thing is you're more likely to satisfying the curiosity of a user rather than entice them to play more." "

    What a load of BS Peter. It also tells us if something is a piece of shit. And you're giving away an hour of a game for free that's called a freaking demo.

    I will say that not all games are demo friendly. But the Bioshock demo really sold me on the game back in the day.

  • NewbieZilla #5 2 years ago

    I'm agreeing with something Molyneux said. I think my only option is suicide.

  • Xboxfanuk #6 2 years ago

    Look at what Microsoft is doing with the Crackdown 2 demo, pre-earning achievements (a trick from XBLA demos) so you have another reason to buy the game.

  • NewbieZilla #7 2 years ago

    "so you have another reason to buy the game."

    If the game isn't impressive though, even getting the 1000 points from the demo will not make people pay full whack for a game. People would wait for it in second hand/bargain bin type thing.

  • loopholezero #8 2 years ago

    oh joy, more eye-opening wisdom from molyneux.

  • davisorle #9 2 years ago

    He puts it wrong yet having the first whole bit of the game for free is just like an advancement of a demo? I guess it depends on the kind of game cause a really slow paced game could just be harmed from this type of "free playtime" if not called demo :p

  • dr_shambles #10 2 years ago

    Play the original BioShock demo Peter and then tell me they're horrible. That's better than some full price games.

  • Vanmunt #11 2 years ago

    thats dead handy... at least they dont get any of my money in chunks instead of not getting any of my money in one go... once bitten and all that crap.

  • NewbieZilla #12 2 years ago

    dr_shambles

    Great demo, definitely. It must be remembered that not all genres lend themselves well to demos.

  • Rubarack #13 2 years ago

    @Menage I think the point is that if a game is a piece of shit the publishers really don't want you knowing this. Similarly if the game is hideously overrated. But demos are a bit of a risk, for every Bayonetta I've bought on the back of a demo there's a Just Cause 2 that I've been put off of. Demos, particularly for hyped or unspectacular games are a bit of a risky proposition I think this setup does make quite a bit more sense.

  • lordofthedunce #14 2 years ago

    If you die in the game they should have some sort of timer that counts down from 10 to 0 during which you can buy an extra 'credit' and continue playing...

  • rhinoxious #15 2 years ago

    It's better than a standard demo though, as you can buy as much of the game as you like, if it goes stale on ideas half-way through (which many games do) then you can walk away without having paid the full price.

    Also, I hate it that I often have to replay parts of the demo in the game, why can't demos be the beginning of the game, and then give you a valid save to continue? Like on many Xbox Arcade games.

  • chrisno21 #16 2 years ago

    Wasn't the Bioshock demo the opening part of the game aswel? Not that I agree, or will ever agree with Molyneux.

  • jefranklin18 #17 2 years ago

    Without the demo to Arkham Asylum, I would have not bought it as I am not a bat-nerd. However, a chance download convinced me otherwise when I saw how polished it was and immediately wanted it. Hmm, may dig it out again...

  • CaptainQuint #18 2 years ago

    Sigh, another day, another Molyneux quote.

  • brseg #19 2 years ago

    I think we mightve misinterpreted him a bit. I *think* he's saying that a plain demo, with no easy transfer to the full version, is a missed opportunity. Just having a demo (like Just Cause 2 ) which dies after 30 mins is a bit silly, since thats the moment you've grabbed a user, thats the moment you need to offer them the whole product or another chunk. I'm not against this, unless games are mangled around too much to fit into this plan. Its dead easy in an episodic game, of course.

    Dont know about you guys, but demos usually put me off a game, not the other way around! Demo doesnt usually live up to the hype or my expectations. I mightve bought JC2 based on the hype/reviews, but then I played the demo and didnt like it *that* much.

  • erp #20 2 years ago

    Surely this "buying in chunks" idea is only really suited to games that are linear in structure?

    And for this reason, I think it's a bad idea. Anything that straight-jackets game design cannot be a good thing.

  • RevanNL #21 2 years ago

    Most demo's contain the first (half) hour of the game, so I don't know what he has been smoking. I wouldn't have bought Crackdown, BioShock, Transformers, Saint's Row, Bayonetta, inFamous etc if it wasn't for the demo.

    And to think this guy is the chief of Microsoft Game Studios... no wonder MS sucked at this year's E3

  • I\'mListening #22 2 years ago

    One thing I've got say is that I have played the Fifa 10 and Fifa world cup demos loads with my young son and have never bought the games. We get exactly what we want from them - a quick virtual kick-about - so he was right on that, at least for me anyway.

  • RandomRash #23 2 years ago

    is this his idea of micro-transactions

  • Koozer #24 2 years ago

    Selling the game in separate chunks is a great idea, but it's pretty daft calling demos crazy.

    Also, playing that first episode of Fable II persuaded me not to buy it.

  • BigJonno #25 2 years ago

    I'm assuming the guy is talking from a developer point of view. They are a pain in the arse to produce and is anyone here going to claim that they've bought more than half of the games that they've played demos of?

    As a consumer, I like demos, but if I'm being perfectly honest, I buy most games without them. I've got a total of fourteen 360 and PS3 games on my shelf right now and only four of those (Batman, Bioshock, The Club and Mirror's Edge) had demos before I bought them. The latter two I bought for a fiver, so the demos were enough to convince me that I did want the game, but I wasn't going to pay a lot of money for it.

  • alcides #26 2 years ago

    do you want to spend an extra 2-5 or whatever dollars

    Whatever! Whatever! *chucks change at the screen*

  • Qwan #27 2 years ago

    Chunks? as erp said.. i cant only imagine it working for linear games.. Tell Tale games does a fantastic job with them.. making Monkey Island feel open yet in chunks. for for Fable? I just cant see how it would work!

    also I really do think you will end up paying more overall than the price of a game, unless you can by them all at once for the price of a full game...

  • Mark1412 #28 2 years ago

    The free hour episodic content idea is a good one, although you're arguing semantics over whether it's still a demo, pilot, trial or whatever he wants to call it.

    But for his own sake he probably shouldn't be ham-fistedly vindicating it by saying all demos suck donkey balls because no one is going to agree; he's just handing out rifles and ammo and standing perfectly still against a white wall.

  • FladgeMangle #29 2 years ago

    Credibility and trust, two words that no longer apply to this man. He pretends to be honest and up-front by criticising his old games while simultaneously hyping his next. Rinse and repeat.

  • TeaFiend #30 2 years ago

    Disagree with PM.

    Demos do not require massive design work. Take a level/area/map/slice of game, restrict some options, add sales advertisements.

  • Machiavellian #31 2 years ago

    I think most of you are looking at things on the consumer end instead of the developer end. I believe what M is saying is that its very costly to produce a demo so instead of wasting that development time producing something that might not have the same return in sales, instead chop up the main game into downloadable chunks where people can pay to play the rest if they so choose.

  • jonbwfc #32 2 years ago

    "Anyone out there who thinks a demo is a good idea is crazy. "

    [raises hand]That'll be us consumers then.
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/10 @ 13:55

  • Jackface #33 2 years ago

    What an idiot.

    Demos might be hard work and a right royal pain in the fucking ass for his team, fair enough. But they're a very good idea. They stop people wasting a VAST amount of money on something that they will otherwise have no idea of whether it will be to their liking until after it's too late.

    Sounds like this new idea of his is better all round, frankly, but to call demos a bad idea across the board is just narrow-minded.

  • Subi #34 2 years ago

    "We've seen this approach before" - Indeed you have. Didn't id do something similar with Doom? ;)

  • Machiavellian #35 2 years ago

    Demos do not require massive design work. Take a level/area/map/slice of game, restrict some options, add sales advertisements.

    That approach has been tried many times and it usually puts off the user. The reason is that such a approach never is a good representation of the game and falls short of most gamers expectations. Instead a good demo needs to be crafted to give the gamer a good feel of the full game so they can make a good purchase decision.

  • Machiavellian #36 2 years ago

    Knee Jerk reaction!! I believe most of you should take in context the audience M is talking to. He is not talking to the consumer, he is talking to the development community. Demos are very expensive to create unless you throw together a level and make it a demo which usually a user cannot conect to because either its to far ahead or at the beginning.

  • muscleblade #37 2 years ago

    "The other thing is you're more likely to satisfying the curiosity of a user rather than entice them to play more."

    I agree on this and thats why i love demos. I dont play demos for games i will buy anyway. I just play the ones where im on the fence. The Too Human demo persuaded me not to buy the game.

  • flaming.carrot #38 2 years ago

    The whole episodes thing has already been done by Siren: Blood Curse, and although it was a great game it would have been better IMHO as a single piece. The episodes forced linearity in the story and the fact that you could miss whole episodes out made the triumph of beating the final boss a little hollow.

    I did like the 'In the next episode...' trailers at the end of each part though, that worked well.

  • Negotiator #39 2 years ago

    Amazing Pete, amazing idea, this is why Microsoft paid good money for Lionhead.

  • kpapantasios #40 2 years ago

    Wow, another ORIGINAL idea from Molyneux. Beats me how noone ever thought of giving the first chapter of a game for free, and then asking for a full purchase if the player wants to continue.

    Oh wait. Apogee did it back in the day. Epic Megagames did it. ID Software also. Hell, that was the cornerstone of the shareware distribution model.

    More banality posing as revelation by Molyneux, then. The guy gives the impression that he prepares douchy, ignorant statements whenever he wants to garner attention to his upcoming games. Not quite Daikatana-era Romero, but almost up there with him.

  • towser #41 2 years ago

    This is a good idea. End of story.

    Demos take up far to much Dev time for little reward.

    Giving away the first hour of the game (which lets face it IS a demo and hell, probably more content than you'd get in a demo anyway) is a great way to cut down on costs and help keep the team focused on making a top quality product.

    Nice idea and one I hope more Devs will look at adopting.

    Gets my thumbs up

  • bad09 #42 2 years ago

    I played a demo of Arma 2 last night and now buying it off the back of playing that demo. Yeah demos are a horrible concept...but only if your game is arse.

  • Darren #43 2 years ago

    Yeah, right, demos suck, Peter Molyneux, because in your case they'd alert potential buyers to that fact that your Fable games are really not as good as you claim they are!!! ;)

    Seriously though, I'd have bought a lot fewer games if it wasn't for demos and they have on occasion saved me wasting my money when I tried one and promptly cancelled my pre-order. I suspect the latter reason is why many developers and publishers don't like demos though...

  • Redeye #44 2 years ago

    I would join those in saying that IN DEVELOPMENT TERMS, DEMOS ARE A MASSIVE PAIN IN THE ARSE, but seeing as most of you have completely ignored those words of wisdom, I won't bother.

  • vizzini #45 2 years ago

    Like with most situations there are exceptions to the rule. But the general rule of thumb; game demos sell good games and consign crap games to the bargain bin.

    As I remember it, demos only came about through natural market forces. They were an easy way to let little known bedroom coders/developers market their game to big audiences very cheaply (on magazine cover cassette tapes).

    Today’s equivalents of Live Silver, PSN, the internet and the Apple store level the playing field for publishers with smaller marketing budgets (but with 3 months dev money to do a demo)

    Promoting a game is not much different to me trying to promote a Modnation Racing track I’ve created.

    I could just subtly drop in the track name (“Everglades”) and hope people will fire up their console to find it and download it; without knowing whether it is something they will like; possibly a lot of cost(in time) for people with no guaranteed payoff.

    Alternatively I could put in some extra work (similar to demo development being a pain in the arse) and record a 3 lap test race (and track editor view) for youtube and shamelessly drop in the youtube link.

    [link url=http://www.youtube.com/user/SicilianVizzini#p/a/u /1/obCiKOiQcpE
    ]http://ww w.youtube.com/user/SicilianVizz...[/link]

    Within 45seconds of viewing you’ll know whether it’s a track for you; similar to a game demo, you shouldn’t need to drop £27- £37 pounds on a game to discover it is not for you or that it is rubbish.

    Imo, developers/publishers with good products gain from demos and help all developers improve their next products.

  • Toothball #46 2 years ago

    The best demo I ever played was the Skies of Arcadia one. I didn't care for RPGs at all until one fateful afternoon, when I popped it into my Dreamcast to kill a bit of time. Two hours later I was clamouring for the full game which wasn't due out for another couple of weeks, as was a friend of mine who'd come to see what I was doing about halfway through. What they'd done was release the first two hours of the game, which saw me go through a couple of dungeons, meet the characters and set up the basis for an exciting adventure. I couldn't wait to see what happened next. I also had a similar experience to <a href=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/mo lyneux-demos-are-horrible#comment1735846>menage</a > with the Bioshock demo.

    On the other hand, I also tried the Blue Dragon demo a while back, which simply dumped you into a dungeon with an already well levelled party that you didn't know, and left you be for an hour. I stopped after five minutes because I didn't care. The fighting looked reasonable enough, but there was no context. There were just some kids who summoned dragons or something. By that time I'd seen many different RPG battles, so with nothing else selling the game my interest waned rapidly.

    I can see this style of demo working better with some games better than others, more notably RPGs and other story driven games. With others a quick dose of the game is often all you need.

  • zisssou #47 2 years ago

    Shut up Peter

  • muscleblade #48 2 years ago

    Correct me if im wrong, but i do believe the best selling 360 games didnt have prelaunch demos.

    Gears 1+2, Halo 3, MW1 + 2, GTAIV and RDR didnt have demos.

  • WinterSnowblind #49 2 years ago

    This was posted before, and a lot of people instantly jumped all over him without even reading what he said.

    I don't really agree that demo's are horrible, but I can think of many examples where I've played a demo of a game and have been instantly turned off because the demo didn't provide a good enough showing of what the full game offers.

    Look at Darksiders for example, if they had put up a demo of the opening sequence of the game, people would have assumed it was nothing but a third rate God of War clone, and would have totally missed the Zelda-esque dungeon crawler parts of the game. So I can definitely understand what he's saying. If they put up a demo for Fable, I very much doubt it would represent the overall experience.

  • Darren #50 2 years ago

    @muscleblade - That doesn't mean those games you mentioned wouldn't have sold even more copies if they had HAD a demo though. For example, I never bought Halo 3 ODST because I didn't especially enjoy Halo 3 and with no demo I just presumed it was more of the same so opted not to buy it. So that was one lost sale, right there! ;)

    The point is that good demos such as the ones for BioShock and Batman: Arkham Asylum for example do, undoubtedly, help sell games and because they're free people who try them may decide to buy them when they might otherwise not even considered them. I've often tried demos that I wasn't especially interested in, found I enjoyed them and bought the game.

  • Seoh #51 2 years ago

    oh peter you do like to receive attention, first your episodic model is actually a demo but it the kind of demo designed to get people to buy the game not show them the whole experiece.

    Also this approach is not new back in the good old days it was called shareware

  • muscleblade #52 2 years ago

    @Darren

    I highly doubt it.

    ODST isnt for you if you didnt like Halo 3. It is more of the same and thats why i loved it.

  • Machiavellian #53 2 years ago

    Personally I love demos but thats as a consumer. Reading the actual Article you can tell that Big M is talking to developers not consumers. Demos cost a lot and the return on investment can be iff. As some have said, demos have swayed them one way or another. A lot of times demos do not convey a game properly because its to far ahead or at the beginning.

    A lot of demos cannot convey how good the full game is by a small portion or pieces of a game you only play for a few minutes.

    Any demo that gives a user a good chunk of the game ramps up the cost of the demo, spoils those sections exposed in the demo and still may not pay the cost for creating the demo.

    There is a lot of knee jerk reactions to Big M words but you have to look at the audience he is talking to and also understand the business side where he is coming from. The time and work in making a demo could be used to create a way for people to purchase the game on the spot. Give them more of the game to play and from that point on let them buy the game so they do not have to play the same section again or buy another chunk because their curiosity is engaged and they player wants to see if the rest is worth playing.

    In other words, demos are the old way of doing things, there are better methods with new technology to help the cost of giving gamers a chance to play a game and a developer to gain revenue from them that game even if the gamer doesn't purchase the full game.
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/10 @ 14:51

  • Darren #54 2 years ago

    @muscleblade - Yet I loved the original Halo?

    The point I'm making is that without a demo there was never any chance of me buying Halo 3 ODST. I have had a brief go it since though and didn't like it so in that case my decision not to buy it was the right one. If there's no demo then I'm a lot less likely to buy the game unless it's a sequel to something I really liked.

    As for Fable III... well I'm currently on the fence because I thought the first game was massively disappointing and the second game, although definitely better, was still underwhelming as an action RPG. While I like the concept and genre, I've yet to see the developers deliver the game I was expecting when Project Ego was announced. So the fact that the first hour of Fable III will be free to try is great news for me because otherwise I would have been tempted to give it a miss.

  • muscleblade #55 2 years ago

    I dont think the demos of games like Arkham Asylum or Dead Space did the games justice. I dont think a demo of Alan wake would help selling the game either even though its a fantastic game imo. I dont have anything against demos myself but i dont think its a good business decision to make one just as Peter states here.

    Darksiders and Bioshock was good though and might have helped the sales numbers a bit. I think reviews helped more though.

  • Ravenger #56 2 years ago

    I'm getting a big sense of deja-vu here. This is essentially how ID started with Wolfenstein and Doom back in the 90's; releasing the first episode of the game for free, then inviting mail-order purchases when you'd completed it.

    All this has happened before, and all this will happen again...

  • oreillymj #57 2 years ago

    In "world changing" Moylneux's universe, a demo might possibly be seen as a way of finding out that half the shit you promised was just hype.

  • andrewsqual #58 2 years ago

    Yeah I know what he means. But scripted tech DEMOS of games about a boy and an idiot in front of a camera are revolutionary and awesome.

  • kuzanagi #59 2 years ago

    Good idea but nothing new. Essentially the shareware model applied to downloadable content.

    Admittedly Molyneux isn't overtly claiming it's an entirely new concept but it is at least a little amusing to see a very old concept being dressed up in the way that this is.

  • Machiavellian #60 2 years ago


    Admittedly Molyneux isn't overtly claiming it's an entirely new concept but it is at least a little amusing to see a very old concept being dressed up in the way that this is.

    Actually its a old concept tweaked to better sell a game. The difference is the episode part or like how XBL demos of arcade games are done. Give a little piece of the game, hopefully capture the gamer attention to see more, sell them another chunk or totally wow them to purchase on the spot. It has worked on me for XBL demos where if i really like them, I usually purchase on the spot. Its the old car salesman approach. Never let the buyers off the lot if possible. Try to nail the deal because once they leave, nine times out of ten they will not come back.

  • lennon #61 2 years ago

    I agree with Peter.

  • Kaminari #62 2 years ago

    Up yours, Peter.

  • chibber23 #63 2 years ago

    I think what he describes is the future direction demos will take when all games become downloadable. As for traditional demos, I understand why he dosen't like them - sometimes it is difficult to give a user a feel for the full game with only a quick snippet, but demos have sold me on many a title (the last one being Battlefield Bad Company - I played that multiplayer demo more than is healthy).

    I have to say though if you don't feel a that a quick snippett of your game gives people a proper feel for it do what Blizzard did with Starcraft 1 - make a seperate demo with missions that don't apper in the game and give you a mini campaign that lets you get a feel for the full game. I remember playing that demo off a CD for hours on end and then buying the special edition of a game i'd previously not heard of (I was only a young lad back then) the day it came out with my megre pocket money saved up for weeks on end.

  • ronuds #64 2 years ago

    LOL @ everyone only looking at the positive side of demos and therefore trying to discredit his statement.

    I don't know about anyone else, but demos seem to sway people either way: Either towards or away from a purchas. I've thought demos have been a bad idea for publishers for a long time now, because often times they are a horrible representation of the entire game.

    Splinter Cell Conviction Demo being a prime example of a demo gone bad.

  • paketep #65 2 years ago

    Peter Molyneux and his big bag o' hype are the horrible thing here.

  • dirtysteve #66 2 years ago

    Demos area horrible idea, that we've all based purchases on for years, episodic content, however, that's a winner! I'll stick with a retail copy, the prices of episodes/download versions are farcical at the moment.

  • Dylbot #67 2 years ago

    "Demos are a horrible concept. Our idea is much better, where you get to try a chunk of the game for free, and then you buy the full thing if you like it."

    Man, that's some innovation there Molyneux!

  • malmer #68 2 years ago

    Alan Wake as episodic release would be a killer. Amazing game. My number two game this year, after Mass Effect 2. Would love for more people to try it and buy it.

    Also worth noting is that every example you guys have given of good demos are those that have started from the beginning of the game and basically gave you a free episode. Just like Peter is suggesting. He simply wants to take it to the next level where you simply can continue playing the game if you want to. If you want the boxed copy, by all means go out an buy it, but being able to buy it all or in part when you've finished the first episode is nothing short of brilliant.
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/10 @ 16:33

  • Dogzilla #69 2 years ago

    towser posted: "This is a good idea. End of story.

    Demos take up far to much Dev time for little reward.

    Giving away the first hour of the game (which lets face it IS a demo and hell, probably more content than you'd get in a demo anyway) is a great way to cut down on costs and help keep the team focused on making a top quality product.

    Nice idea and one I hope more Devs will look at adopting.

    Gets my thumbs up "



    You're a cunt and I hate you.
    Where's my N64?
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/10 @ 16:36

  • LazyDan #70 2 years ago

    Most people in this thread are grossly misunderstanding what he's saying.

    You're all equating 'demo' with 'free bit of game I can play to see if I like it.' He's saying a demo is a cut-down version of the full game with an arbitrary cutoff point. The alternative he suggests is more sensible is having the 'demo' be the first 'chapter' of the game proper, so that the ending is logical and at a point where you're compelled to play on, as opposed to being prompted with "DEMO OVER" either too soon or too late and going "oh ok, well I was bored of it anyway."

    I happen to agree with him - If you think about it the grandfather of the demo, Doom 1 on the PC, worked in exactly the way he's talking about. The 'demo' was chapter 1.

  • RevanNL #71 2 years ago

    @everyone who's claiming he's talking to developers: he's not making games for developers but for consumers. And from a consumers point of view, demo's aren't as crazy as this idiot says they are.

  • monkeywithnoeyes #72 2 years ago

    it's a great idea.. thats come across horrible wrong because Molyneux gets too ahead of himself.

    Digital distrubution is the future of gaming.. theres no getting away from that, and you'd be nieve to think different. Soon they'll be little point of purpose for "demo's" as they present themselves right now. You'd still be effectively getting to try before you buy - and most must surely agree that getting the first hour playtime free of any game is prefered over a 15-30minute demo?

    Also.. the premise of buying chapters as you go along.. whilst i dont really like the idea..as theres every possibility it will lead to us getting ripped off and messed around with the quality of the products, it's a good idea. How many games do you actually end up completing? how many games had promising starts and then completely lost their way? buying in chapters has the potential to save you money...and also make sure developers keep the quality of a game up to entice you to invest further.

  • Fatallyflawed #73 2 years ago

    "Molyneux insisted selling Fable III in downloadable chucks as well as at retail will help achieve targeted sales of five million and generate a whopping $150m in profit. "

    Whats a Downloadable Chuck??

  • bratmandu #74 2 years ago

    Chunks? There's plenty of chunks around when PM starts talking.

    This man thinks he knows exactly what gamers want. Guess what Pete? You know nothing you rambling fool. His games are a series of 'written on a napkin concepts' linked together with poor-man's, Python-wannabe-humour.

  • Machiavellian #75 2 years ago

    @everyone who's claiming he's talking to developers: he's not making games for developers but for consumers. And from a consumers point of view, demo's aren't as crazy as this idiot says they are.

    The problem is you are not getting it. You equate your purchase decision as a gamer but do not understand the cost. As seen on this post there are people who were turned on by a demo and probably just as many who were turned off. The point is do you get enough sells from a demo to weight the cost of creating it. Is the demo as it is now, the best way to promote a game. There is a lot more to the discussion then what the consumer gets out of a demo because it's evident that it goes both ways.

    Lets take a game like Batman AA. Even on this thread you have seen people purchase the game because of the demo and others who have not. Some thought it was great while others were bored. The more polished the demo, the bigger the cost and trust you me, if you have most of your devs working on the demo, it cost a lot.

  • dsmx #76 2 years ago

    But surely if your making a demo you want to demo the game so just give the people the first level for example. How much coding could possibly be needed in putting 1 level from the game in and then putting a screen at the end of the level about what's in the full game? Surely the problem in the amount of effort to create a demo lies in the way the game is created in the first place?

  • WinterSnowblind #77 2 years ago

    @Milky1985
    Because what he's doing isn't a demo. You'll be able to buy the game episodically, and he's given you the first episode for free, allowing you to try out a more complete version of the game, with no restrictions on what features you can access, etc.

    Though obviously you'll only get so much of the story/areas from the first part, it's still better than a "..buy the full game to try this feature!"

  • romelpotter #78 2 years ago


    /cynic mode activated

    Hmm this sounds like to me, just another way to conventionalize digital downloads to the masses!


    ..And yes I am aware that you can still buy the game in hard copy, thats not my point.

  • jumpdeveraux #79 2 years ago

    Surely the incentive for the evil marketing people is to charge the most for the first episodic chunk after the free starting episode as each time you break the game into chunks you provide the consumer with the ability to walk away... therefore better try to empty their wallets as soon as possible in the chain of episodes.

    You'd also derisk the fact the game is in fact a bit of a turd or less AAA than you'd planned by getting the most of your revenue early (you can discount the episodes once it's in the virtual bargain bin).

    *dons evil marketing hat and cackles*

  • romelpotter #80 2 years ago


    "Digital distribution is the future of gaming.. theres no getting away from that, and you'd be nieve to think different."

    @ Monkeywithnoeyes - I don't agree, digital downloads have come, and are about to go as far as technology goes. If one wanted to lift the nievity tag, I would be looking towards on demand streaming services as the future.

    It's all about the second hand market which streaming seemingly overcomes.



  • RevanNL #81 2 years ago

    @Machiavellian

    If I recall correctly the demo of Batman AA contained the first section of the game. I can't imagine it would cost that much to extract that from the full game. Because of that demo lot's of people bought the full game (because they were initially sceptical since it was a game based on a license and all). I guess it was the same with the demo's of BioShock, Crackdown and Mirror's Edge. In those cases, making a demo paid off.

  • Verwandlung #82 2 years ago

    Strange, I loved the Syndicate Wars demo, I must be a horrible person.

  • makeamazing #83 2 years ago

    It's better than a standard demo though, as you can buy as much of the game as you like, if it goes stale on ideas half-way through (which many games do) then you can walk away without having paid the full price

    Does anyone really think that the whole cost of this microtransaction idea will be LESS than buying the product off the shelf... no way will it... it will most likely be more expensive in the long run (i.e the whole game). But it will be interesting to see if this takes off or not, because we will have to pay for the opening level (demo) of a game. Which i think on the whole will put people off playing the game.

  • jumpdeveraux #84 2 years ago

    If production of future episodes is ongoing post launch e.g. the game story is over 5 episodes what if the game tanks and the devs get shunted to another project instead? the "full game" never gets finished and those people that bought eps 1 to 3 get left with an incomplete experience as sorry but eps 4 and 5 are cancelled.

  • djed #85 2 years ago

    demos suck, please play my demo.

  • Kerome #86 2 years ago

    Yeah good luck with that... the problem with episodes is that they have to be compelling in their own right. It's a lot harder to sell something worth £9.99 five times than something worth £49.99 just once... there's perceived value, multiple failure points, ability for people to detach and not pay for what they don't finish, difficulty in creating 5 story arcs rather than one but still have it work as one whole package, I could go on... There are good reasons why episodic content hasn't taken over the world.

    Watching with interest, fire-extinguisher at the ready, anticipating Molyneux-sized crash-and-burn.

  • monkfishjoe #87 2 years ago

    Demos are horrible for developers.

    I hope this game comes on a fucking disc as well.

  • Trikk #88 2 years ago

    €9,99 per episode, 10 episodes. I think he has figured out how to make 150 mill.

  • the_sas_man #89 2 years ago

    £9.99 for an hour of play time? In Southend I can get a blow job cheaper than that.

    Called Tesco Cava.
    Edited by 1 at 30/06/10 @ 23:05

  • Pablo2k5 #90 2 years ago

    Molyneux really is a stupid idiot he really is...

  • abrakababra #91 2 years ago

    He doesn't half talk through his hole does he?

  • itsfuzzy #92 2 years ago

    I just cant warm to this guy. Something unsavory about him.
    Still i enjoyed all the Fable's to date. .

  • ReNo #93 2 years ago

    I don't understand how so many of you are missing the point here. I know people love to jump on anything the man says but despite his controversial wording this isn't so crazy at all.

    He isn't slamming the idea of trying before you buy. If anything he is condoning taking that idea further! He's saying stripping out some section further into the game, completely out of context from the storyline/difficulty curve, and presenting it as a demo is a fundamentally flawed concept.

    He isn't so wrong. He's just being outspoken molyneux as usual. Doesn't anybody else get through a demo, buy the game and then think damn I have to play this bit again? Or have concerns that the demo will contain spoilers? They're often the equivalent of watching episode 5 of a tv show to decide whether you want to follow the series - it just doesn't make sense. Or those demos that do present you with the start of the game; why cant you use that save file to continue from in the main game? And why do I have to pop down those pesky shops to buy the game rather than pressing A to purchase and keep playing?

    From a development side too there are downsides to traditional demos. They have their own certification processes to go through, their own schedule and milestones and production woes. XBLA has done a beautiful job of making the demo an integral part of the full game - completely standardised and almost always tightly integrated to allow players to use progress and achievements they've earned in it when they unlock the full game.

    It's this that molyneux is talking about. Not so ludicrous, huh?

  • IllustriousMuz #94 2 years ago

    As someone who was at the talk Peter Molyneux gave yesterday, I am amazed that someone who is a supposed games journalist could omit the whole point the man was trying to make.

    He was a giving a developers viewpoint at a developers conference and the most important thing he said regarding demos is completely missing from this article. The fact is Demos themselves are an art form to put together and he rightly pointed out that making a good demo can be a harder task than making a good game; you must take all the good bits of your game and condense them into a 5 or 10 minute experience that will convince players to buy your game.

    From a developers viewpoint this is time and money better spent on other tasks. From a consumers point of view you can either end up with a crap demo which fails to sell you on a great game or a great demo that sells you a crappy game. His point ultimately being that it makes far more sense to give YOU, the consumer, an hour or so of full access to the game. Sometimes it works; most times it doesn't. Who hasn't played a demo that's too short or too limited? Who's played a demo that's sold you on a game for you to only find out that the game is garbage AFTER you've bought it? I have on many an occasion.

    I honestly can't believe that some people on these forums are simply using this as an excuse to have a go at a man who has done more for games than most in the industry and is expressing a great idea which really benefits YOU, the gamers. Sheer ignorance.

  • homerbert #95 2 years ago

    In movie making terms, trailers are a massive pain in the arse (They have to be cut before most of the film is ready, they are frquently cut to mis-reperpresent the film, the producer wants spoilery but the director wants teasing, etc) Well unfortunately advertising is part of the business of selling entertainment. I'm always surprised by how many games don't have demos. I practically never buy a game without playing a bit first.

    As everyone else says "Demo's are dumb, demo's with a button to buy the full game at the end are genius" is a silly statement to make.

  • Zaiz #96 2 years ago

    I think he's referring to demos that don't encompass the core of the gameplay, such as the original Half-Life's demo. If you didn't play that, and bought the game, be thankful. If you did play it, you'd never have wanted to buy the FPS that remade the genre.

  • kuzanagi #97 2 years ago

    Actually its a old concept tweaked to better sell a game. The difference is the episode part or like how XBL demos of arcade games are done. Give a little piece of the game, hopefully capture the gamer attention to see more, sell them another chunk or totally wow them to purchase on the spot. It has worked on me for XBL demos where if i really like them, I usually purchase on the spot. Its the old car salesman approach. Never let the buyers off the lot if possible. Try to nail the deal because once they leave, nine times out of ten they will not come back.

    And this is different to the shareware model how exactly?
    Edited by 1 at 02/07/10 @ 12:42

  • Bangaioh #98 2 years ago

    As usual PM is always on time when it comes to talking crap. You stick to your pilot episode of Fable III, i won't be playing it for sure. It took years to get bloody demos and now this dickwash talks crap and doesn't think for one second that a lot of players might want to try the game before paying for it. I wouldn't have bought Fable II if there was a demo around, that's for sure.