EA To Charge For Game Demos 313
Kohato brings word of a new Electronic Arts marketing strategy that aims to start monetizing game demos. According to industry analyst Michael Patcher after an EA investor visit, the publisher will start selling "premium downloadable content" prior to a game's release for $10-$15 that is essentially a longer-than-usual demo. Patcher said, "I think that the plan is to release PDLC at $15 that has 3-4 hours of gameplay, so [it has] a very high perceived value, then [EA will] take the feedback from the community (press and players) to tweak the follow-on full game that will be released at a normal packaged price point." He also made reference to a comment from EA's CEO John Riccitiello that "the line between packaged product sales and digital revenues would soon begin to blur."
Re:Shareware (Score:5, Informative)
How is this shareware? Shareware was giving away free trial versions of a software that you then had to pay to upgrade to the full version. This is selling people a beta version of a game to demo.
Re:$15 dollars for 4 hours of gameplay? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's the Polyphony Digital model! (Score:5, Informative)
Sensationalist Buillshit (Score:5, Informative)
What the headline says:
"EA To Charge For Game Demos"
What the article says:
- None of the proposals call for charging consumers for traditionally free game demos.
Re:It'll work (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Shareware (Score:3, Informative)
...and always wondered at who would buy them when they were free! All you needed was access to a BBS or a mate.
For some of us it was cheaper to buy them at the store then tie up the phone line to a long distance call to a BBS server.
Re:Shareware (Score:3, Informative)
Where I was at MOST of the BBS's were long distance, not to mention that downloads were slow as molasses on a 2400 BAUD modem and the terminal program wasn't multitasking (so you had to leave the computer alone to do it's thing while it downloaded).
Trust me, those shareware houses that sold "by the disk" had a purpose back in the day.