Column: More demos, please!

Once a staple in the gaming industry, demos have almost completely vanished. Two recent examples show that that is a big shame, as Yannik thinks.

Beta and Early Access - two terms that are closely associated with modern gaming. The former is usually restricted to a relatively small pool of participants if it is a Closed Beta, the latter requires players to purchase access - although to be fair, at a lower price than the eventual 1.0 release usually costs. Cheaper or not, players still have to buy in to experience what a game is like.

That was not always the case. Having been born in 1991, I grew up with the original PlayStation as my main source of video game goodness. A warm wave of nostalgia washes over me when I think about the countless hours I spent with legendary titles like FIFA 98 Road To World Cup, Crash Bandicoot, or Formula 1. Or F1 2000. Or Le Mans 24 Hours. You get the idea.

But another part of this nostalgia is the stack of demo discs that are sadly nowhere to be found anymore. We probably lost them when moving house a few times. I would love to give them a look again, as there were always cool titles to discover, and sometimes not-so-great ones to have a good laugh about.

Countless Black PS1 Discs​

These all-black discs - except for their white print - were practically thrown at the avid late 1990s gamer everywhere. Bought a gaming magazine with a focus on Sony's grey box of admittedly poorly-aged 3D visual dreams? Have a demo disc to check out what is coming up. Remember those big box PS1 games? If a game did not come on four discs to fully use that box's capacity, chances were high you would find a demo disc inside as an extra.

The list of demo discs released in the PAL region alone is absurdly long. Apparently, there were a bunch of demo discs dedicated to a single game as well, but I cannot remember ever seeing one of them in person. Anyway, that is not important for the point of this column.

Whether it was a collection of different titles or a single one on these discs, what they offered was much the same: Small previews of games, often a single level or game mode with certain restrictions to show players what to expect in the full release. I am certain I drove my parents nuts whenever I stumbled upon a cool game that 7-year-old me absolutely needed to have on one of these.

Nowadays, it is easier to tame my enthusiasm, at least that is what I like to believe. That, and demos are a species that is close to being extinct. And if there are some, they certainly do not come on cool black discs that you could stack almost as high as yourself and that had weirdly cool electronic menu music.

TDUSC & Golden Lap: Refreshing Examples​

In a time of everything being able online, it makes sense from a developer's (and publisher's) point of view to offer beta programs, be it closed or open, instead. It is much easier to control this preview environment and quickly fix things - but as mentioned, Closed Betas usually restrict access to only a handful of players. And Open Betas are seemingly not happening all that often anymore, either.

Because of this, it was refreshing to see both Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown and Golden Lap being available in demo form as part of Steam Next Fest. Although only available for a limited time, they allowed players to gather their own experiences and impressions instead of having to rely on what others showed or told them.

The resonance to TDUSC was not particularly great - not what Nacon or KT Racing wanted to hear. Despite this, looking at it from a consumer's point of view, it was great to release this demo. Even if the first impressions were not all that positive, players could form their own opinion. Similarly, some liked Golden Lap for its simplistic approach to a retro F1 manager game, others were missing that certain something.


If used correctly, demos could help a game's hype considerably. But it is a double-edged sword, of course. Take Automobilista 2, for example. The title has made big strides in development, yet the free demo available on Steam is far from being on par with the full version. Many a Reddit post hinted at players being interested in AMS2, only to try the demo and find the included road cars and their physics rather off-putting.

Demos: Risky Business​

As you can see, demos are a risk, too. And most publishers and studios likely want to avoid this risk of their games looking bad due to something their small team might have overlooked.

Therefore, I think it is unlikely that demos are making a larger-scale comeback anytime soon - but we can always hope, of course. With a number of interesting sim racing titles like Assetto Corsa Evo, GTRevival or The Last Garage being in development, having demo versions of them at some point would be excellent.

Meanwhile, there is a way to try the full versions of games after they release to Steam. The platform has a trial policy that allows players to return games for a full refund until they have accumulated a maximum of two hours of play time. A decent solution that is also consumer friendly - if only it had that weird electronic menu music. Ah well.

What are your thoughts on demos? Do you think they should come back, or is what we have nowadays fine for you? Let us know on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!