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> Open Letter on Exclusive Demos
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The Ghost of Inept Pig
Posted: Dec 16 2003, 21:04
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You may remember (or probably not) that Call of Duty was, at one point, going to be an exclusive demo, made available to paid subscribers only - but after an open letter to Activision, the release was made public and the world seemed to be a much happier place for it.

However, with Armed & Dangerous becoming another exclusive demo, for paid members of Fileplanet - the same collection of sites have once again gathered together in order to make a point clear - and say that they will no longer make mention of any exclusive demo at all.

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In the gaming industry, the free playable demo is one of the most popular and powerful tools to interest gamers in the final product. Production and testing of a demo can also take significant resources out of a development team. It therefore seems logical to expect publishers will maximise the game's exposure by giving the demo the widest possible release.

Unfortunately this is not always the case, and sometimes a demo is given the most restricted release: to one site for several days or even a week. The marketing perception that this creates good exposure for the pertaining demo is actually a misconception, as enthusiast gamers resent having only one, crowded, choice for download. And all file hosting sites, including the ones listed below, will simply not mention the demo at all, thus limiting its exposure to general news sites only.

Promotions like this only help one website, but at the expense of alienating the enthusiast community which makes up a large chunk of the overall audience and download traffic. It absolutely hurts the industry at large much more than it can help a single relationship.

We have already presented this situation to several major publishers who have had plans to do exclusive demos in the past and who have agreed to stop this practice, but it's still happening. Therefore, in an effort to end this once and for all, the following gaming websites (together representing 19 million unique visitors per month) have agreed not to host any exclusive demos anymore, even after they eventually become public:

3D Downloads
3D Gamers
3D-Shooter.net
ActionTrip
Adrenaline Vault
AusGamers
Boomtown
ComputerGames.ro
Fappin
FileCity.gr
FileFront
FileShack
FileRush
Fragzone.se
GameCenter.cz
GameNavigator.ru
Gamer's Hell
GameSurf.de
GameTab
LoadedInc
PC Gameworld
Tiscali Games
WorthPlaying

While these websites are normally competitors, this competition provides the freedom of choice that enthusiasts want by offering the widest possible distribution of any demo rather than the most restricted one. Therefore, something this disrespectful of the industry as a whole has inspired all of these websites to stand together in this open letter.

We value your readership and ask for your support in sending out this message by not downloading exclusive demos, emailing game companies who release exclusive demos, and letting your opinion be known on public message boards.


Although I support what they're doing entirely, it looks like the only way I'll be getting an Armed & Dangerous demo now is off a cover CD...

Bah humbug.
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Ordep
Posted: Dec 17 2003, 15:57
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it looks like the only way I'll be getting an Armed & Dangerous demo now is off a cover CD...


Or you could play the original A&D entirely free.

"To drum up interest in the upcoming release of Hidden & Dangerous 2, the game's publisher, Gathering, is making the original title (along with the Devil's Bridge expansion, all required patches and updates, and the game's mission editor) available at no cost via a download from its site."

Clicky'ety-click
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