I'm curious to see if publishers will be willing to opt into this. On one hand, letting someone sit through the install time and see if they enjoy the game before paying for it probably significantly reduces the hurdle of "hmm, do I really want this game" for many consumers. On the other hand, if your PC port is a shameless, unoptimized moneygrab then players realizing that fact might balk rather than committing to actually buying the game.<p>It could also end up encouraging longer "tutorial" sections at the beginning of games, which you can aggressively optimize to give players a misplaced confidence that their computers can run the game effectively.
This feature sounds like it's there to be nice to consumers, but it's actually probably there to be nice to developers.<p>When a customer refunds a game, steam keeps its 30% cut. This lets players try games without punishing the developer by making them pay that 30%<p>I suspect anyway
Well, nice.<p>I normally pirate my games to see if they work with my setup. If they do, there's a chance I'll buy them. But having it just work with Steam is much more likely I just pay a few bucks for a game, rather than look for it on a private tracker.
I'm strongly considering trialing and buying Dead Space through this, even though I don't care for the game (I'm not a horror game fan).<p>Customer friendly policies and programs are absolutely worth rewarding. I have a wallet, and I might as well vote with it!
I'm very interested in how this interacts with Valve's standard policy of giving refunds for games you've played for less than two hours.<p>I suspect there will be more demo downloads, but fewer total (non-refunded) purchases with this modal. The question is where do you apply friction, before download or after 90 minutes of gameplay.<p>I'm also generally concerned with demo-hacking. Putting all the novelty in the first 90 minutes. Placing one large cliff hanger or achievement near the 90 minute mark. Building a starting place that takes just over 90 minutes to get out of. I do get the impression PC devs are aware of the 120 minute mark and try to make the first two hours strong. This lowers that bar.
My wife and I just started a games company after a long career in an unrelated IT field and this is awesome. Not only is it good for the consumer, it also saves the dev from having to produce a separate demo. It removes the hurdle of having to fork out the money up front and the mental anxiety of overstepping the 2 hour mark unintentionally, so more people will try new games. This is probably not going to matter much to larger productions with a large marketing budget, but it does save indies a nice chunk of time.<p>There is also the problem of very short and cheap games, those should probably be excluded l.
I like the idea. It would definitely make me test out more games that I'm hesitant of buying today, especially with a game library of close to 1000 games. It's crazy how you get multiple games for free each week nowadays. On the downside, I'm certain it would lower my tolerance in new games. If you buy it, you kinda need to give it a proper chance. Now you can try it for 20 minutes and just throw it away.
I asked for a refund recently at around 2 hours into a game, because it kept locking up. I thought it might be my computer but the internet is full of people with the same problem.<p>For a launch title, these things are common now. But this was a 2 year old game.
This might get me to buy more games. Let me start off by saying I'm a very casual gamer, playing only a few hours a month tops. My two friction points are the return policy, which has a 2 week limit, and the huge download sizes for games.<p>If I wanted to play a game, I'd have to wait a few hours to download the whole thing. I don't have Google fiber. My time to have played that game is usually gone by the time that's over and I might not get a chance to play again for another 2 or 3 weeks. Having the 90 minute trials would completely solve this problem for me.
This is potentially huge - at least for me personally, there is <i>nothing</i> more likely to get me to buy a game, than letting me sit down and try playing it for free. I’ll even try random demos of games I don’t even think look good, because why not? Trailers are lies. Watching other people play is alright but frustrating. Getting to play yourself? There’s simply no substitute.
Seems like a simplification of their 2-hour refund policy. On one hand it's good to not have to bother with credit card transactions and refunds at all. On the other this seems to be opt-in from the developer's side (at least for now).
I think this is an amazing idea. As long as it's not pricey it would give someone like me (not a huge diverse gamer) a chance to get real gameplay on something long enough to get an idea if I enjoy it enough.
Expect more 2-hour cutscene fests. As a recent egregious offender Hogwarts Legacy comes to mind,; I think actual gameplay lasted around 10 minutes in the first two hours and the rest was cutscenes.
As someone who makes games this strikes me as nuts. I can easily see players enjoying their 90-minutes and leaving satisfied, why pay for more? We know from achievements and other data very few players reach a game's ending. I wager this will just encourage more sampling of games without ultimately buying a copy.<p>Additionally, creating a compelling 90-minute demo _on top of the game itself_ is daunting! I recently-ish created a ~30-minute demo[1] and it nearly killed me and my colleagues...<p>[1]: Shameless plug <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1446350/You_Will_Die_Here_Tonight/" rel="nofollow">https://store.steampowered.com/app/1446350/You_Will_Die_Here...</a>