Several gaming sites joined an alliance protesting against exclusive demo releases and seeking to promote the broadest available means of giving consumers access to samples of games before they make a purchase:
News source: The Adrenaline Vault
- In the gaming industry, the free, playable demo is one of the most popular and powerful tools to interest gamers in a 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 maximize the game's exposure by giving the demo the widest possible release.
Unfortunately, this isn't always the case, and sometimes a demo is given to one site for several days or even a week. The marketing perception that this creates good exposure for the pertaining demo is a misconception, as enthusiast gamers resent having only one, crowded choice from which to download. And all file hosting sites, including the ones listed below, simply won't mention the demo at all, thus limiting its exposure to general news sites only.
Promotions like this help only one website 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 more than it can help a single relationship.
News source: The Adrenaline Vault
- We've already presented this situation to several major publishers who have had plans to do exclusive demos in the past and 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 nearly 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
- ActionTrip
- Adrenaline Vault
- AusGamers
- Boomtown
- ComputerGames.ro
- FileCity.gr
- FileFront
- FileShack
- FileRush
- GameCenter.cz
- Gamer's Hell
- GameSurf.de
- 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.
Not if there are so many bugs that it CAN'T EVEN BE INSTALLED!
If I cant wait then I use a torrent. Most of the sites on that list are not worth my time..
Their ads, their intrusiveness...
Anyway, damn good letter.
One thing is that they don't host the files, they shouldn't post news about it either. Because that would be one and the same. They should totally ignore them.
Some site wrote like 'We are with the guys that don't host those demo's, but you can go to IGN.com and download it'. That is just crap!
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