Hi Tom.
another fact to considder, is that often the experience of playing a game is
very different to that of hearing about it. A perfect example hear is rail
racer.
I do not myself enjoy racing games, they are not something that tends to
interest me in the least. Thus I wasn't absolutely enthusiastic about rail
racer. nor did the podcast Che made about the game precisely enthrall me
either because the concept of riding round a track on a machine bolted to it
on a rail where you couldn't actually hit the sides or crash struck me as
even less interesting than usual racing games.
However because! there was a demo available, and because I know myself that
the experience of playing a game can be vastly different from hearing about
it I tried the thing and found my previous assumptions to be wrong.
in the case of rail racer in fact, I'd argue that the reason the game works
is in it's mechanics and fine tuning and the need to develope the necessary
judgement and coordination to play properly, things which are not clear from
a review or a podcast, and only become clear when you try the game for
yourself.
This is especially true of games hwich might be extremely well designed, but
in genres or settings that you would not normally play. You mention your own
experience with sarah as an example, but even if Kelly or someone similar
made a podcast would you have been likely to buy the game without a demo? I
know for a fact I myself would not have bought railracer without that demo,
and would (I'm sorry to say), be unlikely to considder buying any other
racing title unless a demo was available since it is a subject and genre of
games that I just do not generally find interests me.
So if you for instance produced race way and had no demo, I would probably
not buy a copy myself however good the game might be and quite likely even
if someone made a podcast about it.
In that case however I probably would be more likely to play a pirated copy
just to see what the game was like, far more likely than if a demo was
available in fact.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
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