GamePro’s Sid Shuman sat down with Cliff Bleszinski in a recent interview and they rapped about everything Gears and while it’s an interesting read I enjoyed Bleszinski’s answer about why there’s no beta or demo for GoW2. Be sure to check out the rest of the interview when you have a few minutes of downtime.
A beta is like hooking up with a girl just to say, “yeah, I f*cked her.” I know that sounds crude, but it’s the honest-to-God truth. Once you play a beta, you can check it off your list — you can say, “yeah, I played it.” Then you might not feel motivated to get that initial cherry popping from the proper, final game.
Honestly, we could make a demo, but Gears of War 2 wouldn’t be out until February of 2009 [if we did]. That stuff takes times to put together.
Granted, we may need to tweak a few things in multiplayer after release through an update. People are going to find exploits we didn’t anticipate. That’s the reality of making a game — look at MMOs. We’re prepared for that, but we think we’re shipping a pretty great game out of the box here.
Nice explanation, a little crude but I can understand where he is coming from. I’m not a big believer in demos though. Anyone else agree?
I remember when the demo for NBA 2k9 was released, and while it did wet the appetite of a lot of people, many of them were quick to bash the demo about how it wasn’t good enough. The 2Ksports board was lit up with negative views, so I can see where Cliff is coming from. So I can wait to pop that cherry and get the full experience. I’m not looking for a drunken one night stand.
I honestly think it’s a ridiculous rational. If the game you are putting out is at all engaging, then a demo will hook the audience and get them to purchase the full game. More importantly, it will get fence riders (or even people who would never normally buy a type of game) to buy the game (if the game your putting out is quality).
Demos only hurt crap games.
Ahhh! Isn’t good to see that some people still have a mastery of language?
Just so we’re clear, his rational is that by just hooking up/f*cking a girl, that will not “pop the cherry”?