RE: Matrixgames and Demos

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RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 7/31/2007 8:34:11 PM

sterckxe

Posts: 4605
Joined: 3/30/2004
From: Flanders
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: mek42
So, how should a newcomer use the AAR's in lieu of a demo? Looking at some of the products that have been on the market awhile, the AAR's seem full of heavy, advanced concepts.

Depends on who's doing it

<plug-mode>

Take a look at MarkShot's excellent AAR of Conquest of the Aegean - babysteps, 1 concept at a time, plenty of explanation of the how and why (pdf in zip)

ftp://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/conquestoftheaegean/COTA%20Mini-Guide%20Dec-22-2005.zip

or get a quick impression from watching the 5-minute guide (avi in zip)

http://cota.matrixgames.com/downloads/cota%20-%205%20minute%20guide%20v2.0.zip

then visit the game's webpage at

http://cota.matrixgames.com/

</plug-mode>

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

(in reply to mek42)

Post #: 31

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/2/2007 7:32:22 AM

Deride

Posts: 488
Joined: 6/21/2004
From: Dallas, TX
Status: offline

Just wanted to jump in with the opinion of a developer.

At Koios Works, we made the decision to release demos for our games because:

1) We were a new company without an established record -- we were hoping that players with doubts about quality or the game system would be introduced enough the enjoy the game.

2) Our games are more tactical and therefore more amenable to demos.

For developers who have established reputations and more complex games might want to skip the effort in building the demo so that they can add in more features or spend more time fixing bugs.

Deride

(P.S. Whoever said that demos to these games were available before Matrix picked them up -- that isn't true. At Koios Works, at least, we worked closely with the Matrix team to determine the right mix of features to add into the demo versions and how much documentation was necessary to make players able to play the game successfully. Building a demo is not a small feat by itself -- there is a lot of planning and work to it.)

(in reply to sterckxe)

Post #: 32

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/2/2007 2:56:39 PM

Erik Rutins

Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline

As Russ pointed out, we've never to my knowledge "removed" an existing demo when a developer joined us. What would be the reasoning behind that?

Here's what I posted on UseNet on this topic:

Just FYI, we are indeed demo-agnostic. There are several reasons for
this, the first being that demos generally consume a decent additional
chunk of development time and provide virtually no sales benefit (for
the types of games we generally make). The second is that if the demo
is not great, it can actually be counter-productive in terms of making
a game seem in some ways worse than it is. People don't spend much
time on demos, not nearly as much time as they do in learning a game
they already paid for and most of our games require learning and some
commitment to really appreciate and enjoy. We feel that screenshots,
feature lists, AARs and open discussions with developers on our forums
for Q&A do a very good job in communicating what the game is really
like to those that are interested. We're doing everything we can to
keep potential customers informed and to inform their purchasing
decisions - I think for many mainstream companies the demo is the
stand-in for that type of personal customer contact. Of course, one
can do both but given past results we don't always find the additional
development time worthwhile simply to overlap the efforts we already
make to inform the customer.

With that said, the one thing a demo does do well is compatibility
testing - however there also it can be counter-productive. Some folks
mentioned that the Panzer Command demo didn't work for them. That
game and demo comes with Managed DirectX and .NET as required
components for installation. 99% of the support issues on that game
were from people who bought it and skipped the DirectX installation
(even though it said Managed DirectX - Required) and then couldn't get
the game to work as a result. Running that component installation
manually fixed that 100% of the time. No doubt even more people who
tried the demo made the same choice, ran into the same problem, but
just figured the game didn't work - most would never invest time
contacting a company for a support question on a demo, They just ditch
it and move on, hence there's an instance where a demo likely mis-
informed people and cost us sales for no real reason.

In any case, we tend to look at each of our games to see if we think
it would benefit from a demo and also discuss the demo option with
developers to see if they have any interest in putting the time in to
make a good demo. When we and/or the developer feel a demo would be
worthwhile, we do one. The result has been that a minority of our
games have demos, but we definitely have put them out there and will
continue to as it seems appropriate.

Regards,

- Erik

_____________________________

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.

(in reply to Deride)

Post #: 33

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/2/2007 2:59:12 PM

Erik Rutins

Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline

quote:

quote:

Well, fyi : last demos from Matrix were :

Gary Grigsby's World at War
Panzer Command - Operation Winter Storm
Battles in Normandy
Tin Soldiers - Alexander the Great

I seem to remember 3 out of 4 of those having demos before even being picked up by Matrix so I don't think those are good examples.

That's incorrect - all of these games had no demos at all until we worked with the developer to get a demo out there on our site. None of these games were "picked up by Matrix" after being finished, all were developed along with us from start to finish and we funded development on some of them and participated in design and development work on others.

Regards,

- Erik

_____________________________

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.

(in reply to David Heath)

Post #: 34

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/2/2007 6:43:18 PM

Joram

Posts: 3198
Joined: 7/15/2005
Status: offline

I'm fine admitting I'm wrong.� Thanks for the history lesson.� :)� And thanks for the perspective from the developer.� Those are good thoughts.� I'll stand by my statement that I can't hardly think it's ever wrong to produce a demo but I'm also happy to agree to disagree too. PS that's from a consumer's perspective of course and PPS, I could have sworn I got Tin Soldiers and it had nothing to do with Matrix, hmm, will have to break it out again and see! :)

< Message edited by Joram -- 8/2/2007 7:24:37 PM >

(in reply to Erik Rutins)

Post #: 35

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/8/2007 4:01:06 PM

Marauders

Posts: 4428
Joined: 3/17/2005
From: Minnesota
Status: offline

As Erik stated in his "Demo Agnostic" post, demos can take a lot of time to get right, and many of the games that Matrix Games sell have small programming and production teams. That doesn't mean there should not be demos for some games, but it does mean that there is often more incentive to work on the development of the game rather than a demo.

(in reply to Joram)

Post #: 36

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/8/2007 9:39:17 PM

Kuokkanen

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Joined: 4/2/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marauders

As Erik stated in his "Demo Agnostic" post, demos can take a lot of time to get right, and many of the games that Matrix Games sell have small programming and production teams.

From deme of The Operational Art of War, Vol 1 I got feeling it is totally working game but only with one scenario and saves disabled. Similar feeling from Supreme Commander: just couple scenarios from Cybrid campaign and that's it. Why wouldn't that work for all war games?
(note: I don't know if there are something more extensive in those demos that didn't meet my eye, but otherwise it seems simple like that)

And then is SPWAW: Mega-Campaigns cost money but everything else is free for download. That seems almost like whole new approach compared to old concept, where each Mega-Campaign would had been game on its own (like KP, BIN and BII). I would like to see more of that in future (almost whole new approach of SPWAW that is).

< Message edited by Matti Kuokkanen -- 8/8/2007 9:42:20 PM >

_____________________________

You know what they say, don't you? About how us MechWarriors are the modern knights, how warfare has become civilized now that we have to abide by conventions and rules of war. Don't believe it.

MekWars

(in reply to Marauders)

Post #: 37

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/9/2007 12:54:10 AM

Widell

Posts: 913
Joined: 4/27/2005
From: Trollh�ttan, Sweden
Status: offline

This is obviously not a yes/no issue. The demo is one channel to present the product to a potential buyer, and as with most products, the seller of the product must decide what channels are best suited for the intended audience and the type of product. It is not as obvious as all games should have a demo or the other way around. If I would have started my WITP gaming with a demo, I would most likely not have bought the game. Why? Because I don't think it possible to make a demo of WITP that gives a fair idea of the complexity and depth of the game, and the potential customer gets ticked off by a demo that has him/her moving counters around for a long time, and then the demo ends. Even if one of the shorted scenarios would have been the demo in this case it would most likely not have worked. At the other end of the scale there are the FPS's and Colin McRae type of games where a few missions or races give you a fair idea of if the game is something for you or not. In my case it was the AAR's that sold me a copy of WITP, but somehow I can't see that happening with Colin McRae!

_____________________________

(in reply to Kuokkanen)

Post #: 38

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/9/2007 10:03:35 PM

Kuokkanen

Posts: 3545
Joined: 4/2/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Widell

It is not as obvious as all games should have a demo or the other way around. If I would have started my WITP gaming with a demo, I would most likely not have bought the game. Why? Because I don't think it possible to make a demo of WITP that gives a fair idea of the complexity and depth of the game, and the potential customer gets ticked off by a demo that has him/her moving counters around for a long time, and then the demo ends. Even if one of the shorted scenarios would have been the demo in this case it would most likely not have worked.

Isn't that (moving counters around the map) the case with most of operational-strategy scale wargames? Of course one short scenario with live ammunition won't do when player don't know how damn thing works. Tutorial scenario or 2 along with serious scenario or 2 and with decent documentation are in order. And those same things can be part of sale game.

quote:

At the other end of the scale there are the FPS's and Colin McRae type of games where a few missions or races give you a fair idea of if the game is something for you or not. In my case it was the AAR's that sold me a copy of WITP, but somehow I can't see that happening with Colin McRae!

I have! Chief editor of MikroBitti (Finnish computer magazine) and someone else played Coling McRae Rally and Richard Burns Rally against professional rally driver and his map reader. First game in order was Colin McRae and rally men weren't impressed. Next was Richard Burns and they shouted out of joy for all the available tools and variables how to customize car and magazine staff didn't understand much anything about their tech babble. Even though I'm not interested about racing games, it was very interesting to read. AAR of racing games can be done.

And back to topic. When there are more information channels available, people tend to get more information about things they are interested about. AARs, reviews and other text based information channels along with screenshots will give some information of game. Add demo, and it'll be whole lot more, likely with more satisfied customers and less dissapointments.

_____________________________

(in reply to Widell)

Post #: 39

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/10/2007 1:16:10 AM

Widell

Posts: 913
Joined: 4/27/2005
From: Trollh�ttan, Sweden
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
Isn't that (moving counters around the map) the case with most of operational-strategy scale wargames? Of course one short scenario with live ammunition won't do when player don't know how damn thing works. Tutorial scenario or 2 along with serious scenario or 2 and with decent documentation are in order. And those same things can be part of sale game.

Well now that's a can of worms! I'm not really into the huge, huge games like WITP and the large scenarios in TOAW, mainly due to real life constraints (This RL thing is a show stopper, isn't it?), but to simplify a game like WITP or TOAW (and others by all means) to the point where a "counter-shuffle-demo" would be reflecting the depth and quality of the gameplay offered is to make things too easy. I am not saying that a good demo cannot be made for such games, just that it has to be one good demo to make the full game justice, and the question is if the effort needed to open that sales channel cannot be put to better use in developing the full game instead?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
I have! Chief editor of MikroBitti (Finnish computer magazine) and someone else played Coling McRae Rally and Richard Burns Rally against professional rally driver and his map reader. First game in order was Colin McRae and rally men weren't impressed. Next was Richard Burns and they shouted out of joy for all the available tools and variables how to customize car and magazine staff didn't understand much anything about their tech babble. Even though I'm not interested about racing games, it was very interesting to read. AAR of racing games can be done.

But still, the demo of the racing game would, for most of their intended buyers, be a better sales effort compared to an AAR describing how they tune the suspension and adjust the turbo charger. Again, I believe this discussion is more about selecting where to spend time and effort when promoting a game

quote:

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
And back to topic. When there are more information channels available, people tend to get more information about things they are interested about. AARs, reviews and other text based information channels along with screenshots will give some information of game. Add demo, and it'll be whole lot more, likely with more satisfied customers and less dissapointments.

This I agree 100% with, as long as the demo will give the potential customer a fair enough experience of what the full game would be, and the effort to create such a demo does not mean less features or less development of the full game

_____________________________

(in reply to Kuokkanen)

Post #: 40

RE: Matrixgames and Demos - 8/11/2007 5:04:14 PM

Kuokkanen

Posts: 3545
Joined: 4/2/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Widell

quote:

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
Isn't that (moving counters around the map) the case with most of operational-strategy scale wargames? Of course one short scenario with live ammunition won't do when player don't know how damn thing works. Tutorial scenario or 2 along with serious scenario or 2 and with decent documentation are in order. And those same things can be part of sale game.

Well now that's a can of worms! I'm not really into the huge, huge games like WITP and the large scenarios in TOAW, mainly due to real life constraints (This RL thing is a show stopper, isn't it?), but to simplify a game like WITP or TOAW (and others by all means) to the point where a "counter-shuffle-demo" would be reflecting the depth and quality of the gameplay offered is to make things too easy. I am not saying that a good demo cannot be made for such games, just that it has to be one good demo to make the full game justice, and the question is if the effort needed to open that sales channel cannot be put to better use in developing the full game instead?

I'm not sure if I'm following you. Is demo of TOAW1 some ways simplified of full game? Or demos of CM serie and SupCom? For me all of them look like real deal: all gameplay features that have been mentioned in reviews seems to be in and available in those scenarios that come with the demo. In case of CM:SF demo there are tutorial scenario, serious scenario and PDF manual that is nearly 200 pages! Ok, manual don't say how infantry is loaded to Strykers and I didn't find that from UI, but otherwise demo of CM:SF appears to be exactly like the full game, but with just two scenarios. Can anyone, who has played both, confirm this?

[edit]
I could actually test that myself by downloading CM2 demo, but I'm sure someone here has played both of them already. Is there something in CM2 that isn't in demo (within available scenarios and game options)?