14 DAY TRIAL // Bethesda have most likely taken on a monumental task when they decided to buy the Fallout 3 license from Interplay and then use it to create their next game. They face a twin set of challenges. On the one hand, after the success of Oblivion, they need to create a game that delivers an open world universe with a great story, clever gameplay mechanics and amazing visual features. On the other hand, because they are working with an intellectual property that has a dedicated and, at times, ferocious fan base, they need to make a game that is in every way a continuation and an improvement on Fallout 2.
And they have just made their task harder by announcing that no demo will be available to let potential buyers feel the possibilities of the game before putting up the cash needed to get it. Bethesda's Pete Hines has talked exclusively to Eurogamer about what a demo would mean and why the Fallout universe itself makes one impossible.
Hines declared that "When you build it as one thing, there's no way to portion off a section and have it stand on its own without putting the whole game in the demo, which we're just not going to do". In other words, a demo would not offer anything close to the released game because of the need to separate a chunk from what is a complete, organic, fully integrated entity.
He continued by saying that "it doesn't really capture the fun of a game like an Elder Scrolls or a Fallout, where you can go where you want and do what you want. So no demo, sorry".
The issue of game demos is one hotly debated. A recent study has showed that other promotional material, like trailers and screenshots or development blogs, has the potential to create more buzz for a game than for a demo. The value of the demo comes into play later, when the game has been released for a few weeks and new players might be attracted to buy it if they see a demo version. The idea is that true fans would have most likely already picked up the game, so the demo would target gamers who are still on the fence, unsure of whether to buy the game or not.