Not Offering A Demo Better For Indie Games?

Posted by simoniker on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:32PM from the odd-results-du-jour dept.

Thanks to DIYGames for their article showing surprising results from an independent game developer who offer games for sale directly on their website. According to the piece, "Every other visitor to the website is given an alternative page for each game that does not give them the option to download a demo of the game. The idea is to see how sales are affected by not giving users a free demo." So, while the article points out that "the results are less than scientific", 43.3% of total dollar volume came from 'demo available page', and 56.7% of the dollar volume from the 'no demo available page'. The developer concluded by working out that "not offering a demo increased sales revenue by roughly 31%." Does not offering a demo increase the sales of a game, sometimes, or is this just crazy talk?

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just do the math by rhild · 2003-10-25 20:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

Let's say 100 people visit the site. Let's say they all want to buy the game, but if given the chance to download a demo first, they will.

Of those 100, 50 hit the 'no demo available' page and make a purchase.

The other 50 hit the 'demo available page' and download the demo. They like it and come back to buy. When they come back to buy 25 will hit the 'no demo available page' and make their purchase. The other 25 hit the 'demo available' page and make their purchase.

The result: Of the 100 people 75 make the purchase from the 'no demo page' and 25 from the 'demo' page, thus proving demos are a bad idea???