For-Pay Demos Coming to Xbox Live?

The Opposable Thumbs blog is talking about a disconcerting new idea being floated by the Official Xbox Magazine. Most people only buy the mag for the demos; they're considering just offering up the exclusive demos on Xbox Live, along with the included trailers and such. The catch? They're going to charge you $2.50 for the privilege. From the article: "We're used to paying for Xbox Live at this point--the feature set is worth the money--but it was sold to us as something of an all-inclusive deal. You're a part of the Xbox network, so you get the demos and the videos and that's part of what you're paying for. Now there is even more of an incentive to offer for-pay demos to people with this new distribution model. In some ways the magazine is already obsolete, and they could conceivably soon be in the business of selling demos." Would you pay money for a downloadable demo?

Comments

Re:Amusing

[spun]

Yeah, you fed the troll a little bit. But I was more over-reacting than really trolling.

Making money is okay. Sure, I made a big leap of inference there. Something about the attitude pissed me off. It's not just you, I've seen it before and I guess I took it all out on you, sorry. It really feels like some people have a knee jerk reaction towards people complaining about commercial things, like the only legitimate way to express one's dissatisfaction with a commercial product is by not buying it. Complaining about it to others is too much like collectivism, and we can't have that! I don't know if that's what you really think or feel, but it's the impression I get whenever anyone makes those kind of anti-free-speech, shut-up-and-just-don't-buy-it arguments.

So, okay, maybe I over-reacted. I'd love to hear your explanation as to why people complaining about something they don't like is so bad. When people complain, they are providing free information to the producers of the goods being complained about, who would otherwise have no idea exactly why people aren't buying their product. Maybe we should charge for our complaints.