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Dragon Age: Inquisition Pre-Release Thread

tuluse

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Do you have any data to back this up? I have at least one study (mine) that indicates that gamers feel demos are the best way to learn about a game before purchase, and they indicate a high level of willingness to play them.

Publishers are reluctant to release demos because it takes time away from development. You basically have to do all the shit you do at crunch time, a few months before the game is actually finished, in order to make a playable "minigame."
It's because gamers were learning about games that they weren't buying them. A good amount of game sales these days are predicated on ticking the customer into buying a game they don't really want. Not that they don't want it at all, but they only mildly want it and the lack of a demo to get it out of their system, they have to buy the thing.

Also, demos are a lot more expensive that a 2 minute long video.
 

cvv

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The big publishing companies are slowly but surely winning the "war" against piracy, at least in the US.

I don't think it's necessarily a big publishers' war. It's a war the gamers should fight too, primarily by shaming pirates on forums like this one. It may seem naive but it does works, at least for me. I've pirated AC4 after many years of being "clean" and I felt really bad about it, even though the game is shit and was published by a "giant evil corporation" and not by a struggling indie dev.

Luckily the notion that buying games is the normal thing to do indeed seems to be winning, mainly due to the aforementioned shaming and the "Steam deals" factor. Here in the post-communist Europe it's also due to the fact that people are significantly richer than 20 years ago and many more of them can afford even new AAA releases even though they still cost the same.
 

set

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http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/22/d...ance-returning-characters-and-the-open-world/

Dragon Age 2, we decided we want to try something, to try to do very different storytelling, something much more personal, something much more tightly constrained. No chosen one, no clear overarching threat. I don’t think it was a perfect success, but that was intentional.

A lot of the other changes that are perceived, the overall scope of the game or the perception of the combat getting a lot simpler or waves and things like that—not intended, exactly. That was supposed to be more evolutionary. I think we just overreached. We pushed too hard.

Because of Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition is having to be a lot more ambitious, to address those concerns and really try to get back much more to the roots of the franchise. Much more about tactical combat and a higher level of deliberate difficulty. More clear overall story, with the moral choices still in there, but much more in vein of Dragon Age: Origins style storytelling. You’re right to ask. The goal wasn’t to revolutionize the series every single time, but Dragon Age 2 forced our hand to a certain degree.

Emphasis mine.

You have to breathe barracuda watermelon air and have antifreeze as your blood to believe this mollusk secretion for two seconds. I mean, am I not the only one who can hear the interviewee talking out of the right side of his mouth as he says this brain-dribbling, insulting revisionist sewage water? I'm surprised he was not immediately struck three times by lightning on the spot for making such mindbogglingly backward untruthful statements about a game everyone but Metacritic knows is complete waste of everyone who ever worked on it's time!

BioWare, you didn't "overreach" and there wasn't a "perceived" problem of the game being fucking wave-based or simple. It was the most dumbed-down BioWare game ever made -- and it can be proved mathematically if you really want to debate this; the fewest choices, the fewest areas, the fewest specialization, the fewest halls in every corridor-based dungeon... on and on I could babble about how iphone-like the game was. Rushed out the door, riddled with plot holes and banality, there was nothing wrong with the soul of the game -- since at its most basic elements it was a lot like BG2, which many would consider to be the greatest bar none. What was wrong with how it was executed - EA and BioWare became so associated with "incompetence" by releasing this game that they shouldn't even try to defend it like they do here -- but they do, and it's clear how out of touch BioWare really is at this point, that they would try to convince us that they tried too hard making Dragon Age 2.

You didn't need to acknowledge why DA2 sucked ass in this interview though, you just needed to say, "Hey, 9 month development cycle. We were rushed. This time, we're not." And that'd assauge 98% of the idiots who buy your shit.

Dragon Age 2 is the worst game BW has ever produced and one of the most embarassingly awful RPGs of recent memory. To say the above in any official statement with a serious face... I could write paragraphs explaining why Dragon Age 2 was not only an anti-RPG, but that it was a genuinely bad, rushed game. The only thing they did do right was try a more "personal story" (too bad it was poorly executed).

Buying DA3 at this stage should be considered a mortal sin.

And because this "gameplay trailer" showed all of .2*10 seconds of "gameplay" (gameplay trailers shouldn't have scripted combat like the above and should show the UI unlike the above; can you even call the 'gameplay' we were shown gameplay?)... I am now absolutely confident its gameplay will be floaty, shitty action-based combat on the level of popamole ME3. And after having seen so much of the cast already, I can already tell 90% will be just as unlikeable as Anders in DA2.

Reposting this here because more people need to make fun of the the shit that was already quoted in this thread. Does anyone else find it outrageous BioWare would try to delude anyone into thinking they tried too hard making Dragon Age 2?
 

Lhynn

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I pirated DA2, and i regret it, i regret it so much....

....I should have never touched that piece of shit. Fucking waste of time and broadband i tell you.
 

set

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The only thing that stung as bad as DA2 for me was Spore. How there can be people entertaining the thought of purchasing a game published by EA... I can't fathom at this point.
 

Rahdulan

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I pirated DA2, and i regret it, i regret it so much....

....I should have never touched that piece of shit. Fucking waste of time and broadband i tell you.

I didn't bother with DA2, but I'm kinda in the same boat. And by that I mean how most of these games I would've hopped on to pirate 5+ years ago aren't even WORTH pirating anymore. It's funny, really. Now when I have the money to buy the games I want a huge chunk of them, especially overblown AAA titles, just aren't worth it.
 

Decado

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Do you have any data to back this up? I have at least one study (mine) that indicates that gamers feel demos are the best way to learn about a game before purchase, and they indicate a high level of willingness to play them.

Publishers are reluctant to release demos because it takes time away from development. You basically have to do all the shit you do at crunch time, a few months before the game is actually finished, in order to make a playable "minigame."
It's because gamers were learning about games that they weren't buying them. A good amount of game sales these days are predicated on ticking the customer into buying a game they don't really want. Not that they don't want it at all, but they only mildly want it and the lack of a demo to get it out of their system, they have to buy the thing.

Again, I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment here but do you have any data for this? Especially the part about demos causing people to not buy games?
 

Space Satan

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Biowhore forums did not disappoint me
SJrqQ7o.jpg
 

Wirdschowerdn

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Not that I'm principally against piracy (for demo-ing purposes only), it's just that it's no longer necessary in this world of over-abundant information thrown at you, already laying out everything you need to know or just outright killing off all excitement you might have had for a game before it's even released. That's particularly true about those "games" that can be re-experienced via youtube or use lazy braindead copy&paste formula in design and narrative. It's just a fucking waste of time.
 
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Wasteland 2
By the way, demos are probably responsible for more lost sales than gained ones, that is why publishers are reluctant to release one, but mostly they're irrelevant because almost no one bother playing them.
Do you have any data to back this up?

Yes, it's called Steam achievements. It tells me that ~ 50% of people that bothered to actually download and try a game, drops it 20 - 30% in.
These are people who own it already and invested some time in it, so they're pushing it for a while giving a chance for it to pick up, the point where they would refuse to immediately drop 50$ to continue is surely much earlier than that.
This is how many sales it would cost if there were demos available and all these people were willing to try them and based their purchase decisions on their experiences with them.

Tell me now, how many people who were not convinced enough to buy a game would bother with demo, instead of just playing something else that interest them more ?

I have at least one study (mine) that indicates that gamers feel demos are the best way to learn about a game before purchase, and they indicate a high level of willingness to play them.

Exactly, but my point is that being able to learn about the game before purchase costs more sales than it generates and day 1 demos would be played mostly by people who currently purchase blindly.

Publishers are reluctant to release demos because it takes time away from development. You basically have to do all the shit you do at crunch time, a few months before the game is actually finished, in order to make a playable "minigame."

Lol no, that is publishers excuse they want you to believe in. Demo for a linear action game ?
Add at the end of the last demo level a script that displays "demo ends here" message and drops you into the main menu, then rip off from the package data not used in demo levels, upload, done. An hour of work for a single guy.
For more open game there is more work, because you can have multiple points to create demo cutoff, but it's still up to one week of work for a single dev and lets say two testers, not a big deal for a project developped for 3 years by 100 people.

Not to mention that with DRMs of today like Steam, they could give people acccess to trials of full games without any effort. Llike play an hour for free, or play until lvl 10, etc. Trial mode is a norm in a professional software, even Windows has it.
Demo was only a minor problem in the past, when it had to be included with printed magazines for anyone to have access to it, so it had to be prepared and sent to press before the game went gold, that is irrelevant today.

They actually do release demos sometimes, or make free weekends and such, but long after release when all people that were going to buy into the hype and pay full price already did and there is nothing to loose, by releasing a demo.
At that point remaining sales are scraps though...
 
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Borelli

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Space Satan

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Confident companies, who did not shove buggy and incomplete shit to their customers are not afraid to present demos. It's like complaining that after tasting some food at your restoraunt customers never go back because it tastes like shit.
 

Decado

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Again, I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment here but do you have any data for this? Especially the part about demos causing people to not buy games?
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/416824/game-demos-halve-sales-new-data-suggests/

That's interesting, thanks. I'd like to see the data. It seems they aren't saying that demos are bad, per se, just that a bad demo of a bad game is, well, bad. Which is not a surprise, I suppose.
 

Decado

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Confident companies, who did not shove buggy and incomplete shit to their customers are not afraid to present demos. It's like complaining that after tasting some food at your restoraunt customers never go back because it tastes like shit.

Yeah, this is kind of my feeling here. It says more about the quality of the games being demoed than the usefulness/quality of demos themselves.
 
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Wasteland 2
Again, I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment here but do you have any data for this? Especially the part about demos causing people to not buy games?
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/416824/game-demos-halve-sales-new-data-suggests/

Yeah I was writing my post when you've posted it, like I said you have to look no further than achievements statistics to came to similar conclusion.
But it has nothing to do with overhyped AAA crap, when you look at most successfull AAA games statistics, you'll see that people actually like and play them.
Global The Witcher 2 achievements stats on Steam on the other hand reveal, that its sales would be cut by a demo, badly, while Skyrim would not suffer much.

Basically demo gives you additional opportunity to realise it's not for you. At the same time, if you can realise it's shit not worth purchasing without trying, only through media/ marketing info, then most probably it's true and demo won't change that. Demos are good for gamers, bad for business, regardless of games quality imo. Just take Wasteland 2 for example, giving beta access for free, regardless someone prepurchased or not would lead to less sales, no doubt.
 

eremita

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But why did Bioware choose the "Raining demons" plot? I can think of one justified reason and if that's the case, it's actually pretty thoughtful. The problem with vast majority open RPGs is the ridiculous amount of killing. Look at the fucking Skyrim for example, sure, you kill spiders and shit, but you also commit multiple genocides on sentient creatures (who are not really acting as one, but that's for different discussion)... It's rather silly really - there is no fucking logic to that world (it's neither undiscovered nor post-apocalyptic). Or in other words, the "running around and killing stuff" design doesn't make much sense in majority of game worlds. It's too video-gamy. They do it because that's what you do.... So you can either make a game where endless killing is not a pillar, or you could justify that endless killing. If you tear your world apart, you have a 1) good reason why there are monsters everywhere to kill 2) why there are sociopolitical conflicts, bandits, rebels and general conflicts born of desperation.

Or, you know, they could try and diversify the game play. Not every quest needs to be restricted to a dungeon/copy_pasta_house_full_of_monsters #14 run with an end boss. Might even better the story.
I already said (in the same text you're quoting!) that it's either justified endless killing or not endless killing at all... Now APOLOGIZE to me.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/22/d...ance-returning-characters-and-the-open-world/

Dragon Age 2, we decided we want to try something, to try to do very different storytelling, something much more personal, something much more tightly constrained. No chosen one, no clear overarching threat. I don’t think it was a perfect success, but that was intentional.

A lot of the other changes that are perceived, the overall scope of the game or the perception of the combat getting a lot simpler or waves and things like that—not intended, exactly. That was supposed to be more evolutionary. I think we just overreached. We pushed too hard.

Because of Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition is having to be a lot more ambitious, to address those concerns and really try to get back much more to the roots of the franchise. Much more about tactical combat and a higher level of deliberate difficulty. More clear overall story, with the moral choices still in there, but much more in vein of Dragon Age: Origins style storytelling. You’re right to ask. The goal wasn’t to revolutionize the series every single time, but Dragon Age 2 forced our hand to a certain degree.

Emphasis mine.

You have to breathe barracuda watermelon air and have antifreeze as your blood to believe this mollusk secretion for two seconds. I mean, am I not the only one who can hear the interviewee talking out of the right side of his mouth as he says this brain-dribbling, insulting revisionist sewage water? I'm surprised he was not immediately struck three times by lightning on the spot for making such mindbogglingly backward untruthful statements about a game everyone but Metacritic knows is complete waste of everyone who ever worked on it's time!

BioWare, you didn't "overreach" and there wasn't a "perceived" problem of the game being fucking wave-based or simple. It was the most dumbed-down BioWare game ever made -- and it can be proved mathematically if you really want to debate this; the fewest choices, the fewest areas, the fewest specialization, the fewest halls in every corridor-based dungeon... on and on I could babble about how iphone-like the game was. Rushed out the door, riddled with plot holes and banality, there was nothing wrong with the soul of the game -- since at its most basic elements it was a lot like BG2, which many would consider to be the greatest bar none. What was wrong with how it was executed - EA and BioWare became so associated with "incompetence" by releasing this game that they shouldn't even try to defend it like they do here -- but they do, and it's clear how out of touch BioWare really is at this point, that they would try to convince us that they tried too hard making Dragon Age 2.

You didn't need to acknowledge why DA2 sucked ass in this interview though, you just needed to say, "Hey, 9 month development cycle. We were rushed. This time, we're not." And that'd assauge 98% of the idiots who buy your shit.

Dragon Age 2 is the worst game BW has ever produced and one of the most embarassingly awful RPGs of recent memory. To say the above in any official statement with a serious face... I could write paragraphs explaining why Dragon Age 2 was not only an anti-RPG, but that it was a genuinely bad, rushed game. The only thing they did do right was try a more "personal story" (too bad it was poorly executed).

Buying DA3 at this stage should be considered a mortal sin.

And because this "gameplay trailer" showed all of .2*10 seconds of "gameplay" (gameplay trailers shouldn't have scripted combat like the above and should show the UI unlike the above; can you even call the 'gameplay' we were shown gameplay?)... I am now absolutely confident its gameplay will be floaty, shitty action-based combat on the level of popamole ME3. And after having seen so much of the cast already, I can already tell 90% will be just as unlikeable as Anders in DA2.

Reposting this here because more people need to make fun of the the shit that was already quoted in this thread. Does anyone else find it outrageous BioWare would try to delude anyone into thinking they tried too hard making Dragon Age 2?
In many ways, it was the most dumbed down game, BUT it has the most complex and ambitious (not necessarily without flaws) combat and dialogue mechanics. It was obvious that they were really trying hard and I think they partially succeeded. Also, I'm drunk and I think I broke my toe when I kicked garbage can on the way home. it doesn't hurt much but the toe is oddly shaped and starts to change color. I guess I'll found out tomorrow...
 

Monocause

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Add at the end of the last demo level a script that displays "demo ends here" message and drops you into the main menu, then rip off from the package data not used in demo levels, upload, done. An hour of work for a single guy.
For more open game there is more work, because you can have multiple points to create demo cutoff, but it's still up to one week of work for a single dev and lets say two testers, not a big deal for a project developped for 3 years by 100 people.

If we're talking about PC games, it incredibly depends on how the title is structured. It's not as easy as implementing a 'demo cutoff', even if a game is very linear. There's lots of considerations to be made, and cutting off pieces of content and features can have consequences you could never predict. If your code (and content!) is very modular and you can take out bits and pieces of it without the whole thing falling apart, then sure, it's a piece of cake - but 99% of the time this is not the case. Besides, most of the time the demo requires quite a bit of additional coding/content made and vetted. This is especially the case for large titles.

With console/multiplatform titles all you wrote falls to pieces immediately regardless of what title we're talking about because studios have to go through a rigorous certification process with anything they want to release on consoles, including demos, which means considerably more manpower is needed than just "1 guy 2 testers". Trust me, i know what i'm talking about.

FACT 1: most game projects never hit milestones on time and generally shit on timetables and initial planning due to lots of unforeseen issues happening. Games are a very complex piece of software. This means that they also usually go over initial budget assumptions - which ends with pissed off/scared shitless people allocating more funds or the entire team not getting paid until the agreed upon milestone is reached.

FACT 2: Many game projects never come into fruition because they miss the milestones repeatedly, go over budget and are eventually axed, even 'far' into development.

FACT 3: Depending on the game genre, target platform(s) and numerous other factors deciding to release a demo version of your title and thus potentially running into budgeting/timekeeping issues due to considerable resources that need be dedicated to it makes Fact 1 and Fact 2 much more likely to describe your project.

So there you have it.

Let me give you an example. A studio plans to release a demo of its multiplatform triple A title alongside the full game or before the full game's release.

1) Decide which parts of content are the most likely to entice players to buy the game.
2) Take parts of content that you want in the demo and modify them: they need to work fine even though the transitions are different, content and scripting are modified (fe you access an area from a different point than you did before, or something is blocked off etc).
3) Since the demo is to be released alongside or before the release of the full title, it needs to adapt to content/design changes of the full title; you must start developing the demo early and keep developing until the full title's content/design is preferably set in stone or at least highly unlikely to undergo major changes.
4) Your multiplatform title supports multiple languages so all the demo-specific strings like "HEY YO BUY THE FULL GAME WHEN ITS OUT" etc need to be localised and vetted; this takes more time and resources than you'd think. It doesn't work in a way that there's a single dude who knows a language and translates it before going to bed on sunday night. If your demo ends with a couple of screenshots of the full title with some text overlaid, the localisation guys need to translate it, then send it to the art team who prepare different versions, then it needs vetting by the publishing team and marketing etc etc.
5) Ensure that multiple features are completely disabled, especially those that are required to be disabled by the target platforms (Xbox Achievements/PS Trophies are an example)
6) Test thoroughly that all the departures from the original code that you've made haven't made the title unstable.
6a) Develop the demo so that it becomes stable because the original code you started working with at the beginning of the demo's development was an unstable mess that crashed if you sneezed at it and most of the fixes going into the full title are likely not to be applicable to the demo anymore by the time they arrive, or they would arrive too late to be of use, or implementing them would require lots of vetting work to see if there aren't any knock-off effects.
7) Ensure that the demo is actually enjoyable to play despite being a 15 minute romp through a tiny part of your game
8) Devote marketing resources to promote the demo.

... and these points are just the tip of the iceberg. There's much, much more that can come up. I've seen demos consuming a third of the dev team and lots of other resources for months and most of their work on the demo does not push the full title forward meaning that the risks you're taking increase. This can, of course, be avoided with good planning, but game development is an incredibly haphazard enterprise and you can pretty much never count on your awesome plan to go smoothly.

Let me just remind you that most studios aren't Blizzard and they can't just take ages redesigning, tweaking, starting from scratch, and picking their nose. At some point someone's going to get incredibly pissed off and that can mean you and everyone around you losing your jobs.
 
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set

Cipher
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I agree that producing a demo is not free, but at the same time, I cannot help but point to Deus Ex: HR and say, "How many sales were created when that "alpha" build was "leaked"? How many people were energized by that first 33% of the game-- and how many fewer would have purchased the game had they known how the end result would be less spectacular than what their hearts had imagined?" In this day and age, it's not even necessary to take the time to produce a proper demo, a properly produced "leak" can suffice as a long demo and provide a lot of hype. It also excuses the company from providing a game that won't brick your machine, so next to none QA work is required and it ignites speculation and mass discussion.

There are alternatives to demos -- and I think more game companies should be upfront about the quality of their games. As it is, Dark Souls 2 is unlikely to reflect its alpha footage by a large margin. Dragon Age 3 is shaping up to be dubious too - we have seen a small amount of example gameplay but nothing actually concrete yet. We know they are far along enough to show otherwise.
 

Monocause

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I agree that producing a demo is not free, but at the same time, I cannot help but point to Deus Ex: HR and say, "How many sales were created when that "alpha" build was "leaked"? How many people were energized by that first 33% of the game-- and how many fewer would have purchased the game had they known how the end result would be less spectacular than what their hearts had imagined?" In this day and age, it's not even necessary to take the time to produce a proper demo, a properly produced "leak" can suffice as a long demo and provide a lot of hype. It also excuses the company from providing a game that won't brick your machine, so next to none QA work is required and it ignites speculation and mass discussion.

There are alternatives to demos -- and I think more game companies should be upfront about the quality of their games. As it is, Dark Souls 2 is unlikely to reflect its alpha footage by a large margin. Dragon Age 3 is shaping up to be dubious too - we have seen a small amount of example gameplay but nothing actually concrete yet. We know they are far along enough to show otherwise.

I totally agree, but that's just not how the industry works. It's the same with music 'leaks', or TV show 'piracy'. Everyone knows these can provide huge boosts in publicity and could be used to benefit profits, but industries are mammoths by definition and mammoths are more likely to struggle, die out and give way to other creatures (which then, in a rather cyclical fashion, become industries again) rather than slowly evolve.

One of the problems with leaks is their unpredictability. With traditional marketing, you've got everything under control (provided no terrible blunders are made). With leaks - god knows what the results would be! Imagine you're part of the decision making team and you need to do your best to ensure that your multimillion dollars' worth project goes smoothly. Are you really willing to gamble on the leak providing a boost? Then imagine you're a suit who doesn't know much about the game developed, the leak's quality/appeal, the playerbase and the potential reception you'll get. Suddenly the whole idea becomes madness.

Another problem is that using leaks as means of getting publicity would be in stark contrast to the policies and lengths publishers go to stop copyright infringement. Just imagine the PR shitstorm ensuing from the fact that one day a publisher sues dozens of youtubers/pirates/whatever, the other it covertly releases a leak using the very same channels it purportedly tries to shut down. Obviously, things like these do happen but yeah, you get the point. Even the NSA tried to kept things hush hush, and we're talking about privately owned companies which are much more susceptible to shareholders' whims and need good PR to keep running smoothly.
 
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Joined
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Wasteland 2
demos snip

If we are talking about providing super polished vertical slice of the game for press, or general audience for hands on previews, long before release to promote the game then all you said is true.

I was talking about putting on, or just before release day first 10-20% of the game on steam/xbox/ps for players to evaluate. That boils down to having somewhere in the finished game some scripts checks "if demo, game ends here" and removing assets that players are not going to see in the demo to make download more lightweight, just like Quake Shareware. It could be tested and localised together with full game. Sure, there are some extra shenaningas with console certification and corporate approval process, but I believe it's still not signifcant compared to the scale of a whole AAA game production process. They don't do that, mostly becuase it would more likely hurt than help sales.

Some low budged, unique, original games with little marketing and no press coverage, can benefit from such demos: "I don't have a clue what to think about this game, but there is a demo lets check it out"
 
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