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[yurinka]

7. Potential loss in a % of game sales as players will think they got their "fill" out of the two hour trial, or end up deciding they don't need to buy the game, something they might have just bought on impulse if not presented with a 2 hour trial beforehand.

On average players buy a game or two per year (and not all games bought are full priced AAA games).

A year of this tier is worth 2 full priced AAA games, so for the subbers of this tier the platform holder gets above that average revenue only from the subscrption even if the player wouldn't buy any game during this year.

Gamers who will pay this expensive subscription are the ones who buy a lot of games so shouldn't change a lot their budget for games specially because in AAA games with 2 hours it's only the beggining. And in any case, the players who will get this are a very small part of the whole userbase, so that possible negative effect -if not countered with the possitive effects it will have- would be minimal compared to total sales.

You know, you can actually beat some $60 games like the Resident Evil 3 remake within 2 hours pretty easily, this will probably make speed runners try and save as much dough as they can lol.

And yes, I agree with the second line. This should be standard on all tiers, or at least the top 2.

Speed runners achieve these times after having completed that specific game dozens and dozens of times. Here they will only be able to play 2 hours very likely only once.

That's even better. I thought it was only for games on the sub service.

Even though it sucks it's behind a premium paywall, at least the feature is there.

If game makers dont want to go back to free 360/PS3 era demos and trials turning the One/PS4 era into a buyer beware situation 90% of the time, then I say good on Sony for trying to get them back in some form.

Only a game maker who makes really short games or shitty games has something to fear. Looks like Sony is doing the work for them baking in a timer. So all that shit about "demos are too exhausting to make" and "demos are bad representation of the final game" are now obsolete excuses.

Every company in the world would love it if customers could try their product. And as easily as fast as a download. But you cant do that with toasters or even a loaf of bread. You got to buy it. Not easy and not cheap. If any of you think paying money to set up a Costco demo kiosk or hiring companies to stand outside stadiums to give out free samples is cheap, they arent. I've worked at companies that do that stuff.

According to the article it's going to be mandatory for all new non VR PS (1st and 3rd party) that has a minimum price that seems to be the ~$60 one. So basically all new AAA games, won't be mandatory for indies and mid priced AA games. For them will be optional to release this demo/full trial.

And well, the article also says that Sony will continue to allow publishers who desire it to release a demo, free weekend or full game time limited trial for all users outside the service if they want to do so.

In this case Sony will allow devs to use a full game time limited trial (no extra work required from the dev, an OS level feature adds the timer and redirect to the store) or instead to release their own custom demo build (which requires additional development and testing time).

 

[Helghan]

Didn't know SIE became a non-profit organization all of a sudden

Has nothing to do with it. Don't applaud it as if this is great for gamers when they are only doing it for themselves.

They are basically asking developers to put more time into their games and only Sony will profit from it.

 

[adamsapple]

On average players buy a game or two per year (and not all games bought are full priced AAA games).

The average american consumer (since that's the only real data i could find) spends $205~ on games annually, going by this research dated Dec 2020.

So if they're nearly maximizing their annual gaming budget with this subscription, it'll leave them with a bunch of legacy games and 2 hour trials for new games, and not a lot of new releases unless they start overspending out of their budgets.

A year of this tier is worth 2 full priced AAA games, so for the subbers of this tier the platform holder gets above that average revenue only from the subscrption even if the player wouldn't buy any game during this year.

This just strengthens my earlier point, people who feel they're already stretching their gaming budget by opting into this subscription are more likely to feel that they got their fill out of a game with it's 2 hour trial and will be less likely to purchase it at retail/digitally unless heavily discounted month(s) later.

Essentially it's the same thing you read people often say after playing demos like "it was ok, will wait till it's on sale to pick up". The only difference being that the 'demo' is now a trial locked behind a paywall.

Gamers who will pay this expensive subscription are the ones who buy a lot of games so shouldn't change a lot their budget for games specially because in AAA games with 2 hours it's only the beggining. And in any case, the players who will get this are a very small part of the whole userbase, so that possible negative effect -if not countered with the possitive effects it will have- would be minimal compared to total sales.

In your last post you said it's likely to increase sales

4. The publisher/dev gets the visibility spike of getting the game in a sub and reaching way more players, but instead of sacrifying games sales/revenue for doing it, probably will increase it

Now you're saying it's likely to incur a drop but it will be a small one. This is conjecture right now and we can't say either way how it'll effect buying trends for sure.

But my last point in the previous quote is salient.

Speed runners achieve these times after having completed that specific game dozens and dozens of times. Here they will only be able to play 2 hours very likely only once

That was a rhetorical comment on the nature of some games being extremely short at full retail price..

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

Has nothing to do with it. Don't applaud it as if this is great for gamers when they are only doing it for themselves.

They are basically asking developers to put more time into their games and only Sony will profit from it.

11 pages later you still didn't understand there's literally zero additional time put by devs as it's simply the full game behind a timer to lock access?

Yes of course it's great for gamers, you avoid buyers remorse by testing the game first before buying, what's so hard to get?

 

[Forsythia]

I like the idea, but it shouldn't be behind a paywall.

 

[yurinka]

The average american consumer (since that's the only real data i could find) spends $205~ on games annually, going by this research dated Dec 2020.

So if they're nearly maximizing their annual gaming budget with this subscription, it'll leave them with a bunch of legacy games and 2 hour trials for new games, and not a lot of new releases unless they start overspending out of their budgets.

This number is for all platforms. What I said is worldwide and per console (divide their tie ratio by the years it has been alive and you'll see that on average players buy a game or two per year).

In your last post you said it's likely to increase sales

4. The publisher/dev gets the visibility spike of getting the game in a sub and reaching way more players, but instead of sacrifying games sales/revenue for doing it, probably will increase it

Now you're saying it's likely to incur a drop but it will be a small one. This is conjecture right now and we can't say either way how it'll effect buying trends for sure.

But my last point in the previous quote is salient.

I say that I think on average if there are changes in the sales of a game -in many cases won't- will increase sales, but obviously there will be also cases (less) where the demos will decrease the sales of a game that are a turd or worse that its trailers and screenshots seem to indicate-. I think the positive effect of allowing player to discover games or to convice them will be higher than the one not liking a game they wanted to buy to a point where they avoid to buy it. I think the positive side will compensate the negative one. Specially when we're talking about gamers who spend a ton of money on games.

I also think that these players will make more informed decisions: so they'll like a higher percentage of games they buy than wthout demos, which will result on games getting a higher % of players who buy dlc, mtx, sequels or other games from the publisher or dev.

And that in any case I expect that these effects will be minor because a tiny portion of the whole userbase will be subscribed to this tier.

 

[Kagey K]

11 pages later you still didn't understand there's literally zero additional time put by devs as it's simply the full game behind a timer to lock access?

Yes of course it's great for gamers, you avoid buyers remorse by testing the game first before buying, what's so hard to get?

In the case of something like Yakuza, they would have to make a different demo or you would spend the entire time watching cutscenes with 10 mins of actual gameplay.

 

[MonarchJT]

this could change the first two hours of those game affected...
let's see the games become basically a tutorial that last two hours

 

[Goalus]

Sounds like a huge hassle for the developers.

 

[Withnail]

this could change the first two hours of those game affected...
let's see the games become basically a tutorial that last two hours

Did the refund policies on other platforms change game design?

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Please look up the percentage of players that have purchased but not completed these games. I am making very logical arguments here.

No, you're not. You're being obtuse.

 

[ToadMan]

A bunch of games have trials already on Steam on Playstation on Xbox & on Switch
are you trying to say that game trials did not exist before Sony lock them behind a paywall
come on man you don't need to defend Sony at every turn they are not paying your bills lol

Sony aren’t locking this feature behind a paywall…

 

[Mr.ODST]

Sony aren’t locking this feature behind a paywall…

Having to be subscribed to a service to get a game trial is putting it behind a paywall.

Exactly like EA Access and others.

 

[ToadMan]

Really this is better than GamePass since you can try any major release.

Reminds me of these days:

I agree. I’d rather choose the games I want to buy through trials like this than get a whole bunch of dross on a subscription service and still have to buy actual good games.

I’m hopeful that through doing this, game trials will become a norm on consoles for all purchasers and that this won’t be a passing phase but let’s see.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Has nothing to do with it. Don't applaud it as if this is great for gamers when they are only doing it for themselves.

They are basically asking developers to put more time into their games and only Sony will profit from it.

Sounds like a huge hassle for the developers.

lmao seriously?

They are not asking them to create a new/unique/customized demo for their game. This is a limited-time trial, not a demo.

Users will be able to download the full game as they would normally if they purchased the game. The game will just be locked after 2 hours of playtime. That's how Sony's game trials work. We've already seen this in action with Sackboy and Death Stranding.

There is almost literally nothing that developers have to do, except for agreeing to it and for how long the trial should be playable. I reckon even the "lock" system is built into Sony's store/OS functionalities.

 

[ToadMan]

Having to be subscribed to a service to get a game trial is putting it behind a paywall.

Exactly like EA Access and others.

Sony aren’t doing that …

 

[ToadMan]

What people are failing to realize, this is literally giving subscribers 2 free hours of gameplay for "every major" retail release going forward. Games that might otherwise not even be released on the subscription service will still have to have 2 free hours of trial gameplay. it is really genius on Sony's part.

1. Every major game release now technically appears on PS+ day and date or within 3 months including first-party games
2. You as a subscriber of the service get to try every major game for 2 hours and might decide if you want to buy it.
3. It entices people to sub to a higher tier, profit for Sony and profit for the publisher if each trial leads to a purchase and if not, you were never going to buy it anyway, no loss for the publisher.

Remember Sony only insist the trial or a demo has to available to premium subscribers.

The publisher can choose to make those trials available to all users if they wish….

Effectively Sony is mandating that devs include the time trial feature and use premium and price point as the criteria.

Once that trial feature is implemented it’s up to the publisher who gets access to it and when. This should lead to more trials in general if devs and pubs feel it can generate a positive outcome.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

As far as I'm aware developers have a choice of when/if games appear on GP, and what terms are acceptable when it gets placed there.

I'm not exactly thinking there is going to be a mass exodus away from the PS platform over this. If this was the plan for the top tier of the service, I'd think they had everyone onboard before they even announced. Could publisher response be aggressively negative down the line? Sure, depends on whether or not they think the demos are benefiting them or not.

I think that's fair. And, like I've been saying for several posts, if Sony were smart they'd offer some financial incentive to ensure companies really commit to these trails for the long haul.

Simplest approach is to reduce the 30% cut off the first half-million or so sales to say 25% or 20%. That would be good enough for virtually every single publisher; for specific games of a publisher they could adjust the quota to make it longer or shorter.

I assume that all of these publishers are testing these games before release and have a good idea what the general enthusiasm is before and after users have firsthand experience with the titles. I'm also assuming from the customer reviews that you see that just like film, some of these test out showing lower enthusiasm after playing than before and project less than favorable word of mouth. With that said, there will also be games where enthusiasm grows quite a bit after firsthand experience, I can see sales getting boosted there for sure.

As a player I'm completely fine with it. Even if I end up making my purchases on Xbox, I'm sure I'll spend time in the demos since my PSNow sub will be converted to the highest tier.

Speaking of reviews, I agree that allowing user reviews through PS+ itself for those playing these trails and games would be great. Not just because it could be a boon (or inhibitor, in case the trail or game is bad) to sales, but because (and this is just me personally speaking) in light of some of the shenanigans with certain game reviews on MetaCritic earlier in the year, it would be a great way for actual gamers and people within the ecosystem to express their thoughts on their played games and purchases.

That helps remove the over-reliance on review aggregates like MetaCritic, which as we've seen multiple times can be manipulated for pushing certain narratives, and puts more of power in the voice of the actual customer base. Or maybe, doing this could be done in tandem integrating it with aggregates like MetaCritic, so that they still hold some useful relevance.

What's also important for the test drive is any game that is server/MP heavy because nobody wants to commit $60 to a game with shitty launch servers. So hey, if the game sucks in that trial, then you just saved yourself $60. And if the game gets patched, then look into buying it later.

Interesting take; this does indirectly put pressure on studios (and their publishers) to keep the quality up. Though, some could also be deceptive and just put out a great trail preview for an otherwise crap game, who knows .

If you publishers made more money when demoes were offered, they'd never have stopped offering them. Ergo, this will lead to decreased profits for publishers, who are now forced to use their games to fuel Sony's higher priced tier. If the first two hours of your game aren't an absolute banger, you're losing customers on PlayStation.

The publishers who released bad games or bad demos were the ones hurt by demos; good games or games with good demos had boosts in sales. I'm not understanding where this idea that demos hurt game sales as a whole came from. Do good trailers hurt movie ticket sales, or excite fans to want to watch them even more? Usually it's the latter. Same thing with good demos.

Now yes a good game can have a horrible demo and a trash game can have a fantastic demo, but how often did that really happen? And how would anyone even be able to gather the data to prove it were the case? If anything, I think the reason demos stopped being a thing was because thanks to the rise of streamers and gaming content creators online, demos just became less of a necessity. However, with costs of games generally going up they could be a useful thing at large once more.

That's the optimistic take. The pessimistic take is, demos went out of fashion because they became too time-consuming to make. If that's the case, then that problem doesn't suddenly get resolved just because Sony are mandating trails, because not every game is going to be able to just take any random 2-hour slice of finished gameplay and spin it off into a trail. Some may need to edit and patch things together to avoid spoilers, or may not be able to use the opening parts because they're too slow or uneventful and would leave a bad impression.

Those reasons are why there probably needs to be some type of universal, flat financial incentive for devs/pubs to really commit to trails over time, but we can only guess (and hope) Sony are working on that behind the scenes.

I just saw it mentioned that if it is a trial you might end up having to download a full game and have 2 hours to play it. At least with a demo it would be smaller and most likely wouldn't need a time limit either.

That could potentially be an issue for the end user, but only for 3P games that are not also available via PS Now. But like yurinka said, the game can be split up somewhat like a demo to build out other parts as desired.

It's a bit more work for the developer, though, and I'm interested how much more work that is compared to adding in trophies or achievements were back in the day (which apparently were also mandated by Sony & Microsoft for all 3P partners).

7. Potential loss in a % of game sales as players will think they got their "fill" out of the two hour trial, or end up deciding they don't need to buy the game, something they might have just bought on impulse if not presented with a 2 hour trial beforehand.

But by that logic you also have to accept the idea that GamePass, then, must in fact not lead to sales increases like it's been claimed, since in that service's case games are presented in their entirety for only the cost of the monthly sub. At least with 2-hour game trails, IF a person likes the game enough they are going to be inclined to buy it which means the publisher still gets their money.

And I know that GamePass has its way of offsetting potential lost sales via the payments they do on a per-game or per-dev/pub basis (not to mention different types of payments based on different metrics), but it's a method that can't be realistically done for every 3P AAA game due to the costs that'd involve. That's the compromise. Sony wants to provide access to every 3P AAA game for subscribers at the highest tier; their compromise is that the amount of time for that content is limited to at least 2 hour trails.

 

[ZywyPL]

For anyone against this or weirded out by this, remember, MS and Sony also made achievements and trophies a mandatory requirement for most purchasable games too. At least this trial feature has a more meaningful purpose.

Honestly those trials should've been there a long time ago - demos require additional work from the dvs, so I get they don't have much/any time for those anymore, but PS/XB track your time spent on every single title anyway, so there's absolutely no reason why Sony/MS can't alow you to just download any game from the store and lock acces to ot after X hours, eithout any imput from the devs at all, rather implement it on OSN/XBL level.

 

[Riky]

I've got 18 months of Psnow to go after the switch so I presume I'll be able to try this. It's not black and white in my eyes, I think it's basically a good idea if it stops people buying broken games like Cyberpunk and Battlefield, but developers who know they have such products will wait the three months, will it make people suspicious of games that don't offer launch availability?
Also some games don't click in that 2 hour window so some will lose sales the same as some will gain sales as people try games they wouldn't normally have purchased, so swings and roundabouts.
Once Devs are faced with this I can see MS doing the same and adding it to Gamepass Ultimate at some point for third party games not on the service day one.

 

[Beechos]

What a nice feature to have. Hopefully its not tied to just ps+ premium.

 

[Craig of War]

Sony aren’t locking this feature behind a paywall…

Really so will i be able to get the game trials that are in PS Plus Premium without subbing to PS Plus Premium?
Are you from the Future Lewis Hamilton how do you know this

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Surely this could effect games sales massively?

Did it on Steam with their automated refund system?

 

[Godot25]

I wonder.
Why Sony just won't implement same system as EA in EA Play trials? At the start of the game you will get a message how much time you have left and if you exceed it you will get boot out of game. And that is implemented as a part of OS on console and don't require any input from developers as far as i know.

Wouldn't it be better for everybody? Because rn Sony requires developers to make trial version of game in most crucial time of game development (finishing a game) and I doubt they will compensate them.

Or maybe...you know. Have not-retarded refund policy and allow players to get a refund when their playtime is under 2 hours.

 

[Heisenberg007]

What a nice feature to have. Hopefully its not tied to just ps+ premium.

As of now it looks like that Sony will make it kind of mandatory for devs to offer it to PS+ premium subscribers as a subscription perk, but devs will have the option of releasing demos to everyone else if they choose to.

 

[Helghan]

11 pages later you still didn't understand there's literally zero additional time put by devs as it's simply the full game behind a timer to lock access?

Yes of course it's great for gamers, you avoid buyers remorse by testing the game first before buying, what's so hard to get?

They are not asking them to create a new/unique/customized demo for their game. This is a limited-time trial, not a demo.

Users will be able to download the full game as they would normally if they purchased the game. The game will just be locked after 2 hours of playtime. That's how Sony's game trials work. We've already seen this in action with Sackboy and Death Stranding.

There is almost literally nothing that developers have to do, except for agreeing to it and for how long the trial should be playable. I reckon even the "lock" system is built into Sony's store/OS functionalities.

I didn't read all those pages, thanks for explaining. I stand corrected, this makes sense.

 

[MonarchJT]

Did the refund policies on other platforms change game design?

why it should? there is no dev out there who is not somehow proud of his work ... they expect anything but refund and they certainly don't change the game based on who might forgo the purchase and they certainly don't change the game based on who might forgo the purchase . Another thing is to force a two hour long demo mode ....What will you show in these two hours? a character at his maximum potential as it would be in the endgame? in an RPG practically a basic character? the most majestic sceneries or the most beautiful models? agitated phases, chases and fights to make you understand the whole gameplay a bit? It is inevitable that this will change the game design, I repeat inevitable.

 

[Heisenberg007]

why it should? there is no dev out there who is not somehow proud of his work ... they expect anything but refund and they certainly don't change the game based on who might forgo the purchase and they certainly don't change the game based on who might forgo the purchase . Another thing is to force a two hour long demo mode ....What will you show in these two hours? a character at his maximum potential as it would be in the endgame? in an RPG practically a basic character? the most majestic sceneries or the most beautiful models? agitated phases, chases and fights to make you understand the whole gameplay a bit? It is inevitable that this will change the game design, I repeat inevitable.

Not at all. That decision depends on the type of game it is.

Also, these timed trials are not limited to 2 hours. 2 hours is the minimum amount of time. The trials can go for as long as 6 hours (as it did with Death Stranding) or maybe even more now.

Showing the beginning of the game will be completely fine for 95% of the game as you get to see the world, characters, many gameplay mechanics, story elements, etc. However, many features will not be spoiled (as it should be) and if the player chooses to buy the game and continue playing, they will likely get introduced to even more mechanics -- keeping the experience of the game fresh.

 

[Same ol G]

Arrogant Sony is back !!! (I don't know what they are thinking)
Wouldn't it be easy to circumvent this by skipping the PS store alltogether, if a company only releases physical you can't force the trial.
Or is releasing on PS store mandatory?

 

[ToadMan]

Really so will i be able to get the game trials that are in PS Plus Premium without subbing to PS Plus Premium?
Are you from the Future Lewis Hamilton how do you know this

If the Publisher wants you to have access to the trial, then sure, you won’t need premium.

Sony is just *requiring* it for premium subscribers. The devs make the trial available - they can give the trial to whoever they like and the statement this thread is based on explicitly says that.

So Sony isn’t locking it behind a paywall, the publishers are if they choose to only do the bare minimum Sony require.

If Sony said devs could only offer to trials to premium subs, you’d have a point. Which you don’t …

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

I didn't read all those pages, thanks for explaining. I stand corrected, this makes sense.

An honest exchange of ideas and someone able to change their mind when presented with facts.

You, sir, win the internet today

 

[ToadMan]

I wonder.
Why Sony just won't implement same system as EA in EA Play trials? At the start of the game you will get a message how much time you have left and if you exceed it you will get boot out of game. And that is implemented as a part of OS on console and don't require any input from developers as far as i know.

Wouldn't it be better for everybody? Because rn Sony requires developers to make trial version of game in most crucial time of game development (finishing a game) and I doubt they will compensate them.

Or maybe...you know. Have not-retarded refund policy and allow players to get a refund when their playtime is under 2 hours.

Because Sony is the platform holder for multiple 3rd parties.

Each of those 3rd parties have their own marketing, art style, branding and so on not to mention each game has its own look, feel, UI and gameplay loop.

EA can do it because EA branding is consistent across all their published games.

Sony can’t push that onto third parties unless they all agreed to follow the same guidelines on how it would look.

EDIT: by saying “can’t” here I mean without tying the hands of devs in terms of the design choices they might make about their game - UI, look and feel, use of splash screens and so on. I mean Sony could but it might be a jarring UI interaction - the Xbox stuff looks awful when MS’s ugly grey screens suddenly pop up unexpectedly. This is avoided if devs can incorporate the trials into their own UI.

But getting everyone to agree - no point. Sony give the tools and let the devs incorporate it into their product in whatever way suits them.

Even CDPR managed it in the buggy mess that was Cyberpunk. Let’s hope other devs are at least as minimally capable as them lol

 

[skit_data]

Pretty good stuff, if all AAA-games get demos. I’m a little uncertain wether developers support this or not.

The argument this will be a good thing for devs is similar to the one made about Gamepass; if people like the game they will buy it, except this probably has an advantage over Gamepass from the developers perspective under the assumption that Sony compensates devs economically to some extent.

 

[Godot25]

EA can do it because EA branding is consistent across all their published games.

Sony can’t push that onto third parties unless they all agreed to follow the same guidelines on how it would look.

What? EA literally is not doing anything because EA Play limitation is shown to you through OS splashscreen.

And yes, Sony can push that onto third parties. Same as they can push "do it yourself" solution as they are pushing now. It's easy. "If you want to publish games on PlayStation, you need to agree to this stuff"

But it would be funny, if Microsoft (after ActiBlizz deal will close) would refuse to do it and then would say "We want to keep Call of Duty multiplatform but Sony has ridiculous conditions"

 

[ToadMan]

Pretty good stuff, if all AAA-games get demos. I’m a little uncertain wether developers support this or not.

The argument this will be a good thing for devs is similar to the one made about Gamepass; if people like the game they will buy it, except this probably has an advantage over Gamepass from the developers perspective under the assumption that Sony compensates devs economically to some extent.

It seems to me this is the opposite of gamepass and given Sony don’t think the subscription model is sustainable for their content (and if Netflix is anything to go by they’re right) this is a way of realigning back to the paid content model.

Subscription services lead to the production of the minimum quality content to get onto the service and no more. After all, you’re only getting $X whether you put 10 hours of mediocre content or 20 hours of high quality content so what incentive is there to produce higher quality content? In fact one could argue devs would deliberately under deliver in the core subscription product in order to derive sales of dlc/mtx.

But game trials - well each game lives or dies on the quality of the experience the trial player gets. So it better be good - that improves quality for everyone as it happens even if the publisher only gives trial access to premium subs.

I’d rather ditch the subscription altogether and have trials be mandated across the board but that would be a big shake up for a platform holder to mandate out of hand.

Sony are kind of doing that by the back door here - all full price games will have to the trial system built in at least. Pressure on the publisher should mean they’ll give access to the trials out beyond just premium ps subs - it wouldn’t be a good look if a publisher had the trial system available but thinks it will negatively impact sales to let people try first…

 

[ToadMan]

What? EA literally is not doing anything because EA Play limitation is shown to you through OS splashscreen.

And yes, Sony can push that onto third parties. Same as they can push "do it yourself" solution as they are pushing now. It's easy. "If you want to publish games on PlayStation, you need to agree to this stuff"

But it would be funny, if Microsoft (after ActiBlizz deal will close) would refuse to do it and then would say "We want to keep Call of Duty multiplatform but Sony has ridiculous conditions"

Yeah those MS splash screens look fugly on xbox too.

EA - yeah they do it because that’s their branding and the dev teams all follow it.

And COD not on PS … MS are concerned a 2 hour trial will be enough to get bored of COD? If they let 343i develop COD maybe that’ll be accurate lol

 

[Thirty7ven]

I constantly read about how Gamepass whole thing is that it let you try games so there you go, gamepass without devaluing games.

Had theorized about this exact option before and feel vindicated.

 

[Godot25]

Yeah those MS splash screens look fugly on xbox too.

Who cares? They are here to inform you how much time do you have left in your trial. You won't stare at that screen for 3 hours.

And there are of course prettier ways to display it.

My point is. Sony could do it on OS level so I really don't understand why they need to bother developers with it.

 

[I Master l]

I constantly read about how Gamepass whole thing is that it let you try games so there you go, gamepass without devaluing games.

Had theorized about this exact option before and feel vindicated.

And ps plus free monthly games aren't devaluing games ?

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Has nothing to do with it. Don't applaud it as if this is great for gamers when they are only doing it for themselves.

They are basically asking developers to put more time into their games and only Sony will profit from it.

Putting a counter in place is giving developers more work? Do you spend all this energy with Steam's trials?
Do you know how this will even work? No...you don't. Most of you don't.

The fake outrage over developers work...has any topic about crunching ever got to 11 pages on GAF? lmao Now it's an issue?

 

[Lupin25]

I don’t disagree with the idea of these “trials”, but they should vary in length depending on the total playtime of the full retail game.

There’s quality games out there (especially roguelites) with campaigns barely 2-8 hrs long. Wouldn’t be fair to include the devs that design their games around that aspect.

But demos would be perfect for games that don’t live up to their promise (for the CP2077 & Fallout 76’s of the world).

 

[ToadMan]

Who cares? They are here to inform you how much time do you have left in your trial. You won't stare at that screen for 3 hours.

And there are of course prettier ways to display it.

My point is. Sony could do it on OS level so I really don't understand why they need to bother developers with it.

I care - I want a premium feeling console experience and a major element of that is UI look and feel consistency. I like how PS recent trials have done things - timing nicely integrated into the game specific UI.

I don’t want jarring and ugly OS dialogs anywhere. That just smells of lazy minimum effort coding and makes the rest the system feel low effort as a result.

Having said that I’m pretty sure we will still see some low effort dialog boxes anyway because some publishers just try to do the bare minimum to the timescale.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I think full game trials work out well. I've bought quite a few games because I wanted to continue, like Cyberpunk which was also the full game on a timer. Its the game proper, the actual beginning. The common knowledge is that if you like the first few hours, you probably like the rest of the game. You keep your progress and don't have to download the game again, its very tempting just to lift the lock and play on.

I was also really close to buying Stranger of Paradise because of the full game trial. The only reason I did not was Elden Ring and Gran Turismo being out at the same time. But I'm eyeing a sale on it.

 

[Tomeru]

Would be written in the next new developer terms.
Also this will basically prevent new paid CoD games coming to Playstation after the Microsoft merger.

Microsoft wants the "free" game on Game Pass not a competing platform.

What do you mean would be. Source?

 

[nominedomine]

this could change the first two hours of those game affected...
let's see the games become basically a tutorial that last two hours

At least they won't be a tutorial that last more than two hours then, like many of them are right now.

 

[Tomeru]

If they tested it out and the sales numbers looked encouraging, why are they instituting a rule across the platform? Seems like devs would be lining up on their own. Makes you wonder.

Maybe they are, hence why sony is saying hundreds of games on their service. Makes you wonder indeed.

 

[adamsapple]

But by that logic you also have to accept the idea that GamePass, then, must in fact not lead to sales increases like it's been claimed, since in that service's case games are presented in their entirety for only the cost of the monthly sub. At least with 2-hour game trails, IF a person likes the game enough they are going to be inclined to buy it which means the publisher still gets their money.

And I know that GamePass has its way of offsetting potential lost sales via the payments they do on a per-game or per-dev/pub basis (not to mention different types of payments based on different metrics), but it's a method that can't be realistically done for every 3P AAA game due to the costs that'd involve. That's the compromise. Sony wants to provide access to every 3P AAA game for subscribers at the highest tier; their compromise is that the amount of time for that content is limited to at least 2 hour trails.

Game Pass has historical data for a few years that shows the trends of people buying things while subscribed increasing compared to Xbox gamers who aren't subscribed to the service.

For this service, we don't have any point of reference like that so far. So we can't really compare them right now.

Besides that, the one big difference between what GP offers and what this is that you get full new releases on day 1, this is only promising trials.

So GP is mitigating the need for people to buy new games, since they're getting a lot of them day 1 anyway.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I like the idea, but it shouldn't be behind a paywall.

At least not the top tier paywall

Maybe just keep the 2 hour demo to the top tier and just 1 hour demo for everyone else but everyone should have these demos

 

[Snake29]

Game trails are just the full games with a timer.

 

[Heisenberg007]

At least not the top tier paywall

Maybe just keep the 2 hour demo to the top tier and just 1 hour demo for everyone else but everyone should have these demos

That depends on developers. They will have the option of also releasing a demo outside of PS+ Premium if they want to.