Crytek: Free Demos To End

Free game demos are a “luxury”, says Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli, defending EA’s recent announcement that they’re introducing paid for demos. Speaking to Develop, Yerli said that the notion of a free demo “is a luxury we have in the game industry that we don’t have in other industries such as film.

“Because we’ve had this free luxury for so long, now there are plans to change this people are complaining about it. The reality is that we might not see any free game demos in the long term.” He’s referring to EA, who plan to offer paid for ($10-$15) demos of games before the games themselves hit the shelves.

“I read a lot about [the complaints from gamers] and read about the backlash as well; people complaining that they would essentially be paying for a beta,” he said. “The thing is, every time we see a publisher doing something to improve the industry, making things more commercially viable and actually increasing the market, people instantly think this is only some money-hungry ploy.”

“Yes it is quite unpopular, but this is a messaging issue. The problem with any new strategy like this is it initially may appear as a blood-hungry, money-grabbing strategy. But I think there is a genuine interest here to give gamers something more than a small demo released for free.”

Yerli talks about the concept of paid-for demos as a way to “salvage a problem” – the industry is losing money and this is just one way to get some of that investment back.  “There is good thinking behind EA’s plan,” says the CEO. Crytek haven’t “fully decided” on whether there’s going to be a demo, paid for or not, of Crysis 2.

“I think that we’ll see more and more games not carrying a demo in the future, because it becomes prohibitively expensive.”