You can watch the whole thing (which runs just over 22 minutes) right here, and I recommend doing so, since the speech is pretty entertaining and informative overall. Schell makes some jokes, discusses the psychology of getting customers to spend money, talks about why Facebook games and microtransactions are terrible, and makes some less-than-optimistic predictions about the future of 3D games and augmented reality.
But most of that is being ignored because of something that occurred about half-way through the speech. In the context of discussing how "plans" affect consumer behavior, Schell presented a graph with data from EEDAR showing that games with a demo (and no trailer) sell better in the first six months than games with neither a demo nor a trailer... and that games with both a demo and a trailer sell even better... and that games with a trailer and no demo sell even better. In fact, among games with a trailer, those without a demo appear to be selling twice as well. Schell comments:
"Wait, you mean we spent all this money making a demo, and getting it out there, and it cut our sales in half?" Yes, that's exactly what happened to you. Because when you put the demo out — people had seen the trailer and they're like, "that's cool," and they made a plan: "I gotta try that game!" And then when they played the demo: "all right, I've tried that game. That was okay. All right, I'm done." But the things with no demo — you've got to buy it if you want to try it.This all starts at about 10:24 in the video below.
This minute-long part of the speech, far more than any other, is being picked out for commentary by video game news sites (see articles here and here and here and here and here). While it's regrettable that most of the speech is being overlooked, it should be no surprise that this particular section is a point of controversy. Schell is basically implying that sales can be increased by not releasing a demo, since a player might not want to buy the game anymore after he or she tries it.
A lot of us, understandably, are upset about the idea of game developers forgoing the playable demo for the express purpose of keeping customers uninformed. Such business practices are generally regarded as evil (and I've said as much before when discussing pre-order bonuses and other incentives to invest in games without even knowing how good they are). The reasoning is that players should be allowed to know what they're paying for, and this often means a bit of hands-on experience with the game, especially when a teaser trailer is insufficient. Trailers work for the film industry, but the most important aspect of a typical video game is — not surprisingly — the gameplay, and a trailer tells you little or nothing of that.
We care about how the game is played, how well the difficulty is balanced, and how the controls feel; unfortunately, you can't sample any of those things by watching a pre-rendered plot-focused movie-style preview. (This argument for the necessity of the playable demo isn't quite as strong in the case of a sequel, for which the continuation of a storyline is the major selling point, and in which gameplay might be expected to remain largely the same as in the previous release. However, even die-hard fans of a series will want to verify that the gameplay in the upcoming installment is up to par with that of its predecessors. And if it's not, this happens.) By failing to release a demo, a developer denies its customers the chance to gauge accurately the quality of the product first-hand, leaving them to rely on the opinions of professional reviewers and "gaming journalists" whose integrity is questionable to say the least.
If a developer refuses to release a demo, shouldn't that lack of transparency be troubling? Furthermore, if a developer actually fears that releasing a demo will result in a significant loss of sales, what does that say about their confidence in their own product? Finally, if the release of a demo does in fact lead to fewer sales, doesn't that mean the game wasn't very good? Maybe, just maybe, the release of a demo hurts sales on average because the average game just isn't very good. I'd like to think a fantastic game would only benefit from the release of a demo because people would see how great it is.
Schell, however, thinks it's less about the quality of the game, and more about the player's curiosity being satisfied — that once the player tries the game, even in the form of a demo, he or she will no longer need to buy it. To me, this is pretty unbelievable. When I download a demo, it's because I need to see the gameplay in order to decide whether to buy the game. The demo will make or break that purchase based on the apparent quality of the game alone. If I decide against the purchase, there's no "lost sale" as a result of the demo because, in the absence of a demo, I would never have bought the game at full price just to "try" it. But maybe most consumers just aren't as cautious as I am, and maybe Schell is right that a huge portion of sales are due to nothing but blind impulse.
The numbers, after all, seem to suggest as much. Still, it is exceedingly important, as always, to note that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Moreover, with nothing to analyze but the data itself, we can't really say which way any existing causation goes. Maybe some developers didn't bother to release demos because they knew their games — perhaps sequels riding on reputation alone — were going to sell regardless. Maybe some other developers released demos to generate interest because they knew their games weren't going to sell as well as those blockbuster sequels. Or maybe that's a stretch.
In any case, while I think it's plainly obvious that Schell is at least partially right, he's being rather dramatic ignoring a lot of possible contributing factors. To say that the release of a demo is solely responsible for a 50% reduction in sales is clearly an exaggeration. Furthermore, if Schell's statement is to be taken as advice for game developers, it's pretty horrid advice. If a developer does manage to increase the sales of a certain game by failing to release an hour-long playable demo, the only sales gained will be from players who get tired of playing the game after an hour. An increase in sales will mean an equal increase in disappointed customers. But the developer doesn't care, right? Hey, kid, no refunds.
So what should we take from all this? Dubious advice and questionable arguments aside, one fact still remains: If a developer releases a trailer and no demo, their game can still sell. We know this not because of the statistics Schell cited, but because we see it happening every day. Regardless of whether the release of a demo can hurt a game's sales, we're certainly not teaching the industry that the release of a demo is a prerequisite for record-breaking pre-orders. Too many of us are buying games without knowing what they're like, and eating up whatever the industry throws at us, probably because some of us don't know any better.
Worse yet, if Schell is right about how much the release of a demo can negatively affect sales — or, more accurately, how the absence of a demo can positively affect sales — it would mean that even "smart" consumers can be pretty dumb. It would mean that even those of us who like to make informed decisions, and try games before we buy them, will buy on impulse when such informed decisions are not possible. I don't doubt that some consumers do this on occasion, but could it really be happening to such an extent that the overall affect of not releasing a demo — of keeping us ignorant — is more profit for the publishers?
I'd like to think not, but if it's true, we only have ourselves to blame.
