‘The Witcher 3’ Interview: PS4, Xbox One features, demo, and more discussed

Examiner was recently given the opportunity to interview the development team and discuss numerous topics with Michał Krzemiński, Senior Art Producer, of the game.

[Cyb3r]

I wonder why most games developers dont release demos on new gen consoles there are only about 6 on the PS4 and the console has been out for nearly a year now. Do they think demos will hurt sales

[thekhurg]

In most cases, a demo does hurt sales.

[ThisJarContainsTHC]

Well yeah, if the game sucks.

[darthv72]

it can also be a matter of $$. if i recall...making a demo available actually costs the publisher $ to have it available on the individual services.

MS and Sony both have some sort of program in place that allows for a demo to be made public at a certain price because of the service playing host to the file instead of the publisher themselves.

there is good $$ to be made from hosting these files and that is $$ that could go towards finishing the project or marketing it. So these publishers are scaling back.

the cost of development has been increasing and if they can make their project playable at a public event and let word of mouth spread..that is free advertising without them having to commit to a demo that will cost them out of pocket.

It's generally all about $$$$

[Yetter]

It does cost money to make a demo and because a team has to actual curate the content in that demo which is why just adding a timer to a demo has become more popular. I'm also under the impression that if a game has a marketing budget or is from a well known franchise, game demos actually do hurt sales