Have You Ever Bought a Game Based on a Demo? - Gamervision.com

Gamervision says, "In the last gaming generation, game demos weren't readily available, because online gaming wasn't anywhere near what it is today. Demos were sometimes offered on special discs that came as pre-order bonuses, meaning that if you got a demo of a game, you were probably already committed to buying it. Only a few years ago, demos were merely meant to tide you over until the game came out, and not used so much as marketing tools in order to convince gamers to buy that product. Sure, this wasn't always the case; you could sometimes score demos with certain gaming magazine subscriptions, but these demos came after the actual game was out half of the time. At any rate, it's still pretty clear that things have changed since the start of the current generation. Now demos are only a few minutes of downloading away, readily available for nearly every system. Because you can pick and choose demos at your leisure, they are a bigger deal for publishers, and have the potential to make or break a game."