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Should I release a demo as well as a full paid version of my game?

Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi everyone,

I'm about to release my Gear VR game to the Oculus Store. However, I have been debating if I should also release a free demo version. This was initially my plan, but after discussing the idea with friends and professionals, I got different kinds of feedback. The first thing I am concerned about is that the free demo won't actually be 'physically' connected to the paid version (I believe the store doesn't allow you to do that, they have to be two different games), so players may be confused. I was also told that the free version may end up in a different section like the 'gallery' section, which may confuse players even more. Additionally, other developers told me not to release a demo version because players will just try it and never purchase the paid version. So I have a bit of a dilemma here, I personally want players to try the game first and make sure they enjoy it enough to pay for it (or they may leave bad reviews just because it wasn't their kind of game and didn't realize it at first), but I have been advised otherwise by other devs... Some people mentioned to use DLCs but I don't want to go down that path.

What do you think? If you've released a game, did you have a similar issue/experience? 

Thanks for your help
5 REPLIES 5

pekayatt
Expert Protege
Just my 2 cents as someone who has done that (The Rabbit Hole for Gear VR has both options).

The conversion between the two releases are not really co-related, but it is good to spread the word about your game.
We have done the IAP so anyone playing the demo version can pay to upgrade their version, with an average of 350 installs per day we get around 1 or 2 upgrades per day.

On the other hand the paid version gets around 5 to 15 sells per day. Sometime ago we got more than 60 units sold per day, but I do believe the game is getting older.

What I understand is that the public is totally different, you can even make monkey with free games, but they will be similar to F2P mobile game (hell).

Anonymous
Not applicable
Thanks for all your feedback and replies 🙂

@imperativity
Sorry, I don't really want to use IAPs... I personally don't like games that use IAPs,  they give this feeling of a game that is mainly based on a 'pay as you go' scheme (and I feel that other players share that opinion). I know the F2P mobile market mainly relies on this approach, but I'm more 'old school' and want players to purchase the game if they like it, and be done with it.  That being said, thank you so much for your feedback, I will look into IAPs and see if it would be better choice.

@pekayatt
Thank for your awesome feedback. I think the new Oculus refund policy sorts of answered my question. I don't think I need to release a demo version, if players don't enjoy the game, then they can ask for a refund. I'm not a big fan of IAPs and F2P games - maybe I'm old school, but I want players to purchase the full game and be done with it. This is the way how I personally play, I hate IAPs. A game flagged  with  IAPs could be asking you to pay for every single new level or feature. I personally hate that... Thank you so much for sharing your experience, oh, and by the way, the Rabbit Hole is awesome 🙂

pekayatt
Expert Protege
@squidbeam

You welcome man! In fact the changes on refund can solve all this problems, we too had a concern if the game would have problems running on different systems, and we thought that it would help to have the demo so people would not give us bad reviews. Do not think like that, bad reviews come to you even if you have the demo :lol:

Thanks for the compliments on The Rabbit Hole, it is a hard game (at least some of the puzzles), but we enjoyed creating it. We are about to release Apocalypse Rider, if you want to try it soon just send me a message ;).

Anonymous
Not applicable

pekayatt said:

@squidbeam

You welcome man! In fact the changes on refund can solve all this problems, we too had a concern if the game would have problems running on different systems, and we thought that it would help to have the demo so people would not give us bad reviews. Do not think like that, bad reviews come to you even if you have the demo :lol:

Thanks for the compliments on The Rabbit Hole, it is a hard game (at least some of the puzzles), but we enjoyed creating it. We are about to release Apocalypse Rider, if you want to try it soon just send me a message ;).



Ah ah! Yeah, I hear you, I released the first version of my game last year for free. And although it was free, I clearly remember one player leaving a one star review because the game wasn't translated in his language 🙂

I just checked the trailer for Apocalypse Rider, looks great! The trailer says 'without motion sickness,' I'm really sensitive to motion sickness so I could be a great test subject 😉 So yeah, I would love to try it out and send you feedback! By the way, I've just started closed Beta testing for my Gear VR game, would you be interested to try it out as well?...

pekayatt
Expert Protege
Of course I am! You can invite me through my Oculus username!