Do demos increase or decrease CoG/HG sales?

🤦 unfortunately it seems people are just priks sometime’s.

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I certainly don’t want to stand up for the idiots here, but the button only says “Play now for free”. It’s certainly true that the text right above the buttons says that only the first few chapters are free, but the button itself doesn’t. :confused: I’ve often thought that maybe some of the bad reviews could be ameliorated by simply changing the text of the button to something like “Play free demo now”, but I’m certain that wouldn’t stop all of them… :sweat:

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True, but some people complain that, “You should’ve mentioned that the game wasn’t free before I downloaded it.” … I mean, I can’t imagine any CoG/HGs take too long to download, or that they take up enough space that people need to uninstall something else in order to make room for it, but still. :yum:

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“Play Now For Free” = “You will have to pay money to play later” Next to a “Buy it Now” button (Which is clear to non-idiots).

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever get away from bad reviews because the game isn’t free.

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I’d say that while games with demos have more downloads (and maybe sales than games without ones ?) Games without demos seem to have better ratings, especially since you know what you get. While games games with demos seem to be full of 1 star reviews by people who refuse to believe that the authors are human beings who need to

Demos increase sales for(good ?)games because the demo gives you at taste of the game in order to get you hooked and make you “need” to buy it

I hope you non idiots enjoy all your one stars.

Excuse me???

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My opinion on this: it’s probably have something to do with how the demo ends.


This reminds me to a quote in Jeff Lyons’s Premise Line

Situations tend to evolve into episodic storytelling, which can be distracting and off-putting to audiences (and readers).

In this case of free chapter and demo, I interpret it as this “unsatisfying, unresolved plot” which is caused by CoG’s guide “put the end-of-demo mark before a powerful moment.” This might sounds as a good strategy, but, IMO, also a not-consumer-friendly one.

But I digress.


Personally, I’d like to think that a demo should have their demo-plot resolved, not this “hey, here’s a cool story. Oh, wanna continue? Pay now.” A demo should leave us with this satisfaction, yet enough curiosity to click that “pay to continue.”


Give a glimpse to the world, proceed to the pre-climax, the hero packs their bag, and they’re off to their journey.

Demo ends.

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Ok, I know we’ve said this multiple places, but just so we’re all clear:

Marking games on Google Play as Free to Download sells more games that marking them as paid upfront.

Yes, this generates 1 star reviews from people (and I would venture to guess these reviews are often from children, that is, literal minors, who do not have any money or means to buy games online.)

We’re not changing how we sell games on Google Play.

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