I don´t understand it. I feel much more "prone" to a game that I know and appreciate a bit than one which I´m not sure about it (no trust in reviews). Lately, here on GOG, was poking around and tried the Defender´s Quest browser demo (nice idea). Now the game is at least in the wishlist. I remember when, in midle 90´s and early 2000, games always have demos, even compilations were sold by some publishers. One of my favorite games from all times, Tropico, I discovered by one of these compilations. What happened?

It's not considered worth it, it's more likely you'll turn a customer away by showing your game is actually shit (unless you go the Aliens: Colonial Marines route), than it is to make someone who still isn't interested in your game despite all the available information to suddenly change his mind.

Plus, demos cost money, and they think it's safer to spend on traditional marketing like trailers and gameplay demos, where they at least have control over the information being delivered.

Also there's established franchises, which are sold on name power alone.

Many games still have demos. That said, for those that don't, there are many possible reasons.

1) Extra development, distribution and maintenance costs
2) Huge file sizes
3) If the quality of your game leaves something to be desired, people will find out about it really quick by playing the demo and refuse to buy the full version

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/demo-daze

I have no idea. Demos are great marketing tools for a game & could possibly reduce piracy. I'm probably just parroting points here, but I reckon demos aren't made is because of bad press & cost.

I never thought of those points.
I wanted to say something profound in here that was pro-demo but even when I look at my own past experience I come out 50/50 on it. Without demos I never get Commandos or Tomb Raider but demos also turned me off of Outcast which I learned here is a classic when played in full.

With only one exception every time I've played a game demo I don't buy the game. The only exception was Just Cause 2 cause the demo lets you muck around in the open world for a whole half hour. In the first 5 minutes I found a chaingun with infinite ammo and it was the bomb, but I couldn't find it again. I decided I had to buy the game and blow everything up. I think after hours of it I've gotten like 0.1% of everything destroyed - frikken giant game.

Yeah, otherwise every demo has made me lose interest.

It seems like these days, with the sheer amount of games available for DD as well as the many sales, most game purchases are more like an impulsive buy than a planned one.

Back during retail distribution, buying a game felt like a longer plan. You read about it somewhere like PC Gamer, then you waited and waited for news, then a demo finally came out a couple months before release.

The industry just seems to be moving so much more quickly these days, and if someone is remotely interested in a game publishers want to lure them in with a good deal or good advertising. A demo apparently has more risk for turning someone away, or giving them the feeling of having experienced the gist of what the game offers.

I am going to be honest - I get the reason. But it's flimsy for anyone except the people selling the game.

It's like saying that you're not allowed to try on clothes at the store because you might realize that they're not currently carrying your size or because they make you look really fat or something and you won't buy them.

Something just seems unethical about not letting the consumer know what they're buying to save a certain percentage of sales.

I mean, hell, most indie devs have demos and they're losing sales just from the prejudice against being indie!

I think one reason that they don't do demos is that you basically know what you are getting with games these days. The game play is like the last one in the series of the same game or if a new franchise if it is by developer X and they are know for their shooters or strategy games, you again basically know ahead of time what you are getting.

I always liked the idea of shareware, where you could try a chapter and if you liked it buy the rest.

I still have some old demo cdroms I bought from local gameretailers, that was in the dark ages before the internet, had a lot of fun with them. :)

I remember when I used to buy the Original Playstation Magazine just so I could get demo disks. Hardly ever read the magazine haha. A ton of games on those disks I regret never buying, namely ones like I-Ninja.

Well, the store doesn't need to buy special clothes made specifically for you to try on in case you might want to buy the real thing.

EDIT: On second thought, maybe they do. Otherwise It could get disgusting after a while.

Demos only makes sense if the devs think they can sell you on a game by offering a sample of its gameplay. Often this is not the case. :(