DId you tinker around with the configuration files? I remember the demo running better when I turned off some of the lighting effects and such.

though, I haven't got around to playing the full version yet.

If you can change these setting in-game or via a setup program run on the first start, then I probably did. If you have to open config files with a text editor or something, I most likely didn't. In the latter case I might give the demo another try.

Demos can be bad for consumers too, they steal resources away from game development and polish.

At worst they actively lie to you, if a game is good, admit it, we can find it out without a demo. It's only mediocre-ish games that have us on the fence usually.

Not true in my case, see above. (But I'm aware that this is a minority thing.)

Well embracing platforms that essentially give a demo for "free" or close to it, just be virtue of developing the game, is probably the only way we're going to make everyone happy and make demos common again. The PC doesn't currently have a platform like this so we'll have to push one or more of the existing platforms to integrate this.

Indeed. My bad. Thanks for pointing it out. Fixed my post.

You might be part of a minority and most gamers may not need demos anymore because there are tons of reviews from professionels and amateurs, play-videos on youtube, discussions, ... and the prices are lower, so the risk is lower. I guess most people have a budget and spent it on video games, whether there is a demo or not.

I guess even better than demos would be if you could test the real game for a small time period or if you only pay for what you play. Then the need for demos would go away immediately.

With some modern titles the problem is also game time. If the full game is shorter than a classic demo used to be, you just can't make a meaningful demo of it and still leave something to buy.

But actually you are not alone. I also wouldn't have bought Defenders Quest without the demo. Tower Defense is really not my genre, but since some people here urged everyone to try the demo, I did. And I liked it and bought it right away.

Demos worked for me for hidden object games. There you can typically play the first hour for free. What these demos do is make me check out more games and decide which of them I like. I think it works this way because the mechanics are mostly the same, and it's the story, mechanics details and art which make one game better than another. Also possibly because I don't hear much about these games.

For more hardcore games (including indie), I typically know more about the games, so I've already filtered out a lot, and the demos are mainly used to filter out more, i.e., the demo can have mainly a negative effect on what I think of the game. I'm still not sure if this ends up working for or against games. I'm pretty sure demos still make me check out more games, and I would have dismissed more otherwise.

Well, after defending demos pretty adamantly, today, I played the Teudogar demo. It lasted for about an hour and consisted of running back and forth between cities to get support for an alliance against Rome.

It was interesting. The characters kept my interest and the story seemed like it was going to build into something epic. I even got a good chuckle when something to the effect of this came up; "An alliance with you? You didn't even buy the Full Version! How do we know you're trustworthy?"

But I pretty much did errands for everyone else for an hour and only got to fight in two encounters, one of them being a practice fight. That doesn't seem like it's going to convince a whole lot of people that it's a game worth buying. Especially if a lot of the game consists of that.

It might be that the demo is not reflecting the features of the real game but assumed that the game is like this: would you buy it?

Oh I have no doubt it's not even coming close to reflecting the features of the real game but my point is that perhaps it should.

Not sure if I'd buy it. I saw something about sacrifices for bonuses and that piqued my interest quite a bit.

A demo won't be done in time for pre-orders, not even close. Even if it could be done (and it can't) the chance the final product would look anything like the demo is relatively small.

If this bothers you (and it's fine that it does), don't pre-order, seriously, it's easily solved.
Not all of them do, but let's suppose they do, why do you think they would want to do this? To make more money. Demos will only cost money, and in too many cases will actively deny you sales. You're seriously arguing "because they want to make more money they should do something that means they will make less money!" I'm not sure that argument is gonna fly, logically, in the board room.
Yeah, because in reality the data says they make tons more when they release demos so now they don't want to... You're comparing a situation with a party who has high motivation to lie on a subject with one where it's not apparent that they do.
The same way they do other market research. Just because you don't always like the result doesn't mean companies don't do it and it doesn't generally (more or less) work out.
Yes, unless you wanted the demo well after the game launches, it has to go through certification too, which means you gotta get it done earlier. This is why on XBox 360, a platform that still manages to have more demos than most, non-XBLA games frequently get demos only well after the game has launched. Demos will often take a lot longer than a DLC to complete, at least that's what I understand.
If you can find another game that multiple reviewers with a wide range of audiences have called "the most important game in a decade/ever" knock yourself out. I'm saying this knowing you probably can't. Not everyone has to agree or even think it's a good game for it to be true. If I sat down a bunch of modern reviewers and made them watch Citizen Kane you really think they'd all like it? What about Psycho? Did all reviewers like them back when they came out? Beating this drum "not everyone liked Spec Ops: The Line" is just dumb. I don't even know if you played it, but I know a wide range of reviewers who did and were stunned by it, some them very thoughtful people. And if most of them are saying the same thing, that's good enough for me even if whothefuckareyouanyway.com didn't rate it highly.

Except it's often the case, lot's of the "remaining" demo are released before the release date. I am not talking 6 months earlier, but enough to cancel the pre-order or makes new one if needed.

I usually don't, and what is your point ? I never sold any of the games I bough and yet I am still against limiting/preventing second hand sales.

Releasing patch also cost them money and doesn't increase sales, it doesn't mean they should stop doing it too. Concerning the demo it's a situation they created themselves, they increase the needs for demo by blocking/limiting the other way of getting information about the game before release and/or getting rid in case it doesn't turn up good.

And let's put some perspective, even if demo cost money to make it's not like it's going to cost several hundreds millions extra. Like I said earlier I understand that for open world RPG it could be too complex/costly to create a demo, but that's not true for most of the linear, level based, games released nowadays.

Another third person shooter with an average 76-77% review score, not sure that would be too hard to find...

Seriously I don't really see what you are trying to argue here, the game got "in general" Ok-ish to good score (but still lower than most of the other high profile TPS/FPS), and that's not even an opinion, that's a fact; after we can argue that the reviewers that didn't gave a 110% score didn't "get" the game or that only reviews praising it are worth considering; but that's another debate.