I agree. I miss the days of buying games magazines that included a demo disc. Now in the age of digital distribution, it makes sense for games to have a demo.

Is seems win/win for both parties involved. The makers of the game get promotion of their game; the consumers get to test out the product before they make a purchase.

It may even help curb piracy.

Tell me about it. I'm exactly the same. I would love to see stripped out games. More fun, less flash. Like you said about Quake or Doom. No blur effects, no "realistic graphics", just a platform that would provide a lot of fun by gameplay.

For me, "realistic" it's opposite from "better". I just played Quake 1 for last two weeks, as i got it in a bundle, and oh god, how fun it can be, so fast paced and it does not even have free look. I think that "modern mechanics" like head shots and realistic backgrounds really messed up first person shooters. I don't want to feel like i'm in an real battlefield, or else i would have enrolled into army. I want to feel like i'm on an battlefield on steroids.

Not to mention character movement. In older games, when you stopped running, you pretty much stopped running. On modern games we have "inertia" transposed into character movement. Something like "well, you don't go 20-0 km/h in real life, you shouldn't do that in games either". Yea, good thing that i can kill 200 armed soldiers with a pistol all by myself, but we're getting realistic on physics laws that, even if they are true, they are annoying for having fun in a game.

And regarding our problem. Technology exists. It would be possible to make a game that could range from low graphics to high and that could range between requirements on an much wider areas that now. You could make Fallout 4 to look like Half Life 2 by adjusting the settings, but to also have high-end possibility. You can even sell them separately. High-def DLC in addition to the base game. The problem it's at hardware sells. Majority of gamers would play Fallout 4 looking like HL2 instead of buying a new graphic card. But when you don't have a choice, but you still want to play the game, you will buy that graphic card.

So, basically, the developers need to make 2 games, a 'proper'one and short one to give away for free? Demos take times, effort and $$$ to make also.

And regarding support or not, demos must be just as supported (if not more) than the 'proper' game, as this is what people will base their buying decision on.

For large games, this is a lot of hassle and actually a lot of monies.

I really don't see why they push for realistic-like battlefield games. Honestly i was in the army, and afterwards anything halfway remotely realistic i shun. This means MoH, CoD, Counter Strike, Arma, etc. I don't want reminders of what the 60 pounds of armor and backpack of crap felt like, even if i don't feel them, but i still remember what it feels like rucking for 4 hours straight carrying a M16 and my arm feeling like it's pulling out of it's socket...

As for technology and Fallout 4, i couldn't give a crap less about it. Years ago as a teen i recall prices for hardware to play games and stoutly refused to buy and upgrade my hardware every year so i could play the latest games; At least until recently when i made an actual gaming rig, but i won't upgrade without good reason. That said, if a game won't work on my computer i won't play it. I have been happy playing Operation Inner Space for hours and hours and hours, Castle of the Winds, ADOM. I don't need to buy or upgrade anything to be happy :P

No. It can be something random. Does not even have to be interactive. Just a small thing that would stress your configuration at the maximum parameters of that game, that would provide an accurate result from witch you can know how well that game will work on your machine. I'm don't know too much about programming, but i know enough to know that i'm not talking about science fiction here. Just a tool that could even be adjusted to work on multiple games. Something standard that can realistically test your system based on required specifications for a game.

I'm assuming they don't do it for the people who already were in the army but for those who can still be tricked into thinking it would be fun to join. ;)

Not sure if "meet the minimum requirements" really means that you can enjoy the game. I personally try to be way above minimum requirements just to be on the safe side.

If I understood the GOG refund policy correctly you could actually demand a refund if your computer met the minimum requirements but the game is not running fast enough later on. This would fall into the "technical difficulties, product not working as advertised" category.

Customer has to check that his hardware meets the minimal requirements and vendor has to check game is enjoyable with the given minimum requirements.

Even better, what about if Galaxy would actually check if a game fullfills minimum requirements and if you want to buy it through Galaxy, warns you before.

Maybe. I'm an oddball overall where I don't care for explosions, large trucks/jeeps, guns, etc. I'm the most unlikely military army Guy you could probably get. But sometimes to live you gotta do something you don't care for when you're dirt poor.
Quite often the minimum requirements are way above what they actually need to be... So it isn't too reliable :P

Zork (A text adventure)
Minimum system requirements - Windows: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 256MB RAM (512 recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.

Considering most games use specific engines, tailored to the game, it is very difficult to make something that works for more games. In this case, it will also not be a game demo, but a tech demo of a vanilla engine. In this case, all you need to do is download the latest demo game dev engine and see if it works on you machine.

Yes Quake 1 is one of my favourite games. It does have free-look; you may have to enable it in the options.