Even though demos are helpful for consumers looking to try before they buy, a new study is claiming that they're not the most effective marketing tool. In fact, the study recommends that publishers shouldn't bother dealing with demos in order to promote their new games; instead, they should rely more on trailers for their advertising.
Gregory Short and Geoffery Zatkin, of the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research Group, presented their findings at last week's MI6 conference. The EEDAR's study revealed that demos can be useful for spreading information about a game via word-of-mouth, but they're not nearly as effective as a trailer alone. The report claimed that a trailer is much more effective because it generates buzz via online communities.
Also, according to the EEDAR, the sales figures they tracked revealed that games released with a demo and a trailer tend to sell less than those released with only a trailer. Of course, more games are released for the PS3 and the 360 without demos than those that are, and (since the actual study is unavailable to the public, only a report of the EEDAR's MI6 presentation) it's impossible to tell if the methodology was sound.
