yeah. how dare he offer a *gasp* FREE demo.
What a concept.
I have my champagne ready for the upcoming day that EA tanks.

This comment was edited on Jan 2, 17:10.

I'd have to say that everyone here who doesn't like the distribution of the demo, is blowing things out of proportion.
The reasons for demos are as an ADVERTISEMENT for the game. To get people to play the game, so that they might find out they like it, to buy a full version of the game. This is common sense.
I know of no people who buy magazines purely for the demos. If a magazine has bad articles (like CGW has), then their sales will not be saved by demos. But the fact is, about 75% of all news publications' revenue comes from advertising. Not from actual sales. And advertising is done in bulk deals, not on the fly. People reserve spaces in magazines without knowing the articles that will be put in. The same goes for newspapers.

The only reason I suspect EA did the whole Amazon sale thing, is because they are going broke. They had to slash half their projects in October due to money troubles.

Case and point, demos are made to CREATE revenue, not to GENERATE it. Which is the likely reason why EA hasn't tried to pull the demo off of Blue's News. If the game is what they advertise it to be, then it will help them MUCH more than it will hurt them.

PC Gamer > CGW

The key word is "learn". The people whining would most likely rather play the game than actually create something themselves. Because that would take "imagination". They'd just rather frag and attempt to escape from their daily lives than actually contribute to the gaming world and enrich their hobby.
Safety from cheaters in an OUTDATED game is a worthy sacrifice for the ability to create brand new games from it.

This comment was edited on Dec 27, 19:44.

Um... guys? I hate to be the bringer of knowledge (since it's a pity it's so void in here), but they're obviously NOT going under. They're filing for CHAPTER 11 bankruptcy PROTECTION.
Apparently no one in here is very familiar with bankruptcy law. Chapter 11 is for COMPANY REORGANIZATION. It is simply so a company does NOT go under while they are reorganizing.

I've never played the game, but everyone who seems to play it recently heralds it. Everyone criticizing it seems to be a past user that's still sore about the release. After reading the article in PC Gamer, I'm pretty convinced to try it once the trial copy comes out.

FM2K, you might want to add in the success of Deus Ex.
Despite that it was freeware on any new soundblaster card, it still was able to drag Ion Storm's name from the hole that it was in, and be acclaimed as one of the best games ever made.
Gamers expect more because our computers are capable of much more. The minimum requirements on this season's games are the equivelent to this year's new consoles. PC games are breaking the boundary between artwork and entertainment, while consoles are meant to ONLY be a quick fix to keep the kids quiet. As the man said, we are a much older market. We expect a whole hell of alot more. And we see what games ARE capable of, and no marketing can change our opinion when we see that a game absolutely sucks.

PC gamers look at things like the Final Fantasy movie, and say "I want better graphics", because quite simply, they CAN be better. We WANT them to be better. We know they WILL be better. But if we don't call for them to be better, there is no reason for publishers to fund better projects. This is why EA is failing. They are staying through with funding poor products like Majestic and Harry Potter, and then cancel out GOOD projects, and fire their TALENTED workers. This is why EA is going broke. And it seems quite convenient that Chris Morris forgot to add that.

what the hell MMORPG are you talking about that costs $30 a month?

The Doom 3 demo was done at the announcement of the GeForce 3, since its graphics are based on DX8/GF3 technology. It happened that nVidia premiered the GF3 on the mac.
If you don't know this, then no, you apparently did NOT see the event.