It's official, No Civ3 Demo

[Provost Harrison]

Well Adm. Naismith, I could not blame you for downloading warez to see what the game is like before you buy...

[Grumbold]

I believe I'm correct in saying that the EU laws apply and you can demand a full refund for a faulty software product (you say its faulty i.e. it crashes after half an hour playing, no proof required, you get your money back). Unfortunately if that awareness has not spread to Italian shops then someone somewhere needs to bring a test case against a store to prove it then ensure it is upheld in future. Not a job for the average buyer without the backing of a consumer organisation to provide the legal support.

[MarkG]

yeap, it's true, just a got a confirmation from firaxis....

[Guildenstern]

The consumer liscensing laws in America are not as strict as they are in the EU, but the stores that people often buy these kinds of games from (Best buy, Electronics Boutique come to mind) have pretty good waranties about returning "defective" games... I just recently returned a copy of Black and White to best buy b/c it had hardware compatibilty issues.

My opinion on the demo debacle (and you can quote me on that ) is that if they feel they need the time that they would have to spend making a good demo to make the game better, fine. I'm buying the game anyway

[hexagonian]

The hard-core civ fan willl buy it, irregardless...

However, a demo is very nice for someone who may have never tried the game in the first place. I went out and got one of my favorite games, 'Pharaoh', because of the demo. Would I have bought the game if I hadn't played the demo??? - doubtful...

And playing SMAC on a demo was nice to get the feel of the game, though I went on more of the fan comments than playing the demo when I bought the game.

Of course enough people have heard of Civ, so a name goes a long way. Firaxis is counting on that fact - that and the pub in Time.

[Andrew1999]

I probably wouldn't have downloaded a demo anyway. They are getting ridiculous. The last one I tried to get was over 100MB and the server was so sluggish I just gave up. By the time the Civ3 demo finished downloading the game would be out already...

[MikeR8]

Even in the U.S. its hard to return a game to most places if there are hardware conflicts or if the game is just no good. I like demos for the following reasons.

They allow us to try a product before we buy it. This is important because we are paying $50 for a game that we don't know if we like or even if it will work on our system.

They show that a company has faith in their product and is not just using its name/publicity to con us out of $50.

The last game that I bought without a demo was call to power and that was a big mistake. The only way that I will risk buying a game without a demo again is if it recieves rave reviews from nearly all of the gaming sites and it doesn't recieve many complaints from fans on forums like this one.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I believe I'm correct in saying that the EU laws apply and you can demand a full refund for a faulty software product (you say its faulty i.e. it crashes after half an hour playing, no proof required, you get your money back). Unfortunately if that awareness has not spread to Italian shops then someone somewhere needs to bring a test case against a store to prove it then ensure it is upheld in future. Not a job for the average buyer without the backing of a consumer organisation to provide the legal support.

It's not a try to fit some comparate law system lesson , but... EU laws usually derive from a patwork of best law and legal practice over the european states. Then every parlament must (should?) make a national law to make EU laws valid into the country (my apologize to any professional if I'm writing wrong legal info, please correct me).

The legal system in Italy AFAIK haven't managed to introduce in Italy what you mention. So current rules are: prove the product defective for everyone (not doing what promisen in written words) and not for your system limit, and you can have your money back.

Consumer organization can help, but not so much (specially for a product as a game) and you must add that in Great Britain a court decision make a relevant "first time": get a succes and you are on the right way to have a "de facto" law extension.

In Italy a court decision only is applicable for that case, so next time any lawyer can read the "first time" sentence but never consider it as relevant for the new case.

Provost, it seems the Game producers never learn!

[Zealot]

I'm sorry, and I'll try to express myself without being expressively rude. But trust me, I'm really pissed.

Why, but WHY shouldn't be a demo???
I bought SMAC because I played it's demo! I practiced on SMAC's demo before buying the game because I liked it!!!

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith
So we now know (...) that Firaxis is (chose yours):

a) under so great pressure it can't make a workable demo of the game
b) afraid of the avalanche of bug/balancing issue the demo players can send back to it
c) ready to milk as much money they can before someone realize that Civ III is not the game our community is waiting for
d) lightened by the Angel of the game makers, who predict to Firaxis all is so good heaven itself will be proud to buy the Limited Edition ("and could they preset the game to Deity level, please?")

a), b) and c)

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith
Definitely ignorance is a virtue: if I never discovered Apolyton, nor have access to Internet, nor read any (good) game magazine, when I'd see the game on the shelves I'd buy it with joy and happiness (at least for a while ).

Now I'll barely touch the game with a stick until proven good!
Not because I'm sure it will be bad, but simply because I haven't a single trusted hint it will be good enough out of the box!

Yes! I agree!
Do a pre-release demo! Do an after-release demo! Who cares?!? Just give us a demo! Why is it so hard to impose a 100 turn limit demo so in a sudden?!? Was Brian or Tim or someone else the only person to impose that limit?!?

Did you know that I searched (a lot of) the net for a SMAC-X demo, just to know if the expansion was worth it! And, despite the only two new races, I think it was worth it!

Damn. :banned:

P.S.- Did the spell checking. Lost more than five minutes with Naismith's quotes.

[General Ludd]

EB has a 10 day return policy, I've returned many a game to them recently. But, I believe there is also a disclamer that allows them to tell you to go to hell if they don't feel like giving you your money back.

[Darkknight]

Well first time in the news for me but wish it wasn't this
Maybe it's because all the screenshots are mock-ups and the game will just be a black and white screen saying YOU'VE WON ON DEITY!!

Or maybe they're just holding back to build up our anticipation.

Or maybe the kevlar anti-petrol-bomb armour hasn't been installed yet.

Or maybe they enjoy basking in knowing something that just 50 people in the world know??

[marcuspeddle]

I don't think I need a demo to decide whether or not to buy Civ3. Well, actually, I pre-ordered the Limited Edition through Chips 'n' Bits (The will is strong but the flesh has a credit card) so I'm sure I don't need a demo. Sometimes demos help me decide if I don't know anything about the game but in this case I know Sid Meier's products very well so I don't need a demo to make up my mind. I got the demo of Doom because I didn't have enough money for the full version (I was a student then and later I did buy the full version). I downloaded the demo for Pharoah but was disappointed because I couldn't save. I bought the full version of the game in spite of the demo and I'm still playing it almost every day.
Where am I going with this? To get an idea of whether a game is good or not I usually check out fan sites and forums to get people's opinions. I check out epinions.com and reviews by gaming sites. By doing this I usually don't order any duds.
Some people are arguing for a demo so they can complete mods in time for the game release. There's lots of time for mods after the game is released. I'm not going to try a mod until after I've played the original game for a while.

[Leonidas]

I've played all of Sid's past games, and they have all been winners with me.

And from the sounds of it, I will be buying CivIII.

But there are just two things that bother me:

1) The in-house beta testing;

2) And the deadline for the game's release.

That means, upon the game's release, there will be more bugs/play issues than should be warranted, especially considering its complexity.

I hope I'm wrong and everything goes smooth, but deadlines are deadlines. . .

BTW, while we're on the subject: Does anyone know of any game that went on to become a winner, even though it had no demo?

I usually never buy a game until I have played the demo.

Just wondering. Even CTP put out a demo. . .

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Leonidas
BTW, while we're on the subject: Does anyone know of any game that went on to become a winner, even though it had no demo?

The Sims, Total Anhilation, and Baldur's gate to name a few. I could name a million more if you are just talking about pre-release demos.

[Shteven]

i barely ever play a demo of a game before i buy it, so i don't really care that civ 3 is not having a demo. I'm buying it either way. I own ever civ series game so far and i'm not leaving this one out. Even if it is crappy it's easy to return it. I've never had trouble returning a game in the past and i don't think i'll have trouble now. however i highly doubt i'll have to return the game. i have faith that it's going to be a good game anyway. They've all been so far.



And Sid and the rest of the design team have their reputations to worry about. they just can't make a crummy game. so what are you all stressing about