One of the most compelling attributes of the online gaming console is the way in which your gaming experience can be enriched outside of the discs we are so excited to buy. Downloadable content, games and even game media allows us to know what’s new, what’s coming up and even how the game plays in the form of small game demos. On Xbox LIVE, every game must have a demo, giving you an opportunity to play the game before you fork out your Microsoft Points. Sony’s PlayStation Network doesn’t necessarily have the same consistency of LIVE, but it does offer a similar service for online games, and both offer demos for many of their disc-based games. With bigger, meatier games you may not expect to see a demo coming out before the launch date, but you may just catch a beta, be it private or public, which usually works out to be the same.

On the topic of demos, Gears of War 2 designer Cliff Bleszinski has stated that his game would not be featuring a demo because it would taint the experience of the launch for gamers and perhaps turn people off buying the full game in lieu of just trying a slice of it. It seems a bit of a strange argument to say that people that may not be compelled to play the full game be made to grab the disc or wait in order to get that experience, and does bring a lot of questions as to the effectiveness of demos on the console landscape. In the PC world, there is often a stronger push to have some sort of demo available for certain companies, if for nothing else just to combat people making “demos” of their own through downloads, but the console landscape remains scattered in that regard. Nintendo doesn’t have much in the way of demos for their online content, Sony has some but not all games available to try, and LIVE, as mentioned before, requires all online games.

Timing seems to be the big debate at this point for many major titles. Sure, Gears may not have a demo now, but when the holiday season has subsided we may see the game have some playable form for download. Apparently, according to Cliff, it would have been a long wait for the final game if they had created a demo, pushing the title back to February 2009. Realistically, however, it seems as if a demo was just not accounted for as part of the planning, and likely comes down a decision very early on not to have one at all for launch. Not having one at all, though, should be seen as a major problem. It’s understandable that big games from the big publishers might not have any playable form, hoping to drill off the hype campaigns and trailers then actually letting the game speak for itself, and often it’s a demonstration that the full title is what’s really needed to actually make the game experience work.

Game demos are important. While not necessarily for games that you can rent or borrow, like Gears or even LittleBigPlanet, the downloadable games need to get their act together across all platforms. Some games are just a bit too risky to spend 10 dollars on not knowing what kind of experience you might get, and often it can seem like that risk is what some groups are banking on. Nintendo is definitely lacking in this area, but seems to be at least taking a chance on creating more online shopping space, and hopefully integrating a storage solution will give them a bit more room to try it. The right tease can really draw an audience, and given the fact that PixelJunk Eden was a game I wasn’t sure I’d grab, the demo made it a Day 1 purchase. Of course, the wrong demo experience could really turn someone off a game altogether, so the focus needs to come from a decision early on, knowing just what you want to audience to experience from their time with the game, and always leave them wanting more.