Sony Looking Into Degradable Game Demos

In a bid to find new ways of enticing people to buy their games, Sony has filed a patent for game demos that degrade over time.

The examples illustrated in the patent include a racing game whose levels are locked the more you play (my whole world just turned upside-down), and weapons that gradually decrease in utility.

This should be great for games that Sony feels aren’t good enough to sell on a small taste of their gameplay alone. Something like Heavy Rain, whose demo I played for ten minutes and will likely never touch again, could benefit from a downloadable bit wherein some of your contextual actions are taken away. Imagine not having the option to flush the toilet after your character makes a mess inside it!

Do game demos really need to be revamped like this? If a title is worth playing, then a studio should surely be able to pick a half-hour or so segment that will make gamers want to pick up the full release.

We may not have to worry about this going through at all, though. Often, a patent being filed doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to happen, so it’s possible this could fall through the cracks.

Oh, but what about this? Say you download the Rock Band 3 demo and you can play any of the 80 songs in the game, but ten random songs lock themselves after each one you play. I would either kill someone, or just buy the stupid game.

Maybe this isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Via: Game Informer