Will there be a demo?

[Darrigan]

Hi all,

Shortly (One week? Two weeks?) before CK2 came out, I remember that a demo was released. There you had the possibility to play as a limited number of characters (possibly only one, memory is foggy) for a limited number of years. I remember that at least the duke of Bohemia could be selected.

Will this be the case for CK3 as well? Would be nice if a dev or community manager could enlighten me/us. A "no" of course also is a valid answer

Many thanks!

 

[Soviet_Mercader]

The CK2 demo released 10 days before the full release. There were 4 characters playable; the King of Poland, Duke of Bohemia, Duke of Adrianopolis, and Duchess of Tuscany. And you could only play for 20 years. There was a bug that allowed you to play as any character though, and I think there was another bug to get around the time limit as well.

Now that that trip down memory lane is done. I doubt there would be a demo before the real release for CK3. I think it is more likely for their to be a "free weekend" or some other type of time limited event after release at some point if Paradox wanted to go that route and attempt to get lots of new people to try CK3 out for a bit.

I also don't think Paradox has done a demo for any of their other more recent titles that I can remember. I could be wrong but I certainly wouldn't get your hopes up. Not that I'd mind getting my hands on it a couple days early either.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

The CK2 demo released 10 days before the full release. There were 4 characters playable; the King of Poland, Duke of Bohemia, Duke of Adrianopolis, and Duchess of Tuscany. And you could only play for 20 years. There was a bug that allowed you to play as any character though, and I think there was another bug to get around the time limit as well.

Now that that trip down memory lane is done. I doubt there would be a demo before the real release for CK3. I think it is more likely for their to be a "free weekend" or some other type of time limited event after release at some point if Paradox wanted to go that route and attempt to get lots of new people to try CK3 out for a bit.

I also don't think Paradox has done a demo for any of their other more recent titles that I can remember. I could be wrong but I certainly wouldn't get your hopes up. Not that I'd mind getting my hands on it a couple days early either.

Agreed, also they've got the gamepass option and the streams are up. Demos probably don't have the shine they once did, especially for an established IP like CK.

 

[Nyrael]

I highly doubt there will be a demo. Last I heard, PDS Devs said that making Demos is not worth the large development time, and that players should check out Let's Plays, Reviews, forum posts, and so on to get an impression on what the game is like.

 

[CaptinObvious]

I remember that the numbers were crunched on the subject and it turned out that in the age of the internet, live-streams, and youtube, demos are a total net negative, which is why they have either completely disappeared, or are launched after the fact

 

[Mackus]

Demos belong to era when you would get one on CD that came with gaming magazine that you bough in you local kiosk.
After that, they were kept for a while out of inertia, but lets plays and pre-release streams and such gives potential customers all the info they need to decide whether buy it, at fraction of cost to the developer.

 

[Preuße]

Man, the last time I played a demo of something was like 20 years ago or so. I don't think demos are a thing anymore.

 

[Coldfire4134]

I really hope they do a free weekend close to launch. It would be great for getting more people into the game and able to see if it is as steep a learning curve as ck2.

 

[Olden Weiss]

My vote is on "probably not", but I certainly would love one.

 

[Ezumiyr]

I remember that the numbers were crunched on the subject and it turned out that in the age of the internet, live-streams, and youtube, demos are a total net negative, which is why they have either completely disappeared, or are launched after the fact

Man, the last time I played a demo of something was like 20 years ago or so. I don't think demos are a thing anymore.

Demos are still important for indies. There was an event on Steam with a lot of demos for independent games not long ago, and more generally I think I play about a dozen of demos for indie games per year.
Indies can't rely on publicity as much as other games, and given how their gameplay usually works, demos are still a perfect fit for them. That way, players can see more effectively and quickly if they'd like the full game, if their controller works with it ; and the game creators can see how many people are interested in their game before release.

 

[AndrewT]

Since Steam introduced their 2 hours' playtime/2 weeks' ownership no-questions-asked refund policy a few years ago, there seems to me to be no point in devs spending time on a special demo version. And of course if bought from our store we have discretion over refunds.

I think EU4 was the last PDS game to have a demo version, which was withdrawn after a few years as it was so dissimilar to the then-current game version as to be actively misleading to users.

I can't speak authoritatively for CK3 but I think recent PDS history speaks for itself.