The video games industry is one of the largest entertainment providers in the nation, yet the research available on the industry appears to be focused mainly on social and psychological impact of video games on children. Because most gamers are adults, it seems like an oversight that there is not research done on the best way to market products for this industry. My project, attempting to create a synthesized theory about the impact that game demos have on the sales of games, has yielded new results on demos for use as a marketing tool for video games. While many might think that game demos operate in the same way as using free samples as a marketing method for other products, this has not been the case leading to the gradual dis-use of game demos as a marketing strategy. In my presentation, I will show the impact that creating a demo had on game sales, as well as explaining the theories behind the results from a game developer perspective. I will indicate cases where game demos did have the desired marketing effect and the proposed reasoning for the difference in consumer behavior on those games. I will discuss other marketing strategies that may have lead the movement away from game demos and whether or not their existence has had an impact on the changing marketing strategies for the industry.
