Film trailers are unique in that they give us an opportunity to sample a product before we 'buy' it. That is an opportunity rarely afforded consumers. Go to your local supermarket and attempt to 'sample' a bottle of red wine and some cheese and you'll see what I mean.

This is taken one step further with game demos. These are easily distributed to gamers via the online services of the Playstation 3, Xbox and Wii. In addition, the Playstation store is now directly accessible via the Playstation Portable. Via a game demo, be it of the single or multiplayer part of an upcoming game release, we're given the opportunity to see not just how a game looks or hear how it sounds but to exist in it's world, albeit for a short space of time. We're also given the opportunity to sample a games mechanics, to 'feel' how it plays. It's a potentially very powerful opportunity for game developers to put a game in front of consumers and ultimately to sell it (ker-ching!) It works both ways of course. Many demos generate negative feedback from those who play them. Last July a controversial game, Too Human (Xbox exclusive) got a controversial demo that divided players, all of whom were vociferous in their (online) opinions. In an unprecedented move, Denis Dyack, president of Silicon Knights, who developed the game, weighed in himself (online) essentially stating that when the game was released all critics ('professional' or otherwise) would be silenced. The game did not review well, and has an (aggregate) score of 65 on metacritic. For what it's worth, I thought it was great, and played the demo for hours (and the game for far longer.) Lost Planet 2s four player co operative mode is just one of the big demos on the horizon (available via XBox Live.) What's your experience of game demos? Have you ever been persuaded to buy a game by playing its demo? Or has it had the opposite effect?

Update: the Lost Planet demo mentioned above has now been released. If you've tried it, let me know what you think. Other high profile demos include Wet and Sector 8.