The following statements are just theory, none of them are based on facts:
I think that the game companies stopped releasing demos because most of them were releasing the demos far before the product was even mature enough to be released. People would then get their hands on the demos from places like Fileplanet and have a crappy experience with the demo. Then people would talk about their poor experience on forums and complain about the lack of certain features, even if the demos had the whole "This is a Demo. This is not a representation of the final game."
I think that the other issue is that some of the major file sites got tired of the bandwidth people were using to download the demos for free. Thye started to create bandwidth caps to force us to create "unlimited memberships" so then PC gamers just started torrenting the demos or finding the demos on other sites that didn't require users to wait in line for 40minutes. Without users creating memberships many sites could not afford the bandwidth and probably started turning away the idea of 2+GB game demos. Places like Fileplanet tried to secure subscriptions but when people weren't willing to subscribe, Fileplanet started pushing
so many ads (among other issues) that people stopped even using their site.
Thanks to
Alexa, you can view the trend over the last year.
I would even have to say that we have seen some the biggest slaps to the face over recent years as PC gamers. There have been a lot of shoddy console ports, games like Command & Conquer 4, Rage, Resident Evil 4, GTA IV, and even Skyrim (as much as I loved it).
John Carmack totally turned his back on PC gamers, the very people that made him, with the release of Rage.
Here is another reason why the companies are avoiding consoles for the time being:
...and it is a damn shame too, we should be so much further than where we are. The consoles are definitely holding back visual performance.
Only MMOs, RTS games and some RPGs will remain highly profitable on the PC due to the nature of how those games cannot be played with a controller. I cannot believe that some people would rather use thumbsticks.
/END RANT, haha
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