[Saka]

It appears that Steam is experimenting with offering a limited trial of games before purchase. The platform has made an announcement about a free trial of Dead Space remake from 15th to 25th of May. Within the trial one can play for 90 minutes before needing to do a purchase.

The game is a survival sci-fi horror, allegedly faithful to the original with greatly improved graphics fidelity, audio and refreshed gameplay.

For now that is the only game available for free trial, but there are speculations that it's possible more games would see campaigns like that, especially after many release fiascos this year.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka I hope this practice takes off. Games can be quite hit-or-miss at times, and it is good to have the option to try a bit before investing time and money. And, with any luck, it will help to "filter and quality-control"...how to put it...bad video games? The industry (and Steam) is flooded with games right now and for every good game, there are dozens, if not hundreds, mediocre or outright bad ones.

To each his own, of course, and every book, movie, or song, no matter how bad, can find its fans, and aspiring game devs should have a place to "test skills", but gaming should learn from the literature that's been around for far longer and made all those mistakes already. This reminds me of a quote by Akimov:

Global literacy and the cheapness of office supplies have given rise to graphomaniacs. The solution: make the technique of writing more difficult. Only accept from poets their poems when they are carved on granite. Demand that aspiring playwrights have the text of a play carved on cypress planks. Even simply replacing paper with pure wool would deter many people from writing literature.

Same with games, very little quality control currently. Hopefully, this Steam initiative will help to remedy that somewhat.

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch Especially with the recent hit and misses it's hard to tell if the game would work properly on hardware meeting the requirements on paper. Day one reviews usually focus only on the top of the line hardware, which is not accessible financially to an average video game enthusiast. Offering free trials would be cheaper for Steam than processing the refunds.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka That too, that's a good point! And hopefully, that would in turn make developers release the game with a lower hardware threshold on day one so as not to plummet their day one sales.