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Sony offering game trials

aisback

aisback

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,740
I just got an email from Sony and it appears they are following suit.

"Introducing Game Trials
a1sback, ever wanted to try some of the most-popular games from PlayStation Studios before committing to the full game? Well now you can!

Get a taste of Death Stranding: Director's Cut1 and Sackboy: A Big Adventure2 until 28 October.

Head over to PlayStation Store and download your chosen Game Trial. Once you hit download you'll get a limited amount of time to play the game3, whether you play or not. Once the time is up you'll need to purchase the full-price game if you want to keep playing."

This is a good move


Edit - extra info

1Death Stranding: Director's Cut 6 hour trial available until 28/10/2021 11:59 PM. 2Game Trial for Sackboy: A Big Adventure only available for PS5 version. Game Trial not available on PS4 version. Sackboy: A Big Adventure 5 hour trial available until 28/10/2021 11:59 PM. 3Trial period starts from the time you click "Download Trial" via console or "Add to Library" via web. One trial account per account per game.
 
panda-zebra

panda-zebra

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,737
It's a good move and should work well with some titles that maybe people feel unsure about. 5-6 hours is long enough to get those who are interested invested. We see how people buy game pass games when they leave, this might have a similar effect and beats a restricted demo.

I got the same email btw. EDIT as did my kid.
 
EssBeeVee

EssBeeVee

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,758
Trial period starts from the time you click "Download Trial" via console or "Add to Library" via web

so what if you take 5+ hours to download
why not start when you first run the game?
 
Ashes of Dreams

Ashes of Dreams

Unshakable Resolve
Member
May 22, 2020
14,412
Wow! A way to do some kind of "demo" for video games. What a concept.
Hopefully we can reach a point where they remove the time limit aspect of it. Maybe just have a small segment of a game you can download to test out.
 

Deleted member 59

Guest
Yeah got the email too. Gonna try Death Stranding, because was never too sold on it.
 
hog

hog

Member
Mar 9, 2021
1,027
Interesting to see! Shame they're both games I've played through already - but they're both great games anyway. You can probably get pretty far into Sackboy in that time. Death Stranding you'll barely get past the intro.
 
Nano-Nandy

Nano-Nandy

Member
Mar 26, 2019
2,302
The limits don't make sense.
5-6 hours; until Oct.28.

If it was for brand new games I could get, but one was a launch title and the other is a re-release.
 
modiz

modiz

Member
Oct 8, 2018
17,836
The trial period is just the actual time from when you start to download? That's worthless then.
 
OP
OP
aisback

aisback

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,740
panda-zebra said:
It's a good move and should work well with some titles that maybe people feel unsure about. 5-6 hours is long enough to get those who are interested invested. We see how people buy game pass games when they leave, this might have a similar effect and beats a restricted demo.

I got the same email btw. EDIT as did my kid.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I appreciate you letting me know about the error.

I want to see how death stranding feels at 60FPS so if I can use my save from before it could be pretty fun
 
Toumari

Toumari

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,304
England
So I'm downloading Sackboy right now just to try this out (already platinumed it).

I'm struggling to see any timer in either my game library or the PS5 UI?
 
Slaythe

Slaythe

The Wise Ones
Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,850
aisback said:
I appreciate you letting me know about the error.

I want to see how death stranding feels at 60FPS so if I can use my save from before it could be pretty fun
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Bro it's 10 dollars since you have it on ps4.......

Not much of a gamble there (and I'm sure you've seen the big amount of praise it got).
 
TripleBee

TripleBee

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,665
Vancouver
Being so limited (date wise) kinda the same as the free weekend stuff Steam and Xbox do all the time.

Was hoping this was more a - try any game for up to 2 hours sorta thing.
 
MrFox

MrFox

VFX Rendering Pipeline Developer
Verified
Jun 8, 2020
1,435
This exactly what PSNow would be useful for, hopefully they're adding PS5s soon.

And it should be a playtime timer.
 
Homura

Homura

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Aug 20, 2019
6,107
This is a terrible idea if the download time is included in the 5/6 hours. They should just copy the game trials Nintendo offers.
 
Ashes of Dreams

Ashes of Dreams

Unshakable Resolve
Member
May 22, 2020
14,412
Trace said:
That unfortunately takes far more effort than it's worth the majority of the time.
Click to expand...
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TheGhost said:
That's probably more work no?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Liam Allen-Miller said:
Actually making a demo is dramatically more work intensive. Like massively more than this.
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I hear you all on this and it's worth saying for sure. Demos are also massively more convenient for the user though, you can't deny. It's hard for me to get excited over a worse version of a thing we had at the start of the PS3/360 era. We even had some companies trying the full download limited time trial thing back then too but they seemed to mostly fade away as proper demos were much more accessible and useful. If Sony is going to make an effort to do something like this, I'd rather they make an effort to make demos easier to produce for developers/publishers.
 
Toumari

Toumari

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,304
England
So I think this is broken if you already owned a physical copy of the game at some point.

I claimed the trial for the PS5 version of Sackboy, downloaded it until the point where I can launch the game. Now it's telling me that I have to insert the PS4 disc to play.

Trust Sony to botch this up further than the download timer.
 
sredgrin

sredgrin

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
12,276
If it really is from download, that's a 2005 Nintendo ass move there
 
Liam Allen-Miller

Liam Allen-Miller

Member
Nov 2, 2017
6,808
Shibuya
Ashes of Dreams said:
I hear you all on this and it's worth saying for sure. Demos are also massively more convenient for the user though, you can't deny. It's hard for me to get excited over a worse version of a thing we had at the start of the PS3/360 era. We even had some companies trying the full download limited time trial thing back then too but they seemed to mostly fade away as proper demos were much more accessible and useful. If Sony is going to make an effort to do something like this, I'd rather they make an effort to make demos easier to produce for developers/publishers.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm not denying that, of course! Everyone likes a carefully made demo, after all! Ultimately though this method is virtually zero work for devs once the system is in place at an OS level. There isn't realistically anything Sony can do to make the process of making actual demos any easier, either.
 
slider

slider

Member
Nov 10, 2020
2,712
They'll surely amend when the timer starts. Otherwise it's comically inept.

But I'll have a punt on Death Stranding - was never sure about it.
 
Yerffej

Yerffej

Prophet of Regret
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,525
That's a great idea. Why would they add the dl time to the time limit? Geniuses working over there.

I'd try out Death Stranding otherwise...
 
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