[Dyne]

Well, to put it in perspective, demos are the lifeblood of the industry.

Without demos, publishers would rarely know what they're getting into. Demos can be a good indication of what final game quality will be like, if only in 10 minutes to an hour.

Also, a lot of developers would be scared to go to a trade show like E3 with their entire game at once. Mass Effect 2 took one of the best parts of their game before it was done, put a bit of resources into polishing it, and it got critical praise before the game even came out.

Demos made solely for the public, though, that's a different story. By the time developers have time to do one of those, they might as well be finishing the game. I can agree with him slightly. But yeah, I've been sold on more than a few games because of their free demos.

In an ideal situation, a developer would be good enough to publish their E3 demo to XBL/PSN. But things rarely run that smoothly.

But yeah, what's next? Paying for video game trailers? Absurd.