Crytek envisages a future with no free demos

Speaking with Develop, Crytek co-founder Cevat Yerli has revealed he believes the free game demo could be on the way out, calling the practice a “luxury” the video game industry is unlikely to enjoy for much longer.

“A free demo is a luxury we have in the game industry that we don’t have in other industries such as film. Because we’ve had this free luxury for so long, now there are plans to change this people are complaining about it. The reality is that we might not see any free game demos in the long term.”

Commenting on EA’s potential strategy to do away with free game demos, instead releasing cut-down, paid for samples of games, he added:

“I think EA’s strategy is interesting, overall. The thing is, every time we see a publisher doing something to improve the industry, making things more commercially viable and actually increasing the market, people instantly think this is only some money-hungry ploy.”

He added: “I think there is a genuine interest here to give gamers something more than a small demo released for free.

“Really, what this is, is an attempt to salvage a problem. The industry is still losing a lot of money to piracy as the market becomes more online-based. So it’s encouraging to see strategies outlined to combat this.”

On the subject of a Crysis 2 demo, Yerli said: “That’s something we need to think about, because we haven’t fully decided on this yet.”

“Whether we do have a demo or not, do I think companies need to release so many demos? I think that we’ll see more and more games not carrying a demo in the future, because it becomes prohibitively expensive.”

“I think we’ll see less and less of them in the future,” he concluded.

Crysis 2 is scheduled for release holiday 2010 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.