Did you Buy, Try Before Buy, or Pirate your copy?

[Necromis]

I don't expect too many pirates to comment, but I would still like to see what you personally have done with Book I. Did you buy it with only trying the demo, or not trying anything at all? Did you "try Before buy" by downloading a pirated copy and then bought it to support Thom/BW. Or are you someone who just won't pay for this game and you pirated leaving Thom out in the cold for your money?

Myself is option two. That is just how I am with software. I want to know what I am getting with the full mode before I sink my money in it. Just like being able to test drive a car to make sure it handles the way I want. Book I is a great game and I was more than happen to then order and pay for it.

[greg0828]

I dooubt many will admit they pirated the game and admit they will never buy it. So far 0% but I am sure it is a lot higher than that. Most people who would like this type of game is more of the computer nerd and well that means they are good at computer stuff like downloading...

[Dragonlady]

I'd been waiting for the game a long time. Bought PC version, played it some, Beta tested Mac, bought Mac/CD. Still playing it. No pirate stuff for me!

[realmzmaster]

I tried the demo for four hours and then bought the game. I want to see more of this type of game.I support the games I want to see with my dollars. This way the publisher receives his/her reward and are encouraged to make more games that I like. Piracy can kill a publisher.

[acoustibop]

Yes, for this game, the demo is more than adequate to try it out: no need to pirate a copy.

I tried the Linux demo(s) and could hardly wait for the full version to be released; I bought my copy well before I got the email notifying me of its release. Only regret is that there's no CD for the Linux version.

[Zoggles]

I think I said in my first post on these forums, that I thought the size and scale of the demo was superb, and there is no reason to need to download a pirate version in order to see the bits that were restricted somehow. (whether by a demo trial time period / disabled features or whatever other means of limiting the game)

There was enough map to explore to fully get a feel of the game, and pretty much enough of everything. Leaving the player with several quests pointing you to the nearby areas that were not included as an incentive to buy.

Additionally, the fact that getting the full game allows you to continue playing from where you got to in the Demo is great. But perhaps that could be made more obvious to a potential customer - it was something I learned through the forum as opposed to in-game. (Yes the player could assume that the save game files use exactly the same structure in game / demo, but perhaps due to the cut down map etc the save files are slightly different and incompatable... I wasn't truly sure I could 'continue the game' until I'd found the forums)

Im so glad that there were no restrictions eg like if you were limited to only being able to choose a warrior type build. I happily tried two or three different characters, exploring the demo almost fully with one of them then bought the game a couple of days after downloading the demo.

What I feel many demos get wrong is making a demo far too restrictive - especially those that are limited by game playing time. The number of demo's I've installed in order to test, then half way through playing I've been called away for some reason (eg phone) and then by the time I get back to the game maybe I've wasted 25-30% of my demo allowance. This has happened many a time, leaving me with an expired demo and very little feel for the game.

My only suggestion would have maybe been to have another (completable within the demo) quest or two as there - especially if very simple and close to quest giver. The first time I played I seemed to spend most of the time wandering around without much idea of where to go or what to do and didn't even stumble upon the town until I had explored almost all of the map areas available in the demo.

-Z-

[Opunaesala]

I bought the CD version without playing the demo. I was very confidant the game would be awesome and I wasn't let down.

[llew silverhand]

I eagerly awaited the demo, played several hours of it the night it was released, and purchased the online version the next morning.

I've never been a fan of pirating, and appreciate very much any company that offers a playable demo of their product prior to, or at the time of release.

Thanks BW, for making such a rockin' game!

[JoeSlow]

I've played the demo the afternoon and bought the game in the evening.
I really like this old style rpg

[sirchet]

I played the demo and was hooked!
Great job! I sure hope there is a Book II and III and IV and........you get the idea.

[ArkansasIMCista]

I played the demo and was hooked!

Yup, same here. Found the demo on the Apple website and played it for days, getting throughly immersed. Bought the game as a Christmas present to myself and have been happily playing ever since.

I try a lot of demos and sharewhere. When I find something I love, I'm glad to pay a reasonable price for it to help support the developers. Here's hoping Book I gets enough legitimate sales to lead to Book II and on from there.

[Onyx]

I tried the full version before I bought the game. I didn't know the demo was not too restrictive... usually they are. So, I admit openly if I can find a full version somewhere on the web (yes, feel free to call it "PIRATEd"...) I'm going to TRY this one. TRY is the key word here. I've always bought the games I liked, NO exceptions. I'm glad I did spend $28 on this game, it's great old school RPG and I definitely want to play "Book II".

[Necromis]

Well just taking a snapshot from this poll it looks like one of two things. Either no one who is using a pirated copy, except that one vote, is willing to vote, or they don't visit the board. However, it looks like about what I thought when I started this poll in some regards. Meaning that there is a percentage of try before you buy like myself. I think in reality this is probably a fair sampling of how the sales as a whole are going. You have 1 out of every 50 who won't buy it, 8-10 that try then buy, and the majority that simply buy out right. I am pleased with this sampling.

Thom what do you think?

[acoustibop]

Well, I think that obviously, as you suggest, Necromis, people who out-and-out pirate the game aren't usually going to admit to it on this forum.

But I think that the results show that, if there's a good demo like Book I's available, there's no incentive for relatively honest users to try a pirate copy rather than the demo before buying. So that should cut down the numbers of people going for the pirate copies somewhat.

Whether this would be enough to impact on the pirates, and motivate them to look elsewhere for games to pirate, I don't know, and I rather doubt it would. The game's too good for there not to be a demand from people just too mean and self-centred to pay a reasonable price for what they get. Pity.

[Feidb]

No pirate for me. Don't like to do that. Unless it's some game that's been freeware for a while or is impossible to obtain anywhere else, and then, it wouldn't really be pirated.

I tried the demo, loved it, and bought the game. We need to infuse Basilisk with enough honsest cash to keep them going with Book 2.