Remember living in a world where you could actually try before you by? Gaming was always the one artform where you'd come to expect a small taster of an upcoming release through a chunk being siphoned off and given away with a magazine, in-store or a redeemable code online. Now, props to Final Fantasy XV for being a fantastically lengthy experience, but it's still bungled in with FF: Type-0, Zone of the Enders/MGS 2-style. Speaking of MGS, Ground Zeroes riled everyone up last year when it was revealed that for $30/£30 you could clock it in as little as half an hour, and people remarked they spent far longer on the aforementioned MGS 2 Tanker section back in 2001. It was always a welcome relief on 360 as Microsoft forced developers to create trial versions of every game that appeared on their 'Xbox Live Arcade', meaning you always had something available to play even if the PS3 or PC versions didn't. So far this practice has been thrown aside, assumedly as its easier to sucker you into buying things through trailers and PR campaigns, without getting some hands-on time that might dissuade you otherwise. How many sales would Ubisoft have lost out on if Assassin's Creed: Unity or Watch Dogs were made playable before release? Exactly, but you'll forever hear about demos of titles being made playable at major industry events or through publications - something out there is being showcased, the average consumer is just nowhere near it. Having demos and the feedback received from them only serves to help developers foster a better communication with the increasingly-wide gaming demographic overall - this needs to change as soon as possible.
