Was cost the only reason why demo cartridge games weren't produced?

Question

I was reading on this page about the Final Fantasy demo cartridge, and I wondered why more cartridge games didn't have demos.

From this wiki page:

The availability of demos varies between formats. Systems that use cartridges typically did not have demos available to them, due to the cost of duplication, whereas systems supporting more cheaply produced media, such as tapes, floppy disks, and later CD-ROM and DVD-ROM have; the Internet has more recently been a source for demos, although typically this is in addition to other distribution media available for the system in question. Also the Xbox Live as well as other gaming services have demos available for download 24/7.

Was cost really the reason why cartridge games didn't have more demos?

The company still had to mass produce the full game, I don't see why they couldn't implement a system where if the player was interested they could produce them as needed. For example, special order a demo and get it in the mail.

Answer 1

For many demos, the vast majority of copies were produced not by the creators of the demos, but by other people who wanted to share them. Consequently, someone writing a demo may have many thousands of copies distributed at essentially no cost. Such a distribution approach works great with formats that can be reproduced by recipients; it doesn't really work with most cartridge formats, however.

Answer 2

It might be useful to define the term demo first. To my understanding demo in the questions context means a in functional (level, etc.) restricted game meant to be given to end customers so they can test the game and buy the real copy later on (lets call it Demotype A), versus demo as in a not for resale demonstartion of the whole (or at least in stage of development whole) game given out to potential sales partners, development partners, or journalists for pre-gold reporting (lets call it DemoType B; *1).

Demotype B

As of this, the mentioned example is only a a demo of the later kind (Type B). For this kind per unit investment is rather irelevant, as doing a presentation where it gets used costs way more than the hardware needed to produce one (or a few) - which isn't cheap either (*2). For this kind of usage 'only' a development snapshoot (test version) is needed, as it's not intended for use by end users (*3). Everyone targeted will be aware that it's a preliminary, potential untested and buggy version. A restriction of features is not neccessary for this audience - saving to put additional time constrains to already stressed development (Is there any game development without?).

Demotype A

Producing demos of the first kind (Type A) in contrast must come with a cost comparable to other kinds of advertisement. Maybe a bit higher as it is more targeted, but not much. Making a CD, even with a run of just a few thousand, was already way below 50 cent per unit, including a printed cover. And with higher volume the cost dropped even further, making it feasible to use it as advertisement.

On the other hand, making a cartridge involves not only the standard parts like PCB, plasic hull and sales cover (which in itself already go past the 1 USD mark in the 1990s) but also making a ROM. Doing a ROM has a base price of >20 grand for mask and run cost plus per chip cost. Switching to programmable technologies only saves for very small runs, as it only removes (most of) the setup cost, but adds higher per unit cost - not just because the devices used (PROMs) are more expensive than similar sized ROMs, but due the handling effort in programming them.

So handing out a demo-CD will be not much cost to start with, demo-ROMs do have a hefty initial price tag. And while both decrease over volume, the starting cost for a cardridge are much higher than for a CD - and even in high volume will not reach a region even remote acceptable.

Bottom line: Way too expensive.

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*1 - Supercat's 'answer' reminds me that there is another possible meaning of 'demo', not targeted by this question: Demo as an art form defind and nurtures by the demoscene. These demos are written for competition or fun, showing off the capabilities of machines and their programmers. While not realy related to the question asked, some of these demos get distributed as cardridges in (very) small production runs, but even for module based consoles, the usual distribution form is via archives on the net - an usually free to be copied anyway.

*2 - Keep in mind, we are talking cost for a company, not just cost of parts as some hobbyist may count. Each additional hour developers have to spend to prepare a snapshot, the time this snaopshot gets moved into an (E)PROM, someone dies a label and explains the dos and don'ts to whoever is doing the presentation costs hundrets of dollars, making the material bill cost irrelevant.

*3 - R.. Asked about using such demos for potential customers in stores or at trade shows. In such situations a restricted version does not make much sense. When a game hits stores, a regular cardridge will do the same, so not worth any investment.

Similar for trade shows after the game got published. Now for shows prior to release, game developers are rather relucant to let anyone in the general public play the game. Any bad user experiance due being unfinished will for sure result in a bad reputation of a game (happened almost always when developers tried that route). A marketing desaster no developer or even less publisher wants to create. Not to mention that, when going gold closes in, developers won't have much time to curate, test and debug a special demo version anyway.

So, while the hardware may not be a big deal for such a small number of demo cardridges, their implications are way too dangerous to even think about.

Last but not least, for pure in-store displays a recorded play video (real VHS video in the 80s and 90s :)) will be way more apropriate to shoow off features without risking bugs to damage the rep and without all the costs associated with it. The one playing the demo will be someone knowing to only use features that are already finished (and intended to be shown) - basicly replacing the whole eford to code the demo parts at all.

Answer 3

To add to @Raffzahn's excellent answer, and considering that the question asks if cost was the only reason:

If you are going to make a demo with reduced functionality, then someone will need to decide what features are being taken out, implement that, and test it. These tasks take extra developer time. There would also be extra production time needed. If you want to get your product to market as soon as possible, time would be a consideration.

Naturally, these would also add to the costs, but would probably be less that the production costs. I agree with Raffzahn that the cost is the main reason for not making demos.

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An unrestricted demo (Raffzahn's second definition) depends on the audience:

• Copies that are shared with business partners as the game is under development would often be on the medium of the development system, rather than the medium of the final product. (Or just invite their people over to your office to try it on the development system.)
• Master copies used for production of the final product would be on whatever medium is accepted by the duplicator.
• Reviewer copies would be early productions (possibly proofs) of the final product. They might be specially packaged or labeled to prevent resale.

Unrestricted demos therefore don't have much impact on the cost or time of the final product.

Answer 4

An additional reason - although this would be far less of a factor than the others posted - is that cartridges were a lot bulkier than CDs or floppy disks, and so a magazine with a bundled demo cartridge would take up more space on the newsagent's shelves and in shipping/storage.

So the newsagent wouldn't be able to have so many copies on the shelf at once, the post office or courier would not be able to deliver as many copies without charging a lot more, the newsagent's storage in the back of the shop might also be more pressed for space...

This isn't that much of a factor for some smaller cartridge types, like the Gameboy or Game Gear, but it would have been for the N64 or Sega Megadrive/Genesis.

(Note. I think the cost of buying/manufacturing the cartridges, or of submitting them to Nintendo/Sega's approval process, is the main reason it didn't happen. This is just an additional reason.)