That's fine, I don't like ads myself, but from developer's point of view, it's a silly move. They didn't have to put in anything flashy and alienating, just a simple "If you liked this game and the trailer you just saw, click here to preorder Episode 2." link.
To quote
Greg Costikyan (the top of the page post):
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Greg Costikyan
I have, as you might expected, looked at demos for many, many downloadable games recently. It's amazing and somewhat surprising how they vary in terms of reminding people that they can buy the full application. In general, I think a lot of developers are failing to remind downloaders enough, and therefore having fewer conversions (to paying customers) than they otherwise would.
Obviously, you don't want to annoy players by badgering them constantly--but there are a number of non-intrusive things you can and should do.
1. The first thing a player should see when he starts the demo is a screen that provides an opportunity to buy the full game, with a link directly to a purchase url. It should be easy to blow this off and start playing, of course. With most demos that unlock into full games, the unlock solution does this automatically--but when developers provide separate demos (meaning purchase is a separate download and install), they often don't do this. It can be as unobtrusive as an item on the main menu--nobody's going to whine if there's one more item on that menu.
2. The last thing a player should see when he quits out of a demo is a full screen describing all the cool features he gets in the full game--and again, with a live link to the purchase URL.
What's surprising is how many games don't do this--or do, but don't have a live link, just an URL in graphics on the page. Make it easy, please. *snip*
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Obviously, he's talking about demo versions, but the second point is also applicable to episodic gaming, at least when you're a company like Valve and you know another episode
will get made.
