I hope to bring out a shareware game in a few months, but have encountered a situation that I need all your advice/opinions on.

It is to do with what to call the demo/full versions to increase the likelihood of sales. I've seen these being called, simply, DEMO versus FULL versions, where the full version is, of course, the paid version, but I've also seen these being called UNREGISTERED versus REGISTERED versions.

Could I have some opinions as to which of these naming conventions actually sells the software better? In your opinion, are people more inclined to feel obliged to "register" their software (and thereby, in their minds, think that this is almost like charity to support the programmer, and feel good about paying the registration fee) rather than feel the need to "buy" the full version? Thanks!

Personal experience, I feel much lazier and less inclined to do anything about it if it's unregistered/registered. It feels non-mandatory. Something I should only do if I'm feeling particularly 'nice'. I can spend a *very* long time saying "Yeah, I should register Program X sometime..." and never actually getting around to it.

After all, I have a million retail programs that I paid for in boxes that nag me to register when I install them. And I don't do it. I'm not sure I've EVER registered a retail product. Maybe once to enter a contest or get a subscription to the developer's magazine.

If I see "unregistered" the associations it draws in my mind are "nearly complete version, I'm just missing out on support or the community or something, I can live without those things". Whereas demo makes it very clear in my mind that there is a bigger and better version out there and I've only got a little piece of it.

I agree that 'Registered' is not as powerful as 'Demo' and can be confusing. 'Trial' version, or 'Free Trial' are good alternatives as well.

We use the term Free Trial. When I think of a 'demo' I think of a limited version of a game that I'll need to go to the store to get. (Just my personal bias.)

We refer to them as "Trial Version" and "Full Version" (and sometimes we call it the "Free Trial Version").
-Scorpio

Interesting discussion. I use 'buy now' and an unregistered combo however I may change the wording to 'free trial shawareware version'.

I avoid the word 'demo' as it brings images to mind of half working software, and voids any shareware education that the person may have.

I know that there was a discussion on a comparison between 'get now' and 'buy now' a while back.

I personally think the better solution is Trial or Demo. Demo is commonly used by commercial games, so the user is "used" to hear that name and associate it with a bigger, better, full-version.

LOL it is strange to be involved in psychology while trying to make a game! :p

If I imagine two customers, Bob that wants to buy the product he is about to download and Jane that wants to have fun with the product she downloads but really has no plans to actually buy it.

For Bob, the wording demo brings to mind all the qualities associated with big commercial software, because they almost always call their trial versions demo. A program called shareware or unregistered gives association to low-budget, more simple software.

For Jane, the wording demo however, will likely bring to mind the fact that most demos are rather short. She might not even download it at all, because since she has not really planned to buy anything right now, a demo probably will offer rather limited value. Shareware or unregistered on the other hand might have a much greater perceived value by itself.

Free Trial is the perfect compromise if you want to appeal to anyone, because anything from high budget software to 5$ utilities has used Free Trial to describe their free trial version.

Hum... my association with "trial" is a full working programm (something serious and not a game) wich is only limited to 30 days (eg the trial version of XMLSpy).

"Demo" on the other hand is a cutted down version of a full game - for me at least.

In addition I won't ever enter the word "trial" in a search engine if I want to find some new games to try out.

Heh.. in contrast to oNyx, and whilst I know that 'demo' is quite commonly used in the commercial scene, 'Demo' to me gives me the impression of it being far less interactive. Implying that it is just demonstrating to you what the full game is like. I have seen some commercial 'demos' that are little more than video footage, screen captures and text.

Trial on the other hand implies that I can try it out fully and get a feel for the game.

I will however agree that more people are probably more likely to use the word 'demo' in a search engine, however that can just be included in the meta tags and text as well as the word trial, to cover both bases.

-Z-

I have seen some commercial 'demos' that are little more than video footage, screen captures and text.
well those weren't true demos for sure :)
anyway more than discussing the right word to use, is better to put interesting screenshots of the product on the site, and to capture the attention of potential customers with good phrases like: "Download and play the demo/trial/shareware version and play xxx level of the game" or "This demo/trial/shareware of product xxx will let you try the game for 30 days without limitation" and so on :p

And one of the best idea is to put a weblink on the installation folder or put an advertising at the end of the product with a link to the buy page!

Originally posted by Zoggles
Heh.. in contrast to oNyx, and whilst I know that 'demo' is quite commonly used in the commercial scene, 'Demo' to me gives me the impression of it being far less interactive. Implying that it is just demonstrating to you what the full game is like. I have seen some commercial 'demos' that are little more than video footage, screen captures and text.
[...]

What you mean are a so called "self running demos". It's like a "game" wich only can run a handfull of demos in a loop - hadn't seen such a thing since ages (I guess they weren't really popular and I would bet that there wasn't a single shareware game crippled down this way)... well I'd never installed one of those, because they are obviously labeled as non interactive and thus useless.

Another non interactive association with "demo" are replays from games like Quake, because they are called that way. Well... the guys'n'gals wich get this association are hardcore players who usually knows alot about games.

And... hum... another misleading association could be the demo scene. But the guys who knows about it can tell the difference easily ;)

I'm wondering if the audience makes a difference here. Maybe "trial" is better for puzzles and "demo" might be better for arcade games... who knows?

A way to benchmark it could be eg alternating between "trial" and "demo" for each visitor for some weeks. Well in my case it won't make a difference at all... if I am there... and the screenshots look nice... I'll download it regardless if it's labeled with "trial", "demo", "demotrial", "trialdemo" or even with some strange foreign letters wich I can't read at all (Oh yea. Japenese options are fun!) :)

OT: zoggles.co.uk I tried that page at least 30 times... it never worked and now the link points to dyndns... oh... ha! There is a typo. Finally I can look at your pixelart :)

Thanks, guys, for all your comments.

I really was thinking of changing my demo to "Unregistered version", but after reading all the comments here, it looks like I will probably go for "Free trial version" instead (with good graphical and descriptive elaboration on the website, as suggested by Jack).