Extended Play

Apparently EA Games will be trying out a new marketing tool soon... They have intentions of releasing premium DLC BEFORE a game releases. The idea being that you can pay an amount (supposedly $10-15, which i presume would be in the 1200 MS points range) to play a sort of 'extended demo' of a game before it's release. The story behind this is that EA are looking to save money and want to use this as a way of scoping interest in a game before it ships AND as a cheap way to bring more notice to a game. This all SEEMS fair enough, but then you really have to ask, If a standard game takes about 6-8 hours to complete, then will you essentially be paying to play a quarter of the game early, then having to pay the FULL retail price on release, despite the fact you already have a portion of the game. This isn't a problem with the standard game demo because there is no fee. Which also makes me wonder about the future of demo's... If companies start making you pay for these extended demo's, then surely this will mean a reduction in demo's provided free of charge and could in fact result in less sales as people choose not to buy games they can't try out first.

UPDATE: After this news hit the wires and gamers started sharing their opinions (much of which was critical) Jeff Brown, EA's VP of Corporate Corporations (yes, that seriously is his title), made a statement to Kotaku saying that they would NOT charge for "traditionally free game demos"...