By this I am referring to the numerous “game play” demos that claim to show how the game will look and feel when it hits the streets. The problem is that with few exceptions these game play demos are nothing like the final game. We have seen far too many development companies put on a show with custom (and cherry picked) hardware running demos of the game that are nothing like the final version.

The list of companies caught doing this is fairly long and they all have great excuses as to why their demos looked and played so much better than what the consumer paid for. It is rather ridiculous when you look at it. Although similar things happen at CES and a few other shows it is not as widespread and people are quick to catch on when it happens. It is much harder to pull this kind of stunt when it comes to devices and services. People also have the option to get a refund for a product that does not live up to manufacturing claims. In the game/software world you are often stuck with it once you buy it.

Game publishing companies have helped to push the fear of piracy as a reason to not allow games to be returned. In reality they are looking to get their money for a game that does not perform as advertised or demonstrated at shows like E3. Once they have the money in hand the consumer is stuck with it until a fix comes out or someone figures out how to enable the locked off graphical features. It has made the gaming community very upset that they are tied to these games (which are not cheap) and that there is so much hype over visuals and performance that end up not being a reality.

We will still post the odd “game play” video and information that we get on new games, but remember that it is all rumor until the game hits the streets…