WAR, Demos and why aren't there any?

Every time I go into a game store here in the UK and buy a PC game I get asked the eternal question "can your pc run it?".

My usual answer is yes, usually because I am buying an older game (2+yrs or more) or I have dl'd a demo previously to test it out, or I have a previous version in the case of the Dawn of War series.

Here in the UK it seems that shops will not do a refund if your pc cannot handle the game so it seems odd to me that games companies do not issue demos.

I have been looking at trying WAR as I have a lot of spare time and I would like a change from FPS/Oblivion and other single player games that I have but I cannot categorically state that my notebook would run the game - which leaves me wondering if I should buy it...

I haven't seen any specs for it (although admittedly I haven't looked) and without having a demo to try first I feel it would not be worth me spending my cold hard earned cash on it.

Why do games companies not release demos? I feel that in most cases it's because they want to rely on word of mouth and their previous releases doing the work for them. Unfortunately I remember the last Warhammer game on the PC - MOC, and it sucked better than the woman in the video they've released for WAR, but it did have a similar very well done opening FMV...

Discuss.

BTW just before anyone asks my notebook is an Asus M70VM with an nVidia 9600M GS 512MB GPU and a 2.26ghz C2D P8400 CPU.

 

a.) because they dont want to.
b.) they wont spend money on more advertising(demos)
c.) they want to build trust on users, that at the end they'll deliver something uberly nice that does not need a demo...

 

Like this?
http://www.crysisdemo.com/download.htm

 

I'm not really sure how easy it would be to demo an MMO. Altho I will say with the preorder here in the states (I'm not sure about UK) they offered open beta access as well as a head start on the game. That's at least similar to a demo. The question would be have you ever played a MMO game, or is it something you're at least really interested in? I would venture that your system should run the game w/o any problems. My system is just a step up from yours and it runs beautifully. I actually can only play on my laptop, it's too laggy for my desktop! lol While demo's are great, and are exceptionally useful in determining if a game will run on your system, it seems to be an area alot of developers don't want to invest money unfortunately.

 

Unfortunatly with an MMO trials rather than Demo's are the only way as it is a persistent game world. There isn't one at the minute but I suspect there will be soon as you can download the full client from war-europe, at a hefty 12+Gb