I tried out several games from Big Fish last night. Just as I was enjoying each one my hour ran out.

Now I have to decide which of Azada, Everest, The Nightmare, The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes to buy. I didn't like Ravenhearst (I didn't bother to wait for the hour to end) so I'll pass on it.

Now I have to try Laura Jones, the first Virtual Villagers and Haunted Hotel.

Guybrush, I think an hour is just right. I don't always know after 30 minutes if I like a game or not, but I'm always sure before an hour is up. If I'm still playing at an hour, then I buy it

They do need to make money somehow. I think we are lucky at the fact that we can actually play for an hour and decide rather than buy sight unseen like we do in other games.

Ana

As soon as I see there is a timer I don't buy. I don't like to be rushed on a game. I like to take my time.
Richard

I also agree with Ana that an hour is plenty considering that most adventure games have no demos and if they do, they are very very limited.

Out of the ones you mentioned, I'd suggest you get Azada since there's such a variety of different puzzles in it.

Another important thing to keep in mind about trials is that the time is generally limited in part by the contract between the distributors and the companies that make the games. This is why from time to time you may run across a game that only has a half-hour trial on a website that normally carries hour-long trials.

On top of that, a lot of casual games can be completed in just a few hours.How frustrating would it be to play an hour for free, pay $6-$20 for a game, then only get 45 more minutes of play?

Now I finished my hour with Laura Jones (I was in the middle of trying to make coffee) and Haunted Hotel.

I played for about 1/2 hr. on the demo and I liked it so I bought it. Nice game really long.
Richard

I agree L4L, an hour is about right for me to make up my mind. If I am still playing eagerly at the hour than I must like it enough and I buy it.

I have been known to download the demo from another site if I am still on the fence. I don't mind replaying all the screens and I think I have only done this once or twice before buying the game.

A few games are really short, like Mortimer Beckett, but I don't care - I just loved playing it over and over again

Little Red is right about some of the games being too short for longer demos. I've made the mistake of playing the one hour demo and buying the game just to finish it within another hour.

I can usually tell within about 10-15 minutes whether I'm going to buy a game or not. If I'm still playing it when the demo timer goes off chances are I won't buy it. If it takes me the full hour to decide whether or not I like it then I have to assume that it's not going to get any better.

I absolutely agree.

I can usually tell within the first half hour if it's a game I'll enjoy. If there are to many comic book type "pages" that seem to be to frivolous I tend to shy away from it. I also check to see how many MB's there are but don't base my decision entirely on that.

back to the first post - aside from nightmare which I haven't played, you mentioned all the good games...buy them all!

The only game I found to be "not enough time" was the virtual villagers / plant series. Even if you put them on "fast" they just take too long for anything to happen at all. On those I wished for 12 hours of "real time" versus 1 hour of "game time."

But I bought them all anyway. And I haven't been disappointed.

I think an hour is just right. Sometimes it takes that long for a game to "hook" me!

This is kind of how I'd define my purchase decisions:

If I'm still playing a game at the end of an uninterrupted hour, I'll definitely be buying it (frequently immediately and whether I have a game credit or not).

If I'm playing it at the end of an interrupted hour, there's a really good chance I'll buy it, particularly if there's a dry spell when there aren't enough new games around that interest me. (This would be the type of game I'd wait to buy until I had a game credit available and nothing to do with it!)

If I don't get back to the game for awhile and have stopped mid-way through, the chance that I'm ever going to buy it goes down pretty dramatically.

And if I uninstall it, I'm not going to buy it - ever.