How Serious Sam's Demo Saved the Game From Extinction | War Stories | Ars Technica

So THAT'S why Sam hates crates!

No crates, 10/10.

Still remember when I bought the first Serious Sam, I couldn't believe how much fun that game (and next chapters) gave me. Thank you for sharing this interview

"How Serious Sam's lack of crates saved the game from extinction".

"Give gamers a chance to try before they buy" Right? Right?! Nowadays there's barely any demo being released and yet they expect us to preorder and fully trust them.

You wanna know how cool Croteam is? I bought the original serious Sam bundle on steam, which didn't have all the games yet. When they added all the rest of the games to steam, they were added for free. I didn't have to repurchase like some bundles do.

My favourite thing when watching "making of" documentaries and interviews is whenever they go "We wanted/needed X, but couldn't afford it or it didn't exist...so we had to use, I dunno, bread delivery boxes or make it ourselves." And the end result is always great. Less is more. Every movie or game that had to find ways to work around it's limitations made for better experiences because they had to get creative with it. Creativity is what makes art, art. Not money or names.

As a guy in his early 20's that just missed all this 90's to early 2000's pc gaming, this series is like... a goldmine. So interesting!

i love serious sam! :D

Guess that is why Sam says "I Hate Crates" in the second encounter lol.

"we invented" "we invented" wow these guys are amazing. They didnt have something so they just made it. hes so casual about it too lmao.

I didn't get into Serious Sam until I found the HD re-release on Steam sale for a few dollars. So I missed all this history, but even so I really like these games. While the trend in modern titles is to "aim higher" with complex story and RPG elements and whatever, Sam makes no apologies and sticks to his guns.

"Whaaaa, stupid headless freaks!" I loved the game!

Amazing demo back in the day, especially that Temple of Effects where you could check all the models with different visual effects from tech used in the game. The complete game was amazing too, very smooth and with an options menu that still puts many modern titles to shame. Also I like how Croteam cares a lot about optimization: low end hardware first, then scaling up to the powerful stuff. Serious Sam 4 is going to be amazing if they keep using the same design philosophy, and I can't wait to play it.

Both 1st n 2nd encounters were my childhood.

Its interesting how he said that they wanted more enemies than other games, like 10x more. Now look at the Serious Sam 4 Planet Badass (amazing name love it) trailer, its like 1000x more! Croteam is 100% my favourite game development company.

Who would have ever guessed that it was Serious Sam that needed saving?

One of my favorite games in my life.

When I was a little kid and did not have my own money to buy the Serious Sam FE and SE games from stores, I used to play the Demo for the Serious Sam SE, over and over again. It was the map where you had to collect two golden jaguars and place them on some device on a small pyramid in the middle of the map which would open a door in another pyramid, where you eventually find a skull and you get a cutscene with Serious Sam saying "To be or not to be, that is a serious question". This demo is tattooed on my heart and will stay with me forever. Wonderful games SS:FE and SS:SE are, of course later on in my life when I got a job I could buy these games, they worth every penny.

I love this company...