YES

I say no. While it WOULD be nice, why would you even consider buying the full product after? You guys all say yes without backing your choices up, except for davysims. I mean, once you download the demo, you have the product. Limited amount of repaints could easily be restocked. Time limit, CAN be bypassed. Why else should there be no demo? Well, you get a good view of the model in the screenshots. As to davysims point that they can be "doctored", there are people on these forums who buy payware. If you ask them nicely, or if its just their own free will, they will post their own "undoctored" screenshots. Its that simple. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a guy who goes nuts buying payware, and doesn't want everyone else to NOT have payware. Its a bit out of reach on my budget too. But these guys who make the payware planes/scenery are trying to make a living, and I would prefer it if they didn't give almost all their work away for free.

Yes.

Just put advertising ALL over the demo and then remove one side of the plane.

I say yes. Just Flight have the right idea with them. With the Spitfire package they released a demo in the form of a Mk 1 Spitfire - just a taste of all the different varients in the package, and with the Tiger Moth they did a time limited demo, as indeed they did with the Flying Club Tomahawk.

In the case of the Tiger Moth and Flying Club I would not have purchased the full package had it not been for the demo. I can say there are several products I would not have bought having seen a demo...

CS's idea with the C-130 demo was very clever too.

Put it this way - I've spent the best part of £75 ($150) on the back of the developers releasing demos, on products which I liked but for some reason needed to be convinced about. There are several others in that category - I like the look of, but am unsure due to unfamiliarity with the developer, or previous disappointment from a product of theirs - I would reconsider now.

Movies have trailers for a $10 ticket...

...why shouldn't payware companies have demos for a $50 dollar product?

All video games have demos...

I think they should always release demos, because you simply can't see everything through a screenshot, or even a video. For example, you have no idea how it would run on your machine...

...and from my experiences, I have bought quite a few pieces that looked fantastic in the screenshots, but turn out to be garbage...e.g. CLS DC-10, Flight1 C172 (honestly, the default one is better...), and anything feelthere. (Then theres the ones that even resemble garbage even from the screenshots...but if you buy those, its your own damn fault.)

Payware companies shouldn't be forced to provide a demo version, but when they do it makes a big difference to whether I'll buy their product or not.  For example, the JF Tiger Moth.  I don't give a damn what the screenshots look like, they weren't taken on my machine so what do they really tell me?  JF gave me a 30 day trial period so I could fly the Tiggie on my computer, and see it on my monitor. I only got one paint job, but I was able to fly it around and see how it performed on my system.  That hands-on, try-it-on-your-own-computer experience is worth more than any review with glossy pictures.  And because my taste in aircraft is different from most others (raise your hand if you bought the Martin Mars from Alphasim) I'm wary of buying something just because somebody else recommends it.  Many folks actually get excited about flying all the different variations of the A-320, which I find utterly pointless and boring - but how can anyone fail to see the huge difference between the Ju-87B and Ju-87D, or the Albatross D.III and D.V?  Different strokes for different folks, I'd rather fly a Taube than a Tornado.

Of course people can find ways around time limits and restrictions, but people who do that will just go and download a torrent anyway.

Gryshnak