Blizz still has it with 'starter editions'. There's free to play soaking up a lot of people that would want that business model. A lot of people that care about

Blizz still has it with 'starter editions'. There's free to play soaking up a lot of people that would want that business model. A lot of people that care about what they're going to buy ahead of time get involved in predictions about the quality of the product and they will back them in early access. Steam frequently has 'free weekends' for games, so you can play it over the weekend. Also steam has a 2 hour or less window for refunding games you have bought. And of course there's always piracy. The business models have kind of exploded and it really depends on what kind of game you are talking about.