Hey…did you notice what the Mass Effect 3 demo did?

Movies have trailers. Television has commercials. Games get demos. Sure, we get trailers and commercials too, but if you’re on the fence about a purchase, neither will sway you. A demo can make the sale. It gives you a taste for the game and tells you whether or not you want more. News about an impending demo ranks as big news now, partly because gamers are an instant gratification fanbase. Word that a game won’t get a demo feels like a red flag.

Upgrade your bitch slap to Super Pimp.

A publisher recently consulted me on the demo for an unreleased game and asked me if -- having finished the campaign -- I thought it put their best foot forward. I pointed them at an entirely different level that showed off their game a bit better. If I’d seen it in time, I would’ve pointed them directly to Mass Effect 3.  

Take a look at how developer Bioware demonstrated their game, and you’ll see exactly what every demo should be.

As it stands now, your standard-issue demo simply carves out a small piece of the campaign and calls it good. And by that, I mean they present the first 10-15 minutes of the game. It’s not hard to figure out why...that’s where all the in-game tutorials live. They ease the player in and introduce all the basic concepts rather than throwing people into the deep end and letting them sink.

But it’s still a lazy solution and here’s why: Any game worth buying gets dramatically better after its introductory level. After a focused, linear funnel that hits the precise talking points the developer wants to go over with you, most games open up to be what they're supposed to be. And assuming you believe gamers actually want that core experience -- as opposed to a basic run-through -- then you should give it to them.

That’s what Bioware did with Mass Effect 3. They showed off their entire game. All the major elements. All the modes.

You can tell who shops at the better store.

ME3’s demo basically takes the hands-off material Bioware showed us last summer and makes it playable, but here’s what it accomplishes. First, you run through the character creator and select a background and class. Then it presents two levels that do very different things. The first kicks off an opening mission (including tutorials) that very specifically sets up an epic story in extremely visceral ways...a vital component for any RPG and for Mass Effect in particular. By the end, you’re pumped to build your intergalactic super-army and bring the fist of God down on any Reapers stupid enough to invade your Earth.

The second demo level hands you an objective-based, multi-tiered mission that makes good on that collation-building promise. In the process, you get the core game without much in the way of constraints, and you run it exactly as the game’s meant to be played.

I’ve seen another demo do this lately. Asura’s Wrath showed off two very different levels to give you a taste of the outrageous, god-punching storyline while simultaneously demonstrating a few of the wildly varying gameplay styles you’ll encounter. It hands you a glass of insanity and then offers seconds. Want a third helping? Buy the game.

I. NEED. DEODORANT.

Bioware took this idea a step further by throwing Mass Effect 3’s new multiplayer mode into the demo. Not a multiplayer beta...a multiplayer demo. I don’t doubt they collected a lot of data off the early adopters, but the real goal was to sell this addition as a substantial part of the package to franchise virgins. Bioware already had buy-in from series fans, so they released a demo designed to make you invest in the idea of getting Mass Effect 3 even if you didn’t buy the previous installments.

It didn’t show you everything -- and the multiplayer deme closed with the game's retail release -- but by the time anyone finished playing the full ME3 demo, they knew exactly what they’ll get out of the full game. Odds are they also made their decision on whether or not to purchase ME3 right there.

That’s how you do it. Present the entire experience in a quick microcosm. Don’t show everything, but don’t leave anything out. No lie, it’s a tough juggle to tease an experience while giving a complete sense of the whole, but a quality demo can make the difference between a buy, a rent, or an ignore.

So yeah...it’s worth getting right.