if the end user gets a rebate off the final purchase then maybe it could work, but not if the just add more to the retail prices, that said if EA expects BETA testing done at the cost of the end user they can take a long hard run of a very short cliff. My view is DEMOs should always be free, adding long demos wont increase sales at all, I knew I hated C&C4 after playing the demo for 5 minutes for example, had I paid to find this out I would have been in talks with a solicitor.
It's simply shocking how GREEDY EA are getting, first they trial in-game adverts and now they trying to make folk pay for unfinished samples!!!! Why not go the whole hog ya big bunch of d**kh**ds and charge for screen shots and backgrounds... jesus it's not like the quality of the games lately have been worth a s**t anyway.
Occurs to me that anyone that doesnt currently pirates games will had even more reason to do so if this goes ahead, after all if you are gonna start looking for pirated DEMOS then it makes no sense to stop there, may as well go the whole hog to the full versions as 3-4 hour demos wont be far off final sizes of the retail (mass effect 2 - which takes a mere 6-8 hour to complete)