Steam (together with EA? The trial coincides with a two week EA Publisher’s Sale on Steam) are starting to test the viability of Game Trials, offering all users the opportunity to try Dead Space for 90 minutes for free. The trial isn’t restricted in any way - players will be able to spend 90 minutes in the game doing whatever they want.
The Free Trial option may be as a result of complaints about some recent big titles that have had very poor PC releases - The Last of Us Part 1 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for example. Steam’s 2-hour Refund period and the number of refunds they may well have processed due to the shoddy releases might have sparked this approach.
This might be a simple experiment to test the waters, with Dead Space being the only game on trial at the moment. But it has the potential to alleviate a lot of future complaints about poorly optimised games and as such may well come to other games.
The Free 90 Minute Trial offer for Dead Space runs for two weeks. It started yesterday and runs through until Monday, 29 May at 19:00. To coincide with the trial period the game is on a 20% discount sale until the end of the trial.
To try out Dead Space for yourself, simply find the game in the Steam App and hit the “Play Now” button.