Oh yeah sure, i sell refrigirators, and now i give away free ones to show they work good!!!??
I dont think so. Confirmation and hype would be there anyway. and they don't have to give free versions away.
just a silly theory. I they worried people didnt see th quality, they would release more videos or a DEMO, not the whole game.
A demo would do just the same, but without loosing alot of money...
And to all the people that say it is insignificant. we have research that say up to 35% of Pc versions is pirated.
I even know a game that did not sell more than 1 million, but statistic showed it was downloaded 3 million times.
If that is not significant.... It really is a reason companys do alll this stuff to avoid piracy.
Also PC is very easy to pirate for while Consoles have to install software or chip and few people does that