With thousands of playable demos launching on Steam every year, and millions of players trying them out (often as part of Steam Next Fest), we've noticed some trends in feedback from both developers and players about the process and functionality. We've put together an update based on that feedback. As a reminder, you can always find great demos to play on the Steam demo hub.
Q. What is the deal with the Demo icon? Is that a plate? A vinyl record?
A. That classic icon, my friend, is from the days when demos were commonly distributed through the post office, contained in a bound package of game journalism printed on dead trees and imprinted on circular media known as Compact Discs.
Q. Some demos just appeared in my Steam library. How did those get there?
A. We’ve made some changes to visibility of demos in the Steam Library, which may effect demos that you played long ago. We’ve tried our best to clean up the demos that we expect you don’t care about anymore, but we may have missed some. You can easily remove those by right-clicking them in your Steam library and selecting manage > remove from account.
Q. I love free demos. When is the next Steam Next Fest?
A. Check back on October 14th for the next weeklong Steam Next Fest, featuring hundreds of new free playable demos! You can sign up for a reminder by visiting the Next Fest page now: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest
My sentiments exactly. I don’t do many demos, but seeing games on my wishlist that have them, that’s going to be good for the devs and my own curiosity. Win:win:win:sad wallet
Showing free demos as their own line item in the store suggestions feels counterintuitive. As a user, I don’t want this, it just clusters the interface. I want to see the main game and something on it indicating a demo is available.
As for developers, discoverability is something they are always talking (complaining) about. Artificially inflating the sheer number of competing games for visibility seems like an odd choice in that regard.
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Infrequently Asked Questions
Q. What is the deal with the Demo icon? Is that a plate? A vinyl record?
A. That classic icon, my friend, is from the days when demos were commonly distributed through the post office, contained in a bound package of game journalism printed on dead trees and imprinted on circular media known as Compact Discs.
Q. Some demos just appeared in my Steam library. How did those get there?
A. We’ve made some changes to visibility of demos in the Steam Library, which may effect demos that you played long ago. We’ve tried our best to clean up the demos that we expect you don’t care about anymore, but we may have missed some. You can easily remove those by right-clicking them in your Steam library and selecting manage > remove from account.
Q. I love free demos. When is the next Steam Next Fest?
A. Check back on October 14th for the next weeklong Steam Next Fest, featuring hundreds of new free playable demos! You can sign up for a reminder by visiting the Next Fest page now: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest
That’s nice
My sentiments exactly. I don’t do many demos, but seeing games on my wishlist that have them, that’s going to be good for the devs and my own curiosity. Win:win:win:sad wallet
I wish more games had demos. In the era of 70€ triple-A games, you can’t even get out of the tutorial in 2 hours
That is actually intentional. They do it to restrict refunds on Steam and consoles.
Showing free demos as their own line item in the store suggestions feels counterintuitive. As a user, I don’t want this, it just clusters the interface. I want to see the main game and something on it indicating a demo is available.
As for developers, discoverability is something they are always talking (complaining) about. Artificially inflating the sheer number of competing games for visibility seems like an odd choice in that regard.