As Steam's New & Trending chart gets flooded with demos, some devs worry that Valve's rework could be bad news for indie games

Valve's 'Great Steam Demo Update, 2024' made demos on the digital storefront operate closer to how full games do, complete with chart positions, and some developers reckon the overhaul might harm visibility for most indie games.

Last week, Valve announced it was making changes to how demos work on the platform after a trend in developer feedback. So, now, demos will function in much the same way full games do. There'll be separate store pages and accompanying user reviews for demos, anyone who wishlists a game will be notified when its demo drops, and demos will now appear in both the 'New & Trending' chart, as well as the 'New On Steam' page. 

Future Friends founder Thomas Reisenegger, the publisher behind lots of cool games we like, recently noted that "4 out of 10 games" in Steam's New & Trending chart are demos, alongside a screengrab that shows demos for Cat Bait, Visions of Mana, CleanFall, and Klekta sitting next to full releases. Reiseneggar then said the changes "could make demos better for marketing," but "will [probably] make it harder for indie games to get into or stay" in the chart. 

"Seeing Game Demos top of Steam is a real double-edged sword," indie developer Liam Twose added. "Great for prospective games, and already established games... Not so great for newly released games [and] upcoming indie games."

Also on Twitter, Regency Solitaire developer Jake Birkett asked questions about whether this means games with demos can end up with "two shots" on the chart, "and that everyone else's chances get slimmer?" He also muses about more demos potentially being made because of the changes, which might "make demos less effective as a marketing tool as there will be too many. Also, what if all these demos impact actual game sales? Hard to say yet."

Steam's changes aren't all doom and gloom, though. Narrative designer, Alex Korabelnikova tweeted that they were "so happy to see Steam recognize the need for separate demo pages" because it'll "help lots of indies with discoverability." Korabelnikova then points to a demo they released back in 2019, likely the Tails Noir: Prologue, which became "one of the first prologue demos that had 4K+ reviews and gathered 300k wishlists for the main game." I've seen several other indie developers already promoting their separate store pages, too. 

For now, keep an eye out on the upcoming indie games of 2024 and beyond.