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

Demos popping up on the chart might mean less visibility for new indie games

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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 behindlotsofcoolgameswe like, recently noted that “4 out of 10 games” in Steam’sNew & 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.

update on the new Steam Demo rules:- currently 4 out of 10 games in ‘new & trending’ charts are demos, wild!!- (demos couldn’t chart before the changes)- could make demos better for marketing- will probs make it harder for indie games to get into or stay in ‘new & trending’ pic.twitter.com/0wA6Urgs3PJuly 30, 2024

“Seeing Game Demos top of Steam is a real double-edged sword,” indie developer Liam Twoseadded. “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 Birkettaskedquestions 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 Korabelnikovatweetedthat 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 theTails 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 otherindiedevelopersalready promoting their separate store pages, too.

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

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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.

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