Summary
Steamis finally making some major changes to its storefront that will make it far easier for players to try a game before they purchase it. Currently, in the gaming space, it’s never been easier for players to dip into a collection of games, either viaPC and Xbox Game Passor PlayStation Plus' libraries, and decide if a title is right for them, but Steam has long offered a more traditional way of doing this with demos that let players try out a section of a title that should serve as a solid representation of what the full game will be like before someone pays for it.
There are thousands of playable demos launching on Steam every year, and millions of players try them out, with events such as Steam Next Fest or major showcases advertising an array of titles players can try out. While most players know what they should be getting from a lot of the AAA titles on the market,demos can be a huge support to smaller studios or indie developers as a way of showing players their vision for titles and getting promotion through word of mouth from those in the gaming community who have tried their games firsthand.
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How Steam Is Promoting Demos More Than Ever
Steam Has Taken Feedback From Players & Developers On Board
As stated in a recentSteamblog post, Valve has taken on board feedback from both developers and players regarding how demos are presented on the storefront and how they function and has made several changes to ensure that not only aredemos more prominently displayed on the Steam homepage on chart pages such as “New & Trending” or “New on Steam,” as well as on relevant tag and category pages. Demos now also have a separate, full store page that will better advertise the contents of the demo rather than the full game, and players are able to write reviews solely on the demo experience on these pages.
The demo pages also easily link through to the full game’s page to make it easy for those wishing to purchase the complete product.
Having demos being more predominant is a great move, and will hopefully be one that will have a cascade effect and make demos more commonplace and popular again. People will get to try before they buy as a more common practice, which is certainly more pro-consumer and will ultimately reduce the need for refunds and hopefully reduce the number of potentially disgruntled players with it. Currently, there’s a time limit for when players can refund a title on Steam. Players can only receive a refund within 14 days of purchase and if it has been played for less than 2 hours, so a free demo could negate them finding out whether a title’s right for them before they even purchase it.
Players can also find plenty of free demos onSteam’s Demo Hub page.
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Demos May Be More Accessible Now, But They Were More Prominent Decades Ago
Nearly Every Gaming Magazine Came With Discs Packed With Demos
While demos may be more easily accessible now - and completely free - on digital storefronts,they were extremely popular back in the ’90s and 2000s as discs containing several titles' demos would accompany most printed gaming magazines on the market. Therefore, if someone picked up a magazine for a major upcoming release that was on its cover, the odds are that there would be a demo or a video for it on the disc along with several other titles that they could read about in other articles inside that issue. Of course, it wasn’t just limited to game-related magazines, as other companies such as McDonalds or Pizza Hut partnered up with the likes of PlayStation to put out some demo discs as well.
Steam has even acknowledged this age of game demos with its demo icon, which resembles a disc.
These demo discs could vary in content, with some special issues going up to 20 demos, while others, on average, contained about 10. Even so, this was a great way to introduce titles that players may have never considered and was a great marketing tool, and in some cases, players would repeatedly play a demo while waiting hopefully to receive the full version for birthdays or holidays. WithSteamnow enabling developers to get to the front page of the storefront with their demos, rather than waiting for full or Early Access releases, this is a huge promotional win that could hark back more to this time and enable players to experiment slightly more with the kinds of titles on offer.
