You removed the demo? Man, Screw you guys.

[@Innomen]

Title.

[Felimarsh]

It's an unfortunate trend on Steam.

I REALLY don't get it.

Devs make a demo available for a time and when the game fully launches, they remove the demo or its access. It's becoming more and more of a thing.

I don't really understand why you wouldn't want people to try your game before a potential purchase but I think the Steam's refund system is to blame at this point since so many people actually consider the first two hours of a game as a potential refund all the time...

So I guess dev teams are like: "Well, people will refund it if they don't like the game anyway" and just get rid of demos...

I agree that it sucks... I have played the demo for a couple hours and just wanted to get back into it to check on something and couldn't because of no access.

So now I have to buy the game on Steam to check what I wanted to check and refund and buy it on PS5 as it's probably gonna be my platform of choice for this game....

[@Innomen]

Yea this is my second time, the first time I was fed lies about the demo coming back later. Personally I will never buy a game I know has had this treatment. It's an affront to my 90s gaming roots. Star sector has the right idea. I guess shady practice is required to maintain gabe' yacht fleet.

[e Zinc]

I can offer some insight as a dev:

It's very, very hard to update both the demo and the main game at the same time especially if you plan to provide lots of free updates to the main game over time.

People can play the outdated demo and get the wrong impression of the main game. As an indie developer, you don't have the resources to maintain both builds.

I think demos made more sense in the early 2000s when games were fully finished, burned on a disk, and were never expected to evolve over time.

Also as Felimarsh said, Steam offers 2 hour refunds which can fulfill the functionality of a demo.

[FuriousDevi]

1. Steam does NOT always grant a refund - specialy when using the "wrong" reason.
I had that happen before and once a refund request is denied you are not able to do a new one with a "better" reason.
Also stream likes to do mimimi when there were "too many" refunds - where how many is too many is up to steam and often makes no sense.
Im speaking out of experience here and the way steam treats longterm customers is so absurd i was about to quit completely - but there is just no real alternative so yeah.

2. A demo version offers a way to try a game out without paying for it.

Therefore Offering a demo can increase sales.
I personaly dont think a demo version has to reflect the current version of the game and human common sense should tell everyone that the full version might be a bit different because of recent updates.

[KellyR]

Originally posted by FuriousDevi:

I personaly dont think a demo version has to reflect the current version of the game and human common sense should tell everyone that the full version might be a bit different because of recent updates.

You'd think so, but the Karen legions are vast, and they cause untold grief for small companies with limited support staff.

[@Innomen]

Originally posted by KellyR:

You'd think so, but the Karen legions are vast, and they cause untold grief for small companies with limited support staff.

Ok whiteknight Ayn. I'm sure that 74% increase in billionaire wealth will trickle down any day now. (Did you know it only takes 4 people to make a trillion dollars now? Mainly because of logic like yours.)

You can sell me on the mom and pop game company crap when they don't act like they wanna be EA when they grow up, like say, by deleting demos just to squeeze a few more dimes out of poor people.

[Android Poetry]

Originally posted by @Innomen:

Originally posted by KellyR:

You'd think so, but the Karen legions are vast, and they cause untold grief for small companies with limited support staff.

Ok whiteknight Ayn. I'm sure that 74% increase in billionaire wealth will trickle down any day now. (Did you know it only takes 4 people to make a trillion dollars now? Mainly because of logic like yours.)

You can sell me on the mom and pop game company crap when they don't act like they wanna be EA when they grow up, like say, by deleting demos just to squeeze a few more dimes out of poor people.

Bro, get a grip. WTF do billionaires have to do with this thread? Quit whining.

[@Innomen]

Originally posted by Android Poetry:

Bro, get a grip. WTF do billionaires have to do with this thread? Quit whining.

The entire problem, and how we GET billionaires in the first place, Exhibit A ^

White knight for greed some more. Bro.

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by e Zinc:

I can offer some insight as a dev:

It's very, very hard to update both the demo and the main game at the same time especially if you plan to provide lots of free updates to the main game over time.

People can play the outdated demo and get the wrong impression of the main game. As an indie developer, you don't have the resources to maintain both builds.

I think demos made more sense in the early 2000s when games were fully finished, burned on a disk, and were never expected to evolve over time.

Also as Felimarsh said, Steam offers 2 hour refunds which can fulfill the functionality of a demo.

True it is resource intense to update both, but they already had a working demo and dont need to constantly update that demo.
Ofcourse that can give a wrong impression, but the flipside is, that they wont sell a copy to the person anyway.
So its either a demo with the chance (!) of a bad impression that leads to no sell or no demo and no sell OR a sold copy to the wrong person with wrong expectations and a refund PLUS negative review as the final result.

No demo is far more hurtful, especially by having to abuse the refund system to bypass/workaround a lack of service.
And i can tell you, if i am pressured to buy a game and use these 2 hours refund window to workaround a lack of service because the developer didnt provide a demo (even worse when that demo was already existing), then i WILL leave a negative review when i deem it not good enough having to refund.

On top this will also prevent me to pick it up later, whereas me trying a demo and deeming the game not ready but still interesting, i would return later and watch what was updated, buying the game once i found the negatives have been addressed.
I wont pick it up later if i had to use the 2 hour refund window, because then i obviously dont have any right to refund again.

A demo is at best a good vertical slice of the gameplay. A very limited piece giving a good and broad idea of the gameplay and its content, offering the typical gameplay loop to its fullest while holding back the horizontal parts.
That means getting a glimpse of every mechanic (upgrading, forging new weapons, trading resources, leveling the character, meta upgrades etc), but leaving out the overall content (levels/worlds, modes, characters, some upgrade paths or items or abilities).
And then you dont really need to constanlty update it and add new stuff.
People will get an idea and draw their leftover informations from other stuff like trailers and store descriptions.
All the dev has to do with the demo is updating the info banner that lists all the features you dont get in the demo but the full version.
On the flipside people will treat your service positively and you will prevent a lot of negative reviews from frustrated buyers that didnt know what they were getting into.

A demo is a net positive for all sides involved, even if adding a demo is work.

Example:
I was playing the demo a bit but didnt have much time.
I have more time now for the next 3 weeks and wanted to try it and especially with a friend as we played Spell Brigade and VS together and possibly want another one to play.
Would have played the demo and pulled the trigger, but now wont.

Instead the money will likely go to the guys behind "Lonely Mountain". They also have a time limited demo for their game, but we had the chance to play it together.
Tough luck, but its good to have a demo available at any given time to attract new customers.

I will let it sit on my wishlist now and maybe in a year we will play it, but that will probably be at a 80% discount instead of nearly full price.
And when theres me seeing it this way, you have more people thinking and acting the same way.

Im also sure with a bit of discipline a dev could polish a demo so properly that it doesnt matter whether it reflect the full games feature list.
Set yourself to work 4 days a week at the full game and 1 day a week at the demo, not to add new features, but polish UI, menus, fonts, animations or whatever and after half a year you not only have a full version with good progress but also a really well done demo that shows what quality you can deliver.
1/5th of your work time to attract more people is probably a worthwhile investment.

[@Innomen]

Originally posted by Buntkreuz:

...

I think a big part of it is feeling like they are getting away with something, like some devs want customers to not have the option of a refund, and they want them to go in blind, like an "all sales final, caveat emptor" mentality. So many devs are pharma bros in a trench coat.

And why not when the culture at large absolutely tongue bathes that mentality especially in the tech sector. Hell, software licensing logic applied to chemicals is how we even got big pharma.

The church of intellectual property law has killed more people than war. (See my substack, I'm not kidding. Opportunity costs are basically compounding interest for body counts.) This tiny evil is a dim and distant tendril miles away from that writhing lovecraftian central mass, but it's not even merely related, it's the same organism.

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk, yes I know this is a wendy's.