Short: Digital storefronts on gaming consoles and mobile platforms typically include easily accessible sections highlighting free content. Steam recently took a similar approach, giving demos and free-to-play titles more prominent placement on its storefront page. The change is part of a broader response to developers’ increasing focus on free-to-play game offerings.
Users scrolling through the tabs in the middle of the Steam homepage may notice that Valve has introduced a new section dedicated to highlighting items like demos and free-to-play games. These recent changes to the storefront are part of Valve’s efforts to make it easier for users to discover and manage free content.
The new Trending Free tab sits right under the main selections on the Steam store page, alongside lists for new releases, top sellers, upcoming games, and discounts. It currently includes items like the demo for Worshippers of Cthulhu and the free benchmark tool for Black Myth: Wukong.
Steam has long had sections for demos and free-to-play games, but the links to these sections were previously hidden in the store’s category list. Moving them to a prominent location in the new tab on the home page will significantly increase their visibility.
Valve is responding to a growing trend in which developers release free games, often with “prologue” in the title, to promote larger commercial releases rather than submitting traditional demos. This strategy effectively doubled a game’s shelf space, as demos were restricted to the main release’s store page, while prologues benefited from the added visibility of a separate listing. However, many users complained that these free promos could easily be confused with full games.
Steam’s new policy addresses this issue by giving demos their own pages, eliminating the need for prologues. Additionally, the change will allow users to add demos to their libraries without installing them, making it easier to manage and remove demos when needed.
Players can now write reviews and receive notifications specifically for demos. As a result of these changes, the Trending Free section now groups together demos, prologues, and other free software.
In addition, new rules for store page descriptions prohibit linking to external websites or other Steam games. Valve has also banned the use of images that mimic the Steam user interface.
These changes, which will take effect in early September, are aimed at developers who previously linked paid titles on the store pages of free promotions. Under the new rules, demo pages will automatically include links to the full game.
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Finding free games and demos on Steam just got a lot easier
