Rue Valley

Should You Keep Your Demo Up Post Launch?

Indie developers often ask whether a demo should stay on Steam after launch, especially for short, linear narrative games, and this analysis of 2025 Steam hits tests that question with data.

• Keeping a demo live post-launch significantly increases average review scores by over 5.5 points (89.83 with demo vs. 84.22 without demo) for games with 1000+ reviews.
• Approximately 21% of successful indie games (those with 1000+ reviews in 2025) still had their demo live post-launch.
• Souls-like games had the highest percentage of post-launch demos, followed by City Builders and Rhythm games at 50%.