How to set up a Steam page for your demo

Players download a demo to decide whether the game is for them. Steam treats it as its own app so it can have its own build, its own page and its own reviews, but its purpose is the base game's: every demo player should meet a reason to wishlist before they quit.

Demos have also become the main way small games get discovered before launch. In How To Market A Game's survey of the February 2026 Next Fest, the games that released their demo more than a month before the fest did much better than those that released it within the month; of the ten that earned 15,000 or more wishlists during the fest, five had put their demo out months before. A demo is not a Next Fest accessory; it is a long-running page of its own.

From Valve's Demos documentation:

1. On the base game's landing page in Steamworks, open All associated packages, DLC, demos and tools and press Add Demo.
2. In the demo's General Application Settings, set the type to Demo and enter the base game's App ID.
3. Configure depots and upload builds to the demo's own App ID with SteamPipe, as you would for any app.
4. Set up the store presence: a button on the base game's page, or a separate demo page (below).
5. Complete the checklists on the demo's landing page and mark the store presence and the build ready for review.
6. After approval, press Release Demo, which also publishes its store assets.
7. Republish the base game's store page so the Download Demo button appears.

Optionally, once the demo page has passed review, a Post Coming Soon button lets the demo page go public before the demo itself.

Valve offers two presentations, and the choice shapes what the demo can do:

Valve's rules for a separate demo page are about honesty. The page must describe only what is in the demo; if the full game has features the demo lacks, leave them off or label them clearly as full-game only. The trailer and at least five screenshots should be specific to the demo. The capsules and library assets must make clear the app is a demo. And the demo's content survey has to match the demo's content, not the full game's. Steam adds a prominent link from the demo page to the full game automatically.

Releasing a demo lets you send an email and mobile notification to everyone who has the base game on their wishlist. Valve's rules:

• Once only, from the demo's landing page.
• Within two weeks of the demo's first playable release; the deadline shows at the top of the right-hand column.
• Not renewable: disabling and re-enabling the demo does not bring the option back.
• Two-week cooldown: wishlist notifications have a cooldown per App ID, so space the demo email away from discounts and the release.

So the demo's release date is also the date of your best email. Release it when the demo is good and when the email will land well, and send it.

• Show the best of the game, not just the first minutes; Valve's own guidance is to keep quality matched to the full game and length balanced so players are excited but feel there is more.
• End on a wishlist ask: what the full game adds, and a button that opens the store page.
• Turn off achievements in the demo, as Valve recommends, and grant them in the full game.
• Share saves if you can: the demo and the full game can share Steam Cloud saves, so progress carries over.
• Mind multiplayer: demo players and full-game players cannot matchmake together through Steam.
• Add a feedback link in the menu, which Valve suggests for Next Fest demos.

Demos are free to play and, in Valve's words, can appear anywhere a free game could, including New & Trending and tag and genre pages, so a demo is visible for as long as it stays up. Updates to an approved demo are not reviewed again. To stop new players getting it, use Deactivate Demo under Technical Tools on the demo's landing page; players who already have it keep it but cannot launch it. Our guide to updating a Steam demo covers patches, and after Next Fest when to keep a demo up.

Flockbay's playtest links get a demo build in front of testers before Valve's reviewers and players, with errors and crashes reported back for your AI to replay and fix. Its Steam page drafts the store page you attach the demo to, as a .zip you upload yourself. Hosted playtests and the drafting are free in beta until 1 December 2026; preparing the page by hand and its .zip stay free.