Steam has just made our lives easier thanks to this update

Almost all console or mobile game stores usually include easily accessible sections that highlight free content. All except Steam, the King platform of the PC world that has always gone at its own pace. Or so it was until now.

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As we mentioned, Steam has recently adopted a similar approach, giving demos and free to play titles a more prominent and easy-to-find place in its storefront. This change is part of a broader response to the growing interest from developers in playable free promotions.

Users browsing through the tabs located in the middle of the Steam homepage will notice that Valve has introduced a new section dedicated to highlighting elements such as demos and free games.

Where to find this new demos page on Steam

The new Trending Free tab is located next to the lists of new releases, best sellers, upcoming games, and discounts, just below the main picks on the Steam store page. Currently, it includes items such as the Worshippers of Cthulhu demo and the free evaluation tool for Black Myth: Wukong.

Steam has had sections for demos and free games for a while, but the links to these sections were hidden in the store’s category list. Moving them to a prominent position on the new homepage tab significantly increases their visibility.

Valve responds to the growing trend of developers releasing free games, often with the word Prologue in the title, as a way to promote larger commercial releases instead of presenting traditional demos.

This strategy effectively doubled the space of a game on the shelves, as demos were limited to the main release store page, while prologues benefited from the added visibility of a separate listing. However, many users complained that these free promotions could easily be confused with full games.

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The new Steam policy addresses this issue by giving demos their own pages, eliminating the need for prologues. Additionally, the change allows users to add demos to their libraries without installing them, making it easier to manage and remove demos when desired.

Players can now write reviews and receive specific notifications for demos. As a result of these changes, the Trending Free section now consolidates demos, prologues, and other free software.