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Offer a demo alongside your purchasable games

If you’ve ever wanted to provide a demo to go alongside your paid game you may of had to employ some workaround such as creating a separate page or just making a link in your description to a download URL.

Starting today itch.io has the ability to host your demos. From the file uploader on the edit game page you can now mark a file as a demo.

demo demo

Files that are demos are listed below the buy button on your game page and are immediately downloadable.

demo demo 2

Like all other files you can upload, demos will have download analytics collected and shown in the game analytics page so you can see how your files are being downloaded.

Enjoy!

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What is itch.io?

itch.io is an open marketplace for independent game creators. It's completely free to upload your content. Read more about what we're trying to accomplish and the features we provide.

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question about the demo feature:

if i already have a game with a downloadable file, how do i set it to be the free demo and switch the game over to paid along with the upload of a new download file for the full version of the game?

was this replaced by the "set a different price for this file" feature? do i simply set the demo price to zero?

also somewhat related, is there an option for a maximum price so people don't feel pressure to tip me?

Admin

If you mark a file as a demo it will always be free, regardless of any price you've set on the project. If you had a project page that you're now putting a price on, you can safely upload the paid files, set the price on the project, then select the "This is a demo" checkbox next to the demo file. That file will remain freely available. Tell me if you're still having trouble. Thanks

thanks for the reply!

i'm still confused, because on the Edit Game page, i don't see the word "demo" anywhere. i don't see a checkbox labeled "This is a demo" or an option for "This file is a demo and can be downloaded for free". has this feature changed since you posted this info?

as a result, i'm still having trouble, although the solution might be right in front of me simply labeled differently.