It doesn't bother me much if a demo given out for free is withdrawn, especially for the reasons the dev states above.

Man, it was a free sample. Don't be a choosing begger. You guys probably go to Costco and harass the old ladies giving out the little free paper cups of teriyaki chicken.

This just reminds me how much the catalog needs a redesign.

And demos/previews/etc wouldn't exist in the catalog as games added to library at all. You'd just freely download from the page as that.

(And for Galaxy users, they could see them and just install them as their own "demos" filter. Again, no adding to library.)

But I've spoken quite a bit of how I'd structure GOG's catalog redesign elsewhere and it'd go off-topic here to bring up more than that now.

This exact situation, reminds of the Asylum demo, from the devs of Scratches. The Demo disappeared from store, both in gog and in steam, but those who got it in gog still retain in, in their library! Gog was supposed to never withdraw any content acquired through its service retroactively! Likewise, even the expired version of Bloodstained Alpha version demo from Koji Igarashi, still exists in our libraries, at least in here. Your request, shouldn't have affected the contents of users' libraries but only the gog store entry content, correct or wrong?

PS GoG started retroactively removing content from users acquiring it legit, ever since the witcher 3 ost issue.

I can understand when a demo starts out as a strong representation of the full game. After some development time, the demo fails to represent the full game.

At that point, assuming control of demo still exists, one could change the name from "demo" to something else; to display that it now fails to represent the full game and is now just historical software from early development.

So, change it from "demo" to:
pre-alpha
alpha
beta
early development
not a demo
version 0
.. or something else more creative.

But still let the software exist for users.

Then again, I am not a software developer.

No one expects a demo to be "up to date" if the game gets updated.

I think demos should be downloadable directly anyway and not show up in the library anyway, that would be better for everyone and would not cause discussions like this one.


I only keep the installers of those who were custom made anyway fore example with levels that are not in the final game.

I kind of have a beef with "prologues" that have content not in the final game. Put it over there! A player shouldn't have to do sleuthing to find out the whole story. Or at least mention in the full game that the prolog-that-exists-also-as-a-demo has stuff for you that for some reason wasn't in the real finished product.

Thanks for the reply MIAMI_MECHANISTRY. A bit odd I don't have it in my library. I could swear a while back I added all free items to my catalog.

Oh doh, I now see SmollestLight's post. I guess that happened... :-P

When devs take the time to post in the forums, it's very appreciated. ;) Thx for shedding some light here.
I appreciate the apology. :)

I fully understand when you do not want to spend the effort to keep the Timberborn demo up to date. For me it's even the normal case that a demo is outdated at some point, especially a pre-release demo. Removing it from the store is your decision, although not necessary in my eyes.

But the demo should have been removed from the store only and not from peoples accounts. That creates a very bad precedent. It undermines the trust in GOG's platform, when developers/publishers get the right to demand the removal of content from peoples accounts, even when it's "only" a demo.

"To clarify, we've never removed any content from users account's against their will and we never will."

I am a huge fan of city builders, but I've removed Timberborn from my wishlist and mark it accordingly. Sorry, requesting the removal of the demo from our accounts is a behavior I cannot support.

Actually I like the GOG way to "purchase" a demo because then it's "yours", associated with your account (and can be downloaded automatically with the games). Of course demos better should be in a separate category, like movies are, and not be mixed with the full games. But I agree, when demos nevertheless get removed from our accounts the whole mechanism is pointless.

I have to admit I'm a bit mixed on this. Normally i'd disagree, but GOG's choice to associate this with your account and go as far as to amke you go through the whole "purchase" page to get the demo instead of it beeing freely downloadable makes this a bit different. But, hey, that's why we have "offline installers." You don't just blindly trust a company like GOG.

I don't like the idea of things being removed from someone's account but the developer did say that the demo is completely different from the game now. It's a little weird to even add a demo if you think it's going to work out that way.

Anybody who managed to download the demo who would be willing to upload the offline installer to a google drive or similar file hosting service? That somebody shall have the eternal gratitude not just from me but surely others' who missed out as well.
Should be no implications since the demo was available for free after all, but if that somebody still has qualms I guess they could drop the link with a private chat message too.

Not sure how the dev thought it would be a good idea to pull the demo in the first place, especially when you have your game pop up and be presented/promoted several times during gamescom coverage. Still a ways off before the game is released as InDev in September I think, so why not give people the chance to try it out for themselves and make it more likelier to have them pick up the game when it releases.
Death Trash did just that (make the demo available alongside the InDev release) and they can definitely expect another sold copy when I get my paycheck next week.

Stranger Things 3: The Game was delisted from GOG on August 31st 2021.

Well, this is exact the scenario that on GOG you should take the chance and download instantly your offline installer of your current purchase, so nobody can take it away.