Nah, demos largely disappeared because they not only took a bunch of resources to make but also had a far better chance of convincing you not to buy a game than to buy it, especially if you had other means of marketing it. Many people even enjoyed the demo but felt that they got their fill and therefore didn’t want to keep playing, or maybe they didn’t want anything out of the game beyond what the demo offered.
A demo has never once sold me on a game, going all the way back to shareware days.
However, I can think of countless times a demo has convinced me not to buy a game.
You’re definitely the outlier
Nah, demos largely disappeared because they not only took a bunch of resources to make but also had a far better chance of convincing you not to buy a game than to buy it, especially if you had other means of marketing it. Many people even enjoyed the demo but felt that they got their fill and therefore didn’t want to keep playing, or maybe they didn’t want anything out of the game beyond what the demo offered.
They wouldn’t be doing them multiple a year if they didn’t get sales.
Factorio’s demo absolutely convinced me to buy it.
Demos only really work well if the game is fantastic and able to convey that in a small slice of the game, though.