Are you bothered by free "prologues" on Steam?

You're not the only one. I had this phase where I was adding all free games I could find using ArchiSteam Farm, just for the sake of it. Eventually I started using Playnite to manage my library, and it was the first time I realized how many "Prologues" I had, and I've been removing them from my account ever since. It's an endless task and I regret having add all these free games back then.

I don't expect Steam to do anything about it. Devs have all the incentives to create prologues, even if it sucks for us, customers. The responsibility is on us to avoid them, unfortunately. Besides being watchful, I doubt anything will change.

Wow, that is a lot of prologues. I didn't realize the problem was so widespread. I guess I was lucky and the games I play didn't develop a prologue?

I don't see any easy solution for this, except to not buy games that have a prologue? Or maybe play the prologue and leave a Steam review indicating that you feel duped and will not be buying the full game?

I honestly don't get the issue. Yes, you've described them correctly, these are just demos with more active marketing, nobody is pretending these are actual complete games (so no, not «fake free games», just demos with their own pages). Not EA games people actually pay for and are often left with an unfinished product, these are FREE - as a demo should be. Who cares if a developer chooses to create a separate page for a game? They get more attention, attract more audience - good for them, and, if a game is decent, good for us. And why does a removal of such a game matter? What do you lose? A +1 in your library?

I think free prologues are smart move. People can try a game without buy+refund scheme and developers can collect feedback before actual release, so you won't have to wait for x fix patches over week to be able play what you paid for.
But, that mechanics works for people who actually play games and doesn't consider collectors and idlers who just claims everything.

I like demos, I think they are great for consumers. If this gives more visibility for a game or not is something valve must take in consideration.
For me, demos are more important since the days they were coming on disks attached to a magazine.

You ignore that it has benefits too. With demos there are no ratings, now you have an additional option to identify some more interesting upcoming indie titles.
With prologues becoming regular it's indirectly a revival of demos. Which also is beneficial for the customers.

And last but not least: If almost everyone does prologues the advantage for the devs is becoming borderline irrelevant. The few highlights will shine and those deserve it anyway.

Demos are always welcome, even in this slightly improper form. On the other hand, sometimes these prologues are a separate experience that is not part of the full game (which makes more sense and is also welcome).

I'm not particularly annoyed by them, but it would be better to have a proper, well-defined connection with the full games (demos are on the same page as the games, these are on separate, and people may not even know about them) - it would be also good if the devs would keep these around.

I have no opinion on prologues, but every game should be required to have a demo. And cheat codes.

Yes that's pissing me off, Steam is overflown as it is, without hundreds of demos that can't be hidden like demos. The name "Prologue" itself is confusing, is it just a beginning of a game or maybe it has some unique content who knows. They don't even always have "prologue" in their name now, so you might think that it's actually a free game and it's just a prologue. What a BS.

Bruh, at least they are for free. Now think about dozens of games, which you need to pay for - only to find out they really are some kind of advanced demos and without buying further dlcs, well....

As long as they are clearly labelled as prologues I don't see the issue. Bigger episodic games tend to have their first episode for free as well.
There's much worse spam on Steam that's actually exploiting gimmicks and such, I just see these as demos that don't want to have that label.

Valve should improve Demos. Right now you don't own a demo forever. You can't record playtime of demos on your profile. You can't see who of your friends has played a demo and so on. Have I played this demo before? I can't tell without first installing it. Fix demos and this issue will take care of itself.

I don't like the practice. It's abused by predatory dev's to get you hooked. Sometimes they just lead to a patreon.

If I vote yes, does that mean I'm voting that you're the only one or does it mean I'm also bothered? For the record, I'm also bothered. I hate when these glorified demos are treated like full games and given out as streamer keys.

Yeah, it's basically just a way to throw around demos without actually having them assigned to the 'demo' category.

I like prologues in concept, they're basically demos under another name as you said but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, and sometimes you have the dev that goes beyond that and makes an actual prologue that's its own standalone thing complementing the main game. So it sounds like more of a good thing to me other than the fact that they're quite frequently a bit of a misnomer.
Although I had not noticed that there were that many of them, I imagine it must be turning into a bit of nightmare to sort through these if you're actively searching for little-known free games, but that's nothing that a bit of curation can't fix.

Not really. I mean, as you mentioned, they are demos, and I'm old enough that I belong to the category of gamers who are sad that Demos are not a thing anymore with all the preorder bullshit. So I enjoy checking out demos of games before I buy them regardless of the name it is now.

Regarding devs using the new separate store page for the demos, I always assumed that is to prevent customers from running afoul of the Steam refund policy. I thought the demo from a store page would count as playtime towards that 2-hour limit. So they probably created a store page to give players a chance to try the Demo multiple times without losing the refund option.

Not so different to how it was back in the day, you'd have to get a separate demo floppy/disk of the game. They obviously believe this method is to their advantage compared to just having a demo. $100 isn't so bad for advertising costs for most.

Some games have the first chapter free and have the additional portions of the game as paid DLCs which seems like a good method as it's still all on one page and the first part can be tracked normally.

You are definitely not alone in this. The prologues are confusing things and discouraging actual game playthroughs. A culture is being built around trying out unfinished, chopped up games. People online streaming demos and spoiling beginnings was bad enough. Now the first chapter to new games is available before the real game can even release.

Another thing I mind is how prologues take up insane amounts of space on the store. So much that there would have to be a filter when browsing F2P games to get rid of them, because maybe you want to hold off on trying out unfinished games and instead play real, complete F2P experiences or versions of those very same games that aren't free.

I like that, because I can check whether game is interesting or not before buying full version.
Just like a demos (although I can check my playtime and add it to account so +1 for that).

Be honest now - you complain only because you added all free junk to your account and now you are frustrated because you have to clean this mess xD

What annoys me is "prologue games" sold for price of a game without mentioning anywhere that they are just more or less jjust paid demos (except some pissed off users in the reviews).
Like: Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms

Very yes.

In my library I only add prologues that I find VERY interesting to really see what the gameplay is like. Otherwise, they seem terrible to me. I hate demos and prologues, because I dislike incomplete gameplay experiences.

You != gamers. It might be as easy as that. Prologue just means that if you try the demo you aren't forced to re-play the first 'level' again which sucks way more than playing the free demo before playing the actual game.