The demo for the upcoming release of Braid was put online earlier than intended by GamersGate today. The demo for Jonathan Blow’s indie game was meant to go online tomorow, the same day as the full game was made available accross a variety of sites .

The issue came to light when someone linked to the GamersGate page featuring the demo on the Steam Powered User Forums. When Jonathan noticed the link he proceeded to remove all evidence of the link. He went on to make the following comments about the situation:

This is not cool. They are jumping the release date and basically screwing me, as well as the other online partners (who are all supposed to release at the same time, demo or full version). Please do not spread this link around.

It was me who deleted the URLs here (no Valve conspiracy theories please!) I am trying to make sure that all my online distribution partners get treated fairly.

I just talked to someone from GamersGate and he tells me it was a misunderstanding and the link is down until tomorrow.

The demo link has now been removed from GamersGate, but don’t be suprised if the demo starts to appear on file sharing sites if people were able to download it. The game, and the demo will be made available tomorow from a variety of services including GamersGate, Steam and Impulse.

Thanks to Gunrun for the tip.

Edit – This isn’t really a controversy, I simply got a bit of sensationalism running through my veins at the time. While an interesting event that I feel deserved to be discussed, my use of language perhaps wasn’t the best. Apologies to Jonathan and GamersGate for any offense.