I think they are trying to plan the release carefully at a point where it is a product they are proud of.

If people get burned out on the demo it could possibly have a negative effect on sales. I saw that happen with backpack battles...they had a free demo but they didn't ask for money for several months and by the time they did the game had peaked and dropped and a lot of people had moved on because they already played enough hours to get tired of it, so they decided not to buy.

Sorry for run-on sentence it's early.

If people get burned out on a demo when they have any number of other options in their library, thats on them for their lack of self control, and a poor reason for preventing those who came in late from playing the demo. Now weigh that against the number of players who are never going to gain interest and ignore the game when it launches.

Bring back the demo so those who missed it before can try it. I've been gaming since the atari 2600 and I've never seen "we dont want you trying our product" lead to a sale.

Yeah I had a friend to whom I was very excited to show this game to but couldn't because they were just so busy and missed out on both demo periods. this isn't quite the type of game to just watch on youtube either because half the experience is floundering through the mystery yourself.

The concept of Early Access games, while hit or miss on the dev's own ability to commit an engaging or regular update schedule, is one I think the demo would have handedly earned my cash for. Or even at least to keep the demo itself.

If anything, I'd say then the threat of petering out interest would have to be from the demo being released too early with no tangible release date or followup to look forward to.
I certainly know I almost missed the second demo period entirely because I didn't believe there'd be anything going on after it'd expired its licence(?) and immediately disappeared from my library altogether on uninstall the first time round.