Mainly talking about the new games list, do demos count into those?
If you set the game page to public, then it counts as being released. It doesn't matter what files you've uploaded to it, or even if you uploaded any. That's why you shouldn't set a game page to public until you're really ready to do that. If you then want the full game to also count as a release, publish a devlog to go with it when it happens, or else make it a new project.