Steam Wishlists: Bank the Total, Time the Launch

Steam wishlists are one of the most useful indicators of how a PC game will launch. Chris Zukowski of How To Market A Game collected wishlist and sales data from a reader survey of 160 Steam games released between 2020 and 2025, and total wishlists tracked first-month sales closely across the whole period. The ratio of Steam wishlists to sales varies widely by game: in GameDiscoverCo's estimates, median first-week sales for games launching with more than 25,000 wishlists equaled about 0.15 times their wishlist count, a figure that also counts buyers who never wishlisted.

The advice that usually comes next is that the total is the less useful half of the metric. Steam, the argument goes, responds to recent momentum rather than accumulated volume, so twenty thousand wishlists gathered slowly over two years is a weaker position than eight thousand added in the past six weeks.

Key takeaways

• In Chris Zukowski's survey of 160 Steam games released from 2020 to 2025, wishlists added in the 30 days before launch predicted first-month sales no better than total wishlists.
• Outside a few placements, such as Popular Upcoming and the Personal Calendar, Valve says wishlists are "not a factor" in a game's algorithmic visibility on Steam, and neither is traffic to the store page.
• Zukowski found 2023 to 2025 releases sold roughly half as many first-month units per launch wishlist as 2020 to 2022 releases; GameDiscoverCo's October 2025 analysis of a different dataset found no decline.

Velocity doesn't beat total

Wishlist velocity, measured as the wishlists a game added in the 30 days before launch, predicted first-month sales no better than the total in Zukowski's October 2026 analysis. Using both together improved the fit only slightly. His survey of the February 2026 Next Fest found the same pattern: results tracked having a lot of wishlists going in more closely than recent velocity, and most games that went in with big totals had high velocity too.

Old wishlists don't quietly expire either. Zukowski tracked month-by-month cohorts for one game with about 89,000 wishlists and found no sign that early ones converted worse; one of the best-converting months came more than a year before launch. Valve staff told him at GDC 2024 that they mainly see wishlists go stale when a game changes drastically in look or genre, or launches at a price that doesn't match its original art.

Then look at what the number does on Steam. Wishlists feed a few specific placements before launch, Popular Upcoming and the new Personal Calendar among them. Beyond those, Valve's visibility documentation says wishlists are "not a factor" in a game's algorithmic visibility, and traffic to the store page isn't either; what Steam watches is whether people are buying and playing the game. The other thing a wishlist does is carry a message at launch. Steam can notify people who wishlisted the game however long ago they added it, subject to their notification settings and a verified email address.

Did Steam's 2026 changes make momentum matter more?

Steam changed two of the placements that wishlists feed in 2026: Popular Upcoming and the new Personal Calendar. Popular Upcoming has long been the first rung of front-page visibility. In June, Valve updated it "to better capture the most anticipated releases of the coming month." Zukowski's first reaction was that the bar had jumped from about 7,000 wishlists to about 100,000. His benchmarks, updated in June 2026, estimate roughly 7,000 to 10,000 wishlists for a brief appearance and 10,000 to 20,000 for a spot there a month before launch. They are his estimates from watching the list, not guarantees, and Valve publishes no threshold.

Alongside it, Valve added the Personal Calendar, which recommends upcoming and new releases to each player based on what players with similar tastes play and have wishlisted. Valve says there is no hard wishlist threshold, though more wishlists make a game more likely to appear; the requirement is a Coming Soon page with a specific release date. The dedicated calendar page covers eight weeks of releases, and Valve advises setting a release date at least 60 days out to make full use of it. The home-page version covers a shorter window, from two weeks back to two weeks ahead. In June, Zukowski reported developers seeing 300 to 3,000 wishlists a day from it. His conclusion on the 2026 changes: "No, momentum is not more important now." If anything, a store page with a firm date needs to be up longer.

The practical sequence

Build the page early, push hardest late. The store page should exist well before you promote it, because you want somewhere for early interest to land and those early wishlists keep their value. The concentrated push belongs around Next Fest and launch, when there's something to play or buy.

Use Next Fest deliberately, once. Valve's rules allow each title one Next Fest. It runs three times a year, in February, June and October, and the next edition is February 2027. Zukowski's advice is to enter the last one before launch, with a demo that has been out and tested for months, not dropped the morning the festival opens. Keep expectations realistic: in his February 2026 survey the median game gained about 800 wishlists during the event, and only around one in twenty gained more than 13,000.

Stack your moments. Festival participation, a creator wave, and any press you have should land close together rather than spread out. If creators are paid or given free copies, the FTC's Endorsement Guides discuss disclosing that relationship to U.S. audiences; the Guides are guidance, not law on their own. YouTube has its own requirements for declaring paid promotions.

Launch midweek. There's no good public data showing the day of the week moves sales on its own. A Tuesday to Thursday launch still means press and creators are working through your first days, and your team can fix problems before the weekend.

Mind the calendar. GameDiscoverCo's advice is to avoid Steam's big seasonal sales, when the front page is rearranged and new releases lose part of their usual visibility, and to stay clear of the first days of a Next Fest, when creators are busy with free demos. A major release aimed at the same players will compete with you for attention. GameDiscoverCo's Simon Carless keeps it in proportion: worry somewhat, but fan interest and the game's quality matter far more.

How do Steam wishlists convert to sales?

Steam wishlists are a leading indicator of sales, not a promise. Valve says plainly that "there's no formula to accurately predict sales from wishlists." The ratio is lower for pricier games: GameDiscoverCo's median falls from about 0.15 first-week sales per wishlist to about 0.10 for games priced above $10 at launch. Both figures include buyers who never wishlisted the game, and individual games landed far above and below them.

Each wishlist may also be worth less than it used to be. Zukowski found games launched from 2023 to 2025 sold roughly half as many first-month units per launch wishlist as games from 2020 to 2022, and puts it down partly to easier wishlisting (players can now add a game without opening its page) and festivals handing out wishlists at scale. GameDiscoverCo's October 2025 analysis, using a different dataset and period, found no decline in conversion, only that wishlists are harder to collect. Different samples and wide variation among games make either median a rough benchmark, not a forecast.

Whether wishlists from different sources convert differently is less clear than it sounds. In Zukowski's data for that 89,000-wishlist game, the Next Fest month had the lowest conversion, and he suggested the demo had exposed problems that put some players off buying. A monthly comparison like that doesn't show how acquisition sources convert. Still, in my view a studio that knows where its wishlists came from knows more than one with only a total, so track sources alongside the total to see which campaigns bring in interested players.

Where does press fit in a Steam launch?

I wouldn't count on press as a main source of Steam wishlists. Judge it by the players and wishlists it actually brings, not the page traffic it sends, since Valve doesn't use store traffic for visibility. Where I'd use coverage is to introduce the game to relevant readers and creators, and give them a reason to play the demo or buy the game while it matters.

That work is worth timing to a launch plan rather than scattering. Keep building awareness beforehand, but I'd plan the bulk of coverage around a playable demo and the launch itself, when a reader can act on it. That means pitching well ahead of the date: in our own outreach, reporters who reply often take more than two weeks to answer, and many pitches never get a reply. Next Fest itself doesn't trigger a wishlist email. Steam emails wishlisters at launch, which is also when the purchases Steam measures begin, and a developer can send one manual notice to wishlisters within two weeks of a demo's release.

Common questions

How many Steam wishlists convert to sales? There's no fixed rate, and Valve says there's no formula to predict sales from wishlists. In GameDiscoverCo's estimates, median first-week sales for games launching with more than 25,000 wishlists equaled about 0.15 times their wishlist count, or about 0.10 for games priced above $10 at launch. Those ratios include buyers who never wishlisted, and individual games landed far above and below them.

How many Steam wishlists do you need before launch? There's no official threshold; Valve says there's no minimum wishlist count before Steam will show a game, and none for its Personal Calendar. More wishlists predict more launch sales, but Zukowski's survey found 2023 to 2025 releases sold roughly half as many first-month units per launch wishlist as 2020 to 2022 releases, so treat any rule of thumb with care.

Does wishlist velocity matter more than total? Not on its own, in the public data available. In Zukowski's 160-game survey for How To Market A Game, wishlists added in the 30 days before launch predicted first-month sales no better than total wishlists, and combining both improved the fit only slightly.

Do wishlists affect Steam's algorithm? Partly. Wishlists directly feed some placements, including Popular Upcoming and the Personal Calendar. Launch and qualifying-discount notifications also bring wishlisters back to the store, and their purchases and play are what Steam's wider visibility responds to.

When should you use Steam Next Fest? Once, since Valve allows each title one Next Fest, and ideally the last one before launch, with a demo that has already been tested. The median game in Zukowski's survey of the February 2026 edition gained about 800 wishlists.

Do wishlists from different sources convert the same? Not necessarily, but public evidence is thin. In one game's monthly data, its Next Fest month converted least well, though the analyst suggested the demo itself had put some buyers off. Track where wishlists come from as well as how many there are, without assuming a universal ranking.

Sources

• Valve, Visibility on Steam, Steamworks Documentation, accessed Nov 8, 2026
• Valve, Wishlists, Steamworks Documentation, accessed Nov 8, 2026
• Valve, Personal Calendar, Steamworks Documentation, accessed Nov 8, 2026
• Valve, Steam Next Fest, Steamworks Documentation, accessed Nov 8, 2026
• Chris Zukowski, Wishlist inflation is real, but you still need them, How To Market A Game, Oct 13, 2026
• Chris Zukowski, How the Steam Personal Calendar affects your launch, How To Market A Game, Jun 25, 2026
• Chris Zukowski, How many wishlists should I have when I launch my game?, How To Market A Game, updated June 2026
• Chris Zukowski, Making sense of the February 2026 Steam Next Fest, How To Market A Game, Apr 13, 2026
• Chris Zukowski, Do wishlists get old?, How To Market A Game, Jan 27, 2025
• Chris Zukowski, What is Wishlist Velocity and is it a better indicator of success?, How To Market A Game, Jun 4, 2024
• Aaron Down, Steam's store home page gets a fresh coat of paint and new tiles, but indie discoverability could take a hit, PCGamesN, Jun 5, 2026
• Jackson Chen, Steam rolls out Personal Calendar feature that constantly updates recommended games, Engadget, Oct 24, 2026
• Simon Carless, The state of Steam wishlist conversions, GameDiscoverCo, Oct 17, 2025
• Simon Carless, What's the best timing to release your game?, GameDiscoverCo, Jun 28, 2021
• Federal Trade Commission, FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking
• YouTube Help, Add paid product placements, sponsorships & endorsements

Salient PR launches consumer technology and entertainment products; more on how we approach gaming PR. Steam figures come from Valve's Steamworks documentation, How To Market A Game and GameDiscoverCo, checked November 2026.