Eden Chen – CEO and founder of the company Pragmawhich is behind the testing and community management platform FirstLook.
Since digital technology has become the dominant way of distributing PC games, Steam wishlists have become the primary way to predict their commercial success. Clearly, the idea is that more wishlists will mean more sales.
This rule of thumb may have worked for a while, but it no longer holds water. Conversion rate has droppedand high-profile flops have left players' confidence in pre-orders shaky than ever. Studios that rely too heavily on wish lists are surprised by lackluster launches and hiccups where players should be.
This doesn't mean wish lists are useless. They still play an important role in providing visibility and signaling interest. But they only tell a small part of the story. A broader set of signals is needed that provides a much more accurate picture of engagement, community and resilience.
Predicting success is not just about predicting sales. It shapes your marketing, IP strategy, and how studios communicate with publishers and investors. Bucket lists can't give you it all. More signals maybe.
What Bucket Lists Do for You (and What They Don't)
The industry has become obsessed with wish lists for a reason. They can increase visibility in the Steam algorithm by placing your game in the Featured Upcoming tab, keeping it front and center during launches and discounts, and showing it in friends' feeds.
But they don't always equal purchases. Some players list everything they want and buy very little. Others add a game to support the studio, but never complete it. Video Game Insights Research showed that the momentum only really starts to snowball once you get past 100,000 wishlists, which only about 6% of games ever achieve. Most number around 10,000 or less.
And even if you achieve an impressive number of bucket lists, it won't necessarily lead to long-term success. A large number of wishlists can create a strong launch moment, but not necessarily sustainable engagement if there is no content loop or retention. Many games launch with hundreds of thousands of wishlists but struggle to retain players once released.
So if you're creating a new IP or running an indie studio, relying solely on wishlists as an indicator, you may be flying blind.
Community as a leading signal
The best way to predict success is to measure the health of the community and player retention in testing. This means looking at what players actually do before and after they've made a wishlist. Do they join your Discord and come back regularly? How organically are influencers covering your game? Is sentiment on Reddit, YouTube, or TikTok moving in a positive direction? Do players bring their friends?
These are the most important signs. One click on a wish list shows a passing interest, a moment of weakness, a non-committal one-time action. Repeated tests, constant comments and a growing community demonstrate real interest. When people join your community, they invite their friends, creating a snowball effect that can exponentially increase your player base. A wish list is just a wish list; connection of social activities.
And the good news is that you can start measuring it earlier. Long before launch, you can track Discord's growth, analyze feedback, and see what social content is driving repeat engagement. The sooner, the better and the more confident you can predict sales and customer retention.
How to separate signal from noise
Not all rumors mean your game will last. The trick is to identify the signals that correspond to sustained interaction.
For example, a spike in wishlists after one viral post is good, but it may not mean much in the long run, whereas a group of players returning for multiple playtests is a much stronger indicator. A Reddit thread with hundreds of comments means less than a small community that participates every day of the week.
When you look at influencers, don't just count how many they post or play, or even their reach. Pay attention to how their audience reacts and whether the same topics continue to appear on different channels.
Initially, you can do this tracking manually. As you scale, you will need dedicated community managers and tools to analyze the data. In any case, the key is to focus on repeating signals rather than one-off bursts.
Why is this important
Accurate data on community engagement and retention is more than just a predictive tool. This is a secret weapon.
This means AAA companies can reduce the risk of launching their games by making informed decisions about whether they'll end up with money in their pocket, what tweaks they need to implement to make it a reality, or even whether to scrap a game in development before it's too late. Engaging executives and shareholders on this journey is much easier when there is a lot of data.
Venture capitalists and publishers are moving away from wishlist counting as a primary performance metric.
Likewise, for independent companies looking for a publishing deal or investment, venture capitalists and publishers are moving away from counting their wish list as the main indicator of attractiveness. They care about proof of dynamics. If you can show that your community is growing, feedback is being acted upon, and players are sticking around, you'll enter the room with a much stronger story.
There is a famous, often misquoted line from Kevin Costner's 1989 film Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come” (actually in the film it is “he will come”). In the case of game marketing, this refers not to the games themselves, but to the communities around them. Studios that build a community from scratch – Measuring employee health, sentiment and retention will not only predict success, but create it.
