When Steam wishlists don't convert: a case study

[The GameDiscoverCo game discovery newsletter is written by ‘how people find your game’ expert & GameDiscoverCo founder Simon Carless, and is a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.]

Welcome to another week on the game discovery treadmill, folks. Thanks for all the kind comments about the newsletter recently, too. Myself and my colleagues on the code and data-compiling side of things really do this because we care about getting better outcomes for you and your games.

And if we can help even a small percentage of you do that, it’s a good use of our time. Also, all this deep thinking is fun! So let’s get to it…

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Divining wishlist conversions: scrying the portents

So I’m starting this newsletter with a picture of a Victorian seance. Why? Well, working out how your game is going to sell at launch - even if you’ve accumulated a lot of apparent interest and Steam wishlists - can feel like communing with the great beyond. (Look, the disembodied hand is writing out your Week 1 wishlist/sales ratio!)

We’re reminded of this because the developer of space combat 2D action roguelike Power Of Ten made a Reddit post recently titled ‘My wishlist[s] just didn’t show up’, in which he explains: “On June 3rd I launched my game into Early Access with about 12k wishlists, which I was ecstatic about… My game was on Popular Upcoming for about 2-3 days leading up to launch. I had about 10k wishlists at the start of that run-up. I also had an Imgur post go viral with around 70k views and 1200 upvotes the night before launch.”

But the results? Not so happy: “Launch day my wishlist converted at 1.9%. Only 900 people even clicked through the notification email and I had roughly 300 sales at the end of the day. I was devastated, to be honest.” As of now, the game has 29 Positive Steam reviews - so probably around 1,000-1,500 sales.

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Luckily, the dev (AJRDesign) had a dayjob, so his finances are just fine. But he goes on to self-diagnose exactly what I think the issue was with his expectations:

To some extent, we’ve discussed this before. But I wanted to show the Power Of Ten follower graph on SteamDB and talk about how I interpret it. Here it is:

So, I have a new mantra with follower graphs on SteamDB - ‘RIGHT ANGLES MEAN INORGANIC WISHLISTS’. If you can see a very sharp angle in the graph at any given point, it means there has been a sudden follower (& wishlist) boost that returns swiftly to normal. And most sudden boosts that disappear are Steam-related internal ‘sales’ or demo showcases that can have dubious quality wishlists. (Not saying don’t do ‘em, though! They may be ‘buy at 50% off’ wishlists, who knows? Just bear their effect in mind.)

If you’d like to see a Utopian curve for a Steam game that I think it going to do great, here’s the (relatively young) follower graph for Free Lives & Devolver’s ‘reverse city builder’ Terra Nil:

Obviously it has lots more followers - so it’s somewhat cheating to say it’ll do well. But you can also see its inflection points are padded out with ‘natural’ interest in the underlying graph. There’s no sharp jerks upwards from flat line to near-vertical ascent and back.

I’m not sure whether Steam follower graph interpretation is science, art or the discovery equivalent of being a water witch in a drought. But I take followers (and wishlists) seriously as an indicator of pre-release interest. And while your game can still take off at launch or even after - generally via streamer pickup - it’s the exception, rather than the rule. Feel free to join my ‘communing with the future’ via graphs.

Finally: I don’t think this is the end of the story for Power Of Ten. As a roguelite space exploration title, its aesthetics are on the indie side, and it perhaps lacks hook besides the roguelite x exploration angle. But it’s clearly a good game. It didn’t fail on expectation management, and has great reviews and a committed community who are wondering why more people aren’t discovering it.

But most of all, it’s an Early Access release. And as one Reddit thread commenter notes: “So, I played your demo, thought it looked promising with a nice aesthetic, and wishlisted the game. I saw the release email last week but didn't click the link because it's Early Access and I prefer to play a finished game.”

We already know that Early Access launches often do 50% of the units of ‘full’ launches if you compare the first few days on sale, with many players waiting. And we’ve covered other more arcade-y topdown space roguelites that did great like Nova Drift. So perhaps Power Of Ten could still shine, sales-wise over time! And good luck to ‘em.

Regional interest: how about Nintendo Switch?

One question somebody had for us after that recent newsletter about regional appeal for your game, which was largely Steam-centric: how about consoles like the Switch? Can you work out what regions are most interested in your game before release there?

So yep, consoles are very different to PC because they have a different hardware installed base footprint. And there’s very little console pre-release info I’m aware of which would indicate regional interest for your game. But we do know where the actual Switch hardware is available! And that’s a big hint.

Specifically, looking at the latest Nintendo results (.PDF link), lifetime Nintendo Switch hardware sales are as follows: Japan - 20,040,000; The Americas - 33,270,000; Europe - 21,580,000; Other - 9,710,000. (I’m a little surprised the Americas are so far ahead of Europe.)

And, after talking to multiple folks releasing Nintendo Switch games, it looks like the United States, England, France, and Germany (A tier) - plus Australia and Canada (B+ tier) are generally the highest ranked sales on a country basis for your Switch games, based on real post-launch data. (Plus there’s Japan if you publish in that territory, and have a relevant game.)

To some large extent, sales are just an indication of where Switch hardware is most often played, based on population and interest. You do still sometimes get regional spikes based on specific game content, though. (For example, Descenders is big in Germany - in general - because mountain biking is very popular in Germany!) But YMMV, and tell me if you disagree.

The game discovery news round-up..

Nearly sorta done. But it’s time to poke around in the tea-leaves, and continue examining the Internet for signs and portents on interesting game discovery and platform gubbins, my lovelies.

And for some reason, I’m listening to acid jazz today, so if I start wearing a giant hat and cavorting around, you’ll know why, oh no. OK, links: