How we estimate Steam wishlists
Steam doesn't publish wishlist counts, so every wishlist number on GAMEDATA.wtf is a model estimate. This page explains what goes into it, how it's calculated, and how close it has been to the real numbers developers announced.
What we measure
- Steam followers for each game, collected daily.
- Steam's global wishlist ranking: each game's position on the most-wishlisted chart.
- A sample of public Steam wishlists: how many sampled users have each game on their wishlist.
- Wishlist counts developers announce publicly, used as fixed reference points.
How the estimate is calculated
- Followers × multiplier. Wishlists track followers closely, so the base estimate is the follower count times a per-game multiplier. Games without enough history get a formula that also uses their wishlist rank, and the multiplier has a fixed floor.
- Sample check. The share of sampled users who wishlisted a game gives a second estimate with a 95% confidence interval (Wilson score). If the follower-based estimate falls outside that interval, the sample-based one is used.
- Rank alignment. Estimates are adjusted until their order matches Steam's own wishlist ranking, with publicly announced counts held fixed.
- Outlier guard. Follower counts that are implausible for a game's rank are clipped to the typical range for that rank.
Sales numbers for released games use a review multiplier (about 50 copies per Steam review), and revenue is price × estimated copies, gross, before Steam's cut, refunds and regional pricing. The week-1 sales projection for unreleased games is estimated wishlists × a conversion rate that depends on the price band.
How accurate it is
We compared the model's stored estimate with 304 wishlist milestones developers announced in their Steam news posts between September 2025 and October 2026, using the estimate from within three days of each announcement.
Errors are larger for smaller games. The table below lists the twelve largest announcements, including the misses.
| Game | Announced | Developer's count | Our estimate | Error |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windrose | 23 Mar 2026 | 1,500,000 | 1,209,282 | −19.4% |
| Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era | 24 Apr 2026 | 1,500,000 | 1,270,935 | −15.3% |
| Windrose | 22 Feb 2026 | 1,000,000 | 861,329 | −13.9% |
| Low-Budget Repairs | 22 Jul 2026 | 1,000,000 | 433,110 | −56.7% |
| LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight | 13 May 2026 | 950,000 | 971,891 | +2.3% |
| LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight | 4 May 2026 | 900,000 | 891,165 | −1.0% |
| REPLACED | 3 Mar 2026 | 850,000 | 766,903 | −9.8% |
| The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu | 13 Jul 2026 | 800,000 | 791,271 | −1.1% |
| Cairn | 5 Dec 2025 | 700,000 | 463,041 | −33.9% |
| The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu | 23 Jun 2026 | 600,000 | 486,455 | −18.9% |
| I Have No Change | 26 Jun 2026 | 600,000 | 343,630 | −42.7% |
| KYORA | 29 Jan 2026 | 500,000 | 277,086 | −44.6% |
Checkpoints were found automatically in Steam news titles (for example "100K Wishlists!"); headlines cross-posted under several games were excluded. Snapshot as of 13 October 2026.
Limitations
- Steam currently rate-limits follower collection, so some games show "n/a" until fresh data arrives.
- Estimates are least reliable for games far down the wishlist ranking and for games with few followers.
- The review multiplier for sales varies a lot by genre and price; treat sales and revenue as order-of-magnitude figures.
Found a wishlist count we got wrong, or announced yours publicly? Email xiphosure@gmail.com and it will be added as a checkpoint.